Cane Cultures: Investigating the Archeological Record of Rivercane Use in the Pre-Columbian Southeastern United States

This paper examines archaeological evidence for the deep-time importance of rivercane, Arundinaria sp., in the Southeastern United States through the lens of the well-preserved perishable assemblage of the Ozark Plateau in Arkansas. While we have long assumed that cane and canebrakes were critical for pre-Columbian societies in the Southeast, these archaeological data offer a new means of both quantifying that relationship and examining the ways in which we model the role of human activity in the now nearly extirpated massive canebrakes of the Southeast. I focus on the evidence for, and chronology of, both intensity and diversity of cane use in the Ozark Plateau with a look outward across the broader Southeast. In addition, I briefly examine assumptions about, and models of, pre-Columbian plant and landscape management as they relate to the canebrakes of the Southeastern United States.