Under the direction of Dr. Robert Dewar, Mr. David George will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He will address the question of the development of agriculture among prehistoric Native Americans in the United States. With the advent in recent years of techniques to radiocarbon date single seeds and the application of scanning electron microscopy to examine plant structure and determine domestic status, our understanding of the advent and effects of agriculture in North American has been transformed. It was previously believed that the first domestic plants in the Eastern part of the continent were maize and squash which diffused northwards from Middle America. With the adoption of maize agriculture, archaeologists believed, societies significantly changed. More recent work however has revealed a substantially different picture. In many parts of the East, domestication of local plants preceded the appearance of maize by perhaps a millennium. Plants such as sunflower, goosefoot and squash were, likely through accident, domesticated and incorporated into local diet. Both the presence and affects of these domesticates varied locally and in many instances - in contrast to archaeological predictions - had very little effect on social complexity or lifestyle. Although it is quite possible that the Northeastern United States participated in this process, extremely little relevant research has taken place in this area. It is clear that by 1,000 AD domestic maize was present at some sites, but little is known about the domestication of local species either earlier or later. With National Science Foundation support Mr. Geroge will examine this question. He has located large samples of botanical remains recovered by controlled excavation from secure archaeological contexts and will analyze these to determine the species present and their relative frequencies. He will section and study potential domestic status through scanning electron microscope examination. He will also submit samples for AMS radiocarbon dating to establish a secure chronological context and to examine change in plant use over time. Through comparison of the Northeast pattern with data collected in other parts of the continental United States, it will be possible to gain insight into prehistoric Native American subsistence adaptations and the interplay between subsistence and social complexity. This research will shed new light on the relationship between human populations and environment and how this changed and developed over an extended period of time. It will provide data of interest to both archaeologists and ecologists and assist in training a promising young scientist.
