Making Archaic Snaileries out of Shell Heaps: Human Behaviors and Ecological Niches

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Do Good Things Come in Small Packages? Human Behavioral Ecology and Small Game Exploitation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Global evidence for human consumption and management of gastropods predates the Neolithic Revolution - the period noted for independent experimentation and domestication of terrestrial plants and animals. Archaeological data indicates that gastropods, terrestrial and aquatic, were vital resources for Holocene human communities. This phenomenon is not limited to one region. The consumption of aquatic snails is documented from archaeological sites in Mesoamerica, Japan, and China, while the consumption of land snails is well-documented in the Iberian Peninsula, circum-Mediterranean area, Africa, and North and South America. These studies show the temporal depth and spatial breadth of humans’ knowledge of, and interaction with, different species of snails. Along interior rivers of the American Southeast, evidence for the exploitation of freshwater gastropods (small game) appear in archaeological sites dating from approximately 7000 to 1000 cal BC. We bring together multiple lines of data to test the hypothesis that the freshwater gastropod deposits (snaileries) along the Cumberland River in the American Southeast were the outcome of human behaviors that ultimately resulted in the construction of ecological niches favorable for humans and snails.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Do Good Things Come in Small Packages? Human Behavioral Ecology and Small Game Exploitation   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25574