Princeton Field Course 2008

PRE-COLUMBIAN PEOPLES OF TROPICAL AMERICA AND THEIR ENVIRONMENTS

March 24– April 12

The goal of this course is to provide you with an overview of the lifestyles and environments of the people who occupied tropical America before Europeans arrived in the 15 th century. This course will also provide hands on field and laboratory experience in the investigation of such topics as: (1) the reconstruction of Neotropical climate and vegetation during the last 20,000 years, when humans conceivably occupied tropical America, (2) studying prehistoric diet and the evolution of agriculture, (3) pre-Columbian stone tools and their uses, and (4) doing field archaeology in the humid tropics.

There will be a final exam. The course grade will be determined as follows: 75% based on final exam; 25% on laboratory projects.

SESSIONS BY DR. DOLORES PIPERNO, MARCH 24 TO APRIL 1^st, 2008

Classes will take place at CTPA (Center for Tropical Paleoecology and Archaeology)

Students will have lunch at STRI's main facilities at 1:00 p.m. and go back to CTPA.

Then students will return to the "schoolhouse" in Gamboa for the evenings.

FIELD TRIPS:

Economic Botany Walk with the Embera Drua Rio Chagres Arriba Community.
We will visit an indigenous Panamanian (Embera) community in the Chagres National Park for an economic botany walk through their forests and gardens to learn about traditional economic, medicinal and ritual uses of plants.
Visit the Ancient Lake Bed at Monte Oscuro
Where Piperno and Colleagues Studied Vegetation, Climate and Human Land Use.

Textbooks Used:

Diamond, Jared, 1997, Guns, Germs, and Steel, W.W. Norton and Company, New York.
Piperno, D.R. and Pearsall, D.M. Origins of Agriculture in the Lowland Neotropics, 1998, Academic Press, San Diego. (there is no need to buy this, I’ll supply photocopies of the necessary sections).

Denevan, W. 1992. The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492. Annals of the Association of the American Geographers 82 (3): 369-85.

Readings for Monday and Tuesday March 24 and 25:
Diamond, Prologue and Chapter 1.
Piperno and Pearsall, pages 90-107 and 167-182.

Monday March 24

Morning: 9:00 to 11:30 am
Lecture: Introduction to Anthropology and Archaeology. Also start the lecture: The First Peopling of the Americas: Under What Cultural and Ecological Conditions did the Colonization of the New World and Tropical America Take Place?

Afternoon: 1:00 to 4:00 pm.
Laboratory practical: Introduction to how archaeobiologists study plant and animal remains. Documenting pre-Columbian plant exploitation and domestication and determining if plant fossils are from wild or domesticated species.

Tuesday March 25

Lecture: The Peopling of the Americas: Under What Cultural and Ecological Conditions did the Colonization of the New World and Tropical America Take Place?

Laboratory: Continue Laboratory Practical. Begin Readings For Thursday.

Wednesday March 26

Lectures: I. The Evolution of Plant and Animal Food Production and the Emergence of Global Agriculture. II. Subsistence and Settlement in the Neotropics after the End of the Last Ice Age from 10,000 B.P. to 7000 B.P.: The Evolution of Plant Cultivation and Horticulture.

Reading assigned for Thursday:
Piperno and Pearsall, pp. 182-241.
Diamond, Chapters 8 and 9

Thursday March 27

Plant Microfossil Research in Archaeobiology and Environmental Reconstruction in the Tropics: Pollen and Starch Grain Analysis.

Laboratory: Continue Hands-on Work with Pollen, Starch Grains and Phytoliths from Modern Plants and Archaeological Sites.

Reading for Friday: Begin Readings for Saturday.

Friday March 28

Field Trip: Economic Botany Walk with the Embera Drua Rio Chagres Arriba Community. We will visit an indigenous Panamanian (Embera) community in the Chagres National Park for an economic botany walk through their forests and gardens to learn about traditional economic, medicinal and ritual uses of plants.

Field Trip: Visit the Ancient Lake Bed at Monte Oscuro where Piperno and Colleagues Studied Vegetation, Climate and Human Land Use During the Past 14,000 Years.

Laboratory: How we describe the stratigraphy and sample the sediments of paleoecological sites such as Monte Oscuro.

Readings for Saturday April 31.
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, Chapters 3, 11, 13, 14.

Readings for Monday April 2.
Piperno and Pearsall pp. 243-318.
Denevan, W. 1992. The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492. Annals of the Association of the American Geographers 82 (3): 369-85.

Saturday March 29

Finish Lectures of March 26. Discussion: Was the Emergence of Agriculture and Its Replacement of Hunting and Gathering Ways of Life Throughout the World Between 10,000 and 3,000 Years Ago a Good Thing for Human Societies? What Were Some of the More Positive and Negative Consequences of this Major Socio-economic Transition?

Finish Lab Practical

Reading for Sunday: Piperno and Pearsall Chapter 5.

Sunday March 30

Lecture:
Evolution of Slash and Burn Agriculture between 7000 and 5000 B.P.

Self-Guided Economic Botany Walk in Gamboa.

Monday March 31 and Tuesday April 1

Finish Lectures. Review for Final Exam. Finish Laboratory Practical.