Message #144851

[Bianca]

Icing on the Cake?



The Riverton crops may have "added to what was [already] a successful life" for the ancient Americans, said Brian Redmond, curator and head of archaeology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Ohio.

But that doesn't mean farming didn't give the Riverton culture a practical advantage: In addition to their normal fare, the people may have relied on the crops as a stable source of food—insurance against shortages of wild food sources—Redmond added.

The Riverton discovery, he said, "gives us a whole lot of dimension to what these people are doing in this time."