Revealing La Playa's Cultural Landscape during the Early Agriculture Period through Paleoethnobotanical Research

Summary

This is an abstract from the "13,000 Years of Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa, Sonora" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper presents a reconstruction of the cultural landscape of the La Playa Site in Sonora (SON F:10:3) during the Early Agriculture period (3450–1800 BP). We employ a paleoethnobotanical approach, analyzing 150 macrobotanical samples alongside ethnobotanical investigations, ethnographic data, and oral tradition from the O’Odham and Comcaac Indigenous communities. Cultural landscapes represent the amalgamation of human activities, values, and knowledge intertwined with natural features that carry profound symbolic, historical, and social significance, reflecting the intricate relationship between communities and their environments. Our study yields a holistic understanding of past plant utilization for subsistence, aiding in landscape reconstruction and shedding light on archaeological feature functions. The Early Agriculture period in north Mexican archaeology represents the introduction of Mesoamerican crops, reshaping cultural landscapes, impacting diets, fostering interactions among diverse groups, and promoting innovative knowledge and technologies, sedentarism and population growth. Results highlight widespread maize adoption and utilization, along with over 30 different plant taxa, predominantly weedy plants, crucial for subsistence and offering insights into a modified cultural landscape with cultivated fields and irrigation canals. This research enriches our understanding of historical human-environment interactions, providing valuable insights into cultural and agricultural practices during this transformative period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• 13,000 Years of Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa, Sonora   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38938.0