Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T19:37:27.316Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Antiquity of early Holocene small-seed consumption and processing at Danger Cave

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

David Rhode
Affiliation:
1Earth and Ecosystem Sciences, Desert Research Institute, Reno NV 89512, USA
David B. Madsen
Affiliation:
1Earth and Ecosystem Sciences, Desert Research Institute, Reno NV 89512, USA
Kevin T. Jones
Affiliation:
2Antiquities Section, Utah Division of State History, Salt Lake City, UT 84101, USA

Extract

When did people start to eat small seeds, and what drove them to it? New investigations and dating at the Danger Cave in the American Great Basin show that seeds (pickleweed seeds) did not become part of the staple diet until after 8700 b.p. It was at this time that animal and plant resources had begun to seriously diminish in a shrinking wetland.

Type
Research
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2006

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

Aikens, C.M. 1970. Hogup Cave. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Anthropological Papers 93.Google Scholar
Aikens, C.M. & Madsen, D.B. 1986. Prehistory of the eastern area, in D’Azevedo, W. (ed.) Great Basin: handbook of North American Indians 11: 149–60. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Arkush, B.S. & Pitblado, B.L. 2000. Paleoarchaic surface assemblages in the Great Salt Lake Desert, northwestern Utah. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 22: 1242.Google Scholar
Basgall, M. 1993. Early Holocene prehistory of the north–central Mojave Desert. PhD Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California at Davis.Google Scholar
Beck, C. & Jones, G.T. 1997. The terminal Pleistocene/early Holocene archaeology of the Great Basin. Journal of World Prehistory 11: 161236.Google Scholar
Cowan, C.W. & Watson, P.J. (ed.) 1992. The origins of agriculture: an international perspective. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Elston, R.G. 1982. Good times, hard times: prehistoric culture change in the western Great Basin, in Madsen, D.B. & O’Connell, J.F. (ed.) Man and environment in the Great Basin: 186206. SAA Papers 2. Washington, DC: Society of American Archaeology.Google Scholar
Elston, R.G. & Zeanah, D.W. 2002. Thinking outside the box: a new perspective on diet breadth and sexual division of labor in the prearchaic Great Basin. World Archaeology 34: 103–30.Google Scholar
Flannery, K.V. 1969. Origins and ecological effects of early domestication in Iran and the Near East, in Ucko, P.J. & Dimbleby, G.W. (ed.) The domestication and exploitation of plants and animals: 73100. Chicago, IL: Aldine.Google Scholar
Flannery, K.V. 1973. The origins of agriculture. Annual Review of Anthropology 2: 271310.Google Scholar
Fowler, D. 1986. History of research, in D’Azevedo, W. (ed.) Great Basin: handbook of North American Indians 11: 1530. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Fry, G.F. 1976. Analysis of prehistoric coprolites from Utah. University of Utah Anthropological Papers 93. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah.Google Scholar
Grayson, D.K. 1988. Danger Cave, Last Supper Cave, and Hanging Rock Shelter: the faunas. American Museum of Natural History Anthropological Papers 66 (1). New York: American Museum of Natural History.Google Scholar
Grayson, D.K. 1993. The deserts past: a natural prehistory of the Great Basin. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Grayson, D.K. 2000. Mammalian responses to middle Holocene climatic change in the Great Basin of the western United States. Journal of Biogeography 27: 181–92.Google Scholar
Harper, K.T. & Alder, G.M. 1972. Paleoclimatic inferences concerning the last 10,000 years from a resampling of Danger Cave, Utah, in Fowler, D. (ed.) Great Basin culturalecology: a symposium: 1323. Reno, NV: Desert Research Institute Publications in the Social Sciences 8.Google Scholar
Harris, D.R. & Hillman, G.C. (ed.) 1989. Foraging & farming: the evolution of plant exploitation. London: Unwin Hymen.Google Scholar
Huckell, B.B. & Haynes, C.V. JR . 2003. The Ventana complex: new dates and new ideas on its place in early Holocene western prehistory. American Antiquity 68 (2): 353–72.Google Scholar
Jennings, J.D. 1957. Danger Cave. University of Utah Anthropological Papers 27. Salt Lake City: University of Utah.Google Scholar
