The Cultural Context of Plant Domestication in Eastern North America

• Published in: Current anthropology 2011-10, Vol.52 (S4), p.S471-S484
• Main Author: Smith, Bruce D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agricultural history; Agriculture; America and Arctic regions; American Indians; Amerindians; Archaeobotany; Archaeological research; Conferences; Crops; Environmental studies; Excavations; Farming systems; Flora; Forest areas; Generalities; Geographic regions; Material culture; Methodology and general studies; Native species; North America; Paleobotany; Paleoecology; Pepos; Plant domestication; Plant propagation; Plants; Prehistoric economies; Prehistory and protohistory; Seeds; Sociocultural Factors; Sunflowers; Temperate regions; Valleys
• ISSN: 0011-3204; 1537-5382
• DOI: 10.1086/659645

The timing and sequence of the independent domestication of indigenous eastern North American seed plants (Cucurbita pepo,Helianthus annuus,Iva annua,Chenopodium berlandieri) and the subsequent development of a crop complex are discussed within a broader environmental and cultural context. The settlements that have yielded the earliest record of eastern domesticates are all small and situated in resource-rich lower-order river valley corridors within oak-savannah and oak-hickory forest regions. Well-preserved floral and faunal assemblages indicate continued substantial reliance on a wide range of wild species with no evidence of resource depletion. Similarly, there is no indication of landscape packing in terms of high site density in these resource-rich river valleys, calling into question developmental models of domestication and agricultural origins that rely on population pressure or resource imbalance as causal factors.