Historical Tropical Forest Reliance amongst the Wanniyalaeto (Vedda) of Sri Lanka: an Isotopic Perspective

Headland and Bailey (1991) argued in Human Ecology that tropical forests could not support long-term human foraging in the absence of agriculture. Part of their thesis was based on the fact that supposedly isolated ‘forest’ foragers, such as the Wanniyalaeto (or Vedda) peoples of Sri Lanka, could be demonstrated to be enmeshed within historical trade networks and rely on crops as part of their overall subsistence. Yet, in the same volume and in the years that followed scholars have presented ethnographic and archaeological evidence, including from Sri Lanka, that counter this proposition, demonstrating the occupation and exploitation of tropical rainforest environments back to 38,000 years ago (ka) in this part of the world. However, archaeological and ethnohistorical research has yet to quantify the overall reliance of human foragers on tropical forest resources through time. Here, we report stable carbon and oxygen isotope data from historical Wanniyalaeto individuals from Sri Lanka, in full collaboration with the present-day members of this group, that suggest that while a number of individuals made use of agricultural resources in the recent past, others subsisted primarily on tropical forest resources as late as the 1800s.     

Terracing in the Mixteca Alta, Mexico: Cycles of Resilience of an Ancient Land-Use Strategy

Terracing is an important and ubiquitous landscape feature in the Mixteca Alta region of southern Mexico. It is a land-management strategy that has been in use for millennia, perhaps starting around 300 B.C.E. We discuss terracing as an adaptive and resilient strategy of food production and land management that continues to be culturally significant to modern-day farmers. Through the integration of archaeological, geomorphological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic data we document the history of terracing and discuss how Mixtec communities and terraces have responded to natural and cultural perturbations through millennia. We find that different stages in the history of terracing show parallels with the adaptive cycles of a resilient system.     

Feasting, Craft Specialization, and the Ritual Mode of Production in Small-Scale Societies

Economic intensification has been documented in a diversity of small-scale societies. The existing archaeological theory concerning such intensification has tended to privilege economic and political explanations and largely ignores social action and ritual performance as motivations for economic change. In this article, 1 use both ethnographic and archaeological data to argue that ceremonial feasting and the need for socially valued goods, which are critical for ritual performance and necessary for a variety of social transactions, create the demand that underwrites and sustains economic intensification in small-scale societies. Food for large-scale feasts is acquired through the intensification of food production and procurement targeted specifically for feasting, rather than from the surplus available from routine subsistence production. Large-scale demands for socially valued goods tend to result in specialization on the production of "extraordinary" material culture, which is characterized by two modes of circulation, in networks of social obligations or as offerings in sacred locations. [Key words.craft specialization, exchange, feasting, ritual]     

Notes on the Ethnogeography of the Yankton Dakota

Abstract

The study of man’s relationship to his natural environment is of increasing interest at the present time. This concern with the environment has fostered interest in cultures with simpler technologies and their uses of their environments. Because they lacked the technological advantages of later European and American invaders, such cultures usually represented a much closer response to the opportunities of the land on which they lived. The cultural ecology of one such group of American Indians, the Yankton Dakota, is examined using archaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic information. Place names still used by Yankton informants often provide valuable information regarding use of their traditional historic domain.     

The possibility of independent foraging in the rain forest of Peninsular Malaysia

This paper examines the question of whether hunter-gatherers could live in the tropical rain forest of Peninsular Malaysia without access to cultivated foods. It considers the wild food sources used by the Batek De', a contemporary foraging-trading group of Kelantan state, historical and ethnohistorical evidence concerning the Batek economy in the past, and archeological evidence for independent foraging in the Pleistocene and early Holocene. The conclusion reached is that small nomadic groups of foragers can live off wild resources alone in that environment and have done so in the past, although trade for agricultural produce makes life much easier. This suggests that nonseasonal tropical rain forests vary in their potential for supporting human foraging, depending upon the particular species of plants and animals present.     

