Although geneticists and archaeologists continue to make progress world-wide in documenting the time and place of the initial domestication of a growing number of plants and animals, far less is known regarding the critically important context of coalescence of various species into distinctive sets or complexes of domesticates in each of the world's 10 or more independent centers of agricultural origin. In this article, the initial emergence of a crop complex is described for one of the best-documented of these independent centers, eastern North America (ENA). Before 4000 B.P. there is no indication of a crop complex in ENA, only isolated evidence for single indigenous domesticate species. By 3800 B.P., however, at least 5 domesticated seed-bearing plants formed a coherent complex in the river valley corridors of ENA. Accelerator mass spectrometer radiocarbon dates and reanalysis of archaeobotanical assemblages from a short occupation of the Riverton Site in Illinois documents the contemporary cultivation at 3800 B.P. of domesticated bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria), marshelder (Iva annua var. macrocarpa), sunflower (Helianthus annuus var. macrocarpus), and 2 cultivated varieties of chenopod (Chenopodium berlandieri), as well as the possible cultivation of Cucurbita pepo squash and little barley (Hordeum pusillum). Rather than marking either an abrupt developmental break or a necessary response to population-packing or compressed resource catchments, the coalescence of an initial crop complex in ENA appears to reflect an integrated expansion and enhancement of preexisting hunting and gathering economies that took place within a context of stable long-term adaptation to resource-rich river valley settings.agriculture ͉ archaeology ͉ Chenopodium ͉ domestication M arking a major evolutionary episode in human history, the transition from hunting and gathering to agricultural economies spanned several millennia and occurred independently in 10 or more different world regions, including eastern North America (ENA) (1) (Fig. 1). In each of these independent centers, this long transition began with the initial domestication of a number of indigenous wild progenitor species. These different domesticates eventually were coalesced to form regionally distinctive complexes of domesticates and low-level food production economies. As a result of parallel and often crossilluminating efforts by geneticists and archaeologists over the past several decades, we are gaining a much clearer idea of where and when domestication of different individual species of plants and animals occurred (3, 4). Much less is currently known, however, about the equally important process that led to numbers of different species being brought together to form coherent distinctive domesticate complexes in different world regions. When did such domesticate complexes initially develop? What was the identity and relative importance of each complex's different constituent species? What can be said regarding the environmental and cultural context of coalesc...
Scovill is a Weaver focus site in west-central Illinois. Various techniques were employed to extract maximal amounts and kinds of food remains from the site, and these remains, identified and quantified, are then compared with the estimated food potential from the 10 mi2 area surrounding the site in an attempt to determine both the ecology and the subsistence pattern of the inhabitants. Certain hypotheses concerning the overall settlement-subsistence system of the Weaver focus are presented, and problems involved in the recovery, differential preservation, and quantification of archaeological food remains from open sites are discussed.
Reconnaissance, surface collecting, and test excavation were carried on in Salts Cave in August, 1963, by a joint Illinois State Museum-Cave Research Foundation expedition in cooperation with the National Park Service. Various analyses and secondary investigations have continued since then. The main upper passages of the cave were extensively visited during the last millennium B.C. by a prehistoric people who are probably to be assigned to the Early Woodland culture grouping. They were exploiting the mineral resources of the cave, primarily sulfate crystalline deposits, at least one of which is cathartic. Some individuals penetrated nearly two miles into the cave, using cane torches. Quantities of prehistoric, dried human feces are available and are yielding important dietary information. The people were apparently cultivating some plant species, including sunflower (Heliarn thus annus) and two members of the classic tropical horticultural complex, squash and gourd (Cucurbita pepo and Lagenarid siceraria). There is as yet no evidence that they grew or used maize (Zea mays).
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