XIV. Poster Session
XIV. Poster Session
Session Type:
Poster
Session Date and Time:
Friday, 22 May, 2026 - 14:00 to 15:50
Location:
Harris Commons
Presentations
Abstract
14:00
Presentation Format:
Poster (in-person)
The vast wetland of the Dismal Swamp spills over the Virginia-North Carolina border and sheltered countless people escaping slavery in the antebellum period. Some runaways lived independently, subsisting deep within its tangled interior. Many others leveraged relationships with those outside of its margins to ensure their survival. Due to the requisite secrecy, few specifics on the materials and methods of such aid exist. By analyzing legal records, newspaper ads, and oral histories, I explore the ways in which Dismal Swamp locals contributed to the survival of those who took refuge there.
I argue that skills in concealment and conspiracy formed the foundation of fugitivity efforts in Southern communities near the Dismal Swamp. Intimate knowledge of the natural environment frequently underpinned these tactics. Illuminating complex, countersurveillance behaviors is particularly useful for a more multifaceted understanding of how fugitives from slavery were able to survive, both inside and outside the Dismal Swamp.
14:00
Presentation Format:
Poster (in-person)
Resource depression is difficult to detect archaeologically. Zooarchaeological analyses distinguish human and environmental impacts on historical landscapes, but modern proxy data strengthen interpretations of past resource use. Method and theory evaluating the impact of hunting pressure on archaeological white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) populations using body size analyses are well-developed. This research requires location, sex, and management strategy data from modern individuals, but this has not been extensively collected for mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus). Mule deer have long been significant to Indigenous communities. Mule deer decrease in abundance from Pueblo I to Pueblo III (750–1350 CE) in the central Mesa Verde region. Several well-supported case studies hypothesize that overhunting could explain this decline. A lack of comparative data limits further evaluation of this hypothesis. We develop a modern mule deer database and a white-tailed deer body size correction factor to better interpret hunting pressure impacts on archaeological mule deer.
14:00
Presentation Format:
Poster (in-person)
With the shifting of climate, infrastructure development and diseases, the habitat of the wild olive tree - Olea europaea var. sylvertris - faces transformation. In this ethnographic case study, I partnered with Vrtovi Lunjskih Maslina (The Olive gardens of Lun) and the many families of Lun, Croatia to investigate how ethnobotanical management practices are negotiated and how the wild olive forest (maslinik) is created in turn. Within the communal forest, grafting acted as a care practice in which ownership is claimed. Pruning, implicated in practices of grafting, develops the visual and biological landscape of the forest, as height and growth are shaped by both human and multispecies factors. After three months of interviews, participant observation, and archival research, both material care practices showed essential, not only to the tree’s biological form but also to the moral claims that define contemporary forest boundaries.
14:00
Presentation Format:
Poster (in-person)
Glassy nodules are inorganic ecofacts produced within thermal features and often found within archaeological contexts in the Middle East. They are formed as a result of high firing temperatures that melt amorphous silica and phytoliths within plants. Grasses are particularly high producers of phytoliths and, therefore, contexts containing significant amounts of burned grassy fuels (e.g. dung with processed dried grass or cereal processing waste) are likely to produce these nodules. Here, we test whether glassy nodules are the result of melted phytoliths combining into larger bodies, and we predict that higher firing temperatures will lead to larger sized nodules. We experimentally burned emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccom) at a range of temperatures and documented the amount and size of glassy nodules produced. We found there is a relationship between firing temperature and the size and number of glassy nodules.