The Organization of Male and Female Labor in Foraging Societies: Implications for Early Paleoindian Archaeology

I use cross-cultural ethnographic data to explore the relationship between male and female subsistence labor among hunter-gatherer populations by examining data regarding resource procurement, time allocation, and task differentiation between the sexes relative to dependence on hunted foods. The findings indicate that female foragers generally perform a variety of nonsubsistence collection activities and preferentially procure high-return resources in hunting-based economies. I develop ideas about predictable relationships concerning the amount of time female foragers expend on subsistence and technological tasks relative to the dietary contribution of meat. I then use ethnographic trends to evaluate archaeological assumptions regarding the sexual division of labor in prehistoric foraging contexts, focusing on the dichotomous views of Clovis labor organization. I argue that archaeological interpretations of prehistoric labor roles in hunting-based foraging societies are commonly polarized between stereotypical views of male and female subsistence behaviors. I develop an interpretation of Early Paleoindian labor organization, emphasizing female labor in the production of material goods and the procurement of low-risk plant and animal resources based on global economic trends among foragers.     

Osteological evidence for smallpox: a possible case from seventeenth century Ontario

Identification of possible osteomyelitis variolosa in a Neutral Indian cemetery dated to just before A.D. 1650 provides the first recognition of smallpox in an archaeological context. The radiological literature is reviewed to support the identification. The ethnohistorical literature is at odds with the evidence presented and the historical background is briefly discussed, together with the ambiguities and contradictions in both primary and secondary sources.     

Robusticity and sexual dimorphism in the postcranium of modern hunter-gatherers from Australia

Throughout much of prehistory, humans practiced a hunting and gathering subsistence strategy. Elevated postcranial robusticity and sexually dimorphic mobility patterns are presumed consequences of this strategy, in which males are attributed greater robusticity and mobility than females. Much of the basis for these trends originates from populations where skeletal correlates of activity patterns are known (e.g., cross-sectional geometric properties of long bones), but in which activity patterns are inferred using evidence such as archaeological records (e.g., Pleistocene Europe). Australian hunter-gatherers provide an opportunity to critically assess these ideas since ethnographic documentation of their activity patterns is available. We address the following questions: do skeletal indicators of Australian hunter-gatherers express elevated postcranial robusticity and sexually dimorphic mobility relative to populations from similar latitudes, and do ethnographic accounts support these findings. Using computed tomography, cross-sectional images were obtained from 149 skeletal elements including humeri, radii, ulnae, femora, and tibiae. Cross-sectional geometric properties were calculated from image data and standardized for body size. Australian hunter-gatherers often have reduced robusticity at femoral and humeral midshafts relative to forager (Khoi-San), agricultural/industrialized (Zulu), and industrialized (African American) groups. Australian hunter-gatherers display more sexual dimorphism in upper limb robusticity than lower limb robusticity. Attributing specific behavioral causes to upper limb sexual dimorphism is premature, although ethnographic accounts support sex-specific differences in tool use. Virtually absent sexual dimorphism in lower limb robusticity is consistent with ethnographic accounts of equivalently high mobility among females and males. Thus, elevated postcranial robusticity and sexually dimorphic mobility do not always characterize hunter-gatherers.     

Shellfish, Gender, and Status on the Northwest Coast: Reconciling Archeological, Ethnographic, and Ethnohistorical Records of the Tlingit

Archeological, ethnographic, and ethnohistorical data provide ambiguous evidence of the dietary and economic importance of shellfish in Northwest Coast cultures. In the case of the Tlingit, I find that understanding shellfish from an emic perspective is critical to reconciling these equivocal data on economic importance. The Tlingit associated shellfish with poverty, laziness, and ritual impurity, and those who sought to be "ideal" persons avoided shellfish. An individual's rank and gender determined the degree to which such dietary guidelines were actually followed. The social and symbolic meaning of shellfish in Tlingit culture is partly explained by ecological factors, including the danger of paralytic shellfish poisoning. The analysis also reveals a number of biases inherent in the ethnographic and archeological data.     

