The Columbian Exchange Revisited: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on Eurasian Domesticates in the Americas
Part of: Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)
This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "The Columbian Exchange Revisited: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on Eurasian Domesticates in the Americas" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
Over the past millennia, human communities around the globe have been profoundly impacted by increasing reliance on and entanglement with a broad range of domestic animals. In Eurasia, the early domestication of livestock like cattle, pigs, and caprines and more recent events like the domestication of horse in the Black Sea region, have conditioned diet, material culture, mobility, and worldview. Over the past few centuries, the spread of Eurasian domesticates into the Americas has occurred alongside the expansion of European colonialism—at times reinforcing the colonial project, and at other times facilitating Indigenous sovereignty and resistance. The expansion of these species in these new regions, and their adaptation to and adoption by Indigenous cultures, has often been partially chronicled in the historical record, positioning faunal analysis as an important source of insights into this key transition. This session will explore the dispersals of domestic animals in the Western Hemisphere and their roles in both colonial and Indigenous spheres through a zooarchaeological and anthropological perspective.
Other Keywords
Zooarchaeology •
Historic •
Colonialism •
contact period •
Subsistence and Foodways •
historical ecology •
Horse •
Horses •
Pastoralism •
Cultural Transmission
Geographic Keywords
North America (Continent) •
United Mexican States (Country) •
United States of America (Country) •
Belize (Country) •
Republic of Guatemala (Country) •
USA (Country) •
North America •
Colima (State / Territory) •
New Mexico (State / Territory) •
Michoacan (State / Territory)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-11 of 11)
- Documents (11)
-
Across a Threshold: The Columbian Exchange in the Land of Tiguex (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "The Columbian Exchange Revisited: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on Eurasian Domesticates in the Americas" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In August 1540 Hernando de Alvarado, a member of the Coronado expedition, entered what he termed “the province of Tiguex” (today known as the Middle Rio Grande Valley of Central New Mexico), kicking off several centuries of socioeconomic transformation. As a case...
-
The Columbian Exchange in the Maya/Spanish Borderlands: A Zooarchaeological and Isotopic Tale of Resistance and Repurposing (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "The Columbian Exchange Revisited: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on Eurasian Domesticates in the Americas" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The introduction of Eurasian domesticates in the Americas significantly changed the Maya domestic economy during the early colonial period (AD 1535–1700). However, this change was heterogenous in scale across the Maya world. While areas under Spanish control quickly...
-
Early Animal Use in Rural New Spain: Comparing Trends and Practices in Sixteenth- to Seventeenth-Century Indigenous and Spanish Settlements from Michoacán, Northwestern Mexico (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "The Columbian Exchange Revisited: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on Eurasian Domesticates in the Americas" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The massive introduction of European animals in what is today Mexico started in 1519 and historical documents attest for the rapid spread of livestock, in particular cattle, in the vast plains of the Altiplano that helped colonize the lands. Yet, there is a lack of...
-
Early Domestic Horse Exploitation in Southern Patagonia: Archaeozoological and Biomolecular Evidence from Chorrillo Grande 1, Argentina (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "The Columbian Exchange Revisited: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on Eurasian Domesticates in the Americas" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The introduction of domestic horses following Spanish colonization transformed Indigenous societies across the grasslands of Argentina, leading to the emergence of specialized horse cultures across the Southern Cone. However, the relatively late establishment of...
-
Eating Colonialism: Consumption and Resistance in the Indigenous American South, Sixteenth through Early Nineteenth Century (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "The Columbian Exchange Revisited: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on Eurasian Domesticates in the Americas" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There is no one way that European domesticates were understood by Indigenous groups throughout North America. In the American Southeast, Spanish explorers and colonists introduced peaches, watermelons, and pigs during the sixteenth century, yet only peaches and...
-
The Effects of the Colonial Introduction of European Domestic Fauna in Some Localities of Southern Mexico (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "The Columbian Exchange Revisited: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on Eurasian Domesticates in the Americas" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The introduction of European domestic fauna during the Spanish conquest represents a major change in the cultural use of animals, influencing both how they acquired and processed. Although this point has been recognized, in fact it has been poorly documented. This...
-
Horses in Early Wichita Communities: New Evidence from the Little Deer Site (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "The Columbian Exchange Revisited: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on Eurasian Domesticates in the Americas" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In North America, the southern Plains exchange system after 1600 CE was a complicated and fiercely competitive network of fluid alliances, rival interests, and conflict in the middle of overlapping Southeastern and Southwestern cultural, economic, and physical power...
-
Missions, Herds, and Habitat: Analyzing Livestock Dynamics in the Desert Pimería Alta (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "The Columbian Exchange Revisited: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on Eurasian Domesticates in the Americas" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Columbian Exchange reshaped ecosystems and societies across the Western Hemisphere, and the Pimería Alta (today Sonora and Arizona) was no exception. The establishment of Spanish colonial missions in the Pimería Alta region beginning in 1687 marked a pivotal...
-
Navigating the Frontier of Colonial Diets: Domesticates and Wild Resource Use in the North America Fur Trade (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "The Columbian Exchange Revisited: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on Eurasian Domesticates in the Americas" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. European settlers in the Americas brought with them a familiar suite of domesticated plants and animals and frequently relied upon them for subsistence. Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, European colonial powers became involved in the fur trade,...
-
Of Pigs and People in Colonial Guatemala: A Zooarchaeological Historical Approach (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "The Columbian Exchange Revisited: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on Eurasian Domesticates in the Americas" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Among all the Eurasian domesticates that were introduced consequently to the arrival of the Europeans in the Americas, pigs hold a singular place. Unlike larger ungulates such as horses and cattle, their rearing does not require large resources which makes them...
-
The Paradox of Livestock: Transformative Agents and Tools of Resilience (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "The Columbian Exchange Revisited: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on Eurasian Domesticates in the Americas" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The introduction of Eurasian domesticated animals during the European colonial invasion of the Americas led to rapid, large-scale transformations of North American landscapes, irrevocably altering the relationships between Native people and Native landscapes....