scholarly journals The Role of Horticulture in the Prehistoric Apishapa Region of Southeastern Colorado

2018 ◽  
pp. 11-40
Author(s):  
Christian Zier
Keyword(s):  
Time Pressure ◽  
Arid Environment ◽  
Wild Plant ◽  
Population Increase ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
Plant Foods ◽  
Resource Diversity ◽  
Over Time

At least 40 sites in the Apishapa region of southeastern Colorado and adjacent portions of New Mexico and Oklahoma have produced evidence of prehistoric maize. Firmly dated remains range in age from Late Archaic through Late Prehistoric, with the greatest occurrence between A.D. 550 and 1350. Maize was widespread throughout the region but the remains at individual sites are typically scant. The occurrence of maize increases in frequency over time, a trend that correlates more readily with population increase than climatic variation. The long-standing hunter-gatherer economy of southeastern Colorado persisted into Late Prehistoric times and was supplemented but not replaced by maize horticulture. Over time, pressure on resources resulted in a reduction in mobility and corresponding coalescence of populations into seasonally-occupied sites in canyon areas where resource diversity and availability were greatest. Prolonged drought after A.D. 1000 resulted in abandonment of southeastern Colorado ca. A.D. 1450. A mixed hunter-gatherer and horticultural economy characterized this period, although procurement of wild plant foods and hunting (mostly small mammals) remained prevalent. The failure of maize horticulture to assume a more prominent role in Apishapa subsistence practices may reflect the marginal nature of the semi-arid environment, where even today the growing of food crops is limited both by availability of water and, in some areas, elevation.

COMPILATION AND ANALYSIS OF PRE-COLUMBIAN SETTLEMENT DATA IN THE BASIN OF MEXICO

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 197-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. J. Gorenflo
Keyword(s):  
Population Increase ◽  
Spatial Patterning ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Water Control ◽  
Basin Of Mexico ◽  
Sociocultural Evolution ◽  
Research Problems ◽  
Environmental Focus ◽  
Over Time

AbstractA key component of archaeological research in the Basin of Mexico was a series of systematic regional surveys conducted between 1960 and 1975. This essay discusses efforts to finalize settlement data generated by those surveys, and preliminary analyses of the resulting dataset that include geographic information system applications to examine patterns of settlement over time. The paper begins by reviewing the surveys and the information they produced for more than 3,900 sites. Analyses of demographics, settlement hierarchies, and environmental patterning reveal periods of slow population increase and decrease that indicate no major demographic events, but noteworthy shifts in settlement types and environmental focus. Analyses of spatial patterning reveal evidence of considerable geographic shifts in settlement over time, probable widespread reliance on irrigation throughout much of the pre-Columbian basin, likely major shifts in adaptation to the central lake system in the region, and intraregional migration as a key demographic process in settlement patterning. Amid growing understanding of pre-Columbian settlement patterns in the Basin of Mexico, this paper also defines key research problems involving demographic mobility, the role of water control in adaptation and sociocultural evolution, and implications of changing environmental emphasis in settlement patterning.

Cucurbits from Phillips Spring: New Evidence and Interpretations

1980 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 806-822 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marvin Kay ◽  
Francis B. King ◽  
Christine K. Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Nutritional Value ◽  
Cucurbita Pepo ◽  
Wild Plant ◽  
Lagenaria Siceraria ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
Plant Foods ◽  
Weighted Averages ◽  
Initial Discovery ◽  
Plausible Mechanism ◽  
New Evidence

Excavations conducted since Chomko's initial discovery in 1974 of Cucurbita pepo seeds have clarified their stratigraphic and radiometric context as well as delineated an earlier archaeological unit, the Squash and Gourd Zone, where a second cucurbit, Lagenaria siceraria, was found. The two units are Late Archaic with dates (weighted averages of radiocarbon assays) of 4257 ± 39 and 3928 ± 41 radiocarbon years B.P., respectively, and are beneath stratigraphically superior Late Archaic and Woodland units also containing cucurbits. A comparison of the early Cucurbita pepo with others from later contexts demonstrates an increasing size with time and morphology similar between the early seeds and the historic cultivar "Mandan." Nutritional value of the cucurbits, both cultigens, may have been comparable to that of other wild plant foods consumed. In any event, the cucurbits are artifacts of regional exchange mechanisms operating some 4000 years ago; the most plausible mechanism being down-the-line exchange.

