Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2pzkn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-21T21:22:15.438Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Comment upon the Economic Potential of Fish Utilization in Riverine Environments and Potential Archaeological Biases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Adam G. Garson
Adam G. Garson*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

New data from the South American lowland tropics are used in support of a recent argument extolling the potential of fish utilization in major floodplains. The discussion will cover five points: (1) major floodplains in general, and the Amazon and Orinoco floodplains in particular, have similar characteristics that make them biologically productive regions; (2) high fish productivity and the use of mass-fishing techniques in floodplain regions are characteristics of lowland South America; (3) the ecological dynamics of the seasonally inundated savanna are particularly productive and propitious for seasonal exploitation using mass-fishing techniques; (4) differences in species composition and fish size may have implications for seasonal and spatial variations in fish exploitation; and (5) substantial biases are apparent against the retrieval of small fish remains using traditional archaeological recovery techniques.

Type
Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , July 1980 , pp. 562 - 567
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1980 

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

References Cited

Brown, V. M. 1975 Fishes. In River ecology, edited by Whitton, B. A., pp. 199-229. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Butzer, Karl W. 1976 Geomorphology from the earth. Harper and Row, New York.Google Scholar
Casteel, Richard 1976 Fish remains in archaeology. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Coe, Michael D. 1968 Photogrammetry and the ecology of Olmec civilization. Paper presented at the Working Conferenceon Aerial Photography and Anthropology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Denevan, William M. 1966 The aboriginal cultural geography of the Llanos de Mojos of Bolivia. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Denevan, William M., and Zucchi, Alberta 1978 Ridged-field excavations in the central Orinoco Llanos, Venezuela. In Advances in Andean Archaeology, edited by Browman, D. L., pp. 235-245. Mouton, The Hague.Google Scholar
Garson, Adam G. 1976 Investigaciones arqueologicas en la region de la Calzada de Paez, Edo. Barinas: intorme preliminar. Paper presented at the XXVI Annual Convention of the Venezuelan Association for the Advancement of Science (ASOVAC), Puerta La Cruz, Venezuela.Google Scholar
Garson, Adam G. 1977 The tropical South American savanna as a locus for cultural development. Paper presented at the American Anthropological Association meetings, Houston, Texas. Google Scholar
Killip, Ellsworth P., and Smith, Albert C. 1931 The use of fish poisons in South America. Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, pp. 401-408.Google Scholar
Lathrap, Donald W. 1968a Aboriginal occupation and changes in river channel on the central Ucayali, Peru. American Antiquity 33:62-79.Google Scholar
Lathrap, Donald W. 1968b The “hunting” economies of the tropical forest zone of South America. In Man the hunter, edited by Lee, Richard B. and De Vore, Irven, pp. 23-29. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Lathrap, Donald W. 1970 The upper Amazon. Praeger, New York.Google Scholar
Limp, W. Frederick, and A. Reidhead, Van 1979 An economic evaluation of the potential of fish utilization in riverine environments. American Antiquity 44:70-78.Google Scholar
Lowe-McConnell, Rosemary H. 1964 The fishes of the Rupununi savanna district of British Guiana, South America. Journal of the Linnean Society f Zoo Iogy J 45(304):103-144.Google Scholar
Lowe-McConnell, Rosemary H. 1975 Fish communities in tropical freshwaters. Longman, New York.Google Scholar
Mago Leccia, Francisco 1970 Estudios preliminares sobre la ecologia de los peces de los llanos de Venezuela. Acta Biologica Venezolana 7(1):71-102.Google Scholar
Meggers, Betty J. 1971 Amazonia. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Roosevelt, Anna C. 1979 Subsistence and demography in prehistoric Parmana. Academic Press, in Press.Google Scholar
Sarmiento, Guillermo, Monasteria, Maximina, and Silva, Juan 1971 Reconocimiento ecologico de los Llanos Occidentales I. Las unidades ecologicas, y II. El notre del Estado Barinas. Acta Cientifica Venezolana 22:52-71.Google Scholar
Sioli, H. 1975 Tropical river: the Amazon. In fliver ecology, edited by Whitton, B. A., pp. 461-488. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Smith, Bruce D. 1975 Middle Mississippi exploitation of animal populations. University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology Anthropological Papers, No. 57.Google Scholar
Sternberg, Hilgard O'Reilly 1975 The Amazon river of Brazil. Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden.Google Scholar
Thomas, David H. 1969 Great Basin hunting patterns: a quantitative method for treating faunal remains. American Antiquity 34:392-401.Google Scholar
Zucchi, Alberta 1968 Algunas hipotesis sobre la poblacion aborigen de los Llanos Occidentales de Venezuela. Acta Cientifica Venezolana 19:135-139.Google Scholar
Zucchi, Alberta 1973 Prehistoric human occupations of the western Venezuela Llanos. American Antiquity 38:182-190.Google Scholar