SEMINAR: Archaeology Seminar Series 2017
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Archaeology Seminar Series 2017 : Should I stay or should I go now? Fire, Water, and Intensive Seed Use in the Australian Arid Zone |
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Contemporary Martu rarely harvest grass seeds but inadvertently foster patches of grass when they burn to hunt burrowed monitor lizards, demonstrating that grass seeds need only be by-products, rather than intended crops, of firestick farming. Nonetheless, repeatedly setting hunting fires in the same area creates mosaics of seed and small game patches that, in the past, ensured that grass seeds were reliably available whenever small game hunting success was poor and distances between hunting patches long. Such circumstances were most likely during the Mid Holocene when ENSO climatic variability reduced the water sources that could support foraging. I suggest that prolonged occupation around those isolated sources that remained triggered both the emergence of anthropogenic fire mosaics and fuelled population growth, leading to seed-based foraging economies. Evidence of Pleistocene seed milling likely accommodated seed distributions created in fire regimes other than the mosaic burning conducted by Martu today, and should have been organized differently than their Late Holocene successors.
Speaker(s) |
David W. Zeanah, Anthropology, Sacramento State University
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Location |
Archaeology �FishBowl� (SS 1.93)
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Contact |
Sven Ouzman
<[email protected]>
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Start |
Thu, 18 May 2017 12:00
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End |
Thu, 18 May 2017 13:00
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Submitted by |
Karen Eichorn <[email protected]>
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Last Updated |
Mon, 15 May 2017 08:30
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