Paleoethnobotany (Other Keyword)
351-375 (572 Records)
Food is a major vehicle through which cultural identity is both formed and expressed. While foodstuffs are often consumed based on cultural practices, they are also utilized based on availability. The colonial situation in New Mexico provided a particular environment in which a new cuisine was developed, and persists to this day. The Spanish colonists brought with them both food traditions from Europe, and from Mexico, where they had been inhabitants for generations. In New Mexico, the food...
New Starch Grain Results and a Synthetic Approach to Foodways at Quilcapampa La Antigua (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Wari and the Far Peruvian South Coast: Final Results of Excavations in Quilcapampa" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The mundane and commensal foodways of Wari and Wari-influenced peoples is a burgeoning area of interest that has the potential to illuminate various aspects of Wari identity. The Middle Horizon period was a particularly turbulent time in terms of identity politics. The establishment of Wari satellite...
Niche Construction and Common Pool Resource Management in Marginal Environments: A Diachronic Approach (WGF - Dissertation Fieldwork Grant) (2018)
This resource is an application for the Dissertation Fieldwork Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Anthropologists have long been concerned with the immense variety of collective institutions developed by small-scale societies to foster solidarity, inculcate values, and manage resources. Long-term studies tracking the development and maintenance of such institutions would greatly benefit a range of social science disciplines, but are unfortunately rare. To this end, the proposed project...
Niche Construction of Coastal Farming: Archaeobotanical Approach at the Gungokri Site (150 BCE–400 CE) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Social and Environmental Interactions on Coasts and Islands in Korea" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper examines niche construction and traditional ecological knowledge that was sustained over 550 years along the southern coast in Korea with an example from the Gungokri site. Traditional subsistence method along the coast and islands in Korea was based on a combination of farming and fishery, and we found this...
The Nitrogen Challenge at Çatalhöyük (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Challenges and Future Directions in Plant Stable Isotope Analysis in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotopic values of archaeobotanical remains from the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük have presented us with a series of challenges for interpreting ancient crop management systems in a complex environment. An exceptionally wide range of δ15N values (0 to 18‰) obtained...
No Fire without Wood? Some Reflections on Late Pleistocene Pyrotechnology in Northern Tundra Environments (East Siberia, Interior Alaska) (2018)
The use of alternate fuels such as grasses, bones or dung has often been interpreted as a typical response of Late Pleistocene (LP) hunter-gatherers to harsh environments, in which woody resources are scarce. In the context of early human dispersal from south-east Siberia into the Americas, the question of prehistoric migration and settlement is closely linked to the one of fuel availability, fire being considered, to the same extent as food, a vital element for survival. However, data regarding...
Non-Pollen Palynomorphs Reveal Environmental Fluctuations in the Terminal Pleistocene Southeastern United States (2018)
Paleobotanists and palynologists must be able to identify various types of plant remains from archaeological sites. Because of the difficulty of becoming familiar with the vast array of microfossils found in a typical pollen sample, non-pollen palynomorphs (such as fungal spores) are often overlooked in traditional palynological analyses. However, they can be indicators of various environmental changes such as fluctuations in plant and animal communities, erosion and fire events. This paper...
Northern Great Basin Cordage: A Regional Overview of Chronology, Technology, and Materials (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Ties That Bind: Cordage, Its Sources, and the Artifacts of Its Creation and Use" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fiber technologies in the North American Great Basin have incredible antiquity and diversity, including fine cordage, rope, and braids spanning at least the last ~13,000 years. The Museum of Natural and Cultural History, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada State Museum, and the Lakeview Bureau of Land...
Not Your Backyard Garden: Terraces in the Shadow of La Milpa’s Temples (2018)
Terrace construction for agriculture was integral to the survival and growth of ancient Maya centers in the Lowland Neotropics. Terraces supplied communities with food for consumption and trade, materials for construction and goods production, and plants of medicinal and ritual significance. Research into ancient Maya agricultural practices has been largely situated in wetlands contexts, known to be sites of extensive landscape modification for agricultural purposes. Nevertheless, terraces are...
The Oaxacan Cuisine at Achiutla during the Early Colonial Period: A Story of Resilience (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Using paleoethnobotany, this paper examines the Mixtecs’ reaction to the arrival of Spanish at Achiutla, located in the Mixteca Alta. Faced with many challenges during the Early Colonial Period (1521–1600 AD), we examine how Mixtecs’ inhabitants of Achiutla negotiated the arrival of new, introduced foods in the region. To do so, we compare the plant...
Of Elderberries and Alder: Collaborations on the Paleoethnobotany of the Pacific Northwest (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2019, construction monitoring of a large, King County-directed levee replacement project identified a diffuse and deeply buried archaeological site on the Green River, south of Seattle, Washington. This poster presents the results of paleoethnobotanical and AMS analyses conducted on plant materials from precontact-era combustion features and pits....
Old Collections and New Approaches: Estimating Mast Resource Use in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Southwest Texas (2018)
Baker Cave is a dry rock shelter with exceptional organic preservation in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwest Texas. The site is best known for high floral and faunal diversity in a Paleoindian-age hearth excavated in 1976, the first of three seasons (1976, 1984, 1985) the Center for Archaeological Research (CAR) worked at the site. Only those 1976 excavations have been reported in any detail. This poster summarizes analyses to estimate mast resource use over time at Baker Cave based on...