Jennings, J.D. 1964. The Desert West, in Jennings, J.D. & Norbeck, E. (ed.) Prehistoric man in the new world: 149–74. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Jennings, J.D. 1978. Prehistory of Utah and the eastern Great Basin. University of Utah Anthropological Papers 98. Salt Lake City: University of Utah.Google Scholar
Jones, G.T. Beck, C. Jones, E.E. & Hughes, R.E. 2003. Lithic source use and paleoarchaic foraging territories in the Great Basin. American Antiquity 68 (1): 538.Google Scholar
Madsen, D.B. 2000. Late quaternarypaleoecology in the Bonneville Basin. Utah Geological Survey Bulletin 130. Salt Lake City: Utah Geological Survey.Google Scholar
Madsen, D.B. & Rhode, D. 1990. Early Holocene piñon (Pinus monophylla) in the northeastern Great Basin. Quaternary Research 33: 94101.Google Scholar
Madsen, D.B. Rhode, D. Grayson, D.K. Broughton, J.M. Livingston, S.D. Hunt, J.M. Quade, J. Schmitt, D.N. & Shaver, M.W. III 2001. Late quaternary environmental change in the Bonneville Basin, western USA. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 167: 243–71.Google Scholar
O’Connell, J.F. Jones, K.T. & Simms, S.R. 1982 Some thoughts on prehistoric archaeology in the Great Basin, in Madsen, D.B. & O’Connell, J.F. (ed.) Man andenvironment in the Great Basin: 227–40. SAA Papers 2. Washington, DC: Society of American Archaeology.Google Scholar
Oviatt, C.G. Madsen, D.B. & Schmitt, D.N. 2003. Late Pleistocene and early Holocene rivers and wetlands in the Bonneville Basin of western North America. Quaternary Research 60: 200–10.Google Scholar
Oviatt, C.G. Currey, D.R. & Sack, D. 1992. Radiocarbon chronology of Lake Bonneville, eastern Great Basin, USA. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 99: 225–41.Google Scholar
Price, T.D. & Gebauer, A.B. (ed.) 1995. Last hunters, first farmers: new perspectives on the prehistoric transition to agriculture. Advanced Seminar Series. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
Rhode, D. 2000. Holocene vegetation history in the Bonneville Basin, in Madsen, D.B. (ed.) Late quaternary paleoecologyin the Bonneville Basin: 149–64. Utah Geological Survey Bulletin 130. Salt Lake City, UT: Utah Geological Survey.Google Scholar
Rhode, D. & Madsen, D.B. 1998. Pine nut use in the early Holocene and beyond: the Danger Cave archaeobotanical record. Journal of Archaeological Science 25 (12): 11991210.Google Scholar
Richerson, P.J. Boyd, R. & Bettinger, R.L. 2001. Was agriculture impossible during the Pleistocene but mandatory during the Holocene? A climate change hypothesis. American Antiquity 66: 387412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitt, D.N. Madsen, D.B. & Lupo, K.D. 2002. Small-mammal data on early and middle Holocene climates and biotic communities in the Bonneville Basin, USA. Quaternary Research 58: 225–60.Google Scholar
Simms, S.R. 1987. Behavioral ecology and hunter-gatherer foraging: an example from the Great Basin. British Archaeological Reports International Series 382. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Stiner, M.C. 2001. Thirty years on the ‘broad spectrum revolution’ and Paleolithic demography. Proceedings ofthe National Academy of Science 98: 6993–6.Google Scholar
Tamers, M.A. Pearson, F.J. JR & Davis, E.M. 1964. University of Texas radiocarbon dates 2. Radiocarbon 6 (1): 138–59.Google Scholar
Warren, C.N. & Crabtree, R.H. 1986. Prehistory of the southwestern area, in D’Azevedo, W. (ed.) Great Basin: handbook of North American Indians 11: 183–93. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Waters, M.R. 1986. The geoarchaeology of Whitewater Draw, Arizona. Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona 45. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona.Google Scholar
Watson, P.J. 1995. Explaining the transition to agriculture, in Price, T.D. & Gebauer, A.B. (ed.) Last hunters, first farmers: new perspectives on the prehistoric transition to agriculture.Advanced Seminar Series. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
Willig, J.A. & Aikens, C.M. 1988. The Clovis-Archaic interface in far western North America, in Willig, J.A. Aikens, C.M. & Fagan, J.L. (ed.) Earlyhuman occupation in far western North America: the Clovis-Archaic interface: 140. Nevada State Museum Anthropological Papers 21. Carson City, NV: Nevada State Museum.Google Scholar