Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-nwzlb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T13:33:37.469Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The age of the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) in the northern Eastern Woodlands of North America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

John P. Hart
Affiliation:
Research & Collections Division, New York State Museum, Albany NY 12230, USA. jph_nysm@mail.nysed.gov
David L. Asch
Affiliation:
Research & Collections Division, New York State Museum, Albany NY 12230, USA. jph_nysm@mail.nysed.gov
C. Margaret Scarry
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill NC 27599, USA
Gary W. Crawford
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Mississauga ONT L5L 1C6, Canada

Extract

This study addresses the lack of chronometric research on the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) to establish precisely the timing of its adoption and spread across the northern Eastern Woodlands of North America. Bean and directly associated maize samples were subjected to accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating. The results show that the common bean apparently spread rapidly upon its introduction to the region, becoming archaeologically visible from the Illinois River valley to southern New England in the calibrated late 13th century AD, some 200–300 years later than previously thought.

Type
News & Notes
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Asch, D.L. 1994. Aboriginal specialty-plant cultivation in eastern North America: Illinois prehistory and a post-contact perspective, in Green, W. (ed.), Agricultural origins and development in the Midcontinent: 2586. Iowa City (IA): University of Iowa. Report 19, Office of the State Archaeologist.Google Scholar
Asch, D.L. 1995. Aboriginal specialty-plant propagation: Illinois prehistory and an eastern North American post-Contact perspective. Unpublished Ph.D thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Asch, D.L. & Asch, N.B.. 1985. Prehistoric plant cultivation in west-central Illinois, in Ford, 1985b: 149204.Google Scholar
Bendremer, J.C.M., Kellogg, E.A. & Largy, T.B.. 1991. A grasslined maize storage pit and early maize horticulture in central Connecticut, North American Archaeologist 12: 325–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biggar, H.P. 1924. The voyages of Jacques Cartier. Ottawa: Public Archives of Canada. Publication 11.Google Scholar
Cassedy, D. & Webb, P.. 1999. New data on the chronology of maize horticulture in eastern New York and southern New England, in Hart, 1999c: 85100.Google Scholar
Conard, N., Asch, D.L., Asch, N.B., Elmore, D., Gove, H., Rubin, M., Brown, J.A., Wiant, M.D., Farnsworth, K.B. & Cook, T.G.. 1984. Accelerator radiocarbon dating of evidence for prehistoric horticulture in Illinois, Nature 308: 443–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crawford, G.W., Smith, D.G. & Bowyer, V.E.. 1997. Dating the entry of corn (Zea mays) into the lower Great Lakes, American Antiquity 62: 112–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Decker, D.S. 1988. Origin(s), evolution, and systematics of Cucurbita pepo (Cucurbitaceae), Economic Botany 42: 413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delorit, R.J. & Gunn, C.R.. 1986. Seeds of continental United States legumes (Fabaceae). River Falls (WI): Agronomy Publications.Google Scholar
Ford, R.I. 1985a. Patterns of prehistoric food production in North America, in Ford, 1985b: 341–64.Google Scholar
Ford, R.I. (Ed.). 1985b. Prehistoric food production in North America. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Museum of Anthropology. Anthropological Papers 75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fritz, G.J. 1994. Precolumbian Cucurbita argyrosperma ssp. argyrosperma (Cucurbitaceae) in the Eastern Woodlands of North America, Economic Botany 48: 280–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffin, J.B. 1967. Eastern North American archaeology: a summary, Science 156: 175–91.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hart, J.P. 2001. Maize, matrilocality, migrations and northern Iroquoian evolution, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 8: 151–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, J.P. 1999a. Maize agriculture evolution in the Eastern Woodlands of North America: a Darwinian perspective, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 6: 137–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, J.P. 1999b. Dating Roundtop’s domesticates: implications for northeastern late prehistory, in Hart, 1999c: 4768.Google Scholar
Hart, J.P. (Ed.). 1999c. Current Northeast paleoethnobotany. Albany (NY): University of the State of New York. New York State Museum Bulletin 494.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, J.P. & Asch Sidell, N.. 1997. Addiliunal evidence for early cucurbit use in Lhe northern Eastern Woodlands east of the Allegheny Front, American Antiquity 62: 523–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, J.P. & Scarry, C.M.. 1999. The age of common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) in the northeastern United States, American Antiquity 64: 653–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hurt, R.D. 1987. Indian agriculture in America: prehistory to the present. Lawrence (KS): University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Kami, J., Velásquez, V.B., Derouck, D.G. & Gepts, P.. 1995. Identification of presumed ancestral DNA sequences of phaseolin in Phaseolus vulgaris , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 92: 1101–4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaplan, L. 1965. Archaeology and the domestication in American Phaseolus (beans), Economic Botany 19: 358–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, L. & Lynch, T.F.. 1999. Phaseolus (Fabaceae) in archeology: AMS radiocarbon dates and their significance for pre-Columbian agriculture, Economic Botany 53: 261–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirkeride, J.H. JR, Gunn, C.R., Weitzmann, A.L. & Dallwitz, M.J.. 2000. Legume (Fabaceae) fruits and seeds. Interactive CD-ROM. Boone (NC): Parkway Publishers.Google Scholar
Lopinot, N.H. 1992. Spatial and temporal variability in Mississippian subsistence: lhe archaeological record, in Woods, W I. (ed.), Late prehistoric agriculture: observations from the Midwest: 4494. Springfield (IL): Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. Studies in Illinois Archaeology 8.Google Scholar
MacNeish, R.S. & Eