Foraging, Farming, and Coastal Biocultural Adaptation in Late Prehistoric North Carolina

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“A fascinating picture of human adaptation in an area of North The usa that has been studied primarily by archaeologists . . . [that] provides a new understanding of the responses in health and lifeways in a coastal setting, showing especially the very localized nature of food choices and resource acquisition.”–Clark S. Larsen, Ohio State University

“This thoughtful integration of archaeological, historical, ecological, and human bioarchaeological data provides a significant new perspective on the biological costs and benefits of Middle and Late Woodland coastal adaptations in North Carolina. By contrasting inner and outer coastal plain communities with regards to specific features of their dietary regimes, subsistence activities, and patterns of skeletal development and pathology, Hutchinson reveals a breadth of successful adaptive variations hitherto obscured by generalized summaries of Late Prehistoric Native American lifeways in the mid-Atlantic region.”–Mary Lucas Powell, University of Kentucky

Dale Hutchinson provides a detailed bioarchaeological analysis exploring human adaptation in the estuary zone of North Carolina and the influence of coastal foraging throughout the late prehistoric transition to agriculture. He draws on observations of human skeletal remains to take a look at nutrition, disease, physical activity, morbidity, and mortality of coastal populations, focusing particularly on changes in nutrition and health associated with the move from foraging to farming.

Hutchinson confronts the prevailing notion of a universal agricultural transition by documenting a more variable and complex process of change. Among his notable findings is that skeletal and dental markers long accepted as indicators of corn consumption in reality occur more ceaselessly among coastal foragers than among interior agriculturalists. His research shows that women and men differed not only in their economic roles but in their diets as well, and that outer coastal populations continued to rely on maritime resources without the adoption of corn after A.D. 800, a reliance that virtually surely influenced their evolving way of life.

None of the data in the book has been published in the past, and Hutchinson is generous with tables, figures, and appendixes that contribute significantly to the clarity of his interpretations. The combination of original data, well-supported interpretation, and the breadth of evidence from many categories significantly advances our anthropological understanding of the lives of these first North Carolinians.

Dale L. Hutchinson is associate professor of anthropology at East Carolina University.

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