Archaeophycology: New (Ethno)Archaeological Approaches to Understand the Contribution of Seaweed to the Subsistence and Social Life of Coastal Populations
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 "Archaeophycology: New (Ethno)Archaeological Approaches to Understand the Contribution of Seaweed to the Subsistence and Social Life of Coastal Populations" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
Seaweeds have been occasionally documented in archaeological sites with outstanding preservation conditions, and though they have received minor attention from an archaeological perspective, coastal archaeology is heightening interest in these resources as a significant portion of the archaeological record of coastal areas that might be systematically dismissed. To the scarce historical information and their poor preservation, we might add theoretical and ideological aspects that result in the invisibilization of these resources (such as their current use by Indigenous societies). Furthermore, many coastal environments (such as the Arctic or coastal deserts) exhibit poor terrestrial plant production, which may result in an increased consumption of seaweeds, a unique, valuable, ubiquitous, and low-risk resource. Seaweed foraging practices constitute the expression of the continuity of a gathering way of life deeply rooted in coastal environments, thus traditional ecological knowledge related to seaweeds is essential for evaluating harvesting methods and their potential uses today. This symposium aims to provide an overview of the current state of a field focused on seaweeds, including several approaches ranging from contributions concerning all the different methodologies that can be used to detect seaweeds in the archaeological record or experimental archaeology to cross-cultural ethnographic approaches.
Other Keywords
Coastal and Island Archaeology •
Paleoethnobotany •
Ethnography/Ethnoarchaeology •
Geoarchaeology •
historical ecology •
Mesolithic •
Iron Age •
Andes: Formative •
Digital Archaeology: Simulation and Modeling •
Archaeometry & Materials Analysis
Geographic Keywords
Republic of Panama (Country) •
Republic of Colombia (Country) •
Netherlands Antilles (Country) •
Aruba (Country) •
Republic of Peru (Country) •
Republic of Ecuador (Country) •
Republic of Chile (Country) •
South America (Continent) •
South America: Andes •
Department of Martinique (Country)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-7 of 7)
- Documents (7)
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Creating Frames of Reference for Seaweed Consumption in the Americas: A Cross-Cultural Approach (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Archaeophycology: New (Ethno)Archaeological Approaches to Understand the Contribution of Seaweed to the Subsistence and Social Life of Coastal Populations" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Though seaweed consumption has only been exceptionally documented in most archaeological contexts, ethnographic data accounts for the extensive and intensive use of seaweeds and seagrasses. This study uses ethnographic data to propose...
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Evidence of Seaweed Use by Coastal Communities of the Atacama Desert Coast, South America (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Archaeophycology: New (Ethno)Archaeological Approaches to Understand the Contribution of Seaweed to the Subsistence and Social Life of Coastal Populations" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Seaweeds have been part of the daily life of coastal populations worldwide. Despite the wide range of species and human uses, seaweeds have been under-researched in the human sciences and historical ecology compared to other marine...
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From Staple to Shameful (and Back Again?): The Changing Fortunes of Seaweeds in the North Atlantic (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Archaeophycology: New (Ethno)Archaeological Approaches to Understand the Contribution of Seaweed to the Subsistence and Social Life of Coastal Populations" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Seaweeds are in vogue: new initiatives tout seaweed farming as a solution to global problems of food insecurity that can simultaneously combat climate change through carbon sequestration and regenerate damaged marine environments....
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Microstratigraphic and Biomolecular Identification of Seaweeds in the Mesolithic of Atlantic Iberia, SW Europe (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Archaeophycology: New (Ethno)Archaeological Approaches to Understand the Contribution of Seaweed to the Subsistence and Social Life of Coastal Populations" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mesolithic shell mounds are prominent testaments of the prehistoric coastal adaptations along the Atlantic shores of Europe. In the Iberian Peninsula, postglacial hunter-gatherers largely turned to coastal regions and lived...
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Modeling the Use of Seaweed for Fire by Hunter-Gatherers in the Atacama Desert (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Archaeophycology: New (Ethno)Archaeological Approaches to Understand the Contribution of Seaweed to the Subsistence and Social Life of Coastal Populations" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The use of fire is essential for contemporary human populations. Yet the presence of an active population in the coastal Atacama desert, with limited land-based combustible, leaves us with the intriguing possibility that the ancestral...
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Tracking Kelp-like Marine Seaweed Fuel in the Archaeological Record of Atacama Desert Coast through Raman Spectroscopy: Insight from the Analysis of Macro- and Microremains of Charred Particles (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Archaeophycology: New (Ethno)Archaeological Approaches to Understand the Contribution of Seaweed to the Subsistence and Social Life of Coastal Populations" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The use of seaweed as fuel has been mentioned in ethnographic sources from different world regions. Still, the archaeological record of seaweed burning is limited to contexts where preservation is exceptional, and the macroscopic...
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The Use and Circulation of Seaweeds along the Western Coast of South America (2024)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Archaeophycology: New (Ethno)Archaeological Approaches to Understand the Contribution of Seaweed to the Subsistence and Social Life of Coastal Populations" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The exploitation and consumption of seaweeds is a thriving matter of research, arguably started in the 1980s by the ethnographic work of Shozo Masuda in the Andes. This study goes beyond local discussions or milestones about proxies...