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20 - Early agriculture in the Americas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2015

By
Deborah M. Pearsall
Edited by
Graeme Barker  and
Candice Goucher
Graeme Barker
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Candice Goucher
Affiliation:
Washington State University
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Summary

Seasonal environments, especially forests and forest fringes, were key habitats for domestication in the Americas. Based on available data, plant domestication in the Americas was characterized by multiple, independent domestications of species in useful genera in North, Central, and South America. This chapter considers this pattern for pseudocereals, legumes, chiles, squashes, tobacco, cotton and a number of fruit trees. Plants needed for nutritionally balanced meals were domesticated multiple times in diverse settings. The early history of plant domestication begins in lower Central America and northwestern South America and is known in large part from microfossil evidence. Agriculture led to landscape transformations in the Americas, the scale of which varied across time and place. Fire was an important, early management tool. Other practices that changed landscapes include management of water and soil. Native agriculturalists in the Americas also practise crop rotation, sequential planting and fallowing.

Keywords

Kili Gul Muhammadceramic productionaceramic Neolithic settlementsanimal domesticationMehrgarh
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge World History , pp. 514 - 538
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

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References

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