Paleoethnobotany (Other Keyword)
101-125 (461 Records)
What can be drawn from anthracological data to infer long-term socio-environmental dynamics among ancient Mayas is a question that has received little attention. At Naachtun (Northern Peten, Guatemala), we studied charcoal remains from archaeological contexts in relation with pedological data to reconstruct forest resources and land management through time. Since the beginning of Naachtun's occupation at the end of the Preclassic period (≈ AD 150), domestic firewood economy seems to have been...
Domestication and Management of Indigenous Plants in the U.S. Southwest: Case Studies of Little Barley (Hordeum pusillum Nutt.) and a Wild Potato (Solanum Jamesii) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Frontiers of Plant Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although the histories of major New World plant domestications of beans, corn, squash, gourd, and tobacco are well-known, histories of regional plant domestications from local wild plants are not. In the pre-Hispanic U.S. Southwest, a wild late winter/early spring-ripening annual grass known as Little Barley (Hordeum pusillum Nutt.) became a crop of...
Domestication and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Frontiers of Plant Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the past decade, a growing group of biologists, ecologists, and anthropologists have proposed a paradigm-shifting revision to the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory: the extended evolutionary synthesis (EES). The EES seeks to foreground developmental plasticity, epigenomics, and niche construction as evolutionary drivers. The EES is helping...
Donald Lathrap, the Tropical Forest, and Hemispheric Archaeology (2018)
Donald Lathrap was a visionary anthropologist and archaeologist. His contributions always reflected the "big picture": an understanding that all pre-Columbian culture history was intertwined, and that these connections went back through time to origins in the lowland tropics, or the Tropical Forest. He practiced an archaeology that gave equal weight to iconography and religious thought, and rim sherds and energetics. The most significant issues for Lathrap’s version of American Archaeology, is...
Driftwood, a Lifeline in the Arctic: Production of Artifacts from Driftwood in Northwest Iceland and Norse Greenland (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeology in the North and North Atlantic (SANNA 3.0): Investigating the Social Lives of Northern Things" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Iceland was settled by the Norse in the late ninth century and Greenland was settled from Iceland around AD 1000. Although these countries are quite dissimilar in landscape and geology, they have a similar flora in which the only forest-forming tree is birch. Birch alone...
Drinking Together: The Role of Foodways in the Wari and Huaracane Colonial Encounter in the Moquegua Valley, Peru (2018)
Food is a unique form of material culture, representing a multiplicity of ethnic, gender, racial, political, and economic identities, that is consumed and reaffirmed through daily practice. In this way, food remains provide a nuanced perspective on a variety of archaeological issues. This paper focuses on Wari imperial expansion and how foodways enabled both Wari colonists and local peoples to negotiate the colonial experience during the Middle Horizon (AD 600-1000), Peru. Using...
Early Bronze Age Economies along the Dead Sea, Jordan: Reconstructing Agricultural Practices through Integrated Stable Isotope Analysis and Macrobotanical Study (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Cultivating Cities: Perspectives from the New and Old Worlds on Wild Foods, Agriculture, and Urban Subsistence Economies" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists such as Chesson (2019) have suggested the need for a more nuanced characterization of Early Bronze Age urbanism in the Southern Levant, one that embraces local variations as part of a regional EBA ideological package. Local agricultural economies would...
The Early Brown Ware Horizon in East-Central Arizona, AD 300-550: Preliminary Results from Recent Survey, Excavation, and Collections-Based Research (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Early Brown Ware Horizon, also known as the Basketmaker II-III transition, is one of the most pivotal yet poorly understood temporal intervals in the Prehispanic northern Southwest. This poster reports on recent site reconnaissance, small-scale excavations, and collections-based analyses focused on an area with a dense occupation at this time, East Central...
Early Millet Cultivation, Subsistence Diversity, and Wild Plant Use at Neolithic Anle, Lower Yangtze of China (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study examines the macrobotanical assemblage of Anle, a middle Neolithic site in the Lower Yangtze region of China. The Lower Yangtze is thought to be the origin of domesticated rice and most studies of this region to date have focused on rice domestication and cultivation within its paleoenvironmental setting. In contrast, we highlight here diverse...
Early Settlement on the Island of Grenada: Ecological Evidence for the Extinction of Rodents and Palms (2018)
Evidence of Archaic age settlement with possible rodent harvesting is apparent in two well-dated sediment cores collected in northeastern Grenada. At around 3600 BC, large scale burning on the island coincides with severe forest modification including the total elimination of at least two species of palms. The selective, though possibly unintentional, removal of economically valuable palms suggests the influence of a non-human variable into the equation. I propose that the removal of a...
Early-Middle Holocene resource use and niche construction in Jeju Island, Korea (2019)
This is an abstract from the "New Evidence, Methods, Theories, and Challenges to Understanding Prehistoric Economies in Korea" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Study of various human adaptations and human-environmental dynamics amid Early-Middle Holocene (ca. 11,500-5,000 BP) climate changes has been a noteworthy theme in archaeological research. One of the main questions in this discourse is how occupants in various environments and landscapes have...
Eating Local: Plant Use and Identity in the Cinti Valley, Bolivia, in the Late Intermediate Period (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Cinti Valley, Bolivia, has been occupied for at least 9,000 years, with an intensification in settlement in the Late Intermediate period. In 2004 Rivera Casanovas proposed that the sites in the Cinti Valley formed a three-tier site hierarchy, with a capital, local centers, and small villages. To study the impact of these settlement patterns on food and...