14:00
Presentation Format:
Poster (in-person)
Plant studies in archaeological sites – archaeobotany – depend on reference collections – i.e., specimen databases – for comparative analysis that support the identification of families and genera of plants. Reference collections from herbaria provide a robust comparison because specimens are well identified by specialists. However, sampling procedures are destructive and sample sizes represent a loss of plant material in specimens. I explored the limitations of small sample sizes (< 0.1 g) for extracting pollen and phytoliths from contemporary plants. I tested the sampling strategy with fresh plants in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and smaller samples did not represent a limitation for extracting pollen and phytoliths. I sampled pollen and phytoliths from herbarium specimens in Costa Rica to develop an extended specimen network – multiple sources of information and subcollections built from a single specimen. The extended specimens represented a remarkable opportunity for encouraging collaborations between botany and archaeology.
14:00
Presentation Format:
Poster (in-person)
White sage (Salvia apiana) is marketed globally for spiritual and commercial use, yet for the Kumeyaay of northwestern Baja California it remains a living relative embedded in ceremonial practice, territorial memory, and ecological responsibility. This research examines white sage as a culturally significant plant sustained through relational harvesting practices and intergenerational knowledge transmission.
Based on ethnographic fieldwork (2021–2023), including participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and landscape walks with Kumeyaay knowledge holders, this study documents local criteria for plant health, seasonal gathering protocols, and ethical guidelines governing harvest. Findings demonstrate that traditional practices emphasize selective cutting, spatial rotation, and spiritual accountability, fostering plant regeneration and landscape continuity.
As global demand and restricted territorial access intensify, these stewardship systems face growing strain. Centering Kumeyaay ethnobotanical knowledge highlights Indigenous biocultural stewardship as essential to sustaining culturally significant flora worldwide.
14:00
Presentation Format:
Poster (in-person)
The Bribri community of Yorkín, Costa Rica, uses primarily organic agriculture. While staying in Yorkín for three weeks, I learned more about the ideologies behind this commitment, and how the Bribri community organizes and manages their farms, particularly in the face of threats from disease and climate change. This poster highlights what the Bribri community shared through structured interviews and discussions, and how this relates to research from other scholars. Respondents frequently referenced religious reasons to farm organically, in addition to economic and health rationales. In regards to farming practices, the community shared how climate change has brought unpredictable weather to the region and how fungi including monilia and sigatoka threaten cacao and bananas. The Bribri have developed organic methods to limit these effects, such as burial of infected fruits, grafting, and unique planting patterns, drawing on traditional and Western knowledge in the process.
Acknowledgment: Anaeli Medina for interview assistance.
14:00
Presentation Format:
Poster (in-person)
Prior to European settlement, grasslands - including prairies, savannas, and barrens - covered vast areas of the United States and supported biocultural landscapes shaped through long-term Indigenous presence and stewardship. Today, these systems are reduced, contributing to declines in biodiversity, pollinators, and culturally important plants central to Tribal foods, medicine, lifeways, and indigenous knowledges. This project centers ethnobotanical priorities by evaluating Midwestern prairie restorations, emphasizing seed mixes and their capacity to support culturally significant plants and their pollinator relations. We examined how prairie restoration seed mixes vary across space and time, how they differ from remnant communities, their potential relevance to Indigenous cultural and ecological needs, and ethical considerations surrounding the use of historic ethnobotanical data. Results have the potential to reestablish and maintain relationships between tribal communities and medicinal plants, bees, and the entire ecosystem through knowledge-building and future restoration efforts that promote self-sustaining harvests.
14:00
Presentation Format:
Poster (in-person)
The chinampa agroecosystem reflects a precolonial agricultural practice that persists in the wetlands of Xochimilco and contributes to the sustainability of urban wetlands and Mexico City. Due to habitat degradation and current disuse, aquatic quelites (native edible greens), our project focuses on collaboration among farmers, local residents, community organizations, as well as national and local public authorities to rescue traditional knowledge of the management and consumption of : Hydrocotyle ranunculoides (malacotl), Jaegeria bellidiflora (acacapacquílitl), Berula erecta (tzayanalquilitl), and Nasturtium officinale (berro). Participative research includes: in situ and ex situ propagation, enhancement of cultivation practices, documentation of sensorial and nutritional properties, revalorization and enrichment of traditional cuisine.
