Geophyte field processing, storage, and women’s decision-making in hunter-gatherer societies: An archaeological case study from western North America

Fulkerson, Tiffany J.; Tushingham, Shannon

doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2021.101299

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 32 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The preparation and storage of foods by delayed return huntergatherers was intensive work (Fulkerson and Tushingham, 2021). Those who were willing to put in the work required to store foods would also have been interested in minimizing the uncertainties of their procurement.…”

Section: Place-based Research and Focal Habitatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pre-contact Indigenous fire stewardship: a research framework and application to a Pacific Northwest temperate rainforest

Coughlan,

Johnston,

Derr

et al. 2024

Front. Environ. Archaeol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Fire is a key disturbance process that shapes the structure and function of montane temperate rainforest in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). Recent research is revealing more frequent historical fire activity in the western central Cascades than expected by conventional theory. Indigenous peoples have lived in the PNW for millennia. However, Indigenous people's roles in shaping vegetation mosaics in montane temperate forests of the PNW has been overlooked, despite archaeological evidence of long-term, continuous human use of these landscapes. In this paper, we present a generalizable research framework for overcoming biases often inherent in historical fire research. The framework centers Indigenous perspectives and ethnohistory, leveraging theory in human ecology and archaeology to interpret fire histories. We apply this framework to place-based, empirical evidence of Indigenous land use and dendroecological fire history. Our framework leads us to conclude that the most parsimonious explanation for the occurrence of historical high fire frequency in the western Cascades is Indigenous fire stewardship. Further, our case study makes apparent that scholars can no longer ignore the role of Indigenous people in driving montane forest dynamics in the PNW.

show abstract

Section: Place-based Research and Focal Habitatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pre-contact Indigenous fire stewardship: a research framework and application to a Pacific Northwest temperate rainforest

Coughlan,

Johnston,

Derr

et al. 2024

Front. Environ. Archaeol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Previous research has established that camas has been consumed for over 8000 years [30], was traded [25] and had peaks and nadirs in consumption [37]. Camas production and storage is widely assumed to have been intensified by 4000-3000 years ago within the Columbia Plateau [37,38].…”

Section: Human Relationships With Camas Life Cyclesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Harvesting strategies as evidence for 4000 years of camas ( Camassia quamash ) management in the North American Columbia Plateau

Carney

Tushingham

McLaughlin³

et al. 2021

R. Soc. open sci.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

One of the greatest archaeological enigmas is in understanding the role of decision-making, intentionality and interventions in plant life cycles by foraging peoples in transitions to and from low-level food production practices. We bring together archaeological, palaeoclimatological and botanical data to explore relationships over the past 4000 years between people and camas ( Camassia quamash ), a perennial geophyte with an edible bulb common across the North American Pacific Northwest. In this region throughout the late Holocene, people began experimenting with selective harvesting practices through targeting sexually mature bulbs by 3500 cal BP, with bulb harvesting practices akin to ethnographic descriptions firmly established by 1000 cal BP. While we find no evidence that such interventions lead to a selection for larger bulbs or a reduction in time to maturity, archaeological bulbs do exhibit several other domestication syndrome traits. This establishes considerable continuity to human intervention into camas life cycles, but these dynamic relationships did not result in unequivocal morphological indications of domestication. This approach to tracking forager plant management practices offers an alternative explanatory framework to conventional management studies, supplements oral histories of Indigenous traditional resource management and can be applied to other vegetatively propagated species.

show abstract

“…Key root crops in the interior Plateau such as camas, which is traditionally cooked in pit ovens/roasting pit features, has been documented in many places (Ames & Marshall, 1980; Thoms, 1989; Thoms, 1998; Thoms, 2008). Roots figure prominently in key Plateau archaeological sequences (e.g., Ames & Marshall, 1980; Lepofsky & Peacock, 2004, p. 115; Peacock, 1998; see also Fulkerson & Tushingham, 2021, table 3; and references therein), and are recognized as being perhaps even more important than salmon in driving many regional cultural changes (Ames & Marshall, 1980). On the Southern (Columbia) Plateau, there is evidence of root procurement and processing as early as 6500–5500 BP, of widespread intensification by around 4500 BP (Andrefsky, 2004; Andrefsky et al, 2000; Goodale et al, 2004; Thoms, 1989), and selective harvesting by 3500 BP (Carney et al, 2021).…”

Section: Archaeological Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

How ancestral subsistence strategies solve salmon starvation and the “protein problem” of Pacific Rim resources

Tushingham

Barton

Bettinger

2021

American J Phys Anthropol

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article provides a theoretical treatment of hunter-gatherer diet and physiology.Through a synthesis of nutritional studies, informed by ethno-archaeological data, we examine the risk of protein-rich diets for human survival, and how societies circumvent "salmon starvation" in the northeastern Pacific Rim. Fundamental nutritional constraints associated with salmon storage and consumption counter long-standing assumptions about the engine of cultural evolution in the region. Excess consumption of lean meat can lead to protein poisoning, termed by early explorers "rabbit starvation." While consumption of fats and carbohydrates is widely portrayed as a pathway to "offsetting" protein thresholds, there are true limits to the amount of protein individuals can consume, and constraints are most extreme for smaller individuals, children, and pregnant/nursing mothers. While this problem is not usually perceived as associated with fish, the risk of protein poisoning limits the amount of low-fat fish that people can eat safely. Compared with smaller, mass-harvested species (e.g., eulachon), dried salmon are exceedingly lean.Under certain circumstances fattier foods (small forage fish, marine mammals, whales, and even bears) or carbohydrate-rich plants may have been preferred not just for taste but to circumvent this "dietary protein ceiling." Simply put, "salmon specialization" cannot evolve without access to complimentary caloric energy through fat-rich or carbohydrate-rich resources. By extension, the evolution of storage-based societies requires this problem be solved prior to or in tandem with-salmon intensification. Without such solutions, increased mortality and reproductive rates would have made salmon reliance unsustainable. This insight is in line with genomic research suggesting protein toxicity avoidance was a powerful evolutionary force, possibly linked to genetic adaptations among First Americans. It is also relevant to evaluating the plausibility of other purportedly "focal" economies and informs understanding of the many solutions varied global societies have engineered to overcome physiological protein limits.

show abstract

Geophyte field processing, storage, and women’s decision-making in hunter-gatherer societies: An archaeological case study from western North America

Cited by 7 publications

References 32 publications

Pre-contact Indigenous fire stewardship: a research framework and application to a Pacific Northwest temperate rainforest

Pre-contact Indigenous fire stewardship: a research framework and application to a Pacific Northwest temperate rainforest

Harvesting strategies as evidence for 4000 years of camas ( Camassia quamash ) management in the North American Columbia Plateau

How ancestral subsistence strategies solve salmon starvation and the “protein problem” of Pacific Rim resources

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About