Eating Pingelap: Archaeobotanical and Zooarchaeological Perspectives on the Settlement of a Micronesian Atoll (2021)
This is an abstract from the "When the Wild Winds Blow: Micronesia Colonization in Pacific Context" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pingelap Atoll, located in central-eastern Micronesia, was colonized by 1550–1700 cal BP. Although these settlement dates are only a few hundred years later than those of nearby high islands such as Pohnpei and Kosrae, the environment presents notably different challenges and opportunities for subsistence. In this...
Ecological and Paleoethnobotanical Research at the Programme for Belize Archaeological Project (2017)
Archaeological research requires interdisciplinary scholarship to answer broad questions relating to resilience, social complexity, climate, and environmental impacts in Mesoamerica throughout ancient Maya times and into the present. RBCMA, PfBAP, plant ecology, and paleoethnobotany have provided a platform to reconstruct ancient Maya landscapes, which delves into the nuances of human-environmental relationships in northwestern Belize. Ecological studies of the impacts of ancient Maya on soils,...
Ecology, Culture, Conflict and Diet: Comparisons of Two Late Prehistoric Sites in Southeastern Wisconsin (2015)
The late prehistoric landscape of Southeastern Wisconsin was characterized by the dynamic interaction of at least three distinct ceramic cultures. The Aztalan site (47JE001) has yielded both Late Woodland and Middle Mississippian vessels dating between A.D. 1000-1200, indicating a period of cultural coexistence. At the nearby Crescent Bay Hunt Club Site (47JE904), in the Lake Koshkonong locality, Upper Mississippian Oneota ceramics have been recovered; no indication of a coexistent occupation...
Effects of Acetolysis on Starch Granules (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ability to concurrently analyze multiple microfossils from the same palaeoecological or archaeological sample would allow for faster and multi-evidenced analyses. Most microfossils require chemical processing to become identifiable under different types of microscopy; acetolysis is commonly employed in palynological study. We present the effects of...
Engineering an Ecosystem of Resistance: Late Intermediate Period Farming in the South-Central Andes (A.D. 1100-1450) (2017)
In the 15th century, the Inca built the largest pre-colonial empire in the western hemisphere. In southern Peru near Lake Titicaca, an ethnic group known as the Colla violently resisted conquest by the Inca for several years. Because of their military prowess, the Inca named one quarter of their empire, Collasuyo, after this group. The Colla’s ability to resist Inca subjugation was facilitated by their decentralized economy evident in their construction and management of a new agricultural...
Entangled Earth: Exploring Past Indigenous Agricultural Landscapes of Wisconsin (2022)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "New Avenues in the Study of Plant Remains from Historical Sites" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Wisconsin has over 450 documented archaeological and historical Indigenous agricultural fields. Recorded primarily in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, less than 10% of these archaeological field sites remain today. This presentation describes our ongoing efforts to document and investigate...
Environmental Context and Archaeobotanical Results of the Chengdu Plain Archaeological Survey (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Chengdu Plain Archaeology Survey (2004–2011): Highlights from the Final Report" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The constraints and advantages presented by the natural environment of the Chengdu Plain had important impacts on how ancient humans exploited and occupied this environment. This poster considers how that the Plain was subject to a high degree of geomorphological remodeling due to frequent flooding and...
Environmental History of the Petén Campechano (2023)
This is an abstract from the "A Session in Memory of William J. Folan: Cities, Settlement, and Climate" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Paleoenvironmental inferences are based on pollen and geochemical data from sediment cores collected in Lakes Silvituc and Uxul, and Oxpemul Reservoir, near three archaeological sites that supported agricultural activity between ca. 900 BC and AD 750, under the control of the Kaan Dynasty. These sites show patterns...
An Ethnoarchaeological Approach to Understanding the Role of Root-crops in Ancient Lowland Maya Subsistence. (2015)
Dr. Scott Fedick’s research goals have always emphasized the importance of understanding the diversity and ingenuity of lowland Maya subsistence. Through his guidance and mentorship my dissertation focus was developed to explore the role of root-crops in ancient Maya subsistence. Recent paleoethnobotanical research has demonstrated that the ancient Maya diet included a wide array of plant foods.Currently lacking is enough evidence for the role of roots-crops.To begin to acquire an understanding...
Evaluating the Environmental Impacts of Colonial Settlement: A Palynological Study of La Cienega, New Mexico (2018)
Using palynological data, this project attempts to contextualize the ecological impacts of Spanish settlement and land-use practices at LA 20,000 within a broader discussion of the long-term environmental history of La Cienega, New Mexico. This is essential because La Cienega has a deep and complicated settlement history that includes Puebloan, Spanish, and Anglo-American occupations. As a result, the ecological relationships created during initial colonial settlement must be considered in...
Evaluating the Food Values of Alternative Crops and Implications for Drought Effects on the Ancient Maya (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Far from being limited to maize, beans, and squash, the ethnographic Maya are known to make use of 497 species of food plants indigenous to the Maya Lowlands. This study presents initial results of determining “food values” based on nutritional content for these plant species, and the methods used to determine the values. The results have significant...
An Evaluation of Food during Sociopolitical Transitions at Formative Tres Zapotes (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tres Zapotes is an important site in the broader discussion of Olmec cultural continuity and Formative period political economy with an archaeological record that spans the two millennia between 1000 BC and AD 1000. It is a key site for understanding the emergence of Classic period civilization from ancient Olmec roots in Mexico’s southern Gulf Coast...
Evidence for Geophyte Exploitation in the Green River Basin of Wyoming (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the Green River Basin of Wyoming, archaeological sites dating from the Early Archaic to Late Prehistoric are often found associated with or adjacent to dense patches of *Cymopterus bulbosus, a nutritious geophyte that would have been an important food source for prehistoric humans living in the region. Experimental data have shown that the caloric return...