The chapters in this volume take a welcome and compelling approach to paleoethnobotanical analyses. Paleoethnobotanists have long realized that the myriad roles plants play in human societies and in human articulation with the environment mean that botanical data provide a powerful window on past cultures. For years, however, paleoethnobotany was relegated to investigations of diet and vegetation reconstruction, and analysts were viewed as technicians. Social paleoethnobotany, well illustrated by the chapters in this volume, directly engages social archaeology with its emphasis on power, agency, gender, and sociality. Many chapters in this volume build on the work of Christine Hastorf and began as papers presented in her honor as the recipient of the Fryxell Award for Interdisciplinary Research in 2012. They demonstrate an approach to social paleoethnobotany that more fully realizes the potential of plant remains to elucidate past lifeways.
In the introductory chapter, editors Bruno and Sayre provide a brief overview of paleoethnobotanical analyses and their contributions to archaeological theory, highlighting issues of diet and domestication that were the subjects of much research from the 1960s through the 1980s. They then pivot to a description of social paleoethnobotany, and they introduce major themes developed further by chapters in the volume.
The next six chapters present case studies that illustrate the value of the approach for understanding domestication, taskscapes, and ritual, and for interrogating common analytical categories (domestic/wild, ritual/quotidian). Chevalier and Bosquet muster detailed micro- and macrobotanical data to explore the spread of agriculture across northern Europe during the early Neolithic. Testing models derived from human behavioral ecology and from historical ecology, the authors find that historical ecology better explains how these processes unfolded. Next, Fritz, Bruno, Langlie, Smith, and Kistler explore chenopods, contrasting two centers of domestication: eastern North America and South America. Using paleoethnobotanical data and exploring the processes of domestication, the authors demonstrate the differing sociocultural contexts and trajectories between the North American domesticated Chenopodium, which fell out of use by AD 1200, and the South American species, which was domesticated in the Andes by 1500 BC and continues to be an important food source today. In the next chapter, Korstanje explores and critiques the common dichotomy applied to food plants—wild or domestic. Korstanje uses macrobotanical samples from rockshelters in Argentina to consider whether wild plant use declines or increases following the adoption of agriculture. She finds that, far from becoming unimportant, wild plants continued to be used by agriculturalists. This research has implications for the nature of the relationship between humans and plants, complicating what we know was a spectrum of relationships rather than a dichotomy. Farahani, Chiou, Cuthrell, Harkey, Morell-Hart, Hastorf, and Sheets also make use of exceptional preservation contexts, this time at Joya de Cerén, El Salvador. Volcanic dust and debris have preserved this prehispanic Maya village with many artifacts in place. The authors use the spatial distribution of artifacts and botanical and faunal remains to explore taskscapes. Although little paleoethnobotanical data is presented here, GIS enables holistic views of plant remains in spatialized food production contexts. Next, Sayre and Whitehead present macrobotanical remains from Conchopata to investigate ritual practices and domestic usage in Middle Horizon cultures in the Andes. Reconstructing the patterns of food produced for rituals and for consumption within homes, they find little difference in paleoethnobotanical remains found in the spaces associated with domestic or ceremonial activity. This finding brings the authors to an important conclusion: dichotomies between quotidian and ritual may not be evident in the archaeobotany. Finally, Morehart uses botanical remains to explore the temporality of ritual practices in Epiclassic Mexico. Although paleoethnobotanical samples from a shrine contain macrobotanical remains and pollen, Morehart finds that identifying the seasonality of ritual occurrences at this shrine based on plant remains is challenging.
The final two papers are conceptual. Conkey discusses theoretical implications of the intersectionality of social theory, feminist approaches, and paleoethnobotany, illustrating how Hastorf's work epitomizes such research. In the final chapter, Pearsall comments on the papers, touching on themes also present in Hastorf's research: making the invisible visible, studying patterns of sociality, and identifying ritual practices. She concludes by reminding us of the chain of inferences upon which interpretations are built from paleoethnobotanical data, emphasizing that the strength of these interpretations depends on our analytical and methodological rigor.
Several chapters in this volume challenge common analytical dichotomies; all complicate our understanding of plant-human relationships. As the title indicates, the chapters investigate deep-time (ancient) plant-human relationships. Although Morehart references ethnohistoric data, none of the chapters relies on it, making the authors’ investigations of social phenomena even more impressive. This volume illustrates the ways that social paleoethnobotany can move beyond questions about subsistence and diet, and it demonstrates the promise and potential of social approaches to the study of people and plants in the deep past.
