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Chapter 22 The Development and Dispersal of Agricultural Systems in the Woodland Period Southeast Kristen J. Gremillion As the archaeobotanical record of plant use in eastern North America grows, it becomes increasingly apparent that the economic role of food production during the Woodland period varies considerably across the region (Fritz 1990a; B. D. Smith 1987). The pattern that has attracted the most attention to date is the relative scarcity of evidence for native seed crops in the Southeast, especially prior to the development of maize-based agricultural systems. Current evidence from the lower Southeast (including the Lower Mississippi Valley, the Piedmont to the east of the Appalachians, and the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain) suggests a relatively rapid transition to dependence on maize agriculture during the last centuries of the first millennium A.D. from a forest foraging subsistence base perhaps supplemented by some plant cultivation. In contrast, in the Midwest and Midsouth (north of the Lower Mississippi Valley and west of the Appalachians), the Woodland period is characterized by increasing reliance on cultivated plants and the development of “agricultural economies” (B. D. Smith 1989). Archaeobotanical data show that it is within this so-called “core area” that pre-maize food production developed earliest and had the greatest economic impact in eastern NorthAmerica. The growing importance of farming in the midcontinent during the Woodland period is further reflected in the paleoenvironmental record of changes in forest composition and patterns of ecological disturbance (Delcourt et al. 1998). Hypothetical explanations for the contrast between the lower Southeast and the Midsouth have yet to be systematically examined. This chapter aims to review empirical support for some of these explanations in order to identify the factors (cultural, historical, and environmental) most likely to have played a major role in the establishment of regional differences in the development of food production. This task can be approached more efficiently by first ruling out the possibility that the archaeological pattern is primarily a 484 Gremillion product of the history of research rather than an accurate representation of prehistoric behavioral variability. Assuming that this alternative is unlikely to account fully for the observed patterns (even if it cannot be dismissed as a complicating factor), explanations that link regional differences in the development of prehistoric food production to environmental variability will be examined. These explanations, although sharing an emphasis on environmental influences on behavior, can be separated into those that are based on the goodness of fit between human subsistence behavior and the natural environment and those that focus on historical contingencies that constrain the set of possible responses to environmental variability.All three explanatory elements (research history, adaptation, cultural and environmental history ) will be ingredients of any reasonably complete explanation for regional variability in the role of food production. V V V V Var ar ar ar ariation in iation in iation in iation in iation in W W W W Woodland Per oodland Per oodland Per oodland Per oodland Period iod iod iod iod Agr Agr Agr Agr Agricultur icultur icultur icultur iculture: e: e: e: e: A Closer Look A Closer Look A Closer Look A Closer Look A Closer Look The marked intraregional variability in the archaeobotanical record of Woodland period food production in the Southeast has been characterized in general , relative terms such as late versus early and lesser versus greater dependence . Agricultural systems based on native seed crops appear to be limited geographically to the area north of the Lower Mississippi Valley and central Alabama and west of eastern Tennessee (Fritz 1993; Fritz and Kidder 1993). Fritz (1993:41) cites the low numbers of seeds of crop plants from westcentralAlabama and east-central Mississippi relative to those recovered from sites in the Midwest and concludes that “there is reason to doubt that preMississippian gardeners of the deep South produced comparable amounts of food.” Johannessen (1993a:66) makes similar observations about the Late Woodland in the Southeast, which has produced only “sparse seed remains” and “little evidence for extensive plant cultivation” prior to the appearance of maize around A.D. 900. The same data led C. Margaret Scarry (1993a:86) to conclude that pre-maize subsistence in the lower Southeast is best characterized as a mix of “foraging and small-scale crop production.” In order to arrive at a more precise characterization of the patterns underlying the current understanding of regional variability in Woodland period food production, it is necessary to compare archaeobotanical data sets. Comparisons across regions that incorporate the work of different...

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