On Swiddening and Pigs: The Management of Micronesian Agroforests (2016)
Agroforestry, or the growing of tree crops, is a long-standing and key food production practice throughout much of the world. As with all systems of food production, the way that humans manage agroforests has a profound impact on their composition as well as their sustainability. For over 2,000 years, eastern Micronesians have relied largely on tree crop production, vegeculture, and fishing for subsistence. In this study, we focus on late prehistoric manipulation of floral environments on the...
One Settlement, Many Communities . . . (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Developments through Time on the South Coast of Peru: In Memory of Patrick Carmichael" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Research centered in the prehispanic urban settlement of Cerro de Oro, in the Peruvian South Coast, is showing a wide variety of cooking techniques, disposal arrangements, and even culinary preferences that seem to reflect possible different social groupings within the settlement. This paper will...
One Tamale, Four Digestions (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Thinking about Eating: Theorizing Foodways in Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Drawing from long-established fields in anthropology (structuralist, semiotic, identity-oriented, subsistence-focused, human ecological, and many others), food scholars have actively developed hybrid perspectives and novel pursuits. Here, I focus on four: modeling foodways linguistically, theorizing gastropolitik, situating the...
Oneota Cuisine: Tradition, Identity, and Community (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Food is a persistent symbol of identity, signaling both membership and distinction within communities at multiple scales. A combination of macrobotanical, zooarchaeological, isotopic, and ceramic data are used to make inferences about Oneota culinary practices. This paper examines the way that cuisines connected and divided members of Late Precontact...
Oneota Subsistence Patterns: Wild Versus Domesticated (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The late pre-contact Oneota populations of Southwestern Wisconsin practiced a mixed economy of wild resources, in addition to a full suite of domesticated corn, beans, and squash. Analysis of floral remains from the sites prior to European contact, as well as those at the time of contact will examine the impact of external stressor on the use of wild...
Oral Histories of Southwestern Paleoethnobotanists: A Karen Adams and Vorsila Bohrer Appreciation (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Enduring Relationships: People, Plants, and the Contributions of Karen R. Adams" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Paleoethnobotany, the study of past relationships between people and plants, rapidly developed new methods and priorities in examining plant remains from archaeological contexts during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Oral histories from two paleoethnobotanical researchers, Dr. Karen...
The Origins of Amazonian Cuisine: Archaeobotanical Study of Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence Systems in Limoncillos, Colombia (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. Previously, it was thought that Amazonian Rainforests presented a barrier for the early colonists of the South American continent. Moreover, these environments were regarded as having few sources of calories and were not inhabited until food production systems were established by humans elsewhere. Recent...
An Overview of the Dos Hombres to Gran Cacao Archaeology Project Soil Testing and Methodologies (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper aims at emphasizing the importance of soil science practice to archaeology thus adding a scientific analytical nature to the cultural nature of archaeology. This report explores this field application of pH and NPK testing in the Dos Hombres to Gran Cacao Archaeology Project area located in northwestern Belize. These types of testing are of...
Paleo-sediment Coring Studies in Micronesia: A Review and Critique (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Paleo-sediment coring studies by archaeologists, pioneered in Micronesia by Steve Athens and colleagues, including myself, in the 1980s, are reviewed and assessed for their contributions to archaeological science in the western Pacific within a CRM context. It is suggested that while data generated...
Paleoecological Analysis Using Select Coprolites & Sediments Recovered from Paisley Caves, Oregon (2018)
Coprolites recovered from archaeological context provide direct access to understanding past human interactions with their environments. The Paisley Caves of south-central Oregon are notable for the presence of hundreds of preserved coprolites, the oldest confirmed as being human in origin and approximately 14,350 cal. BP years old. Our project focused on analyzing a series of coprolites and their corresponding sediments to look for variabilities in the paleoenvironment in the area immediate to...
Paleoecological and Archaeological Evidence for Iron Age Economic and Ecological Transformation in the Highlands of Western Kenya (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Until recently, chronologies of food and iron production activities have been poorly resolved in the western Kenyan highlands, and have been informed largely by historical linguistics and only a handful of radiocarbon dates. New archaeological and microbotanical data are presented that allows reexamination of earlier cultural history models for this region,...
Paleoenvironmental Research at Yaxnohcah, Campeche, Mexico (2024)
This is an abstract from the "New and Emerging Perspectives on the Bajo el Laberinto Region of the Maya Lowlands, Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. When the Proyecto Arqueológico Yaxnohcah began 13 years ago in 2011, some of our driving questions centered on the Bajo el Laberinto and the role that this enormous wetland played in the rise and development of what was to become the great city of Yaxnohcah: Why were the early inhabitants of the...
Paleoenvironmental Studies at the Ancient Maya Center of Yaxnohcah based on Analyses of eDNA, Pollen, and Plant Macroremains (2024)
This is an abstract from the "New and Emerging Perspectives on the Bajo el Laberinto Region of the Maya Lowlands, Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Yaxnohcah was a major civic-ceremonial center of the ancient Maya world, especially during the Preclassic period (1000 BCE–200 CE). Environmental data from excavations provided important insights into the interaction between the ancient inhabitants of the polity and the surrounding Neotropical...