Abstract
This chapter is primarily focused on the methodological approaches and technological innovations used by the archaeologists and ethnobotanists to answer the larger questions on plant domestication, early agriculture, and human adaptation. The research on maize has generally evoked the broader, more theoretical questions surrounding early agriculture and its role in complex socio-cultural development. However, the early archaeological research on plant domestication in the New World was primarily focused on the origins of maize and the various roles of maize in such developmental and evolutionary processes. Particular emphasis is laid on ethnobotany, plant macrobotanical remains (kernels, cobs, etc., recovered primarily from archaeological sites), microfossils (pollen and phytoliths, taken from lakes and swamps as well as archaeological contexts), and paleodiet through bone chemistry involving carbon and strontium isotope analysis. The scientific literature comprising research from these disciplines has significantly influenced the archaeological reconstruction of the roles of maize in the ancient New World economies in the past three decades. Such data have provided an ever-increasing detail on the contextual associations, and the economic importance of maize throughout prehistory. Most of the archaeological studies have been focused on issues of plant domestication and early agriculture in the Americas. Therefore, discussion on maize must necessarily be within the context of such multidisciplinary research. In fact, few topics have generated as much theoretical speculation as the origin of agriculture and the role of maize in such adaptive and developmental changes.
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Notes
- 1.
Important exceptions in this regard are the published reports by the Tehuacán and Oaxaca Valley research (e.g., Mangelsdorf et al. 1967; MacNeish 1967b,c, 1992; Flannery 1973, 1986c). The macrobotanical inventory from these projects still represents the most detailed record in archaeology on the beginnings of agriculture (Benz and Staller 2006, 2009).
- 2.
AMS dates and reanalysis of macrobotanical assemblages from a brief occupation at the Riverton Site in Illinois documents the cultivation of domesticated bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria), marshelder (Iva annua var. macrocarpa), sunflower (Helianthus annuus var. macrocarpus), and two cultivated varieties of chenopod (Chenopodium berlandieri), as well as the possible cultivation of squash Cucurbita pepo and the perennial grass, little or foxtail barley (Hordeum pusillum) (Smith and Yarnell 2009, pp. 6561–6563).
- 3.
The expansion of agricultural economies in some parts of the Old World is interpreted as a migration or wave of advance of fully agropastoral food producing cultures extensively replacing hunting and gathering societies as for instance in Neolithic Europe, and Iron Age central and southern Africa (Childe 1950; Bellwood 2005; Brown 2006). The idea of an agricultural revolution was supported to some extent from linguistic evidence, which showed that in some cases such economies were associated with certain language groups (see, e.g., Childe 1950).
- 4.
- 5.
Infrared spectroscopy offers the possibility for measuring different types of interatomic bond vibrations at different wavelength frequencies. Such approaches are particularly concerned with the analysis and identification of substances through the spectrum emitted from or absorbed by objects and IR absorption spectra shows what types of bonds are present in the sample. Spectroscopy approaches are used to identify and delineate archaeological remains through remote sensing (e.g., Pope and Dahlin 1989).
- 6.
Teosinte is much more environmentally and morphologically flexible than maize. Annual teosinte has an architectural genetic locus called Teosinte Branched Locus (tb1), which makes the branch resemble a branched teosinte plant (see Fig. 2.2b). When teosinte grows in full sunlight without competition tb1 lateral branching is suppressed resulting in long singular branch tipped by male inflorescences (see Iltis 2006, p. 28–32, Figs. 4.3–4.7; see also Benz 2006, Table 2.1, Fig. 2.1).
- 7.
This may indicate that teosinte was brought from its native habitat into this region by archaic foragers, and that some of these morphological changes may have been related to adaptation to such environs. Ongoing analyses continue to document changes in the morphology of maize and the development of regionally distinct land races (Benz 2001; Benz et al. 2007; Latoumerie et al. 2006; Tuxill et al. 2009).
- 8.
The most important food plants in the New World include arrowroot, achira, chilli peppers (Capsicum spp.), Xanthosoma tubers such as cassava (Manihot esculenta), and sweet potatoes (Piperno and Pearsall 1998). The common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) was first domesticated at about 500 bc (Smith 2005a, Table 1). Bottle gourds and squash were domesticated early in the Holocene by Native populations in the Neotropics (Smith 1997a, 2000).
- 9.
According to MacNeish (1978), the Pre-ceramic societies of the Tehuacán Valley lived in small microbands that dispersed periodically. Some camps accommodated only a single nuclear family, while others sheltered much larger groups for part of the annual cycle (see also MacNeish 1999).
- 10.
- 11.
The research in Oaxaca produced an incredible body of macrobotanical data, including ancient samples of major food crops such as maize.
- 12.
The Guilá Naquitz Rockshelter has a small overhang and artifactual surface remains diagnostic of the pre-ceramic and archaic periods (Flannery 1986a). In the Native Zapotec language, Guilá Naquitz means, “white cliff”.
- 13.
Binford (1980) and Flannery (1969, 1986a) emphasize a broad spectrum adaptation in association with procurement strategies in the shift to agricultural production, in both the Old and New World. However, the Neotropics are characterized by greater biodiversity and terrestrial mammals of the smaller body size reflected by a greater dependence upon plant resources than is evident in archaeological remains from the Old World (see Binford 1989, 2001).
- 14.
Haslam (2004:1717) states that the range of starch residue preservation on such grinding stones is between 75% and 80% for buried artifacts and 35% for surface finds according to his experiments.
- 15.
Whitehead and Langham (1965) established the various size ranges for maize, teosinte, as well as gamma grass or Tripsacum using modern specimens mounted in silicone oil. Whitehead and Sheehan (1971) also developed protocols for identification of maize pollen using measurement. Later, Sluyter (1997) conducted experiments in an attempt to normalize the effects of microscopic slide mounting media in order to facilitate comparative analysis of maize pollen grains mounted in silicone oil, glycerine jelly, and a new type of acrylic resin mounting medium.
- 16.
- 17.
Pearsall and Piperno previously focused on bilobates, cross-bodies, and critical cross-body variants or subtypes, thought to be exclusive to maize but have more recently been found to be present in other grasses (see e.g., Pearsall and Piperno 1993, pp.14–15, Tables 1–4; Piperno and Pearsall 1993, Table 7).
- 18.
Wild grass reference data published by Piperno (1988, Table 3.3) also appears to indicate a lack of replicative precision. The mean values for Variant 1 crosses the four Panama populations of Cenchrus echinatus range 13.3–14.0 microns while those from the Belize population has a mean value of 15.1, significantly outside and above the range maximum of the four Panama replicates (see Piperno 1988, p. 76).
- 19.
Piperno (1988) made similar claims for mean values of cross-body and bilobate phytoliths of South American maize. With respect to Variant 1 cross-bodies – which are reported to have the largest sized mean width of the eight variant types, Piperno states: “It is clear that from these data and analysis of single specimens of many races…that the production of numerous Variant 1 crossbody shapes with mean sizes between 12.7 and 15 um is a fundamental characteristic of Central and South American maize leaves.” (Piperno 1988, p. 78). This would imply that mean size values for primitive maize are as large or larger than the mean value for modern maize. Piperno et al. (2009, p. 5023, Table 1) make similar claims for their phytolith assemblages from Central Balsas at Xihuatoxtla rockshelter.
- 20.
The site of Loma Alta pertains to the Valdivia culture and has Early Formative Period occupations spanning to between 5350 and 4240 years ago with some of the earliest ceramics along the eastern Pacific. However, Loma Alta is multicomponent, with a large Guangala Phase (c. 2350–1500 B.P.) site on its eastern periphery (see Staller 2001a, Table II).
- 21.
Hart and Matson (2009:83) also state that these statistics further support direct dates of 2270 ± 35 B.P. at the Vinette site in New York State – the earliest recorded date on maize microfossils in NE North America. They assert that they also support a continual presence of Zea mays L. in this region thereafter (see Hart et al. 2007a).
- 22.
Piperno (2006) reduced the morphological variables to three– length, width, and aspect ratio, correlating width and aspect ratio at 87%, thus the independent variable with regard to the morphological characteristics are not entirely independent since the aspect ratio is length divided by width. Moreover, botanical size measurements even at the microfossil level are highly susceptible to systematic error due to ecological factors. It has been demonstrated that size measurements often do not replicate even within a single taxon, since Darwinian natural selection favors variation rather than bell-shaped curves (Rovner and Gyulai 2007, pp. 155–157).
- 23.
Maize and teosinte inflorescences are also distinguished on the basis of morphology, certain of short-cell phytoliths (rondels and surface sculpturing) and the relative proportion of larger cross-body phytoliths. Maize and teosinte stalks are distinguished based on the occurrence of deeply notched bilobate phytoliths and morphological characteristics seen in maize but not teosinte (Piperno et al. 2009, p. Table 1).
- 24.
- 25.
The earliest 14C dating of bone involved demineralization of bone and extraction of humic and fulvic acids to produce much more accurate dating results on bone collagen, and this was the specific sample material tested by Vogel and van der Merwe (1977).
- 26.
The δ13C value of CO3 in hydroxyapatite (HA) of bone (δ13Cap) is believed to represent the total δ13C of the diet, that is, all the C atoms that are consumed and contribute to caloric value Collagen, which is a protein found in bone, whose amino acids are present in the diet and represent the most widely used methodology in paleodiet studies (Vogel and van der Merwe 1977).
- 27.
The archaeological soils of coastal Ecuador have not been conducive to the preservation of pollen or macrobotanical remains (see Pearsall 1978; Pearsall and Piperno 1990). Some maize macrobotanicals have been identified, but with few exceptions, most are from more recent archaeological contexts (see Zevallos et al. 1977; Staller 1994; Pearsall 2003).
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Staller, J.E. (2010). Ethnobotanic, Interdisciplinary and Multidisciplinary Methodologies. In: Maize Cobs and Cultures: History of Zea mays L.. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04506-6_4
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