Plants and Subsistence during the Fluted-Point Period of the Northeast

The role of plant foods during the fluted-point period (FPP) of North America is contested. Central to this debate is whether the scarcity of FPP macrobotanical materials stems from poor preservation of archaeological features and the macrobotanical remains they might contain or from the limited use of plants during the FPP. Employing summed probability distributions of radiocarbon date frequencies in northeastern North America, we find that FPP hearths are as common as expected, given the small number of well-dated FPP sites in the region. A second comparison shows that northeastern FPP hearths contain macrobotanical remains at a higher frequency than hearths from a region with better preservation and where small seeds formed a part of the diet. The macrobotanical materials so far recovered from FPP hearths in the Northeast show that plant foods contributed to diets during the FPP but that the plant diet breadth was relatively narrow, consistent with a specialized caribou hunting lifeway.

Ecosystem impacts by the Ancestral Puebloans of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, USA

The Ancestral Puebloans occupied Chaco Canyon, in what is now the southwestern USA, for more than a millennium and harvested useful timber and fuel from the trees of distant forests as well as local woodlands, especially juniper and pinyon pine. These pinyon juniper woodland products were an essential part of the resource base from Late Archaic times (3000–100 BC) to the Bonito phase (AD 800–1140) during the great florescence of Chacoan culture. During this vast expanse of time, the availability of portions of the woodland declined. We posit, based on pollen and macrobotanical remains, that the Chaco Canyon woodlands were substantially impacted during Late Archaic to Basketmaker II times (100 BC–AD 500) when agriculture became a major means of food production and the manufacture of pottery was introduced into the canyon. By the time of the Bonito phase, the local woodlands, especially the juniper component, had been decimated by centuries of continuous extraction of a slow-growing resource. The destabilizing impact resulting from recurrent woodland harvesting likely contributed to the environmental unpredictability and difficulty in procuring essential resources suffered by the Ancestral Puebloans prior to their ultimate departure from Chaco Canyon.

Red Panda feces from Eastern Himalaya as a modern analogue for palaeodietary and palaeoecological analyses

Modern feces samples of the endangered red panda (Ailurus fulgens) were examined using multiproxy analysis to characterize the dietary patterns in their natural habitat in India. An abundance of Bambusoideae phytoliths and leaves (macrobotanical remains) provide direct evidence of their primary dietary plants. In contrast, Bambusoideae pollen is sporadic or absent in the pollen assemblages. An abundance of Lepisorus spores and its leaves along with broadleaved taxa, Betula, Engelhardtia, and Quercus are indicative of other important food sources. Average δ13C values (− 29.6‰) of the red panda feces indicate typical C3 type of plants as the primary food source, while the, δ15N values vary in narrow range (3.3–5.1‰) but conspicuously reveal a seasonal difference in values most likely due to differing metabolic activities in summer and winter. The multiproxy data can provide a baseline for the reconstruction of the palaeodietary and palaeoecology of extinct herbivores at both regional and global scales.

New Dates and Carbon Isotope Assays of Purported Middle Woodland Maize from the Icehouse Bottom and Edwin Harness Sites

Accelerated mass spectrometry (AMS) and carbon isotope analyses provide strong tandem methodologies used by archaeologists to evaluate and reevaluate the histories of maize use in the Midwest. In this article, we present newly obtained AMS dates and carbon isotope assays of alleged maize samples from the Icehouse Bottom (40MR23) and Edwin Harness sites (22RO33). Based on original studies, samples were thought to date to the Middle Woodland period (ca. 300 BC–AD 400). The results show that samples either were not maize or date to post-AD 900. As of this finding, there are no longer any securely dated Middle Woodland macrobotanical remains of maize from the Eastern Woodlands of North America.

Holocene alluvial floodplains in Belgium: from natural to human-dominated environments

<p>Rivers and alluvial floodplains are dynamic environments that experience both natural and anthropogenic impacts. Sustainable management of these ecosystems requires a thorough understanding of the functioning of floodplains and their sensitivity to changes in driving forces, including anthropogenic land-cover change. Looking at past human-environment interactions in river catchments can help to develop such sustainable management strategies for the future.</p><p>During the Early and Middle Holocene, most floodplains in northeastern Belgium were stable environments, mainly driven by natural forces, resulting in large marshes where peat accumulated and river channels were absent or small. During the Late Holocene, these environments changed completely towards single channel meandering rivers with overbank deposits, impeding peat accumulation. These changes can to a large extent be linked to increasing human activities in the catchment. However, the timing of this change in floodplain geoecology strongly varies within and between different catchments.</p><p>Five river catchments in northeastern Belgium with varying soil properties, topographies, and durations and intensities of human impact were selected in this study, to uncover regional differences in land-cover evolution. The catchments of Dijle (750 km²), Grote Gete (300 km²) and Mombeek (90 km²) are located in the central Belgian loess belt, whereas the Grote Nete (525 km²) and Zwarte Beek catchments (50 km²) are situated in the sandy Campine region. A multi-proxy approach, including sedimentological proxies, pollen, and macrobotanical remains, was chosen to reconstruct alluvial floodplain characteristics and anthropogenic land-cover changes. We constructed a database of 27 records for these five catchments (of which 9 containing pollen, 4 containing macrobotanical remains, and 14 containing both) for which 132 radiocarbon dates in total provide a chronostratigraphic framework.</p><p>Qualitative, semi-quantitative (NMDS) and quantitative (REVEALS) analyses of the palynological data revealed regional differences in the initiation and intensity of human impact. From the Neolithic period onwards, deforestation is detected in both the loess and sandy region, although the loess belt underwent a more rapid and severe reduction of woodland. While this deforestation is accompanied by an increase in cropland in the loess region from the Bronze Age onwards, the sandy region only starts to show limited agriculture from the Iron Age onwards, related to its later and less dense human occupation.</p><p>While the amount of records and their resolution is rather low in the sandy region, the numerous and detailed records of the loess belt also allow detection of more local and short-term effects (< 200 years) of changes in human impact. A decrease in human impact during the Dark Ages, which can be related to the decreased population density in Europe during the first millennium AD, is visible: hillslope–floodplain connectivity reduced due to the regeneration of vegetation barriers, in turn lowering sediment input, which facilitated local reactivation of peat growth and regrowth of the natural alder-carr floodplain vegetation. After this temporary decrease, human impact on floodplain geoecology started to increase again up till modern times. The impact also got more direct, as peat extraction from the floodplains became common practice, especially in the sandy Campine region.</p>

LATE PLEISTOCENE SHASTA GROUND SLOTH (XENARTHRA) DUNG, DIET, AND ENVIRONMENT FROM THE SIERRA VIEJA, PRESIDIO COUNTY, TEXAS

We present new information about the Late Pleistocene Shasta ground sloth (Nothrotheriops shastensis). Spirit Eye Cave in the Sierra Vieja along the Rio Grande provides the newest evidence that the Shasta ground sloth inhabited further south in the mountains of the southwestern Trans-Pecos, Texas, than has been previously documented. The cave is one of only twelve known Nothrotheriops dung localities. During excavation of the cave, packrat middens and sloth dung were discovered. Two areas within the cave provide radiocarbon dated ground sloth dung and packrat midden macrobotanical remains which permit the reconstruction of the sloth diet and local biotic habitat at 30,800 and 12,900 calibrated YBP. The local community at 30,800 calibrated years ago was a pinyon-juniper woodland with yucca, sandpaper bush, globemallow, cactus, and barberry in the understory based on the packrat midden from the cave. The dung contents indicate that the diet of the sloth included C3 and C4 grasses along with Agave. Data for the local vegetation community and sloth diet from 12,900 years ago indicate that during this late glacial time, the region was still a pinyon-juniper woodland but also contained Celtis, Quercus, and Larrea, among other taxa.

Direct dating reveals the early history of opium poppy in western Europe

This paper aims to define the first chrono-cultural framework on the domestication and early diffusion of the opium poppy using small-sized botanical remains from archaeological sites, opening the way to directly date minute short-lived botanical samples. We produced the initial set of radiocarbon dates directly from the opium poppy remains of eleven Neolithic sites (5900–3500 cal BCE) in the central and western Mediterranean, northwestern temperate Europe, and the western Alps. When possible, we also dated the macrobotanical remains originating from the same sediment sample. In total, 22 samples were taken into account, including 12 dates directly obtained from opium poppy remains. The radiocarbon chronology ranges from 5622 to 4050 cal BCE. The results show that opium poppy is present from at least the middle of the sixth millennium in the Mediterranean, where it possibly grew naturally and was cultivated by pioneer Neolithic communities. Its dispersal outside of its native area was early, being found west of the Rhine in 5300–5200 cal BCE. It was introduced to the western Alps around 5000–4800 cal BCE, becoming widespread from the second half of the fifth millennium. This research evidences different rhythms in the introduction of opium poppy in western Europe.

Were domestic camelids present on the prehispanic South American agricultural frontier? An ancient DNA study

The southern boundary of prehispanic farming in South America occurs in central Mendoza Province, Argentina at approximately 34 degrees south latitude. Archaeological evidence of farming includes the recovery of macrobotanical remains of cultigens and isotopic chemistry of human bone. Since the 1990s, archaeologists have also hypothesized that the llama (Lama glama), a domesticated South American camelid, was also herded near the southern boundary of prehispanic farming. The remains of a wild congeneric camelid, the guanaco (Lama guanicoe), however, are common in archaeological sites throughout Mendoza Province. It is difficult to distinguish bones of the domestic llama from wild guanaco in terms of osteological morphology, and therefore, claims that llama were in geographic areas where guanaco were also present based on osteometric analysis alone remain equivocal. A recent study, for example, claimed that twenty-five percent of the camelid remains from the high elevation Andes site of Laguna del Diamante S4 were identified based on osteometric evidence as domestic llama, but guanaco are also a likely candidate since the two species overlap in size. We test the hypothesis that domesticated camelids occurred in prehispanic, southern Mendoza through analysis of ancient DNA. We generated whole mitochondrial genome datasets from 41 samples from southern Mendoza late Holocene archaeological sites, located between 450 and 3400 meters above sea level (masl). All camelid samples from those sites were identified as guanaco; thus, we have no evidence to support the hypothesis that the domestic llama occurred in prehispanic southern Mendoza.