Native American 'garden agriculture' in south-eastern North America

The Native Americans of south-eastern North America are sometimes described as gardeners and sometimes as agriculturalists. Neither label conveys an accurate sense of farming practices that employed polycropping and shifting cultivation to produce substantial surpluses. Ethnohistorical accounts prov...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inWorld archaeology Vol. 37; no. 2; pp. 259 - 274
Main Authors Scarry, C Margaret, Scarry, John F
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published 01.06.2005
Subjects
Agriculture
Alabama
Archaeobotany
Archaeology
Crop diversification
Crops
Ethnohistory
Gardens
Granaries
Horticulture
Indigenous knowledge
Indigenous populations
Maize
Mississippi
U.S.A
Women's role
Women's work
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Summary:The Native Americans of south-eastern North America are sometimes described as gardeners and sometimes as agriculturalists. Neither label conveys an accurate sense of farming practices that employed polycropping and shifting cultivation to produce substantial surpluses. Ethnohistorical accounts provide tantalizing glimpses of the production and storage of cultivated foods among the native societies of the Southeast. Archaeological investigations in Apalachee Province have yielded further evidence regarding the sizes and distribution of elevated granaries in one native chiefdom. Archaeobotanical data provide information about varied reliance on agricultural products in several polities in Alabama and Mississippi. We weave together these various threads of evidence to survey the cropping strategies (e.g. scale of production, diversity of crops, labor and storage practices) of Mississippian peoples and their historic descendants in the Southeast. Reprinted by permission of Routledge, Taylor and Francis Ltd.
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SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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ISSN:0043-8243
DOI:10.1080/00438243500095199