Paleoethnobotany (Other Keyword)
426-450 (461 Records)
There are key questions about the timing of the initial settlement of the northern Great Basin, how settlers adapted to the pluvial lake and wetland landscape they encountered upon arrival, and how these adaptations changed in response to Holocene climate change. The Paisley Caves in south-central Oregon provide a unique opportunity to investigate these questions. The caves produced the earliest evidence for human settlement of the Great Basin including coprolites containing human DNA dating to...
Testing Methods of Microbotanical Analysis on Samples from the Copan Valley, Honduras (2018)
The Copan Valley in western Honduras has been the subject of a number of studies concerning human-environmental interaction, with particular emphasis on questions of ancient sustainable practices and whether or not land-use mismanagement contributed to the end of the Maya dynasty at Copan. The current PARAC project seeks to identify the range of foods consumed by the inhabitants of the Copan Valley during the Late Classic to Postclassic period. This paper will describe analyses conducted on...
Thule Fuel Use at Cape Espenberg, Alaska, CE 1500-1700 (2016)
We examined fuel use practices at Cape Espenberg, Alaska, between 1500 and 1700 CE. We identified charcoal remains from two Thule-era houses of different ages and analyzed our results with univariate statistics. Results suggest that Cape Espenberg’s inhabitants were selective in choosing fuels, and discerned between different woody species, perhaps according to combustion properties. Furthermore, there appears to be a greater reliance on lesser-used fuel types in the younger of the two houses....
To Screen or to Float?: Methodological Considerations for Archaeobotanists in Coastal Peru (2015)
In recent years, coastal Peru has seen an encouraging upwards trend in the number of archaeologists trained in the field of paleoethnobotany or archaeobotany. With growing numbers of practitioners in the field, it is crucial to remain vigilant of methodological concerns that are relevant not only to archaeobotanists as a whole, but particularly to those working in the unique environment of coastal Peru. In the interest of maximizing interpretative potential while maintaining the capability to...
Tom Dillehay's Contributions to Agricultural Origins and Development (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Dedication, Collaboration, and Vision, Part II: Papers in Honor of Tom D. Dillehay" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tom Dillehay’s best-known research is probably his pioneering work at Monte Verde, Chile, which was primary in upending the “Clovis First” paradigm for the initial peopling of the Americas. Perhaps less well known is his research in Peru that provided crucial information on the age, location, settlement...
Tonto Creek Archaeological Project - Artifact and Environmental Analyses, Volume 2: Stone Tool and Subsistence Studies (2002)
The Tonto Creek Archaeological Project (TCAP), funded by the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT), was conducted by Desert Archaeology, Inc., in advance of the 1994-1996 realignment of Arizona State Route 188 in the Tonto Basin of east-central Arizona. From 1992 to 1996, portions of 27 archaeological sites were investigated. Site components ranged in date from the Middle Archaic period to the Late Historic era. Most dated to the Colonial, Sedentary, and early Classic periods, circa A.D....
Towards a Social Paleoethnobotany of Urbanization: Integrating Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Data to Explore Foodways at La Blanca, Guatemala (2018)
This paper uses macrobotanical and microbotanical remains to investigate the impacts of developing sociopolitical complexity on the foodways of Middle Preclassic inhabitants of the Pacific coast of Guatemala. I use these datasets to explore how urbanization affected food-related practices of residents of La Blanca (900-600 BCE). Macrobotanical remains from house floors facilitate comparisons between elite and commoner foodways, while starch grains and phytoliths extracted from grinding...
Traditional Dishes and Culinary Improvisations: Elite Gastronomy in the Maya Area (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the past few decades, understandings of cuisine in the Maya area have been radically amplified by the use of new techniques. Some methods offer the opportunity to directly connect artifacts and features with actual plant food residues. The ability to recover microscopic residues of food from sediments, artifacts, and human teeth has revealed not only...
