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Pollen Analysis of Prehistoric Human Feces: A New Approach to Ethnobotany*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Paul S. Martin  and
Floyd W. Sharrock
Paul S. Martin
Affiliation:
Geochronology Laboratories, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona
Floyd W. Sharrock
Affiliation:
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
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Abstract

Prehistoric human and nonhuman feces from alcoves in the Glen Canyon region of southern Utah are a rich source of pollen and spores. The dominant pollen types (determined in a 200-grain pollen count) vary greatly from sample to sample, making stratigraphic and climatic interpretation very difficult. The record of economic plant pollen appears to reflect the prehistoric Pueblo diet. Cleome, Zea, Cucurbita, and Opuntia are the most abundant economic pollen types. Long-distance transport of pollen from distant montane forests will account for the presence of occasional pollen grains of spruce, fir, and alder in certain samples. The salvage and study of ancient human feces promises to reveal new information about the environment and diet of prehistoric man in the Southwest, a development of interest to both the ecologist and the ethnobotanist.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 30 , Issue 2Part1 , October 1964 , pp. 168 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1964

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Footnotes

*

Contribution No. 86, Program in Geochronology, University of Arizona.

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