Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-xtgtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-16T09:45:44.194Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Acorn eating and agricultural origins: California ethnographies as analogies for the ancient Near East

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2015

Joy McCorriston
Joy McCorriston*
Affiliation:
National Museum of Natural History, MRC 112, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC 20560, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Since cereals and legumes were successful domesticates, archaeologists and botanists have investigated early domestication with particular emphasis on these plants. What about other foods, which may have been staples in their own time, for which we have no simple continuity into a later subsistence in the classic region of Near Eastern domesticates? The mediterranean climate, and the lifeways, of California provide an analogy.

Type
Papers
Information
Antiquity , Volume 68 , Issue 258 , March 1994 , pp. 97 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1994

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

Anderson, P. 1991. Harvesting of wild cereals during the Natufian as seen from the experimental cultivation and harvest of wild einkorn wheat and microwear analysis of stone tools, in Bar-Yosef & Valla (1991): 521–56.Google Scholar
Anderson-Gerfaud, P., Deraprahamian, G. & Willcox, G. 1993. Les premières cultures de céréales sauvages et domestiques primitives au Proche-Orient néolithique: résultats préliminaires d’expériences ä Jalès (Ardèche), Cahiers de l’Euphrate 5–6: 191–232.Google Scholar
Arnold, J.E. 1991. Transformation of a regional economy: sociopolitical evolution and the production of valuables in southern California, Antiquity 65: 953–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asch, N.B., Ford, R.I. & Asch, D.L. 1972. Palaeoethnobotany of the Koster site: the archaic horizons. Springfield (IL): Illinois State Museum.Google Scholar
Aschmann, H. & Bahre, E. 1977. Man’s impact on the wild landscape, in Mooney, H.A. (ed.), Convergent evolution in Chile and California: mediterranean climate ecosystems: 78–86 Stroudsburg (PA): Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross.Google Scholar
Axelrod, D.I. 1973. History of the mediterranean ecosystem in California, in di Castri & Mooney (1973): 225–7.Google Scholar
Bar-Yosef, O. & Belfer-Cohen, A. 1991. From sedentary hunter-gatherers to territorial farmers in the Levant, in Gregg, S.A. (ed.), Between bands and states: 181–202. Carbondale (IL): Southern Illinois University Center for Archaeological Investigations.Google Scholar
Bar-Yosef, O. & Belfer-Cohen, A. 1992. From foraging to farming in the Mediterranean Levant, in Gebauer, A.B. & Price, T.D. (ed.), Transitions to agriculture in prehistory: 21–48. Madison (WI): Prehistory Press.Google Scholar
Bar-Yosef, O. & Valla, F.R. (ed.). 1991. The Natufian culture in the Levant. Ann Arbor (MI): International Monographs in Prehistory.Google Scholar
Baruch, U. & Bottema, S. 1991. Palynological evidence for climatic changes in the Levant, in Bar-Yosef & Valla (1991): 11–20.Google Scholar
Basgall, M.E. 1987. Resource intensification among hunter-gatherers: acorn economies in prehistoric California, Research in Economic Anthropology 9: 21–52.Google Scholar
Baumhoff, M.A. 1963. Ecological determinants of aboriginal California populations, University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 49(2): 155–235.Google Scholar
Beck, W.A. & Haase, Y.D. 1974. Historical atlas of California. Norman (OK): University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Belfer-Cohen, A. 1991. The Natufian in the Levant, Annual Review of Anthropology 20: 167–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bent, T. 1891. The Yourouks of Asia Minor, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 20: 269–76.Google Scholar
Bohrer, V.L. 1972. On the relation of harvest methods to early agriculture in the Near East, Economic Botany 26: 145–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bottema, S. & Van Zeist, W. 1990. Vegetation im Früh–holozän (c. 8000 BP), Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients Map A VI 2. Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert Verlag.Google Scholar