Transformative Trees: The Social and Ecological Impact of Woody Taxa in Prehistoric Southern Arabia (2018)
While trees are often integral to the ecology of certain landscapes, the propagation of specific woody taxa can also reflect significant social aspects imbued on anthropogenic spaces. Following the seminal work of Rita Wright, we are utilizing a comparative approach in this paper. We examined woody vegetation management by early food producing societies in two regions of southern Arabia: southeastern Arabia (modern-day northern Oman) and southwestern Arabia (modern-day southeast Yemen). Despite...
Transition from Hunting-Gathering to Agriculture in Amami and Okinawa Archipelagos, Japan (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Current Issues in Japanese Archaeology (2019 Archaeological Research in Asia Symposium)" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological research in Amami and Okinawa archipelagos in the southwestern part of Japan started more than one hundred years ago. One of the most important archaeological themes in this region has been when food production began here. Archaeologists have agreed that the subsistence economy of the...
Trees and Tree Cultivation in the Prehistoric Aegean: A Synthesis of Archaeobotanical Data (2018)
Our presentation, based on an overview of archaeobotanical data from the Aegean from the Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age, attempts a synthetic approach to the cultivation of trees. This work is part of the PLANTCULT research project funded by the European Council Research (ERC Consolidator Grant, GA 682529). As archaeobotanical data we consider the macro-remains of fruits/seeds and burnt wood from archaeological sites. In addition, we use palynological information when available. Our goals are:...
Two Recently-Discovered Early Historic Examples of Chili (Capsicum annuum) from Arizona (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Specimens of chili (Capsicum annuum) are absent from prehistoric sites in the southwestern United States, but they are common in Spanish Colonial contexts. Building on a relatively recent review of northern Mexican prehistoric chili cultivation by Paul Minnis and Michael Whalen, we examine two recent chili finds in Arizona. The two finds may provide hints of...
Understanding a Post-Emancipation Haiti: A Paleoethnobotanical Analysis of 19th Century Plant Remains at the Palace of Sans-Souci (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Excavations with The Milot Archaeological Project (MAP) have yielded significant information on the development of the Palace of Sans-Souci in northern Haiti. Strides have been made in understanding site chronology, the material culture within the palace, and regional/long-distant economic networks. However, little is known about...
Unentangling Hotspots and Episodes in Pre-domestication Cultivation of Cereals: Examples from West and East Asia (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Subsistence Crops and Animals as a Proxy for Human Cultural Practice" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The growth of empirical archaeobotanical data has highlighted that domestication processes in cereals were spread out over both time (millennia) and space (100,000s rather than 10,000s of km2). Updated data from West Asian cereals and pulses, alongside Chinese millets and rice, are analyzed. These data allow...
Urban-palaeoecology of Cambodia's 'Middle Period' (2018)
The transition from the sprawling Angkor kingdom with its vast, low-density urban forms, to a constellation of smaller cities on the Mekong River was accompanied by profound changes to urban ecology and to landscapes – both in the failing low-density cities, and in the burgeoning trade-based centres that replaced them. Here, we present a paleo record of urban ecology that responds, in part, to changing population dynamics across Cambodia during the 15th to 19th centuries C.E. Implications for...
Urbanizing Forests: Paleoethnobotanical Research at the Royal Capital of Angkor, Cambodia (2016)
Upon his ascension to the throne, King Yaśovarman I (r. 889-910 AD) founded a new capital at Angkor in northwestern Cambodia that was to become the major center of the Khmer Empire and a dynamic religio-political landscape marked by extensive urbanization and environmental change. Religious institutions played a particularly important role in localized human-environment engagements while contributing to broader processes of polity-building. Drawing on historical ecology, this paper underscores...
Use of Aquatic and Stone Tools at Three Colombian Caribbean Sites near Canal del Dique (2016)
This work derives from research in the ongoing research project "Evaluation of Zooarqueológica de Concheros cerca al Canal del Dique". We present the preliminary results of the archaeological research of three sites sampled near Canal del Dique: Monsú (5000 a.C.), Puerto Hormiga (4000 a. C), and Leticia (a shellmound from the 12th century A.D.). Samples of animals remains were recovered from 1/8 inch mesh screening. These samples were analyzed for taxonomic, taphonomic, and quantification...
Use of Plants by Enslaved Laborers at Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage Plantation (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. From 1804 until 1865, The Hermitage was home to Andrew Jackson, his descendants, and over 130 enslaved men, women, and children, often invisible in the historical record, who labored in the fields of Jackson's cotton plantation near Nashville, Tennessee. After emancipation, freed households continued to live in the former domestic quarters. For three decades...
Using Ancient Plant Macroremains to Understand Resource Consumption in the Past and Present (2017)
Many people recognize the need for markedly different mode of living amid a growing body of scientific evidence that the current world population is environmentally unsustainable. Exploring ancient foodways and landscape management techniques may improve our ability to imagine highly productive modes of food production and resource consumption dissimilar to that of our current global reality. Here, I show how a reconstruction of macrobotanical and faunal remains builds a narrative of...
Using Micro and Macrobotanical Analyses to Assess Socio-economic Strategies at 48PA551, the McKean Occupation in the Sunlight Basin, Wyoming (2019)
This is an abstract from the "New Multidisciplinary Research at 48PA551: A Middle Archaic (McKean Complex) Site in Northwest Wyoming" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Located in the Absaroka Mountains of northwest Wyoming site 48PA51 is unique for its pithouse, rock pile surrounded by deer skull caps with antlers, abundant hearths and pit features, large number of dart points and groundstone, and substantial faunal assemblage. These features and the...
Variety Is the Spice of Life: Chili Pepper Domestication and Agrobiodiversity in the Americas (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Frontiers of Plant Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Chili peppers (Capsicum spp.) are one of the extremely rich and varied crop genetic resources of the Americas. The independent domestication of five chili pepper species (C. annuum, C. baccatum, C. chinense, C. frutescens, and C. pubescens) across the Neotropics beginning around 10,000 BP was an intricate co-evolutionary process between these piquant...
Vegetation Change at Poverty Point, Louisiana (2018)
This paper presents pollen data as a proxy of past vegetation at Poverty Point, a large Archaic mound site in northeast Louisiana. The paleoecological focus of this presentation revolves around the rate and nature of change over time. Patterns and changes in taxonomic diversity are presented and discussed in light of environmental productivity. The rate of vegetation change is calculated and related to ecosystem stability. Additionally, changes in individual taxonomic representation are examined...
Was Setaria Domesticated in Tehuacan? (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Subsistence Crops and Animals as a Proxy for Human Cultural Practice" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Excavation of Coxcatlan cave recovered remains of Setaria cf. macrostachya. Analysis suggested early increase in abundance of florets (so-called seeds) in deposits associated with El Riego Phase contexts and later decrease in Coxcatlan Phase deposits. Callen observed a size increase of Setaria florets recovered from...
Weaving Kin Studies and Multispecies Frameworks into Collaborative Paleoethnobotanical Research (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Multispecies Frameworks in Archaeological Interpretation: Human-Nonhuman Interactions in the Past, Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the last 20 years practitioners, activists, and scholars across disciplines have repeatedly pointed out the importance of incorporating other-than-human kin, relationality and reciprocity, and Traditional Ecological Knowledge into scientific practice when working with...
Weeds, Seeds, and Other Maya Needs (2016)
Our understanding of the diet, subsistence, and agricultural practices of ancient Maya commoners has been remarkably enhanced thanks to many years of archaeological investigations at Cerén led by Payson Sheets. The recovery of paleoethnobotanical remains at the site has revealed not only the storage of various well-preserved foodstuffs, but also extensive house gardens and agricultural fields filled with lasting impressions and carbonized remains of a diverse set of plant species including...