Message #144850

[Bianca]

How They Lived



Smith and colleagues radiocarbon-dated samples of seeds in soil collected in the 1960s from middens, or garbage piles, of the Riverton culture.

In communities of about six to ten families, the Riverton people prepared their food without ceramic pots or boiled water: The families broke nuts, ground food on slabs, and used earthen ovens with fire-heated rocks.

They likely ate sunflower, marsh elder, two types of chenopod—a family that includes spinach and beets—and possibly squash and little barley, according to the findings. The people also grew bottle gourd to make into containers.

Several of these "aggressive" colonizer plant species, such as sunflowers and bottle gourd, are around today, said Smith, whose research appears this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Many of the Riverton plant species are so hardy that modern gardeners in the U.S. Midwest or Southeast often find them stubbornly popping up in their backyards, he said.



(Related:

"Ancient Seeds Sow Debate Over Sunflower-Farming Origins".)