Burcham, L.T. 1957. California Range Land. Sacramento (CA): California Department of Natural Resources.Google Scholar
Byrne, R. 1987. Climatic change and the origins of agriculture, in Manzanilla, L. (ed.), Studies in the Neolithic and urban revolutions: 21–34. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International series S349.Google Scholar
Carneiro, R.L. & Hilse, D. 1966. On determining the probable rate of population growth during the Neolithic, American Anthropologist 68: 179–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Castillo, E.D. 1989. The native response to the colonization of Alta California, in Thomas, D.H. (ed.), Columbian consequences 1: 377–94. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Chapman, J. & Shea, A.B. 1981. The archaeobotanical record: early archaic period to contact in the lower Little Tennessee River Valley, Tennessee Anthropologist 4: 61–84.Google Scholar
Childe, V.G. 1952. New light on the most ancient East. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Cohen, M.N. & Armelagos, G.J. (ed.). 1984. Paleopathology at the origins of agriculture. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Cook, S.F. 1955. The aboriginal population of the San Joaquin Valley, California, University of California Anthropological Records 16: 31–78.Google Scholar
Cook, S.F. 1960. Colonial expeditions to the interior of California Central Valley, 1800–1820, University of California Anthropological Records 16: 239–92.Google Scholar
Cook, S.F. (1943) 1976. The conflict between the California Indian and white civilization. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Cook, S.F. & Heizer, R.F. 1968. Relationships among houses, settlement areas, and population in aboriginal California, in Chang, K.C. (ed.), Settlement archaeology. 79–116. Palo Alto (CA): National Press Books.Google Scholar
Crawford, G.W. 1982. Late archaic plant remains from west–central Kentucky: a summary, Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 7: 205–24.Google Scholar
Cribb, R. 1991. Nomads in archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crites, G.D. 1978. Plant food utilization patterns during the Middle Woodland Owl Hollow phase in Tennessee: a preliminary report, Tennessee Anthropologist 3: 79–92.Google Scholar
Deacon, H.J. 1983. The comparative evolution of Mediterranean-type ecosystems: a southern perspective, in Kruger, F.J., Mitchell, D.T. & Jarvis, J.U.M. (ed.), Mediterranean-type ecosystems: the role of nutrients: 3–40. Berlin: Springer Verlag.Google Scholar
Castri, F. DI & Mooney, H.A. (ed.). 1973. Mediterranean type ecosystems: origin and structure. New York (NY): Springer Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dickel, D.N., Schulz, P.D. & Mchenry, H.M. 1984. Central California: prehistoric subsistence changes and health, in Cohen & Armelagos (1984): 439–61.Google Scholar
Driver, H.E. 1953. The acorn in North American Indian diet, Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Sciences 62: 56–62.Google Scholar
Edwards, P.C., Bourke, S.J., Colledge, S.M., Head, J. & Macumber, P.G. 1988. Late Pleistocene prehistory in the Wadi-al-Hammeh, Jordan Valley, in Garrard, A.N. & Gebel, H.G. (ed.), The prehistory of Jordan: the state of research in 1986: 526–65. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International series S396.Google Scholar
Frenkel, R.E. 1977. Ruderal vegetation along some California roadsides. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Gayton, A.H. 1948a. Yokuts and Western Mono ethnography I: Tulare Lake, Southern Valley, and Central Foothill Yokuts, Anthropological Records 10: 1–140.Google Scholar
Gayton, A.H. 1948b. Yokuts and Western Mono ethnography II: Northern Foothill Yokuts and Western Mono, Anthropological Records 10: 143–302.Google Scholar
Gifford, E.W. (1936). 1971. Californian balanophagy, in Heizer, R.F. & Whipple, M.A. (ed.), The California Indians: a source book: 301–5. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Glassow, M.A., Wilcoxon, L.R. & Erlandson, J. 1988. Cultural and environmental change during the early period of Santa Barbara Channel prehistory, in Bailey, G. & Parkington, J. (ed.), The archaeology of prehistoric coastlines: 64–77. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gould, R.A. & Watson, P.J. 1982. A dialogue on the meaning and use of analogy in ethnoarchaeological reasoning, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1: 355–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Groser, W.H. 1888. Scriptural history 1: The trees and plants mentioned in the Bible. London.Google Scholar
