Agriculture Is Not Inevitable: Lessons in Foodways from Precolumbian South Florida

Summary

This is an abstract from the "*SE Hope for the Future: A Message of Resiliency from Archaeological Sites in South Florida" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Some scholars have argued that the adoption of agriculture is inevitable and that Holocene climate changes forced complex societies around the world to domesticate plants and animals. But the complex cultures of precolumbian south Florida provide a rare example of persistent reliance on wild foods exclusively. Using paleobotanical data from recent research in the Calusa and Matecumbe regions, we show how wild plant and marine foods remained a significant component of ancient diets despite the adoption of agriculture in other parts of the peninsula. New attention to the dietary advantages of wild plant foraging provides additional insights into the choices made by ancient south Floridians and suggests avenues for alternative dietary choices today. In south Florida, agriculture was not inevitable and broadening our understanding of ancient food procurement strategies may provide useful examples for modern solutions to issues of food insecurity, sustainability, and resilience.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• *SE Hope for the Future: A Message of Resiliency from Archaeological Sites in South Florida   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39414.0