X. Resource Use and Adaptations

Session Type: 
Oral
Session Date and Time: 
Thursday, 9 May, 2019 - 14:30 to 15:45
Location: 
Geography 101
Time Abstract
2:30pm
Author(s):
Ojeda
, Jaime - University of Victoria
Ban
, Natalie

For millennia the Yagan people in the high latitudes of South America have interacted with biodiversity. This study aims to understand the relationship between Yagan people and mollusks, especially mussels, in order to inform Indigenous stewardship. Mussels have importance for food, ceremonial, spiritual proposes. At the request of Yagan partners, we conducted a review of ecological, ethnoecological and philosophical aspects of the Yagan-mussel relationship. We found mussels showed low seasonal variability in abundance, –crucial to the subsistence of the Yagan people–, but recently mussels are being affected by red tide. Mollusks are culturally important for the Yagan people and are integrated into their worldview. For example, mollusks are a source of food, aesthetic, and materials, and thus have intrinsic and relational values. Furthermore, oral storytelling indicates ethical rules and taboos associated with limpet and mussels harvesting. Yagan’s cultural traditions offer key opportunities for meaningful stewardship and management.

2:45pm
Author(s):
McQuaid
, Gary

 

In 2015, British Columbia’s provincial conservation status for mountain goats (Oreamnos Americanus) declined from “apparently secure” to "special concern, vulnerable to extirpation or extinction”. The northwestern Skeena Region, in particular, has already experienced extirpations of certain populations. Anthropogenic factors including, alpine development (ski lodges, mining), climate change (melting glaciers), and expanding forestry, are attributed to this decline. To address this concern, I take a broad ethnobiological and historical-ecological approach to better understand how multiple stakeholders and institutions perceive and deal with aspects of mountain goat harvest and management. By combining interviews with hunters, guides, First Nations, and government managers, as well as reviewing historical, scientific, and grey literature, I will present my current findings, which include a significant and consistent decline in goat sightings. There is also concern, especially by guides, that the substantial field experience by non-government stakeholders is not being sourced or accounted for in governmental management regimes.

3:00pm
Author(s):
Ward
, Grace - Washington University in St. Louis

The Late Archaic stage (ca. 4200-3000 yrs B.P.) was a time of significant social innovation in the Lower Mississippi Valley (LMV) of the southeastern United States, characterized by the resurgence of the region’s iconic monumental earthen architecture tradition, extensive networks of exchange, and cycles of mass aggregation. However, a paucity of paleoethnobotanical data from Late Archaic sites has limited our understanding of economic structure and people-plant relations during this critical period of southeastern Indigenous history. Recent paleoethnobotanical analysis of material from the Jaketown site in the Yazoo Basin of Mississippi suggests intensive, long-term interaction with key food-producing perennials: persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) and hickories (Carya spp.). As a possible case of management in the absence of domesticate-based agriculture, the Jaketown data invite us to discuss the Late Archaic LMV as an anthropogenic landscape.

3:15pm
Author(s):
d'Alpoim Guedes
, Jade - University of California, San Diego
Bocinsky
, Kyle - University of Montana

Ancient farmers experienced climate change at the local level through variations in the yields of their staple crops. However, archaeologists have had difficulty in determining where, when, and how changes in climate affected ancient farmers. We model how several key transitions in temperature affected the productivity of six grain crops across Eurasia and document human responses to these events such as crop diversification, storage, investment in pastoral strategies and the development of long distance networks of trade in grain. By translating changes in climatic variables into factors that mattered to ancient farmers, we situate the adaptive strategies they developed to deal with variance in crop returns in the context of environmental and climatic changes.

3:30pm
Author(s):
Allen
, Susan - University of Cincinnati
Wendel
, Martha - University of Cincinnati

From 2013 – 2015, the Projekti Arkeologjik i Shkodrës (PASH) conducted regional surface survey and excavation at several sites in the Shkodër province of northern Albania. Two settlements, Gajtan and Zagorës, are fortified hilltop sites that preserved intact deposits with well-preserved macrobotanical remains. Gajtan, one of the largest hill forts in Albania, was occupied from the Late Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age (LBA), while Zagorës was occupied from the Eneolithic to the LBA. Here we discuss here macrobotanical evidence for shifts in resource use and management. Woody taxa include beech, fir, and other types, while crop taxa are limited to the cereals einkorn wheat, spelt, two-row barley, and millet, and the pulses lentil, pea, and bitter vetch. This dataset provides insight into landscape dynamics and the resilient and adaptive resource use and management strategies over the course of the period from the late fifth to early first millennium BCE.

3:45pm
Author(s):
Pierotti
, Raymond - University of Kansas

Attempts exist to examine Ethnobiology from an Evolutionary Perspective employ unstated assumptions, i.e., Cultural evolution is equivalent to Biological evolution.  Biologists struggle to fit Cultural evolution within the evolutionary process. Ethnobiological discussions of evolution focus on human populations, or human impacts upon plants used for a variety of purposes.  Little acknowledgment is made of changing Biological evolution in the 21st Century, which may fit well within Ethnobiology. Recent developments in Evolutionary thinking that could effectively integrate into Ethnobiology include Niche Construction, i.e. organisms shape their own environments and those of other species; Increased importance of individuals in population dynamics and microevolutionary change; and Reticulate evolution where different species exchange genetic material. These ideas relate well to Indigenous conceptions of ecosystem functioning, i.e., All Things are Connected and All life forms are Related. Ethnobiology’s strengths lie in behavior and ecology, fields neglected by molecular approaches to understanding evolution.