Paleoethnobotany (Other Keyword)
551-572 (572 Records)
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...
Weaving with the Seasons: A Case Study of Jomon Baskets and Resource Management in Neolithic Japan (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Evidence that basket weavers in the Neolithic Japanese archipelago had weaving techniques and knowledge of their adjacent climate and environment has been found in archaeological artifacts dating from approximately 8,000 to 2,300 years ago (Early to Late Jomon Period) across the Japanese archipelago. Fewer than 1,000 basketry pieces, including fragments,...
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...
What is a Hill of Beans Really Worth?: Paleoethnobotanical Analysis of Urban Huari Foodways (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Seeing Wari through the Lens of the Everyday: Results from the Patipampa Sector of Huari" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Preliminary investigation into the use of plants at the site of Huari from the 2017 field season of the Programa Arqueológico Prehistoria Urbana de Huari resulted in new information placing the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) as a central component of the daily meal for those living in Patipampa in...
What's In A Seed?: An Experimental Archaeological Study of Elderberry (Sambucas sp.) Processing on the Pacific Northwest Coast (2018)
Uncharred botanicals are commonly found on archaeological sites but seldom assigned interpretive significance owing to their assumed ambiguous origins. Thousands of uncharred, fragmented Sambucas racemosa (red elderberry) seeds have been recovered at Welqámex, a Stó:lō-Coast Salish settlement in the Upper Fraser Valley of southwestern British Columbia. In Stó:lō-Coast Salish territory and beyond, Sambucas was used as both a food and a medicine. Owing to the presence of cyanide-like...
What's in That Incense Burner? A Study of Residues at Balamku (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Studies in Mesoamerican Subterranean Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. It is so widely accepted that the Maya burned copal incense in their rituals that the assumption has gone unquestioned. During the 2018 season, the Gran Acuífero Maya Project began a multi-year investigation of the cave of Balamku near Chichen Itza. The cave contains a large number of incense burners filled with burned material that...
What's It Alder About? Paleobotanical and Zooarchaeological Analysis of Feasting Remains from the DgRv-006 Village, Galiano Island, SW British Columbia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of feasting activity in precontact societies can illuminate hierarchical social structures that existed within a community, because of the labor and wealth investments required to produce a successful feast. It can also highlight the integrative aspects of feasts, since they often involved widespread participation. We present results of...
What’s in a Microscopic Signature? Can We See Social Acceptance and Resistance? (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Colonization of Central and North America involved Spanish mission construction and growing wheat necessary for Eucharist bread. Using evidence of threshing technology, represented by cut phytoliths, as an indicator of trait adoption, we examine missions in California and the southwestern Puebloan region. Introduction of a new religion, new icons, new...
What’s in a Seed?: Identifying Archaeological Chili Pepper Remains from Mesoamerica (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The chili pepper (Capsicum spp.) has cemented its place in ancient and modern Mesoamerica as a fixture in medicine, ritual, and cuisine. The timing and context of its domestication which began around 10,000 years BP, however, remains unclear. To address this, we conducted morphometric analyses of a diverse array of modern seeds from multiple species of wild...
Wheat and barley morphometrics: a new method for quantifying ancient cereal varietals (2016)
Free-threshing wheat (Triticum aestivum and T. durum) and barley (Hordeum vulgare) were staple cereal crops in the ancient Near East. Although modern varietals of these species have significant variation in growing times, water requirements, and grain yields, few studies have distinguished varietals in the past. Traditional approaches have used grain seed size and shape to identify different crop varieties. These coarse metrics, including length:breadth and thickness:breadth ratios, give only a...
When Do We Eat? The Life Cycle of Indigenous Maya Food-Plants and Temporal Implications for Residential Stability (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For Maya agriculture, both ancient and modern, it is known that a wide range of time is needed between planting and harvesting of various plant species. While annual crops require less than a year to reach full productivity, perennial crops, particularly tree-crops, might require many years to begin production, and even longer to reach full productivity....
When Walls Talk: Rodent-cached Botanical and Ceramic Assemblages from a 19th-century Charleston Kitchen House (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster focuses on the context of urban enslavement in the South Carolina Lowcountry, examining botanical and ceramic assemblages as mechanisms to create visibility for populations often who lived in close proximity with and are thus materially rendered less visible by their enslavers. The rodent-cached botanical and ceramic assemblage of the Nathaniel...
Where Are the Brewers? Feasting and Operational Chains in Anglo-Saxon England (2018)
The importance of alcohol in the landscape of feasting has been well documented across cultures, and early medieval Europe is no exception. The mead-hall in Anglo-Saxon Britain functioned as a location where social bonds were strengthened both vertically and horizontally; Vikings in Iceland relied on barley beer to demonstrate the power and generosity of chieftains. Production of alcohol in the large quantities required for feasting necessitates some degree of specialization, but to what degree...
Where Have All the Red Elderberries Gone? A Collaborative Macrobotanical Analysis of Settler-Colonial Impacts on a Vital Coast Salish First Food (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2019, Willamette Cultural Resources Associates identified a diffuse and deeply buried archaeological site on the Green River, south of Seattle, Washington during construction monitoring of a large levee replacement project. The site is in close proximity to ćabćabtac, or “red elderberry place.” Macrobotanical analysis indicates that the site was used...
Wild and Cultivated Plant Usage of a Late Precontact Site (11S1754) in the American Bottom (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Stemler Site (11S1754), a small Mississippian settlement in the American Bottom, was occupied during the Late Stirling and Early Moorehead Phases (ca. AD 1150-1275), as the population at Cahokia and the broader region was decreasing. It has been theorized that an over-reliance upon maize (Zea mays) led to the dispersal of people from and collapse at...
Wild Fruits and Connective Linkages in Precolumbian South Florida (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. Academic reconstructions of south Florida Indigenous lifeways prior to European contact have focused primarily on the deliberate choice of these highly complex societies to rely exclusively on wild foods, even while corn agriculture was practiced in nearby parts of the peninsula....
Woodland Tradition Plant Use and Foodways in the Western Great Lakes: A View from Southeastern Wisconsin (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Histories of Human-Nature Interactions: Use, Management, and Consumption of Plants in Extreme Environments" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper implements a multiproxy approach to Woodland foodways, integrating plant macrobotanical studies, faunal analyses, ceramic morphological and use-wear analyses, and absorbed residue analyses. Datasets from southeastern Wisconsin and the surrounding region highlight...