Presentations
| Abstract | |
|---|---|
| 14:00 |
Presentation Format:
Poster (in-person)
The vast wetland of the Dismal Swamp spills over the Virginia-North Carolina border and sheltered countless people escaping slavery in the antebellum period. Some runaways lived independently, subsisting deep within its tangled interior. Many others leveraged relationships with those outside of its margins to ensure their survival. Due to the requisite secrecy, few specifics on the materials and methods of such aid exist. By analyzing legal records, newspaper ads, and oral histories, I explore the ways in which Dismal Swamp locals contributed to the survival of those who took refuge there. I argue that skills in concealment and conspiracy formed the foundation of fugitivity efforts in Southern communities near the Dismal Swamp. Intimate knowledge of the natural environment frequently underpinned these tactics. Illuminating complex, countersurveillance behaviors is particularly useful for a more multifaceted understanding of how fugitives from slavery were able to survive, both inside and outside the Dismal Swamp.
|
| 14:00 |
Presentation Format:
Poster (in-person)
Resource depression is difficult to detect archaeologically. Zooarchaeological analyses distinguish human and environmental impacts on historical landscapes, but modern proxy data strengthen interpretations of past resource use. Method and theory evaluating the impact of hunting pressure on archaeological white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) populations using body size analyses are well-developed. This research requires location, sex, and management strategy data from modern individuals, but this has not been extensively collected for mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus). Mule deer have long been significant to Indigenous communities. Mule deer decrease in abundance from Pueblo I to Pueblo III (750–1350 CE) in the central Mesa Verde region. Several well-supported case studies hypothesize that overhunting could explain this decline. A lack of comparative data limits further evaluation of this hypothesis. We develop a modern mule deer database and a white-tailed deer body size correction factor to better interpret hunting pressure impacts on archaeological mule deer. |
| 14:00 |
Presentation Format:
Poster (in-person)
With the shifting of climate, infrastructure development and diseases, the habitat of the wild olive tree - Olea europaea var. sylvertris - faces transformation. In this ethnographic case study, I partnered with Vrtovi Lunjskih Maslina (The Olive gardens of Lun) and the many families of Lun, Croatia to investigate how ethnobotanical management practices are negotiated and how the wild olive forest (maslinik) is created in turn. Within the communal forest, grafting acted as a care practice in which ownership is claimed. Pruning, implicated in practices of grafting, develops the visual and biological landscape of the forest, as height and growth are shaped by both human and multispecies factors. After three months of interviews, participant observation, and archival research, both material care practices showed essential, not only to the tree’s biological form but also to the moral claims that define contemporary forest boundaries. |
| 14:00 |
Presentation Format:
Poster (in-person)
Glassy nodules are inorganic ecofacts produced within thermal features and often found within archaeological contexts in the Middle East. They are formed as a result of high firing temperatures that melt amorphous silica and phytoliths within plants. Grasses are particularly high producers of phytoliths and, therefore, contexts containing significant amounts of burned grassy fuels (e.g. dung with processed dried grass or cereal processing waste) are likely to produce these nodules. Here, we test whether glassy nodules are the result of melted phytoliths combining into larger bodies, and we predict that higher firing temperatures will lead to larger sized nodules. We experimentally burned emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccom) at a range of temperatures and documented the amount and size of glassy nodules produced. We found there is a relationship between firing temperature and the size and number of glassy nodules. |
| 14:00 |
Presentation Format:
Poster (in-person)
Plant studies in archaeological sites – archaeobotany – depend on reference collections – i.e., specimen databases – for comparative analysis that support the identification of families and genera of plants. Reference collections from herbaria provide a robust comparison because specimens are well identified by specialists. However, sampling procedures are destructive and sample sizes represent a loss of plant material in specimens. I explored the limitations of small sample sizes (< 0.1 g) for extracting pollen and phytoliths from contemporary plants. I tested the sampling strategy with fresh plants in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and smaller samples did not represent a limitation for extracting pollen and phytoliths. I sampled pollen and phytoliths from herbarium specimens in Costa Rica to develop an extended specimen network – multiple sources of information and subcollections built from a single specimen. The extended specimens represented a remarkable opportunity for encouraging collaborations between botany and archaeology. |
