Lecture 12 Emergence of Agriculture in the Americas Flashcards
LAST LECTURE - TAKEAWAYS
East Asia
- Broad Spectrum Subsistence (Late Pleistocene – pre-10,000 BP) - early ceramics
- Transition to farming (Holocene transition – 9,000-7,000 BP) - continued focus on hunting
with nut collection and millet/rice use
- Emergence of Agricultural Economies (6,000/7,000-4,500 BP) - rice cultivation intensifies
Africa – a non-centre?
- Various plant and species are taken-up within an agro-pastoral package – a flexible strategy to deal with periods of aridity and resource scarcity in the Sahara and W. Africa
- Spread of agricultural economies and domestication of finger millet in southern Africaclosely linked with Bantu group migrations
Fertile Crescent, East Asia and Africa are a broad mosaic of practice
MESOAMERICAN DOMESTICATES
(mesoamerica includes mexico)
Squash x2
Maize
Beans (multiple)
Amaranth, chenopodium
(Tomatoes, cacao)
Chiles, jicama, agave
Cotton
Avocado, guajes, hog plum
Turkey
(Dog)
MESOAMERICAN ECOLOGY
- Poor preservation in Tropical lowlands
- Excellent preservation in
highland caves
periods in americas:
- ARCHAIC PERIOD: TROPICAL LOWLAND
- ARCHAIC PERIOD: SEMI-ARID HIGHLANDS
- . FORMATIVE PERIODS:
AGRICULTURE
ARCHAIC PERIOD: TROPICAL LOWLAND
10,000-8,000 BP – Hunting-Gathering-Foraging (non ceramic)
- High-mobility, low demographic density
- Focus on marine/lacustrine resources with some horticulture/agricultur?
- Stone mortars, Squash phytoliths, maize starch (8,700 BP)
8,000-4,000 BP – Increasing sedentism & food production
- Experimentation/cultivation of teosinte/maize, squash, amaranth, tomato
- Pollen indicates extensive ‘slash & burn’ field preparation (~5,500 BP)
- Increase in grinding stones, etc. show importance of plant foods
MAIZE DOMESTICATION
Genetic evidence links maize to teosinte from Balsas River Valley
Zea starch at Xihuatoxtla, 9,000BP
Teosinte pollen at San Andrés, 7,000 BP
MAIZE DOMESTICATION
First maize cobs found in Guilá Naquitz cave (highland), 6,300 BP (non-shattering)
Slow increase in size – domestication takes millennia
Maize a dietary staple by 3000 BP; widespread dependence ca. 2000-1500 BP
SPREAD OF MAIZE
Semi-domesticated forms spread
to Panama by ~7,500 BP; Andes & Amazon by ~6,500
Domesticated forms into SW USA ca. 4,000 BP
Eastern USA by 2,000 BP
Local improvements in each area
maze
- Reduced introgression from wild teosinte may have been important in
developing more productive grain varieties
ARCHAIC PERIOD: SEMI-ARID HIGHLANDS
10,000-4,000 BP –Hunter-gatherer-foragers with ‘logistical mobility’
- Dry Season: Aggregation of large communities exploiting cereals and other plants (squash, maize, chili, avocados) during peak
- Wet season: Disperse into smaller H-G groups in various ecological niches.
Wild resources form the basis for subsistence
- Deer, rabbits, peccary, turtles, cacti, pine nuts, acorns
- Cultivation of squash, bottle gourd from 10,000 BP – cultivated foods <5%
- growing dependence on plants.
