Late Archaic Plant Remains from the Québec City Area (Canada)

Summary

It is more and more recognized that mobile hunter-gatherers can have a significant impact on their environment. In the Northeast, one of the traits of the Late Archaic period is the intense consumption of nuts and acorns and possible management of this key resource to increase its productivity. The botanical macro-remains recovered at the site of côte Rouge, located near Québec City, indicate that butternuts and hazelnuts were indeed consumed but their low densities in the archaeological record cannot support the idea of an intense use. Because these nuts, along with many other species of berries, are shade-intolerant, their presence at côte Rouge indicates some openings in the forest canopy. Repeated seasonal stays could have caused disturbance that favored the growth of these useful plants. However, these observations contrast with the wood charcoal data from the same contexts that revealed mostly trees characteristic of shady climax forests. These results seem to suggest that disturbance was subtle and that prolonged occupation did not limit the access to high quality firewood. Preliminary results of starch and pollen analyses will also be discussed in this paper.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage