Plantscapes of dwelling: Precolonial household mounds, phytocultural dynamics and the ensuing human ecosystems at El Flaco and El Carril (cal. AD 990–1450), northern Dominican Republic

Abstract

Caribbean Amerindian societies had sophisticated regional socio-political and economic systems linked to important crops by the late 15th century when Spanish conquerors initiated the invasion of the Americas. These systems soon helped change the dynamics of the world's foodways, and scarce but mounting archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence suggests that the Spaniards and later European intruders gained symbolic and factual control of primary subsistence scenarios in the region by exploiting the Amerindians' plant foodways systems, lands and political institutions. The aim of this study is to better understand the emergence and evolution of human–plant interrelationships before 1492, and the role which this played in the consolidation of foodways systems that later benefitted early European survival and domination in the Americas. To achieve this, we applied the first onsite multiproxy approach in the insular Caribbean based on phytoliths and other auxiliary data to stratigraphically arranged soil layers from several household mounds of two precolonial settlements in northern Dominican Republic (Hispaniola). Results indicate that these settlements were established in ecotonal lower montane moist/mesic forests with differential biodiversity, and varied socio-environmental choices and constraints encouraged the configuration of divergent plantscapes of dwelling there. The applied analytical perspective demonstrates the necessity of expanding, deepening and refining the used approach to illuminate the human and environmental dynamics which helped shape the ancient plantscapes in the Caribbean at the eve of the European irruption of the Americas.