Reconstructing the history of residence strategies in Indo-European-speaking societies: neo-, uxori-, and virilocality

Linguists and archaeologists have used reconstructions of early Indo-European residence strategies to constrain hypotheses about the homeland and trajectory of dispersal of Indo-European languages; however, these reconstructions are largely based on unsystematic and a historical use of the linguistic and ethnographic evidence, coupled with substantial bias in interpretation. Here I use cross-cultural data in a phylogenetic comparative framework to reconstruct the pattern of change in residence strategies in the history of societies speaking Indo-European languages. The analysis provides evidence in support of prevailing virilocality with alternative neolocality for Proto-Indo-European, and that this pattern may have extended back to Proto-Indo-Hittite. These findings bolster interpretations of the archaeological evidence that emphasize the "non-matricentric" structure of early Indo-European society; however, they also counter the notion that early Indo-European society was strongly "patricentric." I discuss implications of these findings in the context of the archaeological and genetic evidence on prehistoric social organization.     

Violence and weapon‐related trauma at Puruchuco‐Huaquerones,Peru

Conquest of indigenous peoples in North America is understood primarily through ethnohistorical documents, archaeological evidence, and osteological analyses. However, in the Central Andes, the colonial enterprise and its effects are understood only from postcontact historical and ethnohistorical sources. Few archaeological and bioarchaeological studies have investigated Spanish Conquest and colonialism in the Andean region [for exceptions see Klaus and Tam: Am J Phys Anthropol 138 (2009) 356–368; Wernke, in press ; and Quilter, in press ]. Here we describe bioarchaeological evidence of violence from the cemeteries of Huaquerones and 57AS03 within the archaeological zone of Puruchuco‐Huaquerones, Peru (circa A.D. 1470–1540). A total of 258 individuals greater than 15 years of age were analyzed for evidence of traumatic injuries. Individuals were examined macroscopically and evidence of traumatic injuries was analyzed according to the skeletal element involved, the location of the injury on the skeletal element, and any additional complications of the injury. This study examines and compares the evidence of perimortem injuries on skeletonized individuals from the two cemeteries and focuses specifically on the interpretation of weapon‐related perimortem injuries. Evidence of perimortem trauma is present in both cemeteries (18.6%, 48/258); however, the frequency of injuries in 57AS03 is greater than that in Huaquerones (25.0% vs. 13.0%). Several injuries from 57AS03 are consistent with documented cases of injuries from firearms and 16th Century European weapons. We believe that the nature and high frequency of perimortem trauma at 57AS03 provide evidence of the violence that occurred with Spanish Conquest of the Inca Empire. Am J Phys Anthropol 142:636–649, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Archaeology,demography and life history theory together can help us explain past and present population patterns

Population matters. Demographic patterns are both a cause and a consequence of human behaviour in other important domains, such as subsistence, cooperation, politics and culture. Demographers interested in contemporary and recent historical populations have rich data at their fingertips; the importance of demography means many interested parties have gathered demographic data, much of which is now readily available for all to explore. Those interested in the demography of the distant past are not so fortunate, given the lack of written records. Nevertheless, the emergence in recent years of a new interest in the demography of ancient populations has seen the development of a range of new methods for piecing together archaeological, skeletal and DNA evidence to reconstruct past population patterns. These efforts have found evidence in support of the view that the relatively low long-term population growth rates of prehistoric human populations, albeit ultimately conditioned by carrying capacities, may have been owing to ‘boom–bust’ cycles at the regional level; rapid population growth, followed by population decline. In fact, this archaeological research may have come to the same conclusion as some contemporary demographers: that demography can be remarkably hard to predict, at least in the short term. It also fits with evidence from biology that primates, and particularly humans, may be adapted to environmental variability, leading to associated demographic stochasticity. This evidence of the fluctuating nature of human demographic patterns may be of considerable significance in understanding our species'' evolution, and of understanding what our species future demographic trajectories might be.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Cross-disciplinary approaches to prehistoric demography’.     

