The Effects of Regional Climate Change on the Foraging-Farming Transition in Eastern North America

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

For a century, scholars studying prehistoric subsistence have questioned why humans began farming. A common hypothesis is that climate change contributed to the emergence of agriculture. One area where climate change may have influenced early agriculture is the Interior Eastern Woodlands of North America, where the independent domestication of native plants occurred during the Late Archaic period (4500-4000 BP). However, there has been little quantitative analyses examining the effects of climate change on the foraging-farming transition in North America. Our previous research suggests that climate change influenced subsistence behavior during the transition period. The present study expands on prior work by increasing the sample of archaeological sites to provide a more complete representation of the region. This project tests the hypotheses that climate change (1) preceded the foraging-farming transition and (2) led to an increased use of cultivated resources in the prehistoric diet. To test these hypotheses, this study utilizes paleoenvironmental proxies and reconstructions to examine regional climatic trends and archaeological data to evaluate dietary changes during the transition period. This analysis will advance the study of prehistoric subsistence strategies by demonstrating how intra-regional climate change affected the development of agriculture and the use of cultivated resources in North America.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32343