Paleoethnobotany (Other Keyword)
301-325 (572 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Hot Rocks in Hot Places: Investigating the 10,000-Year Record of Plant Baking across the US-Mexico Borderlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The tradition of cooking foods in earth ovens goes back at least 10,000 years in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwest Texas. Throughout millennia earth ovens were used to transform otherwise inedible plants into food, fiber, and possibly beverages. The region’s arid climate...
Macrobotanical Remains from Two Early Plains Village Sites in Central Oklahoma (1993)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Macrobotanical Remains From Two Early Plains Village Sites In Central Oklahoma (1993)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Making the MED: Building an Online Ethnobotanical Database (2016)
Construction of the Mesoamerican Ethnobotanical Database (MED) began in 2010 and is wrapping up in 2016. The MED began as an informal collection of images for the use of one archaeological project and became an NSF-supported online reference for public use. Based on the collections of the Searle Herbarium and hosted by the Field Museum, this online searchable database contains images of over 2500 plant vouchers, close-ups of reproductive plant parts, and seeds where available. Images are linked...
Managing Teotlalpan: Resourcefulness and Socioecological Diversity during the Epiclassic Period in Central Mexico (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond Maize and Cacao: Reflections on Visual and Textual Representation and Archaeological Evidence of Other Plants in Precolumbian Mesoamerica" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Studies on traditional ecological knowledge stress the importance of local resource management and autonomous governance. Resourcefulness constitutes an integral aspect of such bottom-up pathways. Dependent on knowledge, skills, and social...
Managing Wooden Resources in Norse Greenland: Using Tree-Rings to Explore Wood Use and Acquisition Strategies in a “Treeless” Environment (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During medieval times, Norse Greenlanders relied heavily on wood for making household items, as a construction material, and as a fuel source. Although the quantity and quality of timber available in local woodlands were limited, Norse craftspeople also had access to driftwood and imported materials. Most studies in the North Atlantic use taxonomic...
Many Communities, Many Foods: The Economic and Political Implications of Diversified Cropping Strategies before, during, and after Urbanism in Northwest India ca. 3200–1500 BC (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Materializing Political Ecology: Landscape, Power, and Inequality" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Climate crises are raising questions about how we feed everyone in our highly urbanized modern society. Anthropological research has demonstrated that economic, political, and environmental landscapes are intricately interwoven and intersect with the diverse choices of people across all scales of society. Nowhere is this...
Mapping Heat: Pinpointing Early Human Interactions with Chili Pepper in Mexico (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeobotany of Early Peopling: Plant Experimentation and Cultural Inheritance" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Our project investigates the origins and domestication pathways of the Mesoamerican chili pepper (Capsicum annuum var. annuum L.). Undertaken by an interdisciplinary team and relying on a tripartite methodological framework, this study employs morphometric analyses of extant and archaeological Capsicum...
Maya Paleoethnobotany and La Milpa: Evidences from Northwest Belize (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Landscapes in Northwestern Belize, Part I" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Widespread terrace construction in the Lowland Maya region is often viewed as a response to increasing demands for food during the Late Classic. Such was the demand that terraces became integrated into the architectural arrangements of large urban entities, going so far as to be built right up to the edge of a settlement center....
Maya Peasantry: Crop Diversity Past and Present (2017)
For several years, peasant communities on the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, have not produced high enough maize-yields to sustain populations in the area. This is despite the fact that modern-day demographics are considerably lower than population estimates for the heights of Maya cultural development during the pre-Columbian era. Some scholars have argued that maize was not the sole staple for the ancient Maya. Root and tree crops are among the candidates for alternative staples given their...
Maíz y olmecas: una truculenta trayectoria. (2018)
Tradicionalmente en la arqueología de la costa del golfo y en específico, dentro de la zona nuclear olmeca se había propuesto que uno de los principales productos que se consumieron durante el preclásico por la sociedad olmeca fue el maíz. Aunado a esto las contantes representaciones de esta planta dentro del sistema de registro olmeca, sugerían una tendencia muy marcada y una preferencia inminente a la producción de este alimento, ya sea con fines ceremoniales o para consumo. Sin embargo,...
Measurements of Archaeobotanical Diversity and Richness Using Combined Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Data: Methodological and Theoretical Considerations (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent computational advances in the accessibility of robust statistical techniques used to estimate the biological richness and diversity of ecological communities using observational data provide a strong foundation for archaeological assessments of botanical richness and diversity using archaeobotanical data. While there is broad consensus amongst...
Meat, Transport, Fertilizer, and Meaning: Considering the Role of Camelids and Ritual in Moche Food Production (2018)
Camelids (i.e., llamas and alpacas) were domesticated in the Andean region of South America over 6000 years ago. Since then, camelids have occupied a place of central importance in Andean lifeways over the longue dureé. Nevertheless, while camelid pastoralism in the landscape of the highland Andes has been well documented ethnographically, ethnohistorically, and archaeologically, the intimate relationship between people and camelids in the Andean coastal valleys is less understood. In this...
