Charred, non-maize seed concentrations in the American bottom area: Examples from the Westpark site (11-MO-96), Monroe County, Illinois

Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, Spring 2000 by Powell, Gina S

Analyses of sunflower measurements have shown that achenes gradually increased in size over time, presumably due to selection that resulted in domestication (Asch and Asch 1985a; Yarnell 1978, 1981). As additional collections are found, measured, and more accurately dated, exceptions are noted (e.g., Fritz 1997), but the general trend of increasing size through time remains valid (Table 3). In order to compare dimensions of desiccated seeds to those of charred seeds, correction factors are often applied to charred kernels and achenes to obtain an estimated length of the original achene. In one correction method, charred achene length and width are increased by 11 percent and 27 percent, respectively, and kernel length and width by 30 percent and 45 percent, respectively (Yarnell 1978, based on Heiser 1953). Compared to sunflower measurements from other sites, the corrected length x width indices of 41-59 from the Westpark site Patrick phase sunflower kernels and achenes are larger than those given for Middle to early Late Woodland achenes and smaller than most indices given for Mississippian achenes.

Tables 4 and 5 show a statistically significant discrepancy between the means of the corrected measurements derived from achenes and those derived from kernels. A two-tailed Student's T test (assuming unequal variances) shows that in the three compared groups, the mean corrected indices are significantly different at a p

Chenopod

It has been a few years since domesticated chenopod in the Eastern Woodlands was first recognized (Smith and Funk 1985), and by now most archaeologists interested in the origins of agriculture in the eastern United States are familiar with the signs of chenopod's domestication. These indicators are reduction in the tests (seed coat) thickness, change in the surface texture of the tests, and change from a biconvex to truncate margin (see Smith 1984, 1985). Desiccated specimens from dry caves exhibit the characteristics archaeobotanists use to infer domestication. The oldest thin, black-coated chenopod (Chenopodium berlandieri ssp. jonesianum) caches have been recovered from dry cave contexts dating to ca. 3500-3000 B.P. at Newt Kash and Cloudsplitter rockshelters in Kentucky (Smith and Cowan 1987) and at Marble Bluff in the Ozarks (Fritz 1997). Also as desiccated specimens, a pale variety of chenopod (similar to Mexican huauzontli) has been identified in the Ozarks and Kentucky (Fritz 1984, 1986, 1994; Fritz and Smith 1988; Lopinot 1982; Wilson 1981), dating to around 1600 B.P. in the Ozarks (Fritz and Smith 1988). A desiccated cache of seeds at Cloudsplitter Rockshelter, dating to ca. 2500 B.P., contained thin, black-coated chenopod and a small percentage of pale chenopod. Finding the two types together suggests that a genotypic change in chenopod, or at least the concurrent use of two varieties regardless of their origins, began in the Early Woodland period. The pale variety is found in relatively pure concentrations of desiccated material as early as 1600 B.P. in the Ozarks and possibly in charred collections from west-central Illinois between 2000 and 1000 B.P. (Asch and Asch 1985b; Asch and Asch 1981; Lopinot 1982, 1988; Powell 1993).