Hammett, J.E. 1991. Ecology of sedentary societies without agriculture: paleoethnobotanical indicators from native California. Ph.D dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.Ann Arbor (MI): University Microfilms.Google Scholar
Harrington, J.P. N.d. Ethnographic field notes and plant specimens. Original materials on file at the National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington (DC).Google Scholar
Harris, D.R. & Hillman, G.C. (ed.). 1989. Foraging and farming: the evolution of plant exploitation. London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Hassan, F.A. 1981. Demographic archaeology. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Heady, H.F. 1977. Valley grassland, in Barbour, M.G. & Major, J. (ed.), Terrestrial vegetation of California: 491–533. New York (NY): John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Helbaek, H. 1964. First impressions of the Catal Hüyük plant husbandry, Anatolian Studies 14: 121–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henry, D.O. 1985. Preagricultural sedentism: the Natufian example, in Price, T.D. & Brown, J.A. (ed.), Prehistoric hunter-gatherers: the emergence of cultural complexity: 365–84. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Henry, D.O. 1989. From foraging to agriculture: the Levant at the end of the Ice Age. Philadelphia (PA): University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Henry, D.O. 1991. Foraging, sedentism, and adaptive vigor in the Natufian: rethinking the linkages, in Clark, G.A. (ed.), Perspectives on the past: 353–70. Philadelphia (PA): University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Hillman, G.C, Colledge, S.M. & Harris, D.R. 1989. Plant-food economy during the Epipalaeolithic period at Tell Abu Hureyra, Syria: dietary diversity, seasonality, and modes of exploitation, in Harris & Hillman (1989): 240–68.Google Scholar
Hole, F.A. 1978. Pastoral nomadism in western Iran, in Gould, R.A. (ed.), Explorations in ethnoarchaeology: 127–67. Albuquerque (NM): University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Hole, F.A. 1979. Rediscovering the past in the present: ethnoarchaeology in Luristan, Iran, in Kramer, C. (ed.), Ethnoarchaeology: implications of ethnography for archaeology: 192–218. New York (NY): Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Hopf, M. & Bar-Yosef, O. 1987. Plant remains from Hayonim cave, Western Galilee, Paléorient 13: 117–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hudson, C. 1976. The southeastern Indians. Knoxville (TN): University of Tennessee Press.Google Scholar
Hurtado, A.L. 1988. Indian survival on the California frontier. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Ingold, T. 1992. Foraging for data, camping with theories: hunter-gatherers and nomadic pastoralists in archaeology and anthropology, Antiquity 66: 790–803.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, T.W. 1991. Pounding acorn: women’s production as social and economic focus, in Gero, J.M. & Conkey, M.W. (ed.), Engendering archaeology: women and prehistory: 301–25. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Jones, T.L. 1991. Marine-resource value and the priority of coastal settlement: a California perspective, American Antiquity 56: 419–43.Google Scholar
Kirkbride, D. 1966. Five seasons at the pre-pottery Neolithic village of Beidha in Jordan, Palestine Exploration Quarterly 98: 8–72.Google Scholar
Kislev, M.E. 1988. Nahal Hemar Cave. Desiccated plant remains: an interim report, Atiqot 18: 76–81.Google Scholar
Kislev, M.E., Nadel, D. & Carmi, I. 1992. Epipalaeolithic (19,000 BP) cereal and fruit diet at Ohalo II, Sea of Galilee, Israel, Review of Paleobotany and Palynology 73: 161–6.Google Scholar
Kraybill, N. 1977. Pre-agricultural tools for the preparation of foods in the Old World, in Reed (1977b): 485–521.Google Scholar
Kroeber, A.L. 1925. Handbook of the Indians of California. Washington (DC): Government Printing Office. (Reprinted 1976 St Clair Shores (MI): Scholarly Press.)Google Scholar
Lambert, P.M. & Walker, P.L. 1991. Physical anthropological evidence for the evolution of social complexity in coastal Southern California, Antiquity 65: 963–73.Google Scholar
