Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-25wd4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T02:36:21.745Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Earliest Cucurbita from the Great Lakes, Northern USA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

G. William Monaghan ,
William A. Lovis  and
Kathryn C. Egan-Bruhy
G. William Monaghan*
Affiliation:
Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, Indiana University, 423 North Fess Avenue, Bloomington, IN 47408, USA
William A. Lovis
Affiliation:
MSU Museum and Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
Kathryn C. Egan-Bruhy
Affiliation:
Commonwealth Cultural Resources Group, Inc., P.O. Box 1061, Minocqua, WI 54548, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Fax: +1 812 855 1864.E-mail address:gmonagha@indiana.edu(G.W. Monaghan).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Directly dated Cucurbita from archaeological sites near Lake Huron expand the range and human usage of adventive, cultivated wild gourds or squash into the Great Lakes region, USA, by 4000 14C yr BP. The data also show that domesticated C. pepo squash was cultivated there by 3000 14C yr BP. Although milder Hypsithermal climate may have been a contributing factor, squash and gourds expanded northward during the mid-Holocene mainly by human agency and may be the first human-introduced adventive plant in temperate North America. Even after 3000 14C yr BP, when domesticated squash generally replaced wild varieties at northern sites, squash stands were probably informally managed rather than intensively cultivated.

Keywords

CucurbitaSquashPlant domesticationBiogeographyFood productionGreat LakesPaleoeconomyLate ArchaicHypsithermal
Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 65 , Issue 02 , March 2006 , pp. 216 - 222
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Asch, D.L., (1994). Aboriginal specialty-plant cultivation in Eastern North America: Illinois prehistory and a post-contact perspective.. In: Green, W. (Ed.) Agricultural Origins and Development in the Midcontinent. Report 19. Office of the State Archaeologist, University of Iowa, Iowa City., pp. 25–86.Google Scholar
Asch, D.L., Asch, N.B., (1985). Prehistoric plant cultivation in west-central Illinois.. In: Ford, R.I. (Ed.) Prehistoric Food Production in North America. Anthropological Papers No. 75, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor., pp. 149–204.Google Scholar
Chomko, S.A., Crawford, S.W., (1978). Plant husbandry in prehistoric Eastern North America: new evidence for its development. American Antiquity 43, 405–408.Google Scholar
Cowan, C.W., (1997). Evolutionary changes associated with the domestication of Cucurbita pepo: evidence from eastern Kentucky. Gremillion, K.J., People, Plants and Landscapes: Studies in Paleoethnobotany University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.63–85.Google Scholar
Cowan, C.W., Smith, B.D., (1993). New perspectives on a wild gourd in Eastern North America. Journal of Ethnobiology 13, 17–54.Google Scholar
Decker-Walters, D.S., Walters, T.W., Cowan, C.W., Smith, B.D., (1993). Isozymic characterization of wild populations of Cucurbita pepo . Journal of Ethnobiology 13, 55–72.Google Scholar
Decker-Walters, D.S., Staub, J.E., López-Sesé, A.I., Nakata, E., (2001). Diversity in landraces and cultivars of bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria; Cucurbitaceae) as assessed by random amplified polymorphic DNA. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 48, 369–380.Google Scholar
Demeter, C.S., Monaghan, G.W., Hambacher, M.J., (2000). A Phase I Archaeological Evaluation of the Crotty Street Mitigation Wetland: The Green Point/Schultz II (20SA1) Site, City of Saginaw, Saginaw County, Michigan.. Report R-0344, Commonwealth Cultural Resources Group, Inc., Jackson, Michigan.Google Scholar
Ford, R.I., (1973). Salvaging biological remains from archaeological sites. The Michigan Archaeologist 18, 223–230.Google Scholar
Ford, R.I., (1989). Reanalysis of Cucurbits in the ethnobotanical laboratory, University of Michigan. New World Paleoethnobotany: collected papers in honor of Leonard W. Blake. Voigt, E.E., Pearsall, D.M., The Missouri Archaeologist vol. 47, 13–32.Google Scholar
Fritz, G.J., (1997). A three thousand year old cache of crop seeds from Marble Bluff, Arkansas. Gremillion, K.J., People, Plants, and Landscapes: Studies in Paleoethonobotany University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.42–62.Google Scholar
