Wild Fruits and Connective Linkages in Precolumbian South Florida

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Multispecies Frameworks in Archaeological Interpretation: Human-Nonhuman Interactions in the Past, Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Academic reconstructions of south Florida Indigenous lifeways prior to European contact have focused primarily on the deliberate choice of these highly complex societies to rely exclusively on wild foods, even while corn agriculture was practiced in nearby parts of the peninsula. Indeed, the Calusa are justly famous in the archaeological literature for sustaining a high degree of social complexity on a purely wild food diet of largely marine resources. What has not been adequately considered is an interdependence on wild fruits that also played a significant role in Indigenous south Florida diets prior to contact. This paper will explore how fruiting trees such as hog plum and prickly pear drew Indigenous people away from coastal environments and into scrubby pinelands. These nutritious fruits provided essential vitamins and fats but asked for little in return. Nonhuman subjects were a key component of south Florida Indigenous ontologies, and this paper will explore the connective linkages between wild fruits and marine-orientated peoples.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Multispecies Frameworks in Archaeological Interpretation: Human-Nonhuman Interactions in the Past, Part I   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35736.0