| Popis: |
This archaeobotanical investigation tests a hypothesis associated with Fort Ancient subsistence activities and settlement attributes. I compare small Middle Fort Ancient (1200-1400 CE) communities in the Great Miami River Valley of western Ohio to larger, more centralized Middle Fort Ancient settlements, using the Wildcat (33MY499) and SunWatch (formerly Incinerator, 33MY57) villages as case examples. I hypothesize that small communities had less incentive to focus on maize agriculture than large villages and would therefore favor stable indigenous traditions. This hypothesis relies on the assumption that village size, permanence of occupations, and landscape location can all affect any given group’s access to plant taxa, food preferences, or environmental impacts. Differences in these settlement attributes contribute to the apparent persistence of Eastern Agricultural Complex plants at Wildcat, which runs counter to the conventional belief that this Woodland suite of cultigens largely disappears from the archaeological record in favor of maize agriculture after about 1000 CE. |