FORMATIVE PERIODS:
AGRICULTURE
~4,200 BP – global drying event
Nomadic H-G gave way to settled farming - ceramic-using villagers
Agricultural economies ca. 3,500-3,000 BP
- Increase in domesticated species, decline in range of wild foods
- Landscape change: raised fields, drained fields, terraces, chinampas
- Bean domesticated ca. 2,000 BP
OLMEC
(3,500-2,500 BP
Surpluses allow for population growth and social differences
Emergence of sociopolitical complexity – local chiefdoms
Monuments: pyramids, plazas
Ritual: bloodletting, iconography
mesoamerica
Slow transition to agriculture
Food production initiated by mobile forager groups
Sedentism results from increasing intensity of cultivation
S. AMERICAN DOMESTICATES
Potatoes, sweet potatoes,
manioc
Quinoa, amaranth
Beans, lacuma, peanuts
Tomatoes, chilis
Cotton
Pineapple, cacao
Llama, Alpaca
Guinea pig
Muscovy duck
SOUTH AMERICAN
ENVIRONMENTS
Narrow coastal plain (warm, dry)
Eastern & Western Cordillera
(cooler, wetter)
Northern highlands (desert plain, rivers)
Southern highlands (Altiplano, Lake Titicaca basin), dry and cold
Tropical Amazonian rainforest
SOUTH AMERICAN ‘NON-CENTRE’
Multiple spatially diffuse areas
of food production
No common pattern for emergence or spread of domestic species
Individual cultural and ecological trajectories
Only Andean coast and highland developed true ‘agricultural economies’
AMAZONIAN TROPICS &
LOWLANDS
Tubers: Manioc, arrowroot, sweet potato, cocoyam, llerén, American yam
Legumes: yam bean
Arboriculture: Cacao
Other: Pineapple, cocona, chilis
ANDEAN COAST & HIGHLANDS
Tuber crops: potato, oca, mashwa, and ullucu,
Pseudocereals: quinoa, amaranth (later maize introduced)
Legumes: peanut, common bean, lima bean, yam bean, pacay
Others: Squash (Curcurbita maxima), Chili peppers, tomatoes, lúcuma
AGRICULTURE IN S. AMERICA
Diffuse ‘non-centre’ of domestication emerging 10,000-7,000BP
Early archaeological evidence from high-land caves or coastal desert sites
Earliest domesticates mixture of different plants (seeds, tubers, trees)
Difficult to assess reliance on domestic crops
Morphological alteration by movement outside of native range
NORTH AMERICAN DOMESTICATES
Domesticates (~5,000BP)
Goosefoot (Chenopodium berlandieri)
Marsh elder (Iva annua),
Squash (C. pepo subsp. Ovifera)
Sunflower (Helianthus annuus)
Bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria)
Cultivars (~2500BP)
Knotweed (Polygonum erectum)
Little barley (Hordeum pusillum)
Maygrass (Phalaris caroliniana)
Marsh elder Goosefoot
Pintrest.com wikipedia.com
LATE ARCHAIC NORTH AMERICA
Range of plants brought under cultivations within Oak-Savannah and Oak-Hickory forest between 5,000-3,800 BP
- Semi-permanent base camps in river valleys
- Plants adapted to grow in flooded river valleys
Predates the arrival of maize from Mesoamerica ca. 2,000 BP
but Maize only becomes important as a dietary staple ca. 900 BP
- Decline in local cultivars
EARLY EVIDENCE FOR DOMESTICATES
5,0000 BP – Philip Springs Site
- Hickory, walnut, acorns, elderberry, ragweed
- Large seeded squash seeds, bottle gourd rinds
** 4,400BP – Napolean Hollow**
- Squash rinds, goosefoot, sunflower, ragweed
- Large seeded marsh elder
CROP COMPLEX EMERGES
Riverton site, Illinois – 3,800BP
Abundant wild resources:
- fish, bivalves, and snails, while the white-tailed deer, turkey, raccoon, rabbits, and squirrels, hickory, walnut, acorns
Domesticated plants:
- Bottle gourd, marshelder, sunflower, goosefoot
- Cultivation of little barley, squash (thin rind)
Domestication and cultivation within resource rich river valleys ( a mix between wild resources and domestication, likely cultural factors
WEEDY PATHWAY TO AGRICULTURE
bery important in north america
Squash, marsh elder, sunflower and goosefoot, are each invasive “weedy” species that falls into rivers and are adapted to river-bank flooding.
Preadapted to colonizing disturbed zones of human habitation - gardens
All were collected wild prior to 4500 BP
Increasing hunter-gatherer sedentism around productive river valleys, increasing habitat for wild gourd, marsh elder and goosefoot
True ‘agriculture’ doesn’t emerge until relatively late(mixed cultivation)
- Maize agriculture established ca. 1000AD
