Title From colonization to domestication : population, environment, and the origins of agriculture in Eastern North America / D. Shane Miller

Published Salt Lake City : The University of Utah Press, [2018]

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Description 1 online resource (xvii, 198 pages) Contents Historical ecology and the origins of agriculture -- Environmental and chronological building blocks -- From projectile points to prey size -- Projectiles points and prey size in the lower Tennessee River Valley -- The ideal free distribution and landscape use in the Duck and lower Tennessee River valleys -- A boom-bust model for the origins of agriculture in eastern North America Summary "Winner of the Don D. and Catherine S. Fowler Prize. Eastern North America is one of only a handful of places in the world where people first discovered how to domesticate plants. In this book, anthropologist Shane Miller uses two common, although unconventional, sources of archaeological data, stone tools and the distribution of archaeological sites, to trace subsistence decisions from the initial colonization of the American Southeast at the end of the last Ice Age to the appearance of Indigenous domesticated plants roughly 5,000 years ago. Miller argues that the origins of plant domestication lie within the context of a boom/bust cycle that culminated in the mid-Holocene, when hunter-gatherers were able to intensively exploit shellfish, deer, oak, and hickory. After this resource "boom" ended, some groups shifted to other plants in place of oak and hickory, which included the suite of plants that were later domesticated. Accompanying these subsistence trends is evidence for increasing population pressure and declining returns from hunting. Miller contends, however, that the appearance of domesticated plants in eastern North America, rather than simply being an example of necessity as the mother of invention, is the result of individuals adjusting to periods of both abundance and shortfall driven by climate change"--Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on May 18, 2018) Subject Paleo-Indians -- Agriculture -- Southern States Indians of North America -- Agriculture -- Southern States Agriculture, Prehistoric -- Southern States Agriculture -- Southern States -- Origin Indians of North America -- Southern States -- Antiquities. Excavations (Archaeology) -- Southern States Environmental archaeology -- Southern States Social archaeology -- Southern States HISTORY -- United States -- State & Local -- South (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV) Agriculture -- Origin Agriculture, Prehistoric Antiquities Environmental archaeology Excavations (Archaeology) Indians of North America -- Agriculture Indians of North America -- Antiquities Paleo-Indians -- Agriculture Social archaeology Southern States -- Antiquities. Southern States Form Electronic book LC no. 2017057345 ISBN 9781607816171 1607816172

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