Hearths, Earth Ovens, and the Carbohydrate Revolution: Indigenous Subsistence Strategies and Cooking during the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene in North America
Part of: Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)
This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Hearths, Earth Ovens, and the Carbohydrate Revolution: Indigenous Subsistence Strategies and Cooking during the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene in North America" at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
During the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene, Indigenous peoples across North America began to shift their subsistence strategies and implement new cooking technologies to adapt to a changing world. The late Alston Thoms referred to these changes in subsistence strategies as the “Carbohydrate Revolution,” and some of the foremost technological changes were the development of earth ovens and ground stone—both used to process primarily plant resources. There has been substantial archaeological research into this time period in North American history, but much of the research has overlooked cooking and plant processing technologies in favor of hunting and animal processing tools. This symposium brings together case studies from across North America to examine Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene Indigenous cooking features and honors the legacy of Alston Thoms.
Other Keywords
Subsistence and Foodways •
Paleoindian and Paleoamerican •
Paleoethnobotany •
Archaic •
Archaeometry & Materials Analysis: Residue Analysis •
Rockshelter •
Earth Ovens •
Cooking •
starch grain analysis •
Material Culture and Technology
Geographic Keywords
North America (Continent) •
United States of America (Country) •
USA (Country) •
Arizona (State / Territory) •
Utah (State / Territory) •
Nevada (State / Territory) •
California (State / Territory) •
Canada (Country) •
North America •
New Mexico (State / Territory)