Plant niche construction; from forager to planter in the Zagros Mountains, Iran

Summary

In terms of niche construction, the development of agriculture at the end of the Palaeolithic was a realignment and expansion of existing hunter-gatherer plant ecology modifications to a transforming human and natural setting. This paper suggests that people's engagement with their surroundings altered under pressure of changes in the environment and their subsistence, residence and mobility strategies. Increased foraging efficiency and stability were sought. These relied on a suite of actions and responses to ecological conditions, passed down the generations since the emergence of active modification and control of plants, and animals, during our primate evolution. To reduce logistic costs, improve the ability for longer-term storage and increase yields per hour of invested labour, plant niche modifications were developed on earlier Palaeolithic plant exploitation. Between the Upper Palaeolithic and the PPNA, plant niche construction efforts targeted economising on the expended energy versus yield and broadened the variety of exploited plants and their calorific worth as is most clear with food plants in the Fabaceae and Poaceae families. In sum, people's niche construction activities developed dependent on their local environment and lifestyle and the ecological conditions of the targeted plants.

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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