Teresa Ingalls Poster Proposal

Farming Trees: The Use of Arboriculture as a Means of Agriculture in Southeast Asia

In Southeast Asia, archaeology has greatly aided in the discussion of the origins and dispersal of agriculture. However the primary emphasis of this research has been on the domestication and intensive production of rice to the neglect of other food ways. Currently there are efforts to remedy this by looking at the use of arboriculture as an alternative and potentially primary means of subsistence for prehistoric peoples. Yet this research has been undertaken at the site-level and comparative analysis is needed. The objective of this poster is to compile the paleoethnobotanical data on arboriculture from various archaeological sites in Southeast Asia with the goal of analyzing this information for historical trends. Various questions will be asked of the data, including: “What was the role of trees in the diet?”, “Was there a shift in the importance of trees in the diet?”, “What are the broad patterns of tree use in prehistoric Southeast Asia?”, and “Did these patterns change over time?”