Why are population growth rate estimates of past and present hunter–gatherers so different?

Hunter–gatherer population growth rate estimates extracted from archaeological proxies and ethnographic data show remarkable differences, as archaeological estimates are orders of magnitude smaller than ethnographic and historical estimates. This could imply that prehistoric hunter–gatherers were demographically different from recent hunter–gatherers. However, we show that the resolution of archaeological human population proxies is not sufficiently high to detect actual population dynamics and growth rates that can be observed in the historical and ethnographic data. We argue that archaeological and ethnographic population growth rates measure different things; therefore, they are not directly comparable. While ethnographic growth rate estimates of hunter–gatherer populations are directly linked to underlying demographic parameters, archaeological estimates track changes in the long-term mean population size, which reflects changes in the environmental productivity that provide the ultimate constraint for forager population growth. We further argue that because of this constraining effect, hunter–gatherer populations cannot exhibit long-term growth independently of increasing environmental productivity.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Cross-disciplinary approaches to prehistoric demography’.     

The Innovative Materiality of Revitalization Movements: Lessons from the Pueblo Revolt of 1680

ABSTRACT  Although Wallace's revitalization movement model has been successfully utilized in scores of ethnographic and ethnohistorical studies of societies throughout the world, revitalization is considerably less well documented in archaeological contexts. An examination of the materiality of revitalization movements affords an opportunity to redress this lack by investigating how material culture creates and constrains revitalization phenomena. In this article, I reconsider the revitalization model through a case study focusing on the archaeology of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, emphasizing the central role of materiality in the formation and mediation of these movements. In doing so, I examine the archaeological signatures of revitalization movements, concluding that they are highly negotiated and heterogeneous phenomena and that the materiality of these episodes cultivates cultural innovation. I also seek to demonstrate that the distinctive types of material culture produced through revitalization are not epiphenomenal but, rather, are crucially constitutive of revitalizing processes.     

Integrating Modern Vegetation and Ethnographic Data to Understand Dietary Choices in the Past: the Case of the Southern Paiute,Utah

Ethnographic information on dietary plants can be cast into an ecological framework by using vegetation sampling techniques. Lists of ethnobotanical species become the basis of a dietary inventory that applies to a regional assemblage of vegetation types in a landscape associated with an archaeological site. But such lists are usually derived from many sources often without biogeographic or temporal reference. In effect, the dietary inventory represents potential food plants that may ultimately be found in archaeological deposits. The dietary palette, however, is composed of plant species that actually occur within the greater landscape of an archaeological site and that may or may not be known from the ethnographic record. Vegetation sampling provides a quantitative assessment of the dietary palette in the local ecosystem by using standard metrics, such as plant cover, basal area, density, and even productivity. By comparing vegetation data to the dietary inventory and archaeobotanical record, general patterns of foraging behavior as predicted by behavioral ecology are verified. This study of the Southern Paiute in south-central Utah also compares the plant species composition of modern and ancient landscapes, emphasizing a lack of correspondence between the dietary inventory and the dietary palette, as well as with the archaeobotanical record. Our example is from North Creek Shelter, a well-stratified archaeological site on the Colorado Plateau.     

