Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-05T13:19:15.621Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Seasons of Change: Using Seasonal Morphological Changes in Brodiaea Corms to Determine Season of Harvest from Archaeobotanical Remains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Kristina M. Gill
Kristina M. Gill*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 ([email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I present archaeobotanical evidence for intensive and long-term harvesting of edible geophytes in the Brodiaea complex, most likely blue dicks (Dichelostemma capitatum), during multiple seasons on California’s Santa Cruz Island. Ethnographic data indicate that Brodiaea corms were an important food source throughout prehistoric California, usually harvested in the late spring–early summer, after flowering. However, at least two ethnographic sources may suggest multiple seasons of harvest, an idea supported by careful examination of seasonal morphological changes in modern and ancient Brodiaea corms. Archaeobotanical identification of features associated with these morphological changes allows inferences about the specific seasons in which Brodiaea corms were harvested, a conclusion that has the potential to provide higher resolution seasonality data for geophyte remains recovered in western North America and other areas around the world.

Resumen

Resumen

En este artículo presento evidencia arqueobotánica de la recolección intensiva y a largo plazo de geófitos comestibles pertenecientes al complejo Brodiaea, muy probablemente Covenas (Dichelostemma capitatum), durante múltiples temporadas en la Isla Santa Cruz en California. Los datos etnográficos indican que los bulbos de plantas Brodiaea constituyeron una fuente importante de alimento a lo largo de la prehistoria de California, y fueron usualmente recolectados después de su florecimiento durante la parte tardía de la primavera e inicios del verano. Sin embargo, al menos dos fuentes etnográficas adicionales sugieren múltiples temporadas de recolección, una posibilidad sustentada por el cuidadoso estudio de cambios morfológicos estacionales en bulbos de Brodiaea antiguos y modernos. La identificación arqueobotánica de rasgos asociados a estos cambios morfológicos permite establecer inferencias sobre las estaciones específicas en que los bulbos de Brodiaea fueron recolectados, y esta conclusión tiene el potencial de brindar datos de estacionalldad de mayor resolución para los restos de geófitos recuperados en el oeste de Norteamérica y otras áreas alrededor del mundo.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 79 , Issue 4 , October 2014 , pp. 638 - 654
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Anderson, M. Kat 1997 From Tillage to Table: The Indigenous Cultivation of Geophytes for Food in California. Journal of Ethnobiology 17:149–169.Google Scholar
Anderson, M. Kat 2005 Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and Management of California’s Natural Resources. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Anderson, M. Kat, and Rowney, David L. 1999 The Edible Plant Dichelostemma capitatum: Its Vegetative Reproduction Response to Different Indigenous Harvesting Regimes in California. Restoration Ecology 7:231–240.Google Scholar
Baldwin, Bruce G., Goldman, Douglas, Keil, David J., Patterson, Robert, Rosatti, Thomas J., and Wilken, Dieter (editors) 2012 The Jepson Manual: Vascular Plants of California. University of California Press, Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheatham, Richard D. 1988 Late Archaic Settlement Pattern in the Long Tom Sub-Basin, Upper Willamette Valley, Oregon. Anthropological Papers No. 39. University of Oregon, Eugene.Google Scholar
Dafni, Amots, Cohen, Dan, and Noy-Mier, Immanuel 1981 Life-Cycle Variation in Geophytes. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 68:652–660.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deacon, Hilary J. 1993 Planting an Idea: An Archaeology of Stone Age Gatherers in South Africa. South African Archaeological Bulletin 48:86–93.Google Scholar
Deacon, Hilary J., and Deacon, Janette 1999 Human Beginnings in South Africa: Uncovering the Secrets of the Stone Age. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, California.Google Scholar
Deacon, Janette 1984 Later Stone Age People and their Descendants in Southern Africa. In Southern African Prehistory and Paleoenvironments, edited by Richard G. Klein, pp. 221–328. A. A. Balkema, Boston, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Ertu, Füsun 2000 An Ethnobotanical Study in Central Anatolia (Turkey). Economic Botany 54:155–182.Google Scholar
Erlandson, Jon M. 1988 The Role of Shellfish in Coastal Economies: A Protein Perspective. American Antiquity 53:102–109.Google Scholar
Fay, Michael F., and Chase, Mark W. 1996 Resurrection of Themidaceae for the Brodiaea Alliance, and Recircumscription of Alliaceae, Amaryllidaceae and Agapanthoideae . Taxon 45:441–451.Google Scholar
