Reassessing Perspectives on Environmental Management in Southern Ontario

Summary

Archaeologists in southern Ontario have taken up a number of diverse perspectives for coming to an understanding of past human-environmental dynamics. While these disparate perspectives all produce something of value and contribute to the bigger picture of human-environmental relationships in the region there has been little work done in synthesizing their contributions or consolidating said perspectives into something more cohesive. This discussion is therefore focused largely on the consideration of palaeoethnobotanical work in southern Ontario ranging from strict archaeobotanical reporting to the search for the origins of agriculture and ultimately to current trends observed in the shift towards more synthetic historical ecology or niche-construction based theoretical perspectives. This discussion will argue that while current trends have been almost entirely positive for our understanding of past human-environmental relationships, with special attention to the benefit of their application in southern Ontario, there is still considerable room for improvement as we strive to approach a more holistic, and nuanced view of this critically important dynamic of past societies.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17433