Ethnoecology of the Usumacinta: Dynamics of Three Millennia of Maya Land Use
Paleoethnobotanical research with the Proyecto Paisaje Piedras Negras-Yaxchilán (PPPNY) and the Proyecto Arqueológico Busiljá-Chocoljá (PABC), in the Middle Usumacinta River region of Guatemala and Mexico, is directed toward several related questions: 1) What were the impacts of human activity on local ecologies-- including the effects of different kinds of terraforming, clearing practices, and crop production-- on forests, swamplands, and fields? 2) What were the impacts of broad climate shifts on ethnobotanical practices such as crop production and forest management? 3) How do differences in foodways-- including cultivation, collection, processing, consumption, trade, and disposal of foods—relate to differences in spatial contexts, including environmental and political conditions?, and 4) How do shifts in foodways relate to changes over time in climate and sociopolitical contexts? Under Shanti Morell-Hart, analysis at the MPERF involves microbotanical and macrobotanical residues recovered from sediments, artifacts, and human teeth.
PPPNY project directors: Dr. Andrew K. Scherer, Dr. Charles W. Golden, Lic. Mónica Urquizú, Lic. Griselda Pérez Robles (2015-2017)
Graduate researchers: E. Moisés Herrera-Parra (2022-present), Melanie Pugliese (2021-present), Sarah Watson (2019-2022), Éloi Bérubé (2019), Harper Dine (Brown University; 2017-present); Meghan Macleod (2017-2018)
Undergraduate researchers: Grace Horseman (2021-present); Sarah Watson (2017-2018), Jimika McGean (2018), Shane Teesdale (2018-2019; Wilfrid Laurier University)
PPPNY and PABC project website
PPPNY 2016 Informe (in Spanish)
PPPNY 2017 Informe (in Spanish)
PABC 2018 Informe (in Spanish)
The lowland Maya settlement landscape: Environmental LiDAR and ecology
Human-Plant Relationships in Ancient Mesoamerican Societies: International Collaboration to Collect and Curate Accessible Paleoethnobotanical Reference Libraries
In this project, we are completing work on a plant reference library of economic species for use by graduate students, post-docs, archaeologists, and other scholars addressing foodways and ethnoecology in ancient Mesoamerica. These activities represent an interdisciplinary partnership between archaeologists and botanists, in order to answer questions related to subsistence and landscape management. Ongoing reference material work in Mesoamerica and at the MPERF will document key characteristics of the collections, through morphological and spectrometric analysis using a NanoRam portable spectrometer.
Project director: Dr. Shanti Morell-Hart
Graduate student researchers: Shalen Prado (2019-present); Éloi Bérubé (2017)
Undergraduate volunteers: Xavier Figueroa (2017-2018), Mayda Kigundu (2018), Charlotte Liu (2018), Alicia Chang (2017-2018), and Amanda Macdonald (2018); Aaron Parry (2019)
Microbotanical Analysis of Indigenous Foodways - Collaborative Archaeologies, Decolonized Foodways
Shalen Prado is investigating pre- and post-contact Indigenous foodways in the Ohròn:wakon area (Hamilton, ON) through her work with the SSHRC funded Partnership Engagement Grant project: Collaborative Archaeologies, Decolonized Foodways. As a research assistant with this project, Shalen extracts microbotanical residues such as starch grains to understand the kinds of foods held within local pottery, cooking practices, foraging and farming traditions, and the evolution of foodways in Ohròn:wakon.
Project Directors: Andrew Roddick, Adrianne Xavier, and Scott Martin
Partner: Six Nations of the Grand River Territory
Investigating Pre-Columbian Foodways of the Usumacinta Region: An Approximation of Food Practices and Preferences
Moisés Herrera-Parra is conducting paleoethnobotanical research at the archaeological site of Lacanjá-Tzeltal in the Middle Usumacinta, Chiapas, Mexico, to explore food practices related to topics such as diet, mixtures, gastronomy, sensory experiences, and specific cooking techniques. At the MPERF, Moisés will identify paleoethnobotanical microremains from archaeological potsherds and human teeth and compare them with macroremain identification to assess exploitation of edible plants. This research will contribute to discussing food preferences among the ancient Mayas, and will help to reveal environmental exploitation and agricultural practices related to cuisine.
