83Accesses
3Altmetric
Abstract
Peduncles ofCucurbita argyrosperma ssp.argyrosperma are present in collections of desiccated archaeological plant remains from at least seven prehistoric Ozark rockshelter sites. A radiocarbon date (Accelerator Mass Spectrometer method) on a fragment of one of these fruiting stems has a two-sigma calendric date range of A.D. 1280-1490. One C.argyrosperma ssp.argyrosperma peduncle excavated from the Cahokia site in Illinois was among contents of a sub-mound pit deposited during the 11th century A.D. Therefore, cushaw-like squashes were present in eastern North America before European contact, contrary to the long-held belief thatCucurbita pepo was the only prehistoric squash species in the region. Landraces of eastern North American cushaws were isolated from their Southwestern and Mexican argyrosperma progenitors for a longer period of time than previously believed.
Résumé
Pedúnculos de frutos deCucurbita argyrosperma ssp. argyrosperma se encuentran presentes en colecciones arqueológicas de residuos de plantas secas de por lo menos siete refugios rocosos prehistóricos de Ozark. La fecha de radiocarbono (por el método de Aceleración con Espectómetro de Masa), aplicado a fragmentos de un pedúnculo, da un rango de a.d. 1280–1490 después de calibration dendrocronológica. Similarmente, un pedúnculo defruto deC. argyrosperma ssp.argyrosperma, encontrado en excavaciones realizadas debajo de un montículo del sitio de Cahokia en Illinois, tiene unafecha estimada de a.d. 1000–1050. Estos resultados suguieren que esta subespecie de calabaza estuvo presence en el Este de Norte América antes del contacto con Europa, y contradice la creencia de queCucurbita pepo fue la única especie de calabaza prehistórica que estuvo presente en esta región. Ademas, las variedades de calabaza “cushaw” cultivada en el Este de Norte América fueron separadas de su progenitorC. argyrosperma del Suroeste y México por un período de tiempo mucho más largo de lo que previamente suponíamos.
This is a preview of subscription content,log in via an institution to check access.
Access this article
Subscribe and save
- Get 10 units per month
- Download Article/Chapter or eBook
- 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
- Cancel anytime
Buy Now
Price includes VAT (Japan)
Instant access to the full article PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Literature Cited
Bareis, C. J., and J. W. Porter,eds. 1984. American Bottom archaeology: a summary of the FAI-270 Project contribution to the culture history of the Mississippi River Valley. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
Baugh, T. G. 1991. Ecology and exchange: the dynamics of Plains-Pueblo interaction. Pages 107–127in K. A. Spielmann, ed., Farmers, hunters, and colonists: interaction between the Southwest and the Southern Plains. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Burgess-Terrel, M. E. 1979. A study ofCucurbita material from Salmon Ruin, New Mexico. M.S. thesis, Eastern New Mexico University, Portales.
Brown, J. A. 1983. Spiro exchange connections revealed by sources of imported raw materials. Pages 129–162in D. G. Wyckoffand J. L. Hoffman, eds., Southeastern natives and their pasts. Oklahoma Ar-cheological Survey, Studies in Oklahoma’s Past No. 11, Norman.
-. 1984. Prehistoric southern Ozark marginal-ity: a myth exposed. Missouri Archaeological Society Special Publications 6.
Chmurny, W. W. 1973. The ecology of the Middle Mississippian occupation of the American Bottom. Dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana.
Cutler, H. C. 1965. Plant remains from the Grand Village of the Natchez. Appendix 3, page 102,in Archeology of the Fatherland Site: the Grand Village of the Natchez, by R. S. Neitzel. American Museum of Natural History, Anthropological Papers vol. 51 pt. 1, New York.
-. 1966. Corn, cucurbits, and cotton from Glen Canyon. University of Utah Department of Anthropology, Anthropological Papers No. 80.
—,and L. W. Blake. 1973. Plants from archaeological sites east of the Rockies. Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis.
—,and T. W. Whitaker. 1956.Cucurbita mixta Pang., its classification and relationship. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 83:254–260.
—,and —. 1961. History and distribution of the cultivated cucurbits in the Americas. American Antiquity 26:469–485.
Davis, H. A. 1969. A brief history of archeological work in Arkansas up to 1967. The Arkansas Ar-cheologist 10:2–4.
Decker, D. S. 1988. Origin(s), evolution, and system-atics ofCucurbita pepo (Cucurbitaceae). Economic Botany 42:3–15.
—,and L. A. Newsom. 1988. Numerical analysis of archaeologicalCucurbita pepo seeds from Hon-toon Island, Florida. Journal of Ethnobiology 8 (1): 35–44.
Decker-Walters, D. S. 1990. Evidence of multiple domestications ofCucurbita pepo (Cucurbitaceae). Pages 96–101in D. M. Bates, R. W. Robinson, and C. Jeffrey, eds., Biology and utilization of the Cucurbitaceae. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.
Dellinger, S. C., and S. D. Dickinson. 1942. Pottery from the Ozark bluff shelters. American Antiquity 7:276–289.
Emerson, T. E. 1982. Mississippian stone images in Illinois. Illinois Archaeological Survey, Circular 6, Urbana.
—. 1989. Water, serpents, and the underworld: an exploration into Cahokian symbolism. Pages 45–92in P. Galloway, ed., The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex: artifacts and analysis. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.
—,and D. K. Jackson. 1984. The BBB Motor site. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
Ewan, J., and N. Ewan. 1970. John Banister and his natural history of Virginia, 1678–1692. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
Ford, R. I. 1981. Gardening and farming before A.D. 1000: patterns of prehistoric cultivation north of Mexico. Journal of Ethnobiology 1:6–27.
-. 1985. Patterns of prehistoric food production in North America. Pages 341–364in R. I. Ford, ed., Prehistoric food production in North America. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Anthropological Papers No. 75, Ann Arbor.
—. 1986. Reanalysis of cucurbits in the Ethno-botanical Laboratory, University of Michigan. The Missouri Archaeologist 47:13–31.
Fowler, M. 1978. Cahokia and the American Bottom: settlement archeology. Pages 455–478in B. D. Smith, ed., Mississippian settlement patterns. Academic Press, New York.
-. 1989. The Cahokia atlas: a historical atlas of Cahokia archaeology. Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, Studies in Illinois Archaeology No. 6, Springfield.
Fritz, G. J. 1986. Prehistoric Ozark agriculture: the University of Arkansas rockshelter collections. Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
—. 1990. Multiple pathways to farming in pre-contact eastern North America. Journal of World Prehistory 4:387–435.
Gilmore, M. R. 1931. Vegetal remains of the Ozark Bluff-dweller culture. Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters 14:83–102.
Harrington, M. R. 1924. The Ozark Bluff-dwellers. American Anthropologist 26:1–21.
-. 1960. The Ozark Bluff-dwellers. Heye Foundation, Museum of the American Indian, Indian Notes and Monographs vol. 12.
Heiser, C. B. 1989. Domestication of Cucurbitaceae:Cucurbita andLagenaria. Pages 472–480in D. R. Harris and G. C. Hillman, eds., Foraging and farming: the evolution of plant exploitation. Unwin Hy-man, London.
Kay, M., G. Sabo III, and Ralph Merletti. 1989. Late prehistoric settlement patterning: a view from three Caddoan civic-ceremonial centers in northwest Arkansas. Pages 129–157in J. D. Rogers, D. G. Wyck-off, and D. A. Peterson, eds., Contributions to Spiro archeology: mound excavations and regional perspectives. Oklahoma Archeological Survey, Studies in Oklahoma’s Past No. 16, Norman.
Kelly, J. E. 1991. Cahokia and its role as a gateway center in interregional exchange. Pages 61–80in T. E. Emerson and R. B. Lewis, eds., Cahokia and its hinterlands: Middle Mississippian cultures of the Midwest. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
King, F. B. 1985. Early cultivated cucurbits in eastern North America. Pages 73–97in R. I. Ford, ed., Prehistoric food production in North America. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Anthropological Papers No. 75, Ann Arbor.
Mabberly, D. J. 1985. ’Die Neuen Pflanzen von Ch. Huber Freres & Co. in Hyeres’. Taxon 34:448–156.
Merrick, L. C. 1990. Systematics and evolution of a domesticated squash,Cucurbita argyrosperma, and its wild and weedy relatives. Pages 77–95in D. M. Bates, R. W. Robinson, and C. Jeffrey, eds., Biology and utilization of the Cucurbitaceae. Cornell University Press, Ithaca.
—,and D. M. Bates. 1989. Classification and nomenclature ofCucurbita argyrosperma. Baileya 23 (2):94–102.
Milner, G. R. 1990. The late prehistoric Cahokia cultural system of the Mississippi River valley: foundations, florescence, and fragmentation. Journal of World Prehistory 4:1–43.
Pangalo, K. I. 1930. A new species of cultivated pumpkin. Trudy Prikl. Bot. 23 (3):253–265.
Pauketat, T.R. 1992. The reign and ruin of the Lords of Cahokia: a dialectic of dominance. Pages 31–51in A. W. Barker and T. R. Pauketat, eds., Lords of the southeast: social inequality and the native elites of southeastern North America. American Anthropological Association, Archeological Papers No. 3.
Prentice, G. 1986. An analysis of the symbolism expressed by the Birger Figurine. American Antiquity 51:239–266.
Raab, L. M. 1982. Expanding prehistory in the Arkansas Ozarks. Pages 233–239in N. L. Trubowitz and M. D. Jeter, eds., Arkansas archeology in review. Arkansas Archeological Survey Research Series No. 15, Fayetteville.
Reitz, E. J., and C. M. Scarry. 1985. Reconstructing historic subsistence with an example from sixteenth-century Spanish Florida. Society for Historic Archaeology, Special Publication Series No. 3.
Russell, P. 1924. Identification of the commonly cultivated speciesof Cucurbita by means of seed characters. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 14 (12):265–269.
Sabo, G. III, D. B. Waddell, and J. H. House. 1982. A cultural resource overview of the Ozark-St. Francis National Forests, Arkansas. Report submitted to the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, Ozark-St. Francis National Forests by the Arkansas Archeological Survey, Fayetteville.
Smith, B. D., C. W. Cowan, and M. P. Hoffman. 1992. Is it an indigene or a foreigner? Pages 67–100in B. D. Smith, Rivers of change: essays on early agriculture in eastern North America. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.
Stuiver, M., and B. Becker. 1986. High-precision decadal calibration of the radiocarbon time scale, A.D. 1950-2500 B.C. Radiocarbon 28:863–910.
Sturtevant, E. L. 1890. History of garden vegetables. The American Naturalist 24:719–744.
Swanton, J. R. 1979. Indians of the southeastern United States (Reprinted from 1946). Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.
Tapley, W. T., W. D. Enzie, and G. P. Van Eseltine. 1937. The vegetables of New York. New York State Agricultural Experiment Station Report, Albany.
Trubowitz, N. L. 1983. Caddoan settlements in the Arkansas Ozarks: the upper Lee Creek Valley. Mid-continental Journal of Archaeology 8:197–210.
Whitaker, T.W. 1981. Archeological cucurbits. Economic Botany 35:460–466.
—,and G. W. Bohn. 1950. The taxonomy, genetics, production, and uses of the cultivated speciesof Cucurbita. Economic Botany 4:52–81.
Whiting, A. F. 1939. Ethnobotany of the Hopi. Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin No. 15, Flagstaff.
Wilson, H. D., J. Doebley, and M. Duvall. 1992. Chloroplast DNA diversity among wild and cultivated members ofCucurbita (Cucurbitaceae). Theoretical and Applied Genetics 84:859–865.
Wright, L. B., ed. 1947. The history and present state of Virginia, by Robert Beverley. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.
Yarnell, R. A. 1983. Prehistory of plant foods and husbandry in North America. Paper presented at the 48th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Pittsburgh.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis, One Brookings Drive, 63130, St. Louis, MO
Gayle J. Fritz
- Gayle J. Fritz
You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Fritz, G.J. PrecolumbianCucurbita argyrosperma ssp.argyrosperma (Cucurbitaceae) in the Eastern Woodlands of North America.Econ Bot48, 280–292 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02862329
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date: