New Evidence concerning the Chronology and Paleoethnobotany of Salts Cave, Kentucky
Gardner PS. 1987. New Evidence concerning the Chronology and Paleoethnobotany of Salts Cave, Kentucky. American Antiquity. 52(2):358-367
Recent research has resolved problems surrounding the chronology and archeobotanical record of the Salts Cave Vestibule (within Mammoth Cave National Park). Eight new radiocarbon determinations from Vestibule charcoal indicate an occupation in the first millennium B.C., confirming an assignment to the Early Woodland period. Previous analyses of carbonized plant remains from stratified deposits in the Vestibule indicated that the domestication of two native plants, sumpweed and sunflower, preceded the introduction of cucurbits into this part of the Eastern Woodlands. A recent analysis of a second series of archeobotanical samples indicates that cucurbits were present in Salts Cave as early as the domesticated native annuals. These new data render the archeobotanical record of Salts Cave less anomalous than previously, and support the currently accepted reconstructions of prehistoric subsistence change in the Eastern Woodlands.
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Gardner, Paul
- Units
- MACA
- Keywords
- Agriculture, annual marshelder (Iva annua), Charcoal, gourd (Cucurbita), Isotopic Dating, Plant Studies, Prehistoric Indians, Salts Cave Mammoth Cave National Park KY, sunflower family (Asteraceae), Vegetal Remains