Fischer, Douglas T., and Still, Christopher J. 2007 Evaluating Patterns of Fog Water Deposition and Isotopic Composition on the California Channel Islands. Water Resources Research 43(4): 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Furey, Louise 2006 Maori Gardening: An Archaeological Perspective. Department of Conservation, Science & Technical Publishing, Wellington, New Zealand.Google Scholar
Gill, Kristina M. 2013 Paleoethnobotanical Investigations on the Channel Islands: Current Directions and Theoretical Considerations. In California’s Channel Islands: The Archaeology of Human-Environment Interactions, edited by Christopher S. Jazwa and Jennifer E. Perry, pp. 113–136. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Gill, Kristina M., and Erlandson, Jon M. 2014 The Island Chumash and Exchange in the Santa Barbara Channel Region. American Antiquity, in press.Google Scholar
Gilliland, Linda E. 1985 Proximate Analysis and Mineral Composition of Traditional California Native American Foods. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Department of Nutrition Studies, University of California, Davis.Google Scholar
Glassow, Michael A., Perry, Jennifer E., and Paige, Peter F. 2008 The Punta Arena Site: Early and Middle Holocene Cultural Development on Santa Cruz Island. Contributions in Anthropology No. 3. Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Santa Barbara, California.Google Scholar
Gott, Beth 1982 Ecology of Root Use by the Aborigines of Southern Australia. Archaeology in Oceania 17:59–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Govaerts, Richard 2011 World Checklist of Selected Plant Families, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens. Electronic document, http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/home.do, accessed August 3, 2013.Google Scholar
Green well, Amy B. H. 1947 Taro: With Special Reference to Its Culture and Uses in Hawaii. Economic Botany 1:276–289.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Han, Susan S. 2001 Flowering of Three Species of Brodiaea in Relation to Bulb Size and Source. Scientia Horticulturae 91:349–355.Google Scholar
Han, Susan S., Halvey, Abraham H., Sachs, Roy M., and Reid, Michael S. 1991 Flowering and Corm Yield of Brodiaea in Response to Temperature, Photoperiod, Corm Size, and Planting Depth. Journal of American Society for Horticultural Science 116:19–22.Google Scholar
Harrington, John P. 1930 Karuk Texts. International Journal of American Linguistics 6:121–161.Google Scholar
Hoover, Robert F. 1940 The Genus Dichelostemma. American Midland Naturalist 24:463–476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hudson, Travis, and Blackburn, Thomas C. 1983 The Material Culture of the Chumash Interaction Sphere. Volume II: Food Preparation and Shelter. Ballena Press and Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Cooperative Publication, Santa Barbara, California.Google Scholar
Hunn, Eugene S. 1990 Nch’i-Wana: “The Big River”: Mid-Columbia Indians and Their Land. University of Washington Press, Seattle.Google Scholar
Junak, Steve, Ayers, Tina, Scott, Randy, Wilken, Dieter, and Young, David 1995 A Flora of Santa Cruz Island. Santa Barbara Natural History Museum, Santa Barbara, California.Google Scholar
Keator, Richard G. 1968 Ecological and Taxonomic Studies of the Genus Dichelostemma (Amaryllidaceae). Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Botany, University of California Berkeley. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Klely, Robert L. 1995 The Foraging Spectrum: Diversity in Hunter-Gatherer Lifeways. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Klein, Richard G. 1975 Ecology of Stone Age Man at the Southern Tip of Africa. Archaeology 28:238–247.Google Scholar
Klein, Richard G. 1977 The Ecology of Early Man in South Africa. Science 197:115–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laden, Greg, and Wrangham, Richard 2005 The Rise of the Hominids as an Adaptive Shift in Fallback Foods: Plant Underground Storage Organs (USOs) and Australopith Origins. Journal of Human Evolution 49:482–498.Google Scholar
Lawton, Harry W., Wilke, Philip J., DeDecker, Mary, and Mason, William M. 1976 Agriculture among the Paiute of Owens Valley. Journal of California Anthropology 3:13–50.Google Scholar
Marean, Curtis W. 2010a Pinnacle Point Cave 13B (Western Cape Province, South Africa) in Context: The Cape Floral Kingdom, Shellfish, and Modern Human Origins. Journal of Human Evolution 59:425–443.Google Scholar
Marean, Curtis W. 2010b When the Sea Saved Humanity. Scientific American August: 54–61.Google Scholar
Martin, Steve L., and Popper, Virginia S. 2001 Paleoethnobotanical Investigations of Archaeological Sites on Santa Cruz Island. In Origins of a Pacific Coast Chiefdom: The Chumash of the Channel Islands, edited by Jeanne E. Arnold, pp. 245–259. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Molina, Alonso de 1571 Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana. Antonio de Spinola, Mexico. Electronic document, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, http://alfama.sim.ucm.es/dioscorides/consulta_libro.asp?ref=B23658927&idioma=0, accessed February 7,2014.Google Scholar
