The History of Archaeobotanical Research on the Island of Puerto Rico and Its Relationship with Notions of Poor Preservation of Macro-botanical Remains on Archaeological Contexts

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeobotanical research of macro-botanical remains in the Caribbean is scarce due to notions of poor preservation in tropical landscapes. This shifted archaeobotanical research towards the analysis of micro-botanical remains because these types of analysis have been reported as more successful for recovering data of subsistence practices in the Neotropics. However, there has not been a study that questions the preservations issues of macro-botanical remains in the Caribbean. Even though, the presence of macro-botanical remains has been reported on various Caribbean islands on pre-Columbian and historical contexts, there have been limited attempts at systematic assessment of the presence and utility of macro-remains. Based on a historical overview of archaeobotany in Puerto, several inconsistencies in recovery strategy are noted. I then report results from my own recovery by flotation from 6 sites where charred seeds, parenchyma, wood charcoal, and possible cooked food remains have been recovered. These results highlight the potential for more archaeobotanical work on Puerto Rico on a wide range of plant remains.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22983