Macrobotanical remains from eight archaeological sites in the Eastern Woodlands are compared to determine if there are significant trends in the paleoeconomic importance of seeds. Data obtained from feature-fill and from general midden deposits present different profiles of the significance of seeds in prehistory. It is argued that the context from which data are obtained must be considered in any discussion of the significance of that information.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AschN. B.FordR. I., and AschD. L.1972Paleoethnobotany of the Koster Site, Illinois State Museum, Reports of Investigation, 24, Springfield, Illinois.
2.
BraunE. L.1964Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America, Hafner Publishing Company, New York.
3.
ChapmanJ.1977Archaic Period Research in the Lower Little Tennessee River Valley, Department of Anthropology, University of Tennessee, Report of Investigation, 18, Knoxville.
4.
ChapmanJ.1979Archaeological Investigations at the Howard (40Mr66) and Calloway Island (40Mr41) sites, Department of Anthropology, University of Tennessee, Report of Investigation 27, Tennessee Valley Authority Publication in Anthropology, 23.
5.
ChapmanJ. and SheaA. B.1980The Archaeobotanical Record: Early Archaic Period to Contact in the Lower Little Tennessee River Valley, paper presented at the Thirty-Seventh Meeting of the Southeastern Archaeological Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana.
6.
CollinsM. A. (ed.) 1979Excavations at Four Archaic Sites in the Lower Ohio Valley, Jefferson County, Kentucky, vols. I and II, Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky, Papers in Anthropology, 1.
7.
DanielsS. G. H.1972Research Design Models, in Models in Archaeology, ClarkeD. L. (ed.), Methuen, London, pp. 201–230.
8.
DelcourtP. A.DelcourtH. R.BristerR. C., and LackeyL. E.1980Quaternary Vegetation History of the Mississippi Embayment, Quaternary Research, 13, pp. 111–132.
9.
DennellR. W.1972The Interpretation of Plant Remains: Bulgaria, in Papers in Economic Prehistory, HiggsE. S. (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 149–159.
10.
DennellR. W.1974Botanical Evidence for Prehistoric Crop Processing Activities, Journal of Archaeological Science, 1, pp. 275–284.
11.
DennellR. W.1979The Economic Importance of Plant Resources Represented in Archaeological Sites, Journal of Archaeological Science, 3, pp. 229–247.
12.
FaulknerC. H. and McColloughC. R.Maj.1978Fifth Report of the Normandy Archaeological Project: 1973 Excavations at the Banks V Site (40Cf111), Department of Anthropology, University of Tennessee, Report of Investigation, 20.
13.
FowlerM. L.1971The Origin of Plant Cultivation in the Central Mississippi Valley: A Hypothesis, in Prehistoric Agriculture, StreuverS. (ed.), Natural History Press, Garden City, New York, pp. 122–128.
14.
GeisJ. W. and BoggessW. R.1968The Prairie Penninsula: Its Origin and Significance in the Vegetational History of Central Illinios, in Quaternary of Illinois, College of Agriculture, University of Illinois, Special Publication, BergstromR. E. (ed.), 14, pp. 85–95.
15.
GreenF. J.1979Collection and Interpretation of Botanical Information from Medieval Urban Excavations in Southern England, Archaeo-Physika, 8, pp. 39–55.
16.
HallyD. J.1981Plant Preservation and the Content of Paleobotanical Samples: A Case Study, American Antiquity, 46, pp. 723–742.
17.
KeepaxC.1977Contamination of Archaeological Deposits by Seeds of Modern Origin with Particular Reference to the Use of Flotation, Journal of Archaeological Science, 4, pp. 221–229.
18.
LannieD. D.1979Ethnobotanical Analysis, in Excavations at Four Archaic Sites in the Lower Ohio Valley, Jefferson County, Kentucky, CollinsM. B.,(ed.), Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky, Occasional Papers in Anthropology, 1, Lexington, Kentucky, pp. 978–1006.
19.
MarquardtW. H.1974A Statistical Analysis of Constituents in Human Paleofecal Specimens from Mammoth Cave, in Archaeology of the Mammoth Cave Area, WatsonP. J. (ed.), Academic Press, New York, pp. 193–202.
20.
MartinA. C. and BarkleyW. D.1961Seed Identification Manual, University of California Press, Berkley, California.
21.
MinnisP. E.1981Seeds in Archaeological Sites: Sources and Some Interpretative Problems, American Antiquity, 46, pp. 143–152.
22.
MunsonP. J.1981Note on the Use and Misuse of Water-Separation (“Flotation”) for the Recovery of Small-Scale Botanical Remains, Mid-Continental Journal of Archaeology, 6, pp. 123–126.
23.
MunsonP. J.ParmaleeP. W., and YarnellR. A.1971Subsistence Ecology of Scovill, A Terminal Middle Woodland Village, American Antiquity, 36, pp. 410–431.
24.
OlsonD. G. and BarnesR. L.1974Diospyros Virginiana L. Common Persimmon, in Seeds of Woody Plants in the United States, United States Department of Agriculture Handbook, 450.
25.
RohlfF. J. and SokalR. R.1969Statistical Tables, W. H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco.
26.
SheaA. B.1978An Analysis of Plant Remains from the Middle-Woodland and Mississippian Components on the Banks V Site and a Paleoethnobotanical Study of the Native Flora of the Upper Duck Valley, in Fifth report of the Normandy Archaeological Project: 1973 Excavations at the Banks V Site (40Fc111), FaulknerC. H. and McColloughC. R.Maj. (eds.), Department of Anthropology, University of Tennessee, Report of Investigation, 20, pp. 596–699.
27.
SiegelS.1956Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, McGraw-Hill, Toronto.
28.
StrueverS.1962Implications of Vegetal Remains from an Illinois Hopewell Site, American Antiquity, 27, pp. 584–587.
29.
StrueverS.1964The Hopewell Interaction Sphere in Riverine Western Great Lakes Culture History, in Hopewellian Studies, CaldwellJ. R. and HallR. L. (eds.), Illinois State Museum Scientific Papers, 12, pp. 85–106.
30.
StrueverS.1968Flotation Techniques for the Recovery of Small-Scale Archaeological Remains; American Antiquity, 33, pp. 353–362.
31.
StrueverS. and VickeryK. D.1973The Beginnings of Cultivation in the Midwest-Riverine Area of the United States, American Anthropologist, 75, pp. 1197–1220.
32.
WatsonP. J.1976In Pursuit of Prehistoric Subsistence: A Comparative Account of Some Contemporary Flotation Techniques, Mid-Continental Journal of Archaeology, 1, pp. 77–100.
33.
WoodW. R. and JohnsonD. L.1978A Survey of Disturbance Processes in Archaeological Site Formation, in Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, vol. 1, SchifferM. B. (ed.), Academic Press, New York, pp. 315–381.
34.
WrightH. E.Jr.1968History of the Prairie Penninsula, in The Quaternary of Illinois, BergstromR. E. (ed.), College of Agriculture, University of Illinois, Special Publication, 14, pp. 78–88.
35.
YarnellR. A.1964Aboriginal Relationships Between Culture and Plant Life in the Upper Great Lakes Region, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Anthropological Papers23.
36.
YarnellR. A.1965Early Woodland Plant Remains and the Question of Cultivation, Florida Anthropologist, 18, pp. 77–82.
37.
YarnellR. A.1974Plant Food and Cultivation of the Salts Cavers, in Archaeology of the Mammoth Cave Area, WatsonP. J. (ed.), Academic Press, New York, pp. 113–122.