Fritz, G.J., (1999). Gender and the early cultivation of gourds in Eastern North America. American Antiquity 64, 417–429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, J.P., (2004). Can Cucurbita pepo seeds be made edible?. Journal of Archaeological Science 31, 1631–1633.Google Scholar
Hart, J.P., Asch Sidell, N., (1997). Additional evidence for early Cucurbit use in the northern Eastern Woodlands east of the Allegheny Front. American Antiquity 62, 523–537.Google Scholar
Hart, J.P., Daniels, R.A., Sheviak, C.J., (2004). Do Cucurbita pepo gourds float fishnets?. American Antiquity 69, 141–148.Google Scholar
Heiser, C.B., (1985). Of Plants and People. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Kay, M., King, F.B., Robinson, C., (1980). Cucurbits from Phillips Spring: new evidence and interpretations. American Antiquity 45, 806–822.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, F.B., (1985). Early cultivated Cucurbits in Eastern North America.. In: Ford, R.I. (Ed.) Prehistoric Food Production in North America. Anthropological Papers No. 75, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor., pp. 73–98.Google Scholar
Lovis, W.A. (Ed.), (2002). A Bridge to the Past, The Post-Nipissing Archaeology of the Marquette Viaduct Replacement Sites 20BY28 and 20BY387.. Technical report submitted to City of Bay City and Federal Highway Administration. MSU Museum and Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University, East Lansing.Google Scholar
Lovis, W.A., Egan, K.C., Smith, B.A., Monaghan, G.W., (2001). Wetlands and emergent horticultural economies in the Upper Great Lakes: a new perspective from the Schultz Site. American Antiquity 66, 615–632.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Monaghan, G.W., Lovis, W.A., (2005). Modeling Archaeological Site Burial in Southern Michigan: A Geoarchaeological Synthesis. Environmental Research Series vol. 1, Michigan Department of Transportation, Michigan State University Press, East Lansing.Google Scholar
Newsom, L.A., (1987). Analysis of botanical remains from Hontoon Island (8-VO-202), Florida: 1980–1985 excavations. The Florida Anthropologist 40, 47–84.Google Scholar
Newsom, L.A., (1993). History and geographic distribution of Cucurbita pepo gourds in Florida. Journal of Ethnobiology 13, 75–97.Google Scholar
Newsom, L.A., (1994). Archaeobotanical data from Groves Orange Midden (8Vo2601), Volusia County, Florida. The Florida Anthropologist 47, 404–417.Google Scholar
Ozker, D.B., (1982). An Early Woodland Community at the Schultz site 20SA2 in the Saginaw Valley and the Nature of the Early Woodland Adaptation in the Great Lakes Region.. Anthropological Papers No. 70, Museum of Anthropology., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Perkl, B.E., (1998). Cucurbita pepo from King Coulee, Southeastern Minnesota. American Antiquity 63, 279–288.Google Scholar
Petersen, J.B., Asch Sidell, N., (1996). Mid-Holocene evidence of Cucurbita sp. from central Maine. American Antiquity 61, 685–698.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, B.D., (1989). Origins of agriculture in Eastern North America. Science 246, 1566–1571.Google Scholar
Smith, B.D., (1992). Rivers of Change: Essays on Early Horticulture in Eastern North America. Smithsonian, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Smith, B.D., (1995). The Emergence of Agriculture. W. H. Freeman and Company, New York.Google Scholar
Smith, B.D., (1997). The initial domestication of Cucurbita pepo in the Americas 10,000 years ago. Science 276, 932–934.Google Scholar
Smith, B.D., (2000). Guilá Naquitz revisited: agricultural origins in Oaxaca, Mexico. Feinman, G.M., Manzanilla, L., Cultural Evolution, Contemporary Viewpoints Kluwer, New York.15–60.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M., Reimer, P.J., Bard, E., Beck, J.W., Burr, G.S., Hughen, K.A., Kromer, B., McCormac, G., van der Plicht, J., Spurk, M., (1998). INTCAL98 radiocarbon age calibration: 24,000-0 cal BP. Radiocarbon 40, 1041–1083.Google Scholar
United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resource Conservation Service, (2004). The PLANTS Database, Version 3.5. (http://www/plants.usda.gov). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge.Google Scholar
Voss, E.G., (1996). Michigan Flora: Part III. Dicots (Pyrolaceae-Compositae). Cranbrook Institute of Science Bulletin 61 and University of Michigan Herbarium, Ann Arbor, MI.Google Scholar
Wright, H.T., (1964). A transitional Archaic site at green point (20SA1). Michigan Archaeologist 10, 17–22.Google Scholar