Ancient Forest Management and Landscape Transformation: Anthropological Perspectives from the Americas

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Ancient Forest Management and Landscape Transformation: Anthropological Perspectives from the Americas" at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This session brings together scholars researching ancient forests as socio-ecological systems in the Americas. It aims to highlight how the study of ancient forest resource management, when guided by anthropological questions, has the potential to contribute to an understanding of human-environment relations that is contextualized in knowledge of changing social and political structures. What have been the guiding questions for this part of the world, and the remaining gaps? How does an understanding of forest resource use that contemplates the broader dynamics of diverse food production systems (e.g., agroforestry) and foodways help to transcend a focus on narrowly conceived ecological systems? How can anthropologically framed knowledge on ancient and changing long-term forest resource management help inform current-day forest or land use models and policies? The presenters in this symposium illustrate the ways in which research oriented by anthropological questions, whether supported by paleoethnobotany, land use studies, environmental DNA and other approaches, helps to realize the full potential of historical ecology and related research programs.