Title: [original] The Origins of Agriculture in the Lowland Neotropics
Author(s)/Editor(s): D. Pearsall D. Piperno, Deborah M. Pearsall
Publisher: Academic Press
Year Published: 1998
ISBN: 978-0-12-557180-7
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This book is the first comprehensive, modern presentation of early horticulture and agriculture in the Neotropics. It assembles a mass of information produced by scholars in various disciplines and provides a strong theoretical framework to interpret it. The book demonstrates that tropical forest food production emerged concurrent with that in the Near East. It argues that many tropical lowland societies practiced food production for at least 5000 years before the emergence of village life, and that by 7000 BP cultivated plots had been extended into the forest by felling trees to admit sunlight. The book's research details modern techniques for recording and dating botanical remains from archaeological sites and genetic studies to determine the relationships between wild and domesticated plants. The book unites new methods of recovering, identifying, and dating plant remains with a strong case for Optimal Foraging Strategy in a historical context. Practical examples were drawn from field research in Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, Peru, Brazil, and the Mississippi Valley. The book covers the domestication of such indigenous American food crops as maize, manioc, potatoes, tomatoes, beans, peppers, and squash
Table of Contents Preface
Acknowledgments
1 Background of Tropical Agricultural Origins 1
2 The Neotropical Ecosystem in the Present and the Past 39
3 The Phytogeography of Neotropical Crops and Their Putative Wild Ancestors 109
4 The Evolution of Foraging and Food Production 167
5 From Small-Scale Horticulture to the Formative Period: The Development of Agriculture 243
6 The Relationship of Neotropical Food Production to Food Production from Other Areas of the World 321
References 329
Index of Common and Scientific Plant Names 371
Subject Index 377
Author