Posted on 08/21/2007 2:18:10 PM PDT by blam
Contact: Payson Sheets
Payson.Sheets@colorado.edu
303-492-7302
University of Colorado at Boulder
CU-Boulder team discovers first ancient manioc fields in Americas
Prehistoric manioc plantation buried by volcanic ash about 600 A.D. may help explain how Maya supported dense populations
CU-Boulder anthropology Professor Payson Sheets maps ancient household at site of Ceren in El Salvador.
A University of Colorado at Boulder team excavating an ancient Maya village in El Salvador buried by a volcanic eruption 1,400 years ago has discovered an ancient field of manioc, the first evidence for cultivation of the calorie-rich tuber in the New World.
The manioc field was discovered under roughly 10 feet of ash, said CU-Boulder anthropology Professor Payson Sheets, who has been directing the excavation of the ancient village of Ceren since its discovery in 1978. Considered the best-preserved ancient village in Latin America, Ceren's buildings, artifacts and landscape were frozen in time by the sudden eruption of the nearby Loma Caldera volcano about 600 A.D., providing a unique window on the everyday lives of prehistoric Mayan farmers.
The discovery marks the first time manioc cultivation has been discovered at an archaeological site anywhere in the Americas, said Sheets. The National Geographic Society funded the 2007 CU-Boulder research effort at Ceren, the most recent of five research grants made by NGS to the ongoing excavations by Sheets and his students.
"We have long wondered what else the prehistoric Mayan people were growing and eating besides corn and beans, so finding this field was a jackpot of sorts for us," he said. "Manioc's extraordinary productivity may help explain how the Classic Maya at huge sites like Tikal in Guatemala and Copan in Honduras supported such dense populations."
CU-Boulder graduate student Christine Dixon uncovers ancient manioc planting bed at Ceren, the first evidence of ancient manioc cultivation at any New World archaeology site.
In June, the researchers used ground-penetrating radar, drill cores and test pits to pinpoint and uncover several large, parallel planting beds separated by walkways, said Sheets. Ash hollows in the planting beds left by decomposed plant material were cast with dental plaster to preserve their shapes and subsequently were identified as manioc tubers, an important, high-carbohydrate food source for Latin Americans today, said Sheets.
Evidence indicated the manioc bushes had just been cut down, most of the tubers harvested and the beds replanted with manioc stalks placed horizontally in the soil to regenerate bushes for the next cycle of growth, he said. The presence of volcanic ash just underneath hand-shaped dirt overhangs in the beds indicates the stalks were planted "just hours before the eruption," he said.
"What we essentially found was a freshly planted manioc field that was 1,400 years old," said Sheets. "Once again, we felt like we were right on the heels of these ancient people because of the exquisite preservation provided by the volcanic ash."
Each hand-shaped planting bed was about three feet wide and two feet high -- about 10 times larger than traditional planting beds for corn -- although the lengths of the rows are still unknown, he said. Each manioc stalk, or cutting, had been carefully placed in the ground with a growth "node" pointing toward the surface to generate a new bush and several nodes pointing down to generate the edible tubers and regular roots, he said.
Archaeologists had suspected ancient Mayans had cultivated and consumed manioc for its high-energy value, he said. Also known as cassava, manioc provides one of the highest yields of food energy per acre per day of any cultivated crop in the world.
The CU-Boulder team is working with scientists at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., to develop new soil-analysis techniques to detect starch grains like those from manioc that will work at a wide range of archaeological sites, said Sheets.
"We don't want to find out that Ceren was unique in manioc cultivation," said Sheets. "We hope archaeologists eventually find evidence for this kind of activity at sites throughout the region. From an archaeological standpoint, there are few things as important as discovering the sources of day-to-day subsistence for ancient cultures."
The team also included CU-Boulder anthropology graduate students Christine Dixon and Adam Blanford, geology graduate student Monica Guerra and archaeological geophysicist Larry Conyers. Conyers is a University of Denver faculty member who had worked at Ceren and received his CU-Boulder doctorate under Sheets in 1995.
Sheets and his colleagues previously determined the eruption at Ceren occurred on an early August evening because of the height of corn stalks and the fact that the farming implements had been brought inside but the sleeping mats had not yet been rolled out.
Thus far 12 buildings at Ceren -- believed to have been home to several hundred people -- have been excavated, including living quarters, storehouses, workshops, kitchens, religious buildings and a community sauna. Several dozen other structures located with ground-penetrating radar remain buried under up to 17 feet of ash, said Sheets.
Although the absence of human remains at Ceren initially puzzled scientists, the 1993 discovery that an earthquake rocked the site just prior to the eruption indicated the villagers might have had just enough warning to flee. "They did not even have time to remove their most valued belongings," said Sheets.
Preservation of organic materials at Ceren -- including thatched roofs, house beams, woven baskets, cloth and grain caches -- has been deemed superior to the organic preservation at the Italian site of Pompeii, by archaeologists and vulcanologists who have visited the Salvadoran site from around the world.
Located 15 miles west of San Salvador, the Ceren project involves scores of experts from the United States and El Salvador, including dozens of CU students and faculty. Past research at Ceren also has been funded by the National Science Foundation.
A podcast with Sheets on the ancient manioc plantation discovery at Ceren can be heard on the Web at:(click on the site)
GGG Ping.
read later bump
This article should have a PG-17 rating.
Maybe they were Vikings?...........
btw: it’s the Cassava plant.
If you don’t prepare manioc properly you will cyanide yourself.
Fact: Scientists think the tiny amount of cyanide in prepared cassava may actually help people who eat it every day. It may protect them from diseases such as malaria and sickle cell anemia.
POISON NOTES: Cassava roots contain cyanide but can be made safe to eat by boiling or peeling, grating and washing repeatedly to remove the poison. The little bit of cyanide that remains may actually be beneficial.
Symptoms: Eating raw cassava can cause abdominal cramping, diarrhea and vomiting. High levels of cyanide prevent oxygen from getting into the blood and may even cause death.
Tapioca pudding.
egg-zactly.
I have always wondered how humans ever discovered a way to treat manioc. You would thing that after seeing what happened to the first person to sample it, they would have left it alone.
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I wonder the same thing about the Japanese fascination with that puffer fish. I imagine the scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where the Nazis are trying to figure out how to get into the cave where the Grail is. "Next volunteer"!!
I wonder sometimes how some food items became staples. Things like olives and acorns, that have to be extensively processed to be made edible. "Gee, Og eat manioc. Him die in convulsions. Maybe me boil, pound and wash manioc several times, then see if I die of convulsions."
Ha. Great minds.
Culinary pioneers..
Ceren's sauna is also intriguing in its own right. It is an architectural masterpiece with a striking earthen dome roof covering the building. Largely impermeable, to keep in steam and heat, this earthen structure was protected from wind and rain by a thatched outer layer. Before its discovery, anthropologists believed that the skills needed to construct domes were introduced to the New World by the Spanish - but the Spanish did not arrive until more than 900 years after Ceren was buried. Inside the sauna, a central fireplace is surrounded by lounging platforms that provide enough space for more than a dozen people at a time to take a sauna.
Excellent...a sauna, ha.
here 'tis.
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