Archaeology Research Seminars: PDR Findings

You are warmly invited to join us for an Archaeology Research Seminar on Thursday 26th March, 12.35 – 13.55 with Exeter postdoctoral researchers Harper Dine and Joe Hirst.

Please note that this is a Hybrid seminar: in person in Laver LT3 or online with MS Teams (link below).

Domesticating Amazonian Landscapes: The Maize Agriculture of the pre-Colonial Casarabe Culture

Joe Hirst, Department of Archaeology and History, University of Exeter

“The extent to which Amazonian environments have been shaped by pre-Colonial (pre-1492 CE) indigenous cultures has long been a contentious area of debate. In few regions is this more fiercely contested than the forest-savanna landscapes of northern Bolivia, where, between 400 and 1400 CE, the Casarabe Culture engineered a complex network of settlement mounds, causeways, and canals. Previous archaeological and palaeobotanical research has shown that this culture primarily sustained itself through the cultivation and consumption of maize. However, little is known about either the extent of maize agriculture or its lasting effects on the surrounding forest-savanna mosaic. In this talk, I combine traditional palaeoecological techniques and exploratory agent-based modelling to investigate and generate hypotheses about how the Casarabe Culture utilised these landscapes for maize agriculture, including the spatial extent and possible locations of cultivation. My approach also highlights the unique benefits and perspectives that these methodologies can bring to a single research question.”

A botanical view of food culture in the northern Maya lowlands

Harper Dine, Department of Archaeology and History, University of Exeter

“Food practices are fundamentally emplaced, occurring in spaces such as gardens, kitchens, house lots, farming plots, markets, or underground ovens. At the same time, the relationships and memories cultivated with and amid particular foodstuffs, necessarily somewhere, contribute to the meaningful existence of those very places. In this presentation I discuss the extraction of plant residues (starch grains and phytoliths) from artifact surfaces, a methodology useful for understanding the functionality of tools in relation to ingredients and preparations. I present microbotanical findings from a set of ceramic sherds and obsidian blades excavated in household and agricultural spaces at Yaxuna and nearby Joya, two ancient Maya sites connected by a causeway, and occupied in both the Preclassic and Classic periods. These objects span a range of time periods and, along with their associated contents, reflect the material and embodied experience of food preparation and consumption at different points in space-time.”