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Bulbs and Biographies, Pine Nuts and Palimpsests: Exploring Plant Diversity and Earth Oven Reuse at a Late Period Plateau Site

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Abstract

Earth ovens, hearths, and middens are common archaeological features in western North America that contain the residues of everyday activities. Ethnographic and archaeological research indicates that these in-ground food preparation features were frequently reused over many months and years. These quotidian features therefore can be productively thought of as having use-lives or biographies. Here we present a framework for interpreting these archaeological food preparation feature biographies and the palimpsest nature of earth oven features. We illustrate the value of this framework through paleoethnobotanical analysis of archived soil samples from a bulk food processing site on the Columbia-Fraser Plateau in northeastern Washington State. While this site and other food preparation sites throughout the Plateau are largely interpreted as remains of intensive geophyte processing, our finds indicate that a wide range of economic plants were processed at this location, indicative of a dynamic and flexible subsistence system. We suggest that residents and visitors to the Pend Oreille Valley from ca. 2700 to 500 cal BP frequently returned to and reused earth oven features as they processed multiple plant food taxa including nodding onion (Allium cernuum), camas (Camassia quamash), goosefoot chenopod seeds (cf. Chenopodium atrovirens), and pine nuts (Pinus spp.). We see a biographical approach as a potential solution to the common “palimpsest problem” and suggest that this framework may be a fruitful way of investigating multiple food preparation recipes, methods, and events, as well as adding paleoenvironmental datasets to biographical or life-history archaeological rhetoric.

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Notes

  1. More specifically, assemblage theory.

  2. Although Fulkerson and Tushingham (2021) suggest camas may be dried and cached before processing and hydrolyzing the complex carbohydrates, thereby averting some of the initial processing labor.

  3. A systemic radiocarbon dating regime paired with soil micromorphology and the above analyses may grant closer spatiotemporal control for these features.

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Acknowledgements

This paper is dedicated to the memory of Alston Thoms. We further thank the Kalispel Tribe for allowing us to explore and share their history and heritage. We are especially grateful to Kevin Lyons, Tara McLaughlin, and Kendra Maroney with the Kalispel Natural Resources Department for guidance on all aspects of this project; Kathryn Killackey for her work on Figure 6; and Ryan Ives at Eastern Washington University Archaeological and Historical Services for sharing curated notes. We further thank Bill Andrefsky, Colin Grier, and the staff at the Washington State University Franceschi Microscopy and Imaging Center.

Funding

Partial financial support was provided by the Kalispel Natural Resources Department, the Washington State University College of Arts and Sciences Boeing Fellowship in Environmental Studies, the Washington Research Foundation, and the Tushingham Ancient Residue Lab.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, College Hall, Pullman, WA, 99164, USA

    Molly Carney & Shannon Tushingham

  2. Department of Anthropology, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gillman Drive, La Jolla, San Diego, CA, 92093, USA

    Jade d’Alpoim Guedes

  3. Far Western Anthropological Research Group, Inc. 2727 Del Rio Place, Suite A, Davis, CA, 95618, USA

    Eric Wohlgemuth

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  1. Molly Carney
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  2. Jade d’Alpoim Guedes
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  4. Shannon Tushingham
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Correspondence to Molly Carney.

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This project was approved by the Kalispel Tribe’s research review process. All notes, artifacts, and samples from the project are curated at the Tribe’s curational facility in Usk, WA, USA. The authors declare no competing interests.

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Carney, M., Guedes, J.d., Wohlgemuth, E. et al. Bulbs and Biographies, Pine Nuts and Palimpsests: Exploring Plant Diversity and Earth Oven Reuse at a Late Period Plateau Site. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 14, 130 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-022-01588-1

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