Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1
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 "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
This symposium, sponsored by the Archaeobotany Interest Group, provides a forum for the dissemination of recent methodological and theoretical innovations in both macrobotanical and microbotanical archaeobotany. Papers in this symposium span time and world regions, and address the full range of research questions explored in archaeobotany, in order to display the current state of the field. The symposium welcomes the work of early-career scholars and established researchers alike, and invites presentations from academic, public, community, and compliance archaeology. The goal of this session is to explore recent developments in the study of human-plant interactions, and we welcome papers that highlight new archaeological case studies or new analytical techniques.
Other Keywords
Paleoethnobotany •
Subsistence and Foodways •
Neolithic •
Historic •
Phytoliths •
Methods •
Maya: Classic •
Experimental Archaeology •
Nutrition •
Colonialism
Geographic Keywords
North America (Continent) •
Asia (Continent) •
Republic of India (Country) •
People's Republic of Bangladesh (Country) •
Kingdom of Bhutan (Country) •
Kingdom of Nepal (Country) •
Kyrgyz Republic (Country) •
Japan (Country) •
Mongolia (Country) •
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (Country)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-16 of 16)
- Documents (16)
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Building a Novel Archaeobotanical Framework to Investigate the History of Plant Foods in Aboriginal Australia (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. With a wide variety of biomes and extreme fluctuations in water availability, Australia’s Channel Country saw Indigenous Australians develop a unique suite of subsistence strategies to live in this environment. Ethnohistoric accounts report combinations of semipermanent habitation and seasonal mobility, intensive seed...
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A Comparative Analysis of Trincheras Tradition and Hohokam Subsistence Practices from ~400 to 1450 CE (2024)
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This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For nearly a century, archaeologists have debated the subsistence adaptation of the Trincheras Tradition of Sonora, México. Nineteenth-century scholars hypothesized that they were foragers until the arrival of the Hohokam around 1300 CE. Having recently excavated Snaketown in the Phoenix basin, archaeologists had...
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Experimental Study of Lentil Taphonomy in Gangetic Early Farming Period to Understand Culinary Practices (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological studies can uncover various foods associated with different cultures, where species selection holds ecological importance and preparation/consumption bear cultural significance. Regrettably, there is a shortage of research on food-related behaviors. This is especially true in the India Gangetic Early to...
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Identifying the Gaps: Prospects and Limitations of Using Pottery Collections As Archaeobotanical Data in Korea’s Neolithic (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Neolithic (ca. 6000–1500 BCE) is a formative period of Korea’s prehistory that sees the beginning of plant cultivation. Although archaeobotanical research on Korea’s Neolithic began more than two decades ago, rapid development coupled with an almost total reliance on rushed rescue excavations has resulted in major...
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In Process: The Development of an Automatic Deep-Learning Phytolith Analysis Workflow (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper we present our lab's latest results using deep-learning (DL) to identify and analyze phytoliths, robust inorganic silica ‘casts’ of plant-cells. This use of DL technology will revolutionize phytolith analysis transforming the possibilities of this paleoethnobotanical method. Previous studies carried out in...
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MicroCT Analysis Reveals Beginning of Rice Domestication in the Lower Yangtze Valley during the Tenth Millennium BP (2024)
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This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Lower Yangtze valley is widely recognized as the earliest center of rice agriculture. The process of rice domestication, based on the morphology of spikelet bases, has been traced to between 9000 and 5000 BP. However, the domestication status of rice before 9000 BP remains a subject of debate due to the near absence...
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New Frontiers in Ancient Diet & Nutrition. Developing innovative methods for quantitative compositional analysis of desiccated archaeobotanical remains. (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This methodological paper presents on the development of new chemical methods to obtain functional, nutritional, and antinutritional compositional data from desiccated archaeobotanical specimens. It discusses the potential, pitfalls, possible applications, and significance of novel approaches to quantitatively assess the...
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Party on the Plaza: Risk and Resilience in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century New Mexico (2024)
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This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Spanish colonial efforts in New Mexico began in 1598 with the establishment of a capital in Santa Fe, as well as missions, ranches, and farms. Documents from the early colonial period (AD 1598–1680) are rife with colonists’ concerns about the New Mexican environment, indicating struggles at the household scale to...
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People, Plants, and Pests: Desiccated Macrobotanicals at Bartram’s Botanical Garden (2024)
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This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In recent years, archaeobotanists have explored the potential of desiccated assemblages cached by rodents in historic standing structures. This paper analyzes one such dataset from Bartram’s Garden, established in 1728 in Philadelphia. The Bartram family, along with at least one enslaved and one indentured worker,...
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People-Plant Negotiations in Two Rejolladas at Yaxuna and Joya, Yucatán (2024)
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This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Rejolladas have long been identified as sites of specialized agricultural and ritual practice across the northern Maya lowlands. However, archaeological investigations of these cavernous, soil-rich features have been sporadic until relatively recently, and there is still much to be understood about the way people engaged...
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Plant Use at Cinnamon Bay, St. John, USVI: A Window into Taíno Ecology and Ritual (2024)
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This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the analysis of paleoethnobotanical data from excavations at a Classic Taino site (1000 CE–1490 CE) at Cinnamon Bay, a shoreline ritual site located on St. John in the United States Virgin Islands (USVI). Excavations began in 1992 when it was determined that the site was at risk of being lost to...
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Sacrificial Rituals and Dietary Complexity on the Eve of State Formation: New Insights from Dental Calculus Microbotanical Analysis at the Kangjia Site in China (2024)
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This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Late Neolithic Longshan culture in China witnessed profound social and political transformations, characterized by the emergence of increasing social competition, long-distance trade, and inter-polity warfare. These developments eventually culminated in the formation of the first state-level societies in the Central...
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Sowing the Seeds of Empire: Early Statecraft and the Emergence of Indigenous Agriculture on the Mongolian Steppe (ca. 250 BC–AD 150) (2024)
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This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The end of the first millennium BC (ca. 250 BC–AD 150) marks the genesis of Xiongnu, eastern Eurasia’s first nomadic state, which emerged from central Mongolia to successfully integrate one of the largest-scale political configurations in prehistory. This transformative period also marks the appearance of Mongolia’s...
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Starch Spherulites: What We Know and What Is Next for This Promising New Method of Paleoethnobotanical Analysis (2024)
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This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Starch spherulites are a promising new paleoethnobotanical discovery. Well-studied in food sciences, starch spherulites form when amylose from plant starch recrystallizes in spherulitic morphology. This requires processing by humans (mainly through heat, although pH impacts this dynamic) in an aqueous environment. The...
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Towards a Synthesis of California Archaeobotany (2024)
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This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. I take a pan-regional frame of reference to address the impressive variability in more than 7,500 analyzed plant macroremains samples from the desert, coastal, and interior lowland and upland reaches of California. I focus on the effects of variation in habitat, including animal resources, especially fish and shellfish,...
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Traditional Dishes and Culinary Improvisations: Elite Gastronomy in the Maya Area (2024)
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This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the past few decades, understandings of cuisine in the Maya area have been radically amplified with the use of new techniques. Some methods offer the opportunity to directly connect artifacts and features with actual plant food residues. The ability to recover microscopic residues of food from sediments, artifacts,...