Hickory nuts, bulk processing and the advent of early horticultural economies in eastern North America

Abstract Employing a dwelling perspective, this paper reinterprets the adoption of horticulture during the terminal Late Archaic in eastern North America as an unintended consequence of changing human-animal-plant relations and the invention of bulk processing techniques during the Middle and Late Archaic. The incorporation of immobile plant and animal species into the lifeworlds of Archaic individuals by 7000 bp was part of a dynamic series of changes that greatly altered the taskscapes of these hunter-gatherers. The activities characteristic of these new taskscapes were group oriented and included the bulk processing of nuts and mussels to buffer against risk of winter food shortages. Changing social relations during the terminal Late Archaic dissociated certain groups from important riverine resources; however, the adoption of bulk wild-food-processing techniques provided a technological foundation for the replacement of aquatic immobile resources with upland garden crops, leading to the advent of a st...