Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-5xszh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T13:24:08.875Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Cucurbits from Phillips Spring: New Evidence and Interpretations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Marvin Kay
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AK 72701
Francis B. King
Affiliation:
Quaternary Studies Center, Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL 62706
Christine K. Robinson
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80302

Abstract

Excavations conducted since Chomko's initial discovery in 1974 of Cucurbita pepo seeds have clarified their stratigraphic and radiometric context as well as delineated an earlier archaeological unit, the Squash and Gourd Zone, where a second cucurbit, Lagenaria siceraria, was found. The two units are Late Archaic with dates (weighted averages of radiocarbon assays) of 4257 ± 39 and 3928 ± 41 radiocarbon years B.P., respectively, and are beneath stratigraphically superior Late Archaic and Woodland units also containing cucurbits. A comparison of the early Cucurbita pepo with others from later contexts demonstrates an increasing size with time and morphology similar between the early seeds and the historic cultivar "Mandan." Nutritional value of the cucurbits, both cultigens, may have been comparable to that of other wild plant foods consumed. In any event, the cucurbits are artifacts of regional exchange mechanisms operating some 4000 years ago; the most plausible mechanism being down-the-line exchange.

Type
Reports
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1980

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

References Cited

Bass, W. M., and Rhule, W. L. 1976 Human burials from Rodgers Shelter. In Prehistoric man and his environments: a case study in the Ozark Highland, edited by Wood, W. R. and McMillan, R. B., pp. 201209. Academic Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byrd, K. M., and Neuman, R. W. 1978 Archaeological data relative to prehistoric subsistence in the lower Mississippi River alluvial valley. In Man and environment in the Lower Mississippi River Valley, edited by Hilliard, S. B.. Geoscience and Man, Volume 19:921. Louisiana State University.Google Scholar
Chapman, J., and Shea, A. B. 1977 Paleoecologica J and cultural interpretation of plant remains recovered from Archaic period sites inthe lower Little Tennessee River Valley. Paper presented at the 34th Southeastern Archaeological Conference.Google Scholar
Chomko, S. A. 1976 Phillips Spring, 23H1216: Harry S. Truman Reservoir, Missouri. Report to the National Park Service, Midwest Region, U. S. Department of the Interior, Denver.Google Scholar
Chomko, S. A. 1978 Phillips Spring, 23HI216: a multicomponent site in the western Missouri Ozarks. Plains Anthropologist 23(81):235255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomko, S. A., and Crawford, G. W. 1978 Plant husbandry in prehistoric eastern North America: new evidence for its development. American Antiquity 43:405408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomko, S. A., and Crawford, G. W. 1979 Reply to Schoenwetter (on Chomko and Crawford 1978). American Antiquity 44:601602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cutler, H. C. 1952 Preliminary survey of plant remains of Tularosa Cave. In Mogollon cultural continuity and change:the stratigraphic analysis of Tularosa and Cordova caves. Fieldiana: Anthropology 40:461479.Google Scholar
Cutler, H. C. 1967 Corn and squash from six sites in North and South Dakota. In An Interpretation of Mandan culturalhistory, by Wood, W. R.. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 198:177182.Google Scholar
Dalton, G. 1977 Aboriginal economies in stateless societies. In Exchange systems in prehistory, edited by Earle, T. K. and Ericson, J. E., pp. 191212. Academic Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Falk, C. R. 1969 Archaeological salvage in the Kaysinger Bluff Reservoir, Missouri: 1966. Report to the National Park Service, Midwest Region, U. S. Department of the Interior, Omaha.Google Scholar
Flannery, K. V. 1969 Origins and ecological effects of early domestication in Iran and the Near East. In The domesticationand exploitation of plants and animals, edited by Ucko, P. J. and Dimbleby, G. W., pp. 73100. Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd. London.Google Scholar
Ford, J. A., and Webb, C. H. 1956 Poverty Point, a Late Archaic site in Louisiana. American Museum of Natural History Anthropological Papers 6(1).Google Scholar
