The Cultural Context of Plant Domestication in Eastern North America

Abstract

The timing and sequence of the independent domestication of indigenous eastern North American seed plants (Cucurbita pepo, Helianthus annuus, Iva annua, Chenopodium berlandieri) and the subsequent development of a crop complex are discussed within a broader environmental and cultural context. The settlements that have yielded the earliest record of eastern domesticates are all small and situated in resource-rich lower-order river valley corridors within oak-savannah and oak-hickory forest regions. Well-preserved floral and faunal assemblages indicate continued substantial reliance on a wide range of wild species with no evidence of resource depletion. Similarly, there is no indication of landscape packing in terms of high site density in these resource-rich river valleys, calling into question developmental models of domestication and agricultural origins that rely on population pressure or resource imbalance as causal factors.