| Paleoenvironmental reconstruction illuminates past conditions, such as how a site’s
vegetation has changed over time through both natural and human-mediated processes. It also
allows researchers to detect subtle changes related to human-environment interactions that do not
necessarily result in evidence that can be recovered as artifacts in the archaeological record. In
order to investigate the timing and nature of settlement pattern and subsistence strategy shifts at
an archaeological site in the southwest Pacific, residual botanical and microbial fingerprints
recovered from a terrestrial sediment core were analyzed. Land-use patterns related to
horticulture (i.e., gardening, farming) were assessed through the analysis of 1) phytoliths to
reconstruct the site’s vegetation history and 2) microbial DNA to determine how community
composition and diversity were affected by varying levels of cultivation activity.
The first Lapita settlers arrived to the Fijian archipelago by about 2900 to 3100 years BP,
bringing with them an assortment of economically important plants and animals. They are
generally thought to have occupied coastal spaces exclusively and practiced a mixed foraging
subsistence strategy that was supplemented with low levels of horticulture. The phytolith and
microbial data presented here provide evidence from an inland site in the Sigatoka Valley that
appears to have been occupied and cultivated around the same time that people first arrived to
Fiji. Phytoliths belonging to the non-native introduced banana plant family (Musaceae spp.) were
recovered from sediments radiocarbon dated to approximately 3100 years BP. Additionally, there
is a dramatic shift in soil microbial community composition and diversity during this period that
is most likely related to cultivation activity. The results of this project indicate that some of the
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first Lapita settlers moved inland immediately upon their arrival to Fiji to begin cultivating
imported plants in the highly fertile alluvial soils of the Sigatoka Valley. Interestingly, their
presence predates events of major deforestation and grassland intrusion by centuries, suggesting
that the first gardening activities were performed on a small scale with minimal environmental
impact.
Keywords: archaeology, anthropology, Lapita, Fiji, horticulture, agriculture, phytoliths,
microbiome, settlement, subsistence |