Holocene Vegetation Changes and Fuel Use in the Honduran Highlands: The Anthracological Sequence of El Gigante Rockshelter (11,000–1000 BP)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Holocene pollen sequences have highlighted several episodes of vegetation opening in Central America since the Archaic period, which have often been related to the dispersal of nomadic slash-and-burn agriculturalists from the Central Mexican Highlands. However, few archaeobotanical data from archaeological sites have been available to date to examine woodland changes in relation to prehistoric occupations in the Highlands. El Gigante Rockshelter, Honduras, was occupied in intermittent phases over the last eleven millennia according to excavations conducted in 2001–2002 by Pennsylvania State University. The anthracological (charcoal) analysis of this long and well-established sequence allows us to explore changes in the fuel economy of these populations as a result of climatic, ecological, economic, and cultural changes from the Paleoindian to the Classic period. This unique case study helps us understand the processes of anthropogenic landscapes construction in prehistoric Mesoamerica.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37078.0