Lawton, H.W. & Bean, L.J. 1968. A preliminary reconstruction of aboriginal agricultural technology among the Cahuilla, Indian Historian 1: 18–29.Google Scholar
Lewis, H.T. 1973. Patterns of Indian burning in California: ecology and ethnohistory. Ramona (CA): Ballena Press.Google Scholar
Lewthwaite, J.G. 1982. Acorns for the ancestors: the prehistoric exploitation of woodland in the West Mediterranean, in Bell, M. & Limbrey, S. (ed.), Archaeological aspects of woodland ecology. 217–30. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International series S142.Google Scholar
Mccarthy, H. 1993. Managing oaks and the acorn crop, in Blackburn, T.C. & Anderson, K. (ed.), Before the wilderness: 213–28. Menlo Park (CA): Ballena Press.Google Scholar
Mccorriston, J. 1992. The early development of agriculture in the ancient Near East: an ecological and evolutionary study. Ph.D thesis, Yale University, New Haven (CT). Ann Arbor (MI): University Microfilms.Google Scholar
Mccorriston, J. & Hole, F.A. 1991. The ecology of seasonal stress and the origins of agriculture in the Near East, American Anthropologist 93: 46–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mchenry, M. & Schulz, P.D. 1978. Harris lines, enamel hypoplasia, and subsistence change in prehistoric central California. Ramona (CA): Ballena Press.Google Scholar
Merriam, CH. 1905. The Indian population of California, American Anthropologist 7: 594–606.Google Scholar
Miksicek, CH. 1991. Beyond acorns and shellfish: the potential for archaeobotanical analysis in California archaeology. Paper presented at the 56th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, New Orleans (LO).Google Scholar
Mooney, H.A. & Dunn, E.L. 1970. Convergent evolution of Mediterranean-climate evergreen sclerophyll shrubs, Evolution 24: 292–303.Google Scholar
Mooney, H.A., Dunn, E.L., Shropshire, F. & Song, L. JR. 1972. Land use history of California and Chile as related to the structure of the sclerophyll shrub vegetation, Madroño 21: 305–19.Google Scholar
Moore, A.M.T. 1985. The development of Neolithic societies in the Near East, Advances in World Archaeology 4: 1–69.Google Scholar
Moratto, M.J. 1984. California archaeology. Orlando (FL): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Nahel, I. 1981. The Mediterranean climate from a biological viewpoint, in Di Castri, F., Goodall, D.W., & Specht, R.L. (ed.), Mediterranean-type shrublands: 63–87. Amsterdam: Elsevier Scientific.Google Scholar
Naveh, Z. 1967. Mediterranean ecosystems and vegetation types in California and Israel, Ecology 48: 445–59.Google Scholar
Naveh, Z. 1984. The vegetation of the Carmel and Sefunim and the evolution of the cultural landscape, in Ronen, A. (ed.), Sefunim prehistoric sites, Mount Carmel, Israel: 23–63. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International series S230.Google Scholar
O‘connell, J.F. & Hawkes, K. 1981. Alyawara plant use and optimal foraging theory, in Winterhaider, B. & Smith, E. (ed.), Hunter-gatherer foraging strategies: ethnographic and archaeological analyses: 99–125. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Olszewski, D.I. 1993. Subsistence ecology in the Mediterranean forest: implications for the origins of cultivation in the Epipalaeolithic southern Levant, American Anthropologist 95: 420–35.Google Scholar
Raven, P.H. 1973. The evolution of mediterranean floras, in di Castri & Mooney (1973): 213–24.Google Scholar
Reed, C.A. 1977a. A model for the origins of agriculture in the Near East, in Reed (1977b): 543–567.Google Scholar
Reed, C.A. 1977b. Origins of agriculture. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, M. 1990. The mother of invention: evolutionary theory, territoriality, and the origins of agriculture, American Anthropologist 92: 399–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sankary, M.N. 1971. Comparative plant ecology of two mediterranean-type arid areas, in Syria and California, with emphasis on the autecology of twenty dominant species. Ph.D thesis, University of California, Davis (CA). Ann Arbor (MI): University Microfilms.Google Scholar
Schoenenger, M. 1981. The agricultural ‘revolution’: its effect on human diet in prehistoric Iran and Israel, Paléorient 7: 73–92.Google Scholar
Schulz, P. 1981. Osteoarchaeology and subsistence change in prehistoric central California. Ph.D dissertation, University of California, Davis (CA).Google Scholar