| 14:00 |
Presentation Format:
Poster (in-person)
White sage (Salvia apiana) is marketed globally for spiritual and commercial use, yet for the Kumeyaay of northwestern Baja California it remains a living relative embedded in ceremonial practice, territorial memory, and ecological responsibility. This research examines white sage as a culturally significant plant sustained through relational harvesting practices and intergenerational knowledge transmission. Based on ethnographic fieldwork (2021–2023), including participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and landscape walks with Kumeyaay knowledge holders, this study documents local criteria for plant health, seasonal gathering protocols, and ethical guidelines governing harvest. Findings demonstrate that traditional practices emphasize selective cutting, spatial rotation, and spiritual accountability, fostering plant regeneration and landscape continuity. As global demand and restricted territorial access intensify, these stewardship systems face growing strain. Centering Kumeyaay ethnobotanical knowledge highlights Indigenous biocultural stewardship as essential to sustaining culturally significant flora worldwide. |
| 14:00 |
Presentation Format:
Poster (in-person)
The Bribri community of Yorkín, Costa Rica, uses primarily organic agriculture. While staying in Yorkín for three weeks, I learned more about the ideologies behind this commitment, and how the Bribri community organizes and manages their farms, particularly in the face of threats from disease and climate change. This poster highlights what the Bribri community shared through structured interviews and discussions, and how this relates to research from other scholars. Respondents frequently referenced religious reasons to farm organically, in addition to economic and health rationales. In regards to farming practices, the community shared how climate change has brought unpredictable weather to the region and how fungi including monilia and sigatoka threaten cacao and bananas. The Bribri have developed organic methods to limit these effects, such as burial of infected fruits, grafting, and unique planting patterns, drawing on traditional and Western knowledge in the process. Acknowledgment: Anaeli Medina for interview assistance. |
| 14:00 |
Presentation Format:
Poster (in-person)
Prior to European settlement, grasslands - including prairies, savannas, and barrens - covered vast areas of the United States and supported biocultural landscapes shaped through long-term Indigenous presence and stewardship. Today, these systems are reduced, contributing to declines in biodiversity, pollinators, and culturally important plants central to Tribal foods, medicine, lifeways, and indigenous knowledges. This project centers ethnobotanical priorities by evaluating Midwestern prairie restorations, emphasizing seed mixes and their capacity to support culturally significant plants and their pollinator relations. We examined how prairie restoration seed mixes vary across space and time, how they differ from remnant communities, their potential relevance to Indigenous cultural and ecological needs, and ethical considerations surrounding the use of historic ethnobotanical data. Results have the potential to reestablish and maintain relationships between tribal communities and medicinal plants, bees, and the entire ecosystem through knowledge-building and future restoration efforts that promote self-sustaining harvests. |
| 14:00 |
Presentation Format:
Poster (in-person)
The chinampa agroecosystem reflects a precolonial agricultural practice that persists in the wetlands of Xochimilco and contributes to the sustainability of urban wetlands and Mexico City. Due to habitat degradation and current disuse, aquatic quelites (native edible greens), our project focuses on collaboration among farmers, local residents, community organizations, as well as national and local public authorities to rescue traditional knowledge of the management and consumption of : Hydrocotyle ranunculoides (malacotl), Jaegeria bellidiflora (acacapacquílitl), Berula erecta (tzayanalquilitl), and Nasturtium officinale (berro). Participative research includes: in situ and ex situ propagation, enhancement of cultivation practices, documentation of sensorial and nutritional properties, revalorization and enrichment of traditional cuisine. |