Anthropogenic plant translocations in the western Indian Ocean: Archaeobotanical perspectives on the Anthropocene from Madagascar and the Comoros

Summary

Although Madagascar is probably best known for its unique endemic flora and fauna, humans have also played a key role in shaping biological diversity on the island. Indeed, it is estimated that humans have been responsible for the introduction of some 10% of Madagascar’s flora in the centuries since the island was first colonised. For many of these plants, the precise dates of introduction are unknown; and while many are undoubtedly relatively recent introductions, a number are suggested to have arrived through early Indian Ocean migration and trade from regions as far flung as island Southeast Asia — the genetic and linguistic homeland of the Malagasy people. In this paper, we outline current evidence from Madagascar as well as the nearby Comoros islands for a range of translocated plants, including key food crops such as rice, banana, taro and yam, as well as several lesser-known taxa from Asia that have potentially long histories of human-mediated dispersal to the region. These plant introductions form part of a larger anthropogenic re-shaping of Madagascar's ecology, that also included extensive deforestation and probably megafaunal extinctions, and whose systematic investigation remains in its infancy.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Biological Exchange in the Anthropocene: Archaeological and Genetic Perspectives

Keywords

Spatial Coverage