The Nature and Status of Paleoethnobotany

Summary

How does one honor the greatest generation of paleoethnobotany? It should not be difficult. What they have accomplished is no less than establishing paleoethnobotany as fundamental archaeology. Their cutting edge approaches succeeded in keeping scientific methodology in archaeology throughout the discipline’s theoretical paroxysms, all the while keeping the "ethno" in paleoethnobotany. The next generation of paleoethnobotanists is already building on their mentors’ successes by further advancing scientific approaches to phytolith, starch grain, and plant remain studies, working toward greater integration of these approaches, and acting as essential researchers in multidisciplinary archaeological investigations. This paleoethnobotany that the greatest generation established is set to keep advancing, although hurdles stand in the way. In this presentation, I will explain what I believe to be some of the issues facing the next generation of paleoethnobotanists, significantly, the loss of major laboratories and academic attrition, and what I hope the future nature and status of paleoethnobotany will be.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• The cutting edge of American Palaeoethnobotany

Keywords

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