Phytoliths (Other Keyword)
51-62 (62 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the last 50 years, from Amazonian archaeology there has been a remarkable and growing debate about the origin and dispersion of the cultures of the area, their carrying capacity, population number and density, political structure, and links with the adjacent geographical areas, such as the Andes to its western border. More recently, paleobotanical...
Signatures of human occupation in Amazonian soils (2015)
The extent and intensity of pre-Columbian human impacts on Amazonian forests has remained a topic of debate for decades. Traditional views of pre-Columbian Amazonia as a ‘pristine forest’ have recently been replaced by predictions of vibrant cultures frequently scattered across the Basin. A primary form of evidence for the latter includes the presence of terra preta soils, which are nutrient-enriched anthrosols that were formed in prehistory. Archaeological and paleoecological investigations...
The Spirit from the Seed: New Microfossil Evidence of Wild Rice in the Upper Great Lakes (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Within the Great Lakes and the Northeastern United States, microfossil research has primarily focused on maize (Zea mays). Further, direct evidence of starch beyond maize is equally limited. The importance of wild rice (Manoomin) as a food source, an aspect of spirituality, and other-than-human being is well known to the archaeologists of the region....
Testing Theoretical Approaches for the Composition of Charcoal Assemblages (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists use charcoal assemblages principally to reconstruct chronologies and past vegetative landscapes, especially when sampled from long-used refuse features, though human decision-making plays a role in the construction of these assemblages. In this paper, we will gather together a dataset reflecting an unpublished dataset from three sites in the...
Three-Dimensional Spatial Evidence of the Development of Agriculture in the Sigatoka River System, Viti Levu, Fiji (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Geospatial Studies in the Archaeology of Oceania" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The transition from coastal foraging to inland/upland horticulture in Viti Levu, Fiji appears to be marked by the early incorporation (~3000 BP) of fruit arboriculture in the primary tributaries of the Sigatoka River, with later (~2500 BP) evidence for the development of more intensive agriculture involving root and tuber farming and pond...
To Be or Not to Be Attributed to Specific Plants? The Integration of Phytolith Analysis and Soil and Sediment Micromorphology (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany, Part II" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite extensive research during the last decades, phytolith botanical attribution remains a critical issue. Nevertheless, the development and expansion of reference collections confirm that some taxa produce very distinctive phytoliths at different taxonomic levels. Things become more complex when considering closely...
Tracing Zea mays through the Americas using Maize Cob Phytoliths (2015)
Dolores Piperno has addressed the origins of maize agriculture in the New World through examination of samples from MesoAmerica. Ultimately, maize diffused throughout the world. Prior to globilization, maize spread throughout the Americas. Zea mays is represented by over 100 races in North America alone. My work has focused on the spread of maize agriculture, rather than its origins. Identifying races of maize is a daunting task for any region of the Americas. The most informative remains for...
Tubers, Grain, and Everything In Between: Mesoamerican Applications of Dolores Piperno’s Research (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Fryxell Symposium in Honor of Dolores Piperno" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the past several decades, Dolores Piperno has made broad contributions to archaeology and deep contributions to paleoethnobotany. Her published work includes studies on the origins of agriculture in the Neotropics, the presence of cooked plants in Neanderthal diets, the process of domestication, the use of wild cereals in the Upper...
Understanding Climatic Condition, Ecosystems, Subsistence Strategies and Human Adaptation thru Micro-Botanical Analysis in Late-Holocene, Northern Mesopotamia (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The semi-arid region of Northern Mesopotamia has consistently encountered significant climatic variations. Therefore, human societies in the region developed innovations in environmental management and agricultural strategies, given the crucial role of agriculture in economy, trade, and politics all throughout history and in our modern world. Among all the...
Using geochemistry, phytoliths and ethnographic analogy to interpret Neolithic settlements in southwest Asia (2017)
Our understanding of Neolithic sites in southwest Asia is often impeded by the lack of preservation of biological evidence. As a result, they often consist of a series of structures, the construction and function of which, remains elusive. In order to address this problem we conducted a study which used phytoliths and geochemistry from an ethnographic site in Jordan, Al Ma’tan, to determine if certain building construction techniques and anthropogenic activities leave specific phytolith and...
Vegeculture Agriculture in the Ethiopian Highlands: The Archaeobotany of Enset (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. Although Ethiopia is remembered for famines in recent decades, the zone of vegecultural agriculture in the southwest has largely avoided food insecurity. Here agricultural systems are usually centered on Ensete ventrocosum, a tree-like vegecultural starch crop, an endemic staple food for 20 million...
You Better Be-Leaf It: Microbotanical Remains Found in Dental Calculus of Individuals from Actun Kabul, Belize (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dental calculus (DC), the mineralized plaque or tartar on a tooth’s surface, is formed and fossilized during life. Foodstuffs and medicinal plants that people interact with in life can be caught in the DC matrix. Because DC fossilizes during life, researchers can decalcify DC and analyze the microbotanicals, proteins, and aDNA trapped inside....