Schulz, P.D. & Johnson, J.J. 1980. An early acorn cache from central California, Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 2: 127–8.Google Scholar
Shipek, F.C. 1989. An example of intensive plant husbandry: the Kumeyaay of southern California, in Harris & Hillman (1989): 159–70.Google Scholar
Sillen, A. 1981. Strontium and diet at Hayonim Cave, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 56: 131–7.Google Scholar
Sillen, A. & Lee-Thorp, J.A. 1991. Dietary change in the late Natufian, in Bar – Yosef & Valla (1991): 339–410.Google Scholar
Smith, B. 1992. Prehistoric plant husbandry in eastern North America, in Cowan, C.W. & Watson, P.J. (1992), The origins of agriculture: 101–19. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Smith, H.H. 1932. Ethnohistory of the Ojibwe Indians, Bulletin of the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee 4(3).Google Scholar
Smith, H.H. 1933. Ethnobotany of the Forest Potawatomi Indians, Bulletin of the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee 7(1).Google Scholar
Smith, P.A. 1991. The dental evidence for nutritional status in the Natufians, in Bar-Yosef & Valla (1991): 425–32.Google Scholar
Smith, P.A., Bar-Yosef, O. & Sillen, A. 1984. Archeological and skeletal evidence for dietary change during the late Pleistocene/early Holocene in the Levant, in Cohen & Armelagos (1984): 101–30.Google Scholar
Solecki, R.S. 1968. Cave archaeology in the Zagros mountains, Acta Archaeologica Carpathica 10: 245–59.Google Scholar
Stark, F. 1934. The valleys of the assassins and other Persian travels. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Swanton, J.R. 1979. The Indians of the southeastern United States. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Tchernov, E. 1991. Biological evidence for human sedentism in southwest Asia during the Natufian, in Bar-Yosef & Valla (1991): 315–40.Google Scholar
Timbrook, J. 1986. Chia and the Chumash: a reconsideration of sage seeds in southern California, Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 8: 50–64.Google Scholar
Treganza, A.E. 1947. Possibilities of an aboriginal practice of agriculture among the southern Diegueño, American Antiquity 12: 169–73.Google Scholar
Tristram, H.B. 1873. Natural history of the Bible. London.Google Scholar
UNESCOS-FAO. 1963. Bioclimatic map of the Mediterranean zone, explanatory notes. Rome. 1969. Vegetation map of the Mediterranean zone, ex-planatory notes. Rome.Google Scholar
Unger-Hamilton, R. 1991. Natufian plant husbandry in the southern Levant and comparison with that of the Neolithic periods: the lithic perspective, in Bar-Yosef & Valla (1991): 483–520.Google Scholar
Van Zeist, W. & Bakker-Heeres, J.A.H. 1984 (1986). Archaeobotanical studies in the Levant 3: Late Palaeolithic Mureybit, Palaeohistoria 26: 171–99.Google Scholar
Walker, P.L. 1986. Porotic hyperostosis in a marine-dependent California Indian population, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 69: 345–54.Google Scholar
Walker, P.L. 1989. Cranial injuries as evidence of violence in prehistoric southern California, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 80: 313–323.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
White, K.L. 1967. Native bunchgrass [Stipa puichra] on Hastings Reservation, California, Ecology 48: 949–55.Google Scholar
Wilson, A.T. 1932. Persia. London.Google Scholar
Wright, H.E. JR. 1977. Environmental change and the origin of agriculture in the Old and New Worlds, in Reed (1977b): 281–318.Google Scholar
Wright, K. 1992. Ground stone assemblage variations and subsistence strategies in the Levant, 22,000–5500 b.p. Ph.D dissertation, Yale University, New Haven, (CT). Ann Arbor (MI): University Microfilms.Google Scholar
Wylie, A. 1982. An analogy by any other name is just as analogical, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1: 382–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Younker, R.W. 1985. Bedrock cupholes and the grinding of acorn meal in Ancient Jordan. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Anaheim (CA).Google Scholar
Younker, R.W. 1989. The role of balanophagy in recent and ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern food systems. Paper presented at the first joint Archaeological Congress, Baltimore (MD).Google Scholar