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Free keywords:
Archaeological sites, Useful plants, Domesticated landscapes, Landscape transformations
Abstract:
In this chapter, the reader will find guidelines and suggestions for the application of ethnobotanical and
ethnoecological methods in archaeological sites and their surroundings, aiming to establish a closer
dialogue between ethnobiology and archaeology for understanding the human history of past and present
landscapes. The goal of such methodological proposals is to document the knowledge and practices of
human populations that live on and around archaeological sites concerning the vegetation of these areas.
The methods presented here can shed light on specific questions about the relationships between past
human populations and their plant resources (e.g., practices of use, management, and domestication),
helping to understand how people transformed the landscape and how the legacies of such relationships are
visible in the present. This chapter is collectively written by ethnobiologists, botanists, ecologists, and
archaeologists from several institutions working in the Amazon basin. Thus, examples presented here come
mainly from research conducted in this region.
