臺大人類學系演講

講者：Dr. Pei-Lin Yu
(Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Boise State U.)

講題：Ethnoarchaeology of Fishing, Wild root Gathering, and Horticulture in Central Venezuela: Implications for Early Neolithic Adaptations

時間：2014年12月31日(三)中午12：30-2:20

地點：臺大水源校區行政大樓201室

摘要：
Foraging horticulturists in the New World tropics make tactical subsistence decisions based upon organization of available labor and costs of procuring alternative resources. During a two-year ethnoarchaeological study of the Pume of Venezuela (also known as the Yaruro), I observed them cultivating native crops in gardens, including bitter manioc (Manihot esculenta), gourd (Cucurbita foetidissima), and tobacco (Nicotiana spp.). However, the Pume showed little interest in maize and other cereal crops even when offered at no cost by government agents.

Compared to native crops, introduced cereal crops require fertilization, pest control, and irrigation, which curtails foraging mobility. From this and other relevant ethnographic information I have derived an hypothesis that the cultural evolutionary sequence from tropical foraging to farming will include a phase of small scale gardening of native crop species, usually roots or corms, that are adapted to local ecosystems and resistant to predators due to toxic characteristics. Large scale agriculture of non-toxic cereal crops is feasible only when populations reach a critical threshold of sufficient numbers and sedentized settlement patterns that permit organized labor. According to this hypothesis, archaeological evidence for taro (Colocasia esculenta) should consistently precede evidence for millet (Panicum spp.) and djulis (Chenopodium spp.) in early Neolithic sequences in Taiwan.

In a corollary to this hypothesis, in habitats with consistent access to productive aquatic resources, the process is accelerated with the critical threshold of foraging population density reached earlier. This process is reversible: if a tropical agricultural population dips below the critical threshold, I predict that the intensification sequence will reverse. Cereal crops will be abandoned in favor of renewed emphasis on native cultigens. This reversible phenomenon has been observed in the Amazon Basin.

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