House to Palace, Village to State: Scaling up Architecture and Ideology

It would seem desirable for any state to gum an ideological foothold in local knowledge and symbols to facilitate the assimilation of its order by average citizens and to argue for its legitimacy. However, given the "lived reality" of local knowledge and Us practical and symbolic "efficacy," as guaranteed in part through the skills of ritual specialise not in the service of the skiie. the introduction and maintenance of state ideology is neither an issue of facile appropriation o/local symbols nor a straightforward imposition on local knowledge. The complexity of the architectural and ideological scaling up from traditional house to "palace" and polity are discussed lor nineteenth-century Imerina, Madagascar, using ethnohistorical. archaeological, and ethnographic information. We attempt to present this argument through the use of evocative concrete imagery, one stylistic aspect of local knowledge, rather than through an exclusive use of analytical, abstract declarations. [Madagascar, symbolic organization of space, state origins, ideology, local knowledge]     

中国晚更新世—早全新世过渡期狩猎采集者的适应变迁

晚更新世之末到全新世之初是史前人类适应行为发生急剧改变的重要时期,其代表性的变化就是食物生产的起源。考古发现的证据与生态模拟的预测、推导相对比,显示出良好的耦合性。考古证据还显示这个时期的狩猎采集者采用了多样的适应模式以应对环境变化的挑战,食物生产并非唯一的选择;与此同时,食物生产的产生对环境和文化系统的初始条件具有强烈的依赖性。尽管晚更新世之末迅速的环境变化促进了食物生产的起源,但是考古材料与模拟的耦合、狩猎采集者适应变迁的多样性、食物生产起源的特殊机制都显示出这个时期的人类文化行为系统在生计模式的选择之间保持着一定的张力,以最好地适应环境的变化。     

Optimization of DNA Recovery and Amplification from Non-Carbonized Archaeobotanical Remains

Ancient DNA (aDNA) recovered from archaeobotanical remains can provide key insights into many prominent archaeological research questions, including processes of domestication, past subsistence strategies, and human interactions with the environment. However, it is often difficult to isolate aDNA from ancient plant materials, and furthermore, such DNA extracts frequently contain inhibitory substances that preclude successful PCR amplification. In the age of high-throughput sequencing, this problem is even more significant because each additional endogenous aDNA molecule improves analytical resolution. Therefore, in this paper, we compare a variety of DNA extraction techniques on primarily desiccated archaeobotanical remains and identify which method consistently yields the greatest amount of purified DNA. In addition, we test five DNA polymerases to determine how well they replicate DNA extracted from non-charred ancient plant remains. Based upon the criteria of resistance to enzymatic inhibition, behavior in quantitative real-time PCR, replication fidelity, and compatibility with aDNA damage, we conclude these polymerases have nuanced properties, requiring researchers to make educated decisions as to which one to use for a given task. The experimental findings should prove useful to the aDNA and archaeological communities by guiding future research methodologies and ensuring precious archaeobotanical remains are studied in optimal ways, and may thereby yield important new perspectives on the interactions between humans and past plant communities.     

Did pre-Columbian populations of the Amazonian biome reach carrying capacity during the Late Holocene?

The increasingly better-known archaeological record of the Amazon basin, the Orinoco basin and the Guianas both questions the long-standing premise of a pristine tropical rainforest environment and also provides evidence for major biome-scale cultural and technological transitions prior to European colonization. Associated changes in pre-Columbian human population size and density, however, are poorly known and often estimated on the basis of unreliable assumptions and guesswork. Drawing on recent developments in the aggregate analysis of large radiocarbon databases, here we present and examine different proxies for relative population change between 1050 BC and AD 1500 within this broad region. By using a robust model testing approach, our analyses document that the growth of pre-Columbian human population over the 1700 years prior to European colonization adheres to a logistic model of demographic growth. This suggests that, at an aggregate level, these pre-Columbian populations had potentially reached carrying capacity (however high) before the onset of European colonization. Our analyses also demonstrate that this aggregate scenario shows considerable variability when projected geographically, highlighting significant gaps in archaeological knowledge yet also providing important insights into the resilience of past human food procurement strategies. By offering a new understanding of biome-wide pre-Columbian demographic trends based on empirical evidence, our analysis hopes to unfetter novel perspectives on demic expansions, language diversification trajectories and subsistence intensification processes in the Amazonian biome during the late Holocene.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Cross-disciplinary approaches to prehistoric demography’.