DEPARTMENT OF PLANT SCIENCE AND LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
Fall 2019 Seminar Series
The Socioecological Context of Plant Domestication in Eastern North America
by Elic Weitzel, Ph.D. Student, UConn Dept. of Anthropology
Five thousand years ago, Native peoples in eastern North America independently domesticated a suite of crops and subsisted on these plants for millennia. Due to European settler-colonialism and the subsequent deaths of millions of Indigenous peoples, many of these domesticated crops are now extinct. Research concerning the origins of domestication in eastern North America now revolves around the question of whether or not economic intensification preceded domestication, essentially debating whether Native groups domesticated plants in a time and place of resource abundance or resource stress. Recent research has shed light on this often-fierce debate, and here I present new analyses which support the intensification hypothesis of domestication and suggest that resource stress was present prior to initial domestication. Finally, I discuss the relevance of such archaeological research to contemporary societal issues and how this lost crop complex could be resurrected to improve our future.
Date: Friday, Sept 6
Time: 12-1 pm
Room: W.B. Young 001
For more information, contact: PSLA at psla@uconn.edu