Medieval Agricultural Practices in the "Champion" Region (2018)
During the early medieval state formation process, England’s political organization transformed from localized tribal groups to large and consolidated kingdoms. Farmers at early medieval settlements experienced a related increase in agricultural production demands, and they introduced improved agricultural technology such as replacing the light ard with the heavier moldboard plow. The midlands counties (commonly referred to as the core of the "Central Province" or "Champion" region) are often...
Mesoamerican Plants of the Night: A Paleoethnobotanical Perspective (2017)
The ancient Mesoamerican landscape has been extensively researched archaeologically, with the field of paleoethnobotany allowing for a better understanding of what plants the ancient people valued agriculturally and in their economic, ritual, medicinal and other daily practices. Typically, archaeologists interpret the archaeological record in terms of how the ancient peoples interacted with the artifacts and navigated through the landscape during the daytime. What about nightly practices? How...
Mesolithic and Neolithic Recipes under the Microscope: A Comprehensive Approach for the Study of Archaeological Food Remains (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeogastronomy: Grocery Lists as Seen from a Multidimensional Perspective" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Research into food in archaeology has traditionally focused on the potential resources and ingredients from the identification of recovered plant and animal remains, as well as cooking technologies including pottery, ground stone tools, fire installations, etc. However, the different processes behind the...
Methodological Considerations for Examining the "Slave Diet" at Colonial Wine Producing Estates in Nasca, Peru (2015)
The 2012-2013 season of the Haciendas of Nasca Archaeological Project focused on the recovery of material correlates of domestic production, consumption, and discard from two Jesuit coastal haciendas, San Joseph and San Xavier, where the majority of the labor was enslaved and of African descent. Our systematic analysis of macrobotanical remains and sediment samples aimed at branching our understanding of: a) colonial foodways beyond the Native Andean/European dichotomy, as several years of...
Methodology In Paleoethnobotany: a Study In Vegetational Reconstruction Dealing With the Mill Creek Culture of Northwestern Iowa (1982)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Micro-habitat Production in the Late Woodland Period (2018)
This paper presents the results of recent statistical analyses focused on relative plant species distributions among six Princess Point sites in Late Woodland Southern Ontario and explores potential markers of micro-habitat production in the region.
A Microbotanical View of Classic Period Households in Central Yaxuna, Yucatán, Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ancient Maya city of Yaxuna was a political and economic center of the northern lowlands in the Middle to Late Preclassic periods (1000 BC–AD 250), and residents continued to occupy the city through the Classic period (AD 250–900) amid geopolitical shifts in the region tied to the rise of Coba and the Late Classic (AD 600–800) construction of a...
Microfossil Analysis Of A Grinding Stone From The Etzanoa Archaeological Site (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Microfossil and residue analysis can provide valuable information about past dietary practices and environments. Etzanoa (14CO3) or the Arkansas City Country Club site, is an Ancestral Wichita site attributed to the Lower Walnut Focus of the Great Bend Aspect. This site is situated on the Walnut River at its confluence with the Arkansas River and is dated...
The Microscopic World and Curated Collections as Entry Points to Discuss Archaeological Stewardship with Multiple Publics (2016)
The very word “archaeology” conjures interest by the public generally. Finding meaningful ways to engage that interest, however, is less straight-forward for practitioners, educators, and researchers. Sitting within any given repository of archaeological materials are collections in need of additional documentation and analysis, some of which may have not been handled since the time of their initial excavation and curation. Additionally, while much can be learned through microbotanical...
Middle Formative Plant Use on the Taraco Peninsula, Bolivia (2015)
The Middle Formative (800-250B.C.) on the Taraco Peninsula was a period of burgeoning status and wealth differentiation that saw the rise of platform mound construction and the intensification of quinoa farming nearby the shores of Lake Titicaca. This paper will present data from a macrobotanical analysis of the site Alto Pukara, a 3.25 hectare village excavated in 2000 and 2001. A thorough examination of the distribution of charred plant remains across all contexts of a single structure will be...
Millets and Rice on the Move: Adaptive Strategies in the Past and Future (2017)
A growing tradition of archaeobotanical research, one that was pioneered by Steven Weber, is allowing us to form a picture of how millets and rice spread into Southeast Asia. Although rice continues to play an important role in the diet in this area, the use of millet has been slowly forgotten. These two different crops have been alternatively seen as a "cultural package" that coincided with the spread of farmer populations from Southern China, or adaptations to different ecological or climatic...
The Missihuasca Hypothesis (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Magic, Spirits, Shamanism, and Trance" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While it has been established that the Natives of the Mississippian Ideological Interaction Sphere employed a number of magical plants toward entheogenic ends (Barrier 2020; Rafferty 2021; Simon and Parker 2018), e.g., Nicotiana spp., Datura spp., Ipomoea spp., etc., the general consensus has been that the use of N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, in the forms...