National Park Service 2013 Channel Islands Weather. Electronic document, http://www.nps.gov/chis/naturescience/weather.htm, accessed August 3, 2013.Google Scholar
Opperman, H., and Heydenrych, B. 1990 A 22,000 Year-Old Middle Stone Age Camp Site with Plant Food Remains from the North-Eastern Cape. South African Archaeological Bulletin 45:93–99.Google Scholar
Parkington, John, and Poppenpoel, Cedric 1968 Excavations at De Hangen. South African Archaeological Bulletin 26:3–36.Google Scholar
Peacock, Sandra L. 2009 Perusing the Pits: The Evidence for Prehistoric Root Resource Processing on the Canadian Plateau. In Hunter Gatherer Archaeobotany: Perspectives from the Northern Temperate Zone, edited by Sarah L. R. Mason and Jon G. Hather, pp. 188–196. Institute of Archaeology, University College, London.Google Scholar
Pires, J. Chris, and Sytsma, Kenneth J. 2002 A Phylogenetic Evaluation of a Biosystematic Framework: Brodiaea and Related Petaloid Monocots (Themi-daceae). American Journal of Botany 89:1342–1359.Google Scholar
Preston, Robert E. 2006 Brodiaea sierrae (Themidaceae), A New Species from the Sierra Nevada Foothills of California, U.S.A. Journal for Biological Nomenclature 16:254–259.Google Scholar
Prouty, Guy L. 1995 Roots and Tubers: Prehistoric Plant Use, Settlement and Subsistence Intensification, and Storage in the Fort Rock Basin, Northern Great Basin, Oregon. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene.Google Scholar
Rankiær, Christen C. 1934 The Life Forms of Plants and Statistical Plant Geography. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Reddy, Seetha, and Erlandson, Jon M. 2012 Macrobotanical Food Remains from a Trans-Holocene Sequence at Daisy Cave (CA-SMI-261), San Miguel Island, California. Journal of Archaeological Science 39:33–40.Google Scholar
Rimbach, A. 1902 Physiological Observations on the Subterranean Organs of some California Liliaceae. Botanical Gazette 33:401–120.Google Scholar
Rundel, Philip W. 1996 Monocotyledonous Geophytes in the California Flora. Madroño 43:355–368.Google Scholar
Sand, Cristophe 1996 Recent Developments in the Study of New Caledonia’s Prehistory. Archaeology in Oceania 31:45–71.Google Scholar
Schlising, Robert A., and Chamberlain, Scott A. 2006 Biology of the Geophitic Lily, Triteleia laxa (Themidaceae), in Grasslands of the Northern Sacramento Valley. Madroño 53:321–341.Google Scholar
Smith, Frank H. 1930 The Corm and Contractile Roots of Brodiaea lactea . Journal of Botany 17:916–927.Google Scholar
Steward, Julian H. 1930 Irrigation without Agriculture. Papers of the Michigan Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters 12:149–156.Google Scholar
Steward, Julian H. 1933 Ethnography of the Owens Valley Paiute. Berkeley: Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology Vol. 33, No. 3. University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Sutton, Elizabeth A. 2014 Digging Stick Weights and Doughnut Stones: An Analysis of Perforated Stones from the Santa Barbara Channel Region. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 34:17–42.Google Scholar
Timbrook, Janice 1993 Island Chumash Ethnobotany. In Archaeology on the Northern Channel Islands of California: Studies of Subsistence, Economics and Social Organization, edited by Michael A. Glassow, pp. 47–62. Archives of California Prehistory No. 34. Coyote Press, Salinas, California.Google Scholar
Timbrook, Janice 2007 Chumash Ethnobotany: Plant Knowledge among the Chumash People of Southern California. Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Monographs No. 5, Publications in Anthropology No. 1. Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History/Heydey Books, Santa Barbara/Berkeley, California.Google Scholar
Todt, Donn L. 1997 Cross-Cultural Folk Classifications of Ethnobotanically Important Geophytes in Southern Oregon and Northern California. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 19:250–259.Google Scholar
Vaughton, Glenda, and Ramsey, Mike 2001 Variation in Summer Dormancy in the Lilioid Geophyte Burchardia umbellata (Colchicaceae). American Journal of Botany 88:1223–1229.Google Scholar
Vincent, Anne S. 1985 Plant Foods in Savanna Environments: A Preliminary Report of Tubers Eaten by the Hadza of Northern Tanzania. World Archaeology 17:131–148.Google Scholar
Wadley, Lyn 1993 The Pleistocene Later Stone Age South of the Limpopo River. Journal of World Prehistory 7(3):243–296.Google Scholar
Walker, Phillip L., and Erlandson, Jon M. 1986 Dental Evidence for Prehistoric Dietary Change on the Northern Channel Islands, California. American Antiquity 51:375–383.Google Scholar
Wells, M. J. 1965 An Analysis of Plant Remains from Scott’s Cave in the Gamtoos Valley. The South African Archaeological Bulletin 20:79–84.Google Scholar
Wohlgemuth, Eric 2010 Plant Resource Structure and the Prehistory of Plant Use in Central Alta California. California Archaeology 2:57–76.Google Scholar