User:Smallchief/ag in eastern north america

Prehistoric agriculture in eastern North America

Eastern Agricultural Complex
The earliest evidence of incipient agriculture in eastern North America is 5300 BCE. Bottle gourds have been found associated with human settlements in Illinois and Florida. The bottle gourd, useful as a container and with edible seeds, likely reached the United States from Mesoamerica and was dispersed throughout eastern North America by human hand. Archaeological evidence for agriculture is sparse until 1800 BCE when the people of the Riverton Site in the Wabash River valley of Illinois were cultivating five species of plants: bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria), marshelder (Iva annua var. macrocarpa), sunflower (Helianthus annuus var. macrocarpus), and 2 varieties of chenopod (Chenopodium berlandieri), plus the possible cultivation of squash (Cucurbita pepo) and little barley (Hordeum pusillum). https://oxfordre-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/environmentalscience/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414.001.0001/acrefore-9780199389414-e-309

https://oxfordre-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/environmentalscience/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414.001.0001/acrefore-9780199389414-e-165?rskey=nbehan#acrefore-9780199389414-e-165-div1-5

According to Wright, the evidence is that ag arrived on the St. Lawrence in 1300. East of Quebec, largely fish camps.

quebec city most northerly site for ag, 135 day growing season, and occupants of Stadacona were semi-nomadic visiting far away places for fishing. https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/lhn-nhs/qc/cartierbrebeuf/culture/autochtone-indigenous/natcul6

crop domestication began about 7300 bp with bottle guord in illinois and florida. (plant domestication in eastern north america)

The domestication of maize (also called "corn") began about 8000 BCE in southern Mexico.

Maize was first grown by Eastern Woodlands Cultures by around 200 BCE, and highly productive localized varieties became widely used around 900 CE.

As a result of research carried out over the past decade, eastern North America now provides one of the most detailed records of the origins of agriculture available. Spanning a full three millennia, the transition from forager to farmer in eastern North America involved the domestication of four North American seed plants during the second millennium B.C., the initial emergence of food production economies based on local crop plants between 250 B.C. and A.D. 200, and the rapid and broad-scale shift to maize-centered agriculture during the three centuries from A.D. 800 to 1100.

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