The Environmental Legacies of Colonialism in the Neotropics

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

The arrival and settlement of Europeans throughout the Americas led to unprecedented demographic and environmental transformations. The voluntary and forced migration of peoples from Europe, Africa and Asia, and the simultaneous introduction of new forms of production, along with exotic biota and diseases, contributed to the emergence of novel social, economic and ecological systems. Through analysis of soils, plants, animals, and other proxies archaeologists are uniquely situated to investigate the localized manifestations of these processes. Yet, while environmental research on prehistoric sites in the Americas has burgeoned in recent years, the direct archaeological examination of the ecological effects of European colonial expansion is still a developing field. This session responds by considering environmental archaeological research on the period after Europeans began to settle throughout the Western Hemisphere, with an emphasis on understanding how this historical process has differently structured current socio-ecological landscapes in the Neotropics-- a biogeographical region sharing many plant and animal groups. We also seek to identify the implications of these changes for contemporary communities and ecosystems, as the legacies of colonialism continue to shape modern social and environmental challenges.

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  • "Cultivating" Salt: Human Ecology of the Saltpans of the Venezuelan Caribbean, 16th–19th Century (2016)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Konrad Antczak. Miguel Lentino.

    This paper discusses a diachronic human ecological approach to the interaction between humans and saltpans in the Venezuelan Caribbean from the 16th to the 19th century. This research is based on historical archaeological and oral historical evidence marshaled to understand the dynamics of past solar salt production, and the impacts of the natural environment on the final product’s output and quality. “Tending” a saltpan was not always straightforward business as knowledge of the weather...

  • The Environmental Dynamics of Colonial Mining and Metallurgy in the Bishopric of Michoacan, 1522 to 1810 (2016)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Blanca Maldonado.

    Mining and metallurgy played a critical role in the economic, political, and social development of Spanish American colonies, and although it has consequently received extensive attention by scholars, there have been very few studies of the environmental dimensions of these industries. The present work explores the impact of mining and processing of metal ores on the environment, for the mining districts located along the Bishopric of Michoacan (which included the modern states of Michoacan and...

  • Histories and Trajectories of Socio-Ecological Landscapes in the Lesser Antilles: Implications of Colonial Period Zooarchaeological Research (2016)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Diane Wallman.

    The arrival and colonization of the Caribbean by Europeans beginning in the 15th Century transformed the already dynamic landscapes of the region. To accommodate the slave-labor supported colonial plantation system and its orientation towards market exports, the region witnessed the introduction of exotic plants and animals, creating a ‘creolization’ of flora and fauna. In this paper, I discuss how environmental archaeology contributes to a nuanced and diachronic understanding of the...

  • Household Ecology and the Legacy of the Secondary Products Revolution in Yucatán (2016)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Rani Alexander. Héctor Hernández Álvarez.

    In this paper, we examine the changes in household ecology that resulted from the introduction of European domesticates to Yucatán after the Spanish invasion. New animals and plants were not adopted wholesale as a Euroagrarian suite in the sixteenth century. Instead, heterogeneous practices took root in highly altered demographic and environmental settings. Ecosystems were re-engineered as animals moved into new anthropogenic niches. We compare archaeological and ethnoarchaeological evidence of...

  • The Landscape Legacies of Plantation Agriculture in the Caribbean: An Historical-Ecological Perspective from Betty’s Hope, Antigua (2016)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only E. Christian Wells. Georgia L. Fox. Peter E. Siegel. Nicholas P. Dunning. Reginald Murphy.

    This paper examines physical, chemical, and biological properties of soils and sediments from landforms in eastern Antigua, West Indies, to better understand the long-term consequences of plantation agriculture. Plantation farming played a central role in the history of Caribbean societies, economies, and environments since the 17th century. In Antigua, the entire island was variably dedicated to agricultural pursuits, including sugarcane and cotton, from the mid-1600s until independence from...

  • One Island, Two Stories: Tradition, Ritual and Identity in Barbuda, West Indies (2016)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sophia Perdikaris. Allison Bain. Sandrine Grouard. Naomi Sykes. Stephan Noel.

    Barbuda, the small sister island to Antigua, provides a unique geographically bound island context for the study of human-environmental interactions over the last 6000 years. Today, Barbuda’s national animal is the fallow deer, Dama dama dama, a species that is native to a small area of Anatolia but that has been transported around the world by people. According to historical accounts, fallow deer were imported to Barbuda, from England, by the Codrington family, the island’s primary leaseholders...

  • The Political Ecology of Plantations from the Ground Up (2016)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Oas. Mark Hauser.

    The domestic economies of households occupied by enslaved laborers are an important domain of analysis for understanding the political ecology and environmental legacy of colonial empires. These households occupy an important intersection of environment, political economy, and culture, and provide an opportunity to exploring both top-down and bottom-up processes of environmental and economic change. This paper presents preliminary research onto households from excavations at Morne Petate in...

  • Provisioning Antigua and Beyond: How Herding and Farming Transformed Barbuda, West Indies (2016)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Allison Bain. Sophia Perdikaris. Rebecca Boger. Amy Potter. Reginald Murphy.

    The island of Barbuda was farmed by English settlers from the 1660s onwards. The Codrington family of England held the lease to the island from the 1680s-1870, and they introduced a variety of plant and animal species, some of which continue to thrive on the island. Sugar cane was never grown on this dry, low lying island and instead, lime and charcoal were produced along with other subsistence crops for export. Herding became an important part of the economy and, as a result, water management...

  • Strontium Isotope Values for Early Colonial Cows at San Bernabe, A Spanish Mission in the Peten Lakes Region of Guatemala (2016)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Carolyn Freiwald. Timothy Pugh.

    The earliest Spanish explorers in the 15th century brought ships stocked with European domesticated animals. Yet for nearly two centuries, the Maya living in Guatemala’s Peten Lakes region continued to rely on traditional wild animal species. A small number of cow and horse bones have been identified in Contact period contexts at Zacpeten and Tayasal, but significant changes in animal use are only visible after the Spanish began to build missions in the region during the early 1700s. We explore...