Ford, R. I. 1979 Gardening and farming before A. D. 1000: patterns of prehistoric cultivation north of Mexico. Paperpresented at the Second Annual Conference of Ethnobiology, Flagstaff, Arizona.Google Scholar
Goad, S. I. 1978 Exchange networks in the prehistoric southeastern United States. Ph. D. dissertation, University of Georgia, Athens. University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Haas, H., and Haynes, C. V. 1975 Southern Methodist University date list II. Radiocarbon 17(3):354363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haynes, C. V. 1976 Late Quaternary geology of the lower Pomme de Terre valley. In Prehistoric man and his environments:a case study in the Ozark Highland, edited by Wood, W. R. and McMillan, R. B., pp. 4761. Academic Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarman, H. N. , Legge, A. J., and Charles, J. A. 1972 Retrieval of plant remains from archaeological sites by froth flotation. In Papers in economic prehistory, edited by Higgs, E. S., pp. 3948. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
King, F. B. 1976 Potential food plants of the western Missouri Ozarks. In Prehistoric man and his environments: a casestudy in the Ozark Highland, edited by Wood, W. R. and McMillan, R. B., pp. 249260. Academic Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, F. B., and McMillan, R. B. 1975 Plant remains from a Woodland storage pit, Boney Spring, Missouri. Plains Anthropologist 20(68):111115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, J. E. 1973 Late Pleistocene palynology and biogeography of the western Missouri Ozarks. Ecological Monographs 43:539565.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Long, A., and Rippeteau, B. 1974 Testing contemporaneity and averaging radiocarbon dates. American Antiquity 39:205215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marquardt, W. H., and Watson, P. J. 1977 Excavation and recovery of biological remains from two Archaic shell middens in western Kentucky. Southeastern Archaeological Conference Bulletin 20.Google Scholar
Pickersgill, B., and Heiser, C. B. Jr., 1978 Origins and distribution of plants domesticated in the New World tropics. In Origins of Agriculture, edited by Reed, R., pp. 803836. Mouton Publishers, The Hague.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C. 1977 Alternative models for exchange and spatial distribution. In Exchange systems in prehistory, edited by Earle, T. K., and Ericson, J. E., pp. 7190. Academic Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Service, E. R. 1971 Primitive social organization. Random House, New York.Google Scholar
Watson, P. J. 1976 In pursuit of prehistoric subsistence: a comparative account of some contemporary flotation techniques. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 1(1):77100.Google Scholar
Watt, B. K., and Merrill, A. L. 1963 Composition of foods. United States Department of Agriculture Handbook, No. 8.Google Scholar
Webb, C. H. 1977 The Poverty Point Culture. Geoscience and Man, Volume 17. Louisiana State University.Google Scholar
Whitaker, T. W., and Bemis, W. P. 1964 Evolution in the genus Cucurbita. Evolution 18:553559.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitaker, T. W., Cutler, H. C., and Mac Neish, R. S. 1957 Cucurbit materials from three caves near Ocampo, Tamaulipas. American Antiquity 22:352358.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitaker, T. W., and Davis, G. N. 1962 Cucurbits: botany, cultivation, and utilization. Interscience Publishers, Inc., New York.Google Scholar
Willey, G. R. 1966 An introduction to American archaeology, volume one: North and Middle America. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs.Google Scholar
Winters, H. D. 1968 Value systems and trade cycles of the Late Archaic in the midwest. In New prespectives in archaeology, edited by Binford, S. R. and Binford, L. R., pp. 175221. Aldine Publishing Company, Chicago.Google Scholar
Wood, W. R. and McMillan, R. B. (editors) 1976 Prehistoric man and his environments: a case study in the Ozark Highland. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Wright, H. E. Jr., 1976 The dynamic nature of Holocene vegetation: a problem in paleoclimatology, biogeography, and stratigraphicnomenclature. Quaternary Research 6:581596.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yarnell, R. A. 1969 Contents of human paleofeces. In The prehistory of Salts Cave, Kentucky, by Watson, P. J.. Illinois State Museum Reports of Investigations Number 16:4154.Google Scholar