Journal ArticleDOI
Plants, People, and Culture in the Prehistoric Central Bahamas: A View from the Three Dog Site, an Early Lucayan Settlement on San Salvador Island, Bahamas
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Paleoethnobotanical remains from the Three Dog site (SS-21), an early Lucayan site located on San Salvador, Bahamas, are presented and compared to data from other prehistoric Caribbean sites as mentioned in this paper.Abstract:
Paleoethnobotanical remains from the Three Dog site (SS-21), an early Lucayan site located on San Salvador, Bahamas, are presented and compared to data from other prehistoric Caribbean sites. Flotation, in situ, and screen recovery (1/16", 1.58 mm) revealed six taxa of fuelwood and charred Sapotaceae seed fragments. Preliminary SEM analysis of six chert microliths revealed possible evidence of the Caribbean aroid, Xanthosoma sp. (cocoyam, malanga, yautia) or Zamia sp. The presence of Sapotaceae and possibly Xanthosoma sp. or Zamia sp. in the archaeobotanical record can be attributed to a number of alternative explanations. The site"s inhabitants may have transported these plants from their homelands and transplanted them to home gardens. An alternative view is that they exploited or managed wild representatives or created disturbed habitats that encouraged the spread of wild or cultivated forms. The pollen data from two Bahama cores, one from Andros, the other from San Salvador, reflect anthropogenic disturbance during the prehistoric occupational sequence. The increasing frequency of Sapotaceae pollen in the San Salvador sequence is consistent with the occurrence of Sapotaceae at the Three Dog site. Finally, preservation- and recovery-related issues are discussed. The study suggests that multiple means of data recovery must be employed to gain a more representative picture of prehistoric Caribbean plant use and floristic environment.read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
Starch Fossils and the Domestication and Dispersal of Chili Peppers (Capsicum spp. L.) in the Americas
Linda Perry,Ruth Dickau,Sonia Zarrillo,Irene Holst,Deborah M. Pearsall,Dolores R. Piperno,Dolores R. Piperno,Mary Jane Berman,Richard G. Cooke,Kurt Rademaker,Anthony J. Ranere,J. Scott Raymond,Daniel H. Sandweiss,Franz Scaramelli,Kay Tarble,James A. Zeidler +15 more
TL;DR: A genus-specific starch morphotype is reported that provides a means to identify chili peppers from archaeological contexts and trace both their domestication and dispersal.
Journal ArticleDOI
New insights into the consumption of maize and other food plants in the pre-Columbian Caribbean from starch grains trapped in human dental calculus
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used human dental calculus from the pre-Columbian insular Caribbean (dating to ca. 350 B.C. to A.D. 1600) to identify important plant foods in the diet and assess potential dietary differences related to age or sex.
Journal ArticleDOI
Fox-tail Millets (Setaria: Poaceae)—Abandoned Food in Two Hemispheres
TL;DR: A survey of anthropological, archaeological, botanical, and historical literature reveals that two species of fox-tail millet were domesticated in the Old World (S. italica, S. pumila), and one may have been domestication in the New World ( S. parviflora), and others were prehistorically and historically gathered and eaten as cereal starch sources.
Journal ArticleDOI
Prehistory of Native Americans on the Central American Land Bridge: Colonization, Dispersal, and Divergence
TL;DR: The first waves of human immigration at the end of the Pleistocene, according to the field record, is characterized by the transfer of crops, technologies, and goods, until ca.1400 BP when speakers of Mesoamerican languages occupied the northwestern edge (Gran Nicoya) of the Central American land bridge as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Early Spanish Main
Carlos Melendez,Carl O. Sauer +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the discovery of Espanola under Christopher Columbus and the last venture of Veragua is described, followed by the Indian langs of farther Castilla del Oro (1514-1519).
References
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Book
Formation processes of the archaeological record
TL;DR: The authors synthesize the most important principles of cultural and environmental formation processes for both students and practicing archaeologists, and provide a valuable checklist of sources of variability when observations on the archaeological record are used to justify inferences.
Book
Paleoethnobotany: A Handbook of Procedures
TL;DR: Paleo-ethnobotany is the study of human-plant interactions throughout history as mentioned in this paper, and it has been studied extensively in the field of botany and anthropology.
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How Chiefs Come to Power: The Political Economy in Prehistory
TL;DR: The long-term developments of three chiefdoms: Denmark, Hawaii, and the Andes were studied in this paper, where the nature of political power was discussed and the sources of economic power were identified.
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The Origins of Agriculture in the Lowland Neotropics
TL;DR: In this article, the Phytogeography of Neotropical Crops and their putative wild Ancestors are discussed. And the relationship between Neotropic Food Production and Food Production from Other Areas of the World is discussed.