XV. Chenopod Cuisines: Spatial and Temporal Explorations of Chenopodium Use Across the Western Hemisphere

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Stable isotope and morphological properties of Chenopodium seeds have implications for ancient water management practices by Owens Valley Paiute in eastern California. Isotopic δ13C values from charred acorn and pine nuts differ from Chenopodium spp. recovered from the same contexts in archaeological sites in different regions of Owens Valley, and reflect differential water availability. Morphological features of Chenopodium spp. associated with domestication in other regions, in combination with increased density of small seed remains, suggest that irrigation practices developed between 1350-650 cal BP in Northern Owens Valley, with Chenopodium spp. an important irrigated plant.

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Seed size is an important variable in characterizing paleoethnobotanical assemblages, and the effects of charring is well studied for some species but not for others. It is important to understand these effects since during carbonization, seeds may or may not maintain enough of their qualitative morphology to be diagnostic. The morphological changes associated with carbonization may present in a variety of ways: seeds may or may not pop, swell, or distort, leading to an increase or reduction in diameter or testa thickness. To assess domestication status, seeds must be well preserved enough to observe seed diameter, the shape of the seed margin, and/or the texture and thickness of the testa. This paper focuses on one formerly domesticated crop from eastern North America, goosefoot (Chenopodium berlandieri). I want to understand the quantifiable effects of carbonization on goosefoot seed morphology and to help correct measurements of ancient specimens for these effects.

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Once considered incidental inclusions, archaeologists within the last 10 years have finally begun to consider the role of charred Chenopodium seeds in past Pacific Northwest subsistence practices. In this presentation I synthesize data published in both academic and cultural resource management projects to determine the approximate extent, abundance, and timing of Chenopodium use across the US Columbia Plateau. I take a closer look at the goosefoot assemblage at a Middle Archaic food processing site, tentatively identified as Chenopodium berlanderii var. zschackei (pitseed goosefoot), and consider the depositional pathways and culinary choices that may have produced the curiously flattened seeds. By reflecting on the potential role of goosefoot within the broader precontact Plateau food system, I aim to shed light on its significance and integration into the dietary and cultural practices of the region's past populations.

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Cultigen goosefoot or chenopod (Chenopodium berlandieri ssp. jonesianum) is well represented in pre-maize archaeobotanical assemblages across much of eastern North America, often in concentrations accentuating its economic importance. Maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) eventually overshadowed all small-seeded members of the Eastern Agricultural Complex (EAC), but the dramatic rise of corn after CE 900 did not quickly impact chenopod production negatively, at least not in the central Mississippi Valley. Understanding the decline of EAC crops is complicated by lack of appreciation for their long-term persistence. I focus on the cultivation of chenopod throughout the Mississippian period and into colonial and modern times, and discuss implications for resilience of Indigenous foodways and potential contributions to local and global food security.

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Chenopodium is a genus of perennial and annual herbaceous plants recovered from paleoethnobotanical assemblages in the Fraser and Columbia Plateaus of North America. While prevalent in the paleobotanical record, they are often discounted as incidental environmental inclusions. A growing literature is having trouble reconciling the presence of Chenopodium species. This genus appears in great abundance across both Plateaus. It likely has some role in the lifeways of those Plateau peoples.

This paper presents the initial results of the paleoethnobotanical analysis at the Chuchuwayha Rock Shelter in southern British Columbia within the traditional unceded territory of the Upper Similkameen Indian Band (USIB). It explores the relationship between the archaeological remains of Chenopodium from Chuchuwayha and present-day Chenopodium species within the USIB territory. Given their prevalence at a culturally significant site to the USIB, it is likely the Chenopodium species here represents something beyond an incidental environmental inclusion.

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An exquisite, twined drawstring bag filled with goosefoot and Asteraceae seeds was excavated from the Edens Bluff site in the Arkansas Ozarks by a crew from the University of Arkansas in 1932. A direct AMS radiocarbon assay in the early 1980s dated the bag and its contents to the Middle Woodland period (approximately 2000 years BP), and close examination of the goosefoot seeds revealed them to be thin-coated Chenopodium berlandieri ssp. jonesianum. Until recently, the Asteraceae seeds remained unidentified, but we now recognize them as a member of the genus Rudbeckia. The mixture of these two seed types, carefully cleaned and stored for future cultivation or consumption, has implications for understanding plant domestication, cropping strategies, and Indigenous food systems in eastern North America.

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In eastern North America, ancient Indigenous people domesticated several native annual plants, including the quinoa relative Chenopodium berlandieri. In this presentation, we describe genomic research to resolve remaining uncertainties about the evolution, taxonomy, and biogeography of this crop. We present the first ancient nuclear DNA evidence from an extinct domesticated plant, a pale-seeded variety of Chenopodium berlandieri recovered from rockshelters in Arkansas and Kentucky, USA, which confirms the local origin of this crop. We built DNA from four ancient seeds into a phylogeny reconstruction of Chenopodium species thought to be native to eastern North America, using tissue samples from herbarium specimens. This study allows us to formulate new hypotheses about the dynamics of Chenopodium evolution under human management and inform crop wild relative conservation.

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In northeastern North America, chenopodium (Chenopodium sp.) appears in the paleoethnobotanical record with the first arrival of the Indigenous Algonquian and Iroquoian people. Despite the plant’s long history of and nearly ubiquitous use by Indigenous people, only two sites, one in Ontario and one in Pennsylvania, have clear evidence for domesticated chenopodium populations. In this paper, I will explore how Indigenous people used and managed chenopodium through time. Based on recent experimental work by Belcher and colleagues (2023), I explore the possibility that Indigenous people cultivated and possibly domesticated chenopodium in Northeastern North America. I draw data from my own paleoethnobotanical analyses and those conducted by Nancy Asch Sidell for contract archaeology projects to better understand how Indigenous people in the region used and managed chenopodium populations.

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Second only to renowned acorn as the most common food remains in California archaeobotanical assemblages, Chenopodium was clearly important in California Native subsistence. But its importance varied greatly over different parts of California. Chenopodium seems to have been most important in the lower reaches of the Sacramento and Santa Clara Valleys, where it comprised more than 50% of the abundant small seeds found, and may have rivaled acorn as a staple food. An initial pilot study found no clear evidence of human selection. Native Chenopodium might have potential as a modern food crop as an alternative to water-intensive rice agriculture in some areas of the Sacramento Valley.