Towards a Historical Ecology of An Alluvial Plain in North-Central Puerto Rico: Preliminary Geoarchaeological Results

Summary

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

Under the precept of Historical Ecology landscapes are considered artifacts where the mediation of humans over environments accumulates over time leaving traces of these relationships in the form of sedimentological and paleobotanical records. Alluvial plains in the Neotropics are among the most important environments where humans first settled, beginning the process of landscape domestication seemingly due to their fertile soils, diverse biota and the advantages of rivers for intra-island movement. The alluvial floodplain between the rivers Grande de Arecibo and Grande de Manatí in north-central Puerto Rico has an archaeological record that spans the entire history of human occupation on the island from the Pre-Arawak (5,000 BP) to the present. This area was one of the first in Puerto Rico where humans began the process of landscape domestication; adaptations continued during ensuing centuries with new migrations from South and Central America, and later with the spread of European colonization into the New World. This presentation will focus on an assessment of geoarchaeological data collected during the summer of 2018 to begin elucidating the historical ecology of this alluvial plain.

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): 24910