Ancient Maya Agriculture and Human-Environment Interactions at Budsilja, Chiapas
Melanie Pugliese is working with microbotanical samples to determine how ancient Maya people were interacting with their surrounding environment. She hopes to elucidate human-environment interactions at the Formative to Classic Period site of Budsilha, Chiapas, Mexico. Budsilha is a monumental core located in the Usumacinta River region. This study is focused on determining how Maya were utilizing plant resources and how changes in the climate and environment may have influenced practices in the area through the Formative to Classic period. Understanding how the Maya were able to utilize their surrounding environment to sustain large populations and how they were able to adapt to climatic shifts has implications for best practices in agriculture and environmental stability today. At the MPERF Melanie will look at phytolith and starch grains from artifacts and soil samples to interpret environmental changes, and plant use.
The Dynamics of Socio-Environmental Systems, Urban Depopulation, and Societal Stability. Río Verde, Oaxaca, Mexico
Éloi Bérubé is currently working as a collaborator on the Río Verde project funded by the NSF. He is the lead paleoethnobotanist in household contexts. The goal of this project is to reconstruct the environment of the Río Verde drainage basin in Oaxaca from the Formative Period up to the collapse that occurred during the Classic Period. The objective is to examine how humans transformed the environment where they lived, and the potential impact of those changes on the sudden abandonment of the largest cities in the region. This project will balance the role of short-term human practices and environmental change in relation to larger processes such as the transition to agriculture, intensification of human activity, and increase in population. This research will shed light on the dynamic between anthropogenic and climatological changes as they unfolded in Oaxaca and elsewhere in Mesoamerica. By examining the role that the transformed environment could have played in the collapse of a Mesoamerican society, this project might help identify certain strategies such as the transition to certain plants thriving in perturbed environments and alternative agricultural techniques, research that has critical importance in the present day.
Food Practices and Techniques at Teotihuacan: Microbotanical Residues from Groundstone Artifacts
Moisés Herrera-Parra is performing microbotanical analyses of residues recovered from lithic materials at the archaeological site of Teotihuacan, Mexico, belonging to Xalla and Teopancazco contexts. The main goal of this analysis is to determine the feasibility of sampling and extracting microbotanical residues from basalt grinding artifacts—known as metates and manos.
Project: Teotihuacan, Elites, and Rulership
Project Director: Dra. Linda Manzanilla
Human-ecological dynamics in everyday life and ritual practices of the Zapotecs at Monte Albán, Oaxaca, Mexico (500 BC to 750 AD)
Landscapes of the Northern Picts
Shalen Prado’s research at MPERF focuses on the human-environment relationships in northern coasts using phytolith, starch grain, and diatom analyses. Specifically, she examines how communities across Pictland (300–900 CE, Scotland) were formed through a dynamic meshwork of plants, algae, and humans. By extracting and assessing microbotanical and micro-algae assemblages at Pictish archaeological sites, this project aims to contribute to our understandings of dwelling in Pictland; for example, how the Picts organized their settlements, how they structured their foodways, and how they moved through terrestrial landscapes and aquatic environments.
Publications:
Experiments in Obsidian Blade Use to Understand Taphonomy and Recovery of Microbotanical Residues
Shanti Morell-Hart, Éloi Bérubé, and Sophie Reilly have three general goals in this study: 1) to understand deposition on prismatic blades (formation processes from the paleoethnobotanist's perspective) , 2) to observe transformations to prismatic blades from different sorts of plant taxa (formation processes and usewear from the lithicist's perspective), and 3) to describe the ways that (novices) attempt to use obsidian blades in culinary activities, to develop an understanding of sensory experiences and embodied practices. Toward these ends, they are observing the placement of starch grains and phytoliths on the prismatic blades, the recovery rates of different taxa, and the usewear that results from different sorts of plant-based activities. They are also documenting the experience of using prismatic blades in food preparation.
Project director: Dr. Shanti Morell-Hart
Graduate student researchers: Éloi Bérubé, Sophie Reilly
Archaeobotany in Ontario
Rudy Fecteau's career in archaeology started in 1972, but he began to work with plant remains in 1976 under the guidance of Dr. ‘Jock’ McAndrews at the Botany Department, Royal Ontario Museum. Over the past 41 years he has completed several hundred reports describing plant remains from more than 300 sites including pre-contact, Euro-Canadian and environmental sites across Canada, Ohio, Michigan and New York State. Rudy has presented his work to First Nation students at a science camp at the Aboriginal Centre, Turtle Island House at the University of Windsor, to monitor/liaison groups at Six Nations of the Grand River, and to the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nations, Nipissing First Nation and Chippewa of the Thames First Nation. He is an ongoing visiting researcher at the MPERF, where he is examining and photographing archaeological and modern plant specimens from Ontario and beyond.
Rudy Fecteau laboratory website
The Introduction and Diffusion of Cultivated Plants in Southern Ontario
Food and human-plant relationships in the Maya Lowlands