Late Prehistoric Maritime Communities in Coastal Ecuador

2020 ◽  
pp. 318-348
Author(s):  
Karen E. Stothert ◽  
Maria Masucci ◽  
Benjamin Carter
Keyword(s):  
Social Organization ◽  
Marine Resources ◽  
Coastal Resources ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Southern Ecuador ◽  
Santa Elena ◽  
Over Time

Chapter 12 reviews late prehistoric maritime communities of coastal Ecuador to investigate changes in adaptation at two sites in the Santa Elena area of southern Ecuador: Loma de los Cangrejitos and Mar Bravo. The authors find changes in the distribution of population, social organization, and the role of marine resources at around 700 cal A.D. They conclude that late communities of coastal Ecuador were successful, sophisticated exploiters of coastal resources who intensified both marine and terrestrial production over time and lived in well-organized, dense, kin-based settlements. Organization varied across space and there is no clear evidence for centralization. The paper also discusses the mollusk Spondylus, which is native to this region, and its possible roles in trade and the complexity.

The use of scanning electron microscopy in interpreting chenopodium remains from three archaeological sites in northwestern Iowa

1992 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 1112-1113
Author(s):  
Douglas William Jones
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Scanning Electron Microscopy ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Chenopodium Berlandieri ◽  
Seed Identification ◽  
Level 2 ◽  
Scanning Electron

Within the past 20 years, archaeobotanical research in the Eastern United States has documented an early agricultural complex before the dominance of the Mesoamerican domesticates (corn, beans, and squash) in late prehistoric and historic agricultural systems. This early agricultural complex consisted of domesticated plants such as Iva annua var.macrocarpa (Sumpweed or Marshelder), Hellanthus annuus (Sunflower) and Chenopodium berlandieri, (Goosefoot or Lasbsquarters), and heavily utilized plants such as Polygonum erectum (Erect Knotweed), Phalaris caroliniana (May grass), and Hordeum pusillum (Little Barley).Recent research involving the use of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) specifically on Chenopodium has established diagnostic traits of wild and domesticated species seeds. This is important because carbonized or uncarbonized seeds are the most commonly recovered Chenopodium material from archaeological sites. The diagnostic seed traits assist archaeobotanists in identification of Chenopodium remains and provide a basis for evaluation of Chenopodium utilization in a culture's subsistence patterns. With the aid of SEM, an analysis of Chenopodium remains from three Late Prehistoric sites in Northwest Iowa (Blood Run [Oneota culture], Brewster [Mill Creek culture], and Chan-Ya-Ta [Mill Creek culture]) has been conducted to: 1) attempt seed identification to a species level, 2) evaluate the traits of the seeds for classification as either wild or domesticated, and 3) evaluate the role of Chenopodium utilization in both the Oneota and Mill Creek cultures.

Raza, ciencia, sociedad

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Wade
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Discourse ◽  
Human Biology ◽  
Science And Society ◽  
Race Science ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Over Time

<p class="p1"><span class="s1"><strong>Resumen </strong></span>| En este trabajo quiero presentar una cronología convencional del concepto raza que marca un movimiento en el cual raza cambia de ser una idea basada en la cultura y el medio ambiente, a ser algo biológico, inflexible y determinante, para luego volver a ser una noción que habla de la cultura<span class="s2"><strong>.</strong></span>Resumo cómo la idea de raza ha cambiado a través del tiempo, mirando necesariamente el rol que ha desempeñado la ciencia, y enfocando los diferentes discursos de índole <em>natural-cultural </em>sobre los cuerpos, el medio ambiente y el comportamiento, en los cuales las dimensiones culturales y naturales siempre coexisten<span class="s2"><strong>.</strong></span>“La naturaleza” no puede ser entendida solamente como “la biología” y ni la naturaleza ni la biología necesariamente implican sólo el determinismo, la fijeza y la inmutabilidad Estar abiertos a la coexistencia de la cultura y la naturaleza y a la mutabilidad de la naturaleza nos permite ver mejor el ámbito de acción del pensamiento racial.</p><p class="p1"><strong><em>Race, Science and Society</em></strong></p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p2"><span class="s1"><strong>Abstract </strong></span>| In this article I present and critique a standard chronology of race as, first, a concept rooted in culture and environment, and later in human biology and determinism, and finally back to culture alone<span class="s2"><strong><em>.</em></strong></span>I will outline changing understandings of race over time, with some attention to the role of science, broadly understood, and on the continuing but changing character of race as a natural-cultural discourse about organic bodies, environments and behavior, in which both cultural and natural dimensions always co-exist<span class="s2"><strong><em>.</em></strong></span>“Nature” is not to be understood simply as “biology,” and neither nature nor biology necessarily imply the fixity and determination that they are often assumed nowadays to involve<span class="s2"><strong><em>.</em></strong></span>Being open to the co-existence of culture and nature and the mutability of the latter allows us to better comprehend the whole range of action of racial thinking.</p>

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