We present new starch grain and phytolith data from two sites in Puerto Rico: Maisabel and HU-7. Our findings reveal a strong emphasis on the use of maize, followed by chile pepper and arrowroot in Early and Late Ceramic Age deposits. Manioc was rare, with nearly all manioc residues coming from Early Ceramic Age artifacts in the Maisabel site. Integrating both starches and phytoliths provides a more accurate view of plant use than if only one or the other of these classes of microfossils are studied. We then review previously reported microbotanical findings from the island to document the diversity of plant resources utilized by precolonial occupants of Puerto Rico and how commonly these resources occur. There is now a sufficient body of residue data available to allow new insights into precolonial agricultural economies of Puerto Rico. Applying ecological measures of diversity, richness, and evenness to microbotanical datasets for Puerto Rico reveal declines in diversity for both the initial and later colonizing populations of the island. These findings are consistent with expectations from agroecology, whereby productive domesticates are identified and over time exploited in greater proportions to other taxa, both wild and domesticated.

我们提供来自波多黎各两个地点的新淀粉粒和植硅体数据：Maisabel 和 HU-7。我们的研究结果表明，在陶瓷时代早期和晚期的沉积物中，非常重视玉米的使用，其次是辣椒和竹芋。木薯很罕见，几乎所有木薯残留物都来自迈萨贝尔遗址的早期陶瓷时代文物。与仅研究这些类型的微化石中的一类或另一类相比，将淀粉和植硅体结合起来可以更准确地了解植物的利用。然后，我们回顾了之前报道的岛上微生物学研究结果，以记录波多黎各前殖民居民利用的植物资源的多样性以及这些资源的出现频率。现在有足够的残留物数据可以让我们对波多黎各殖民前的农业经济有新的见解。将多样性、丰富度和均匀度的生态测量应用于波多黎各的微生物数据集，揭示了该岛最初和后来的殖民种群的多样性下降。这些发现与农业生态学的预期一致，即生产性驯化物被识别出来，并且随着时间的推移，与其他类群（无论是野生的还是驯化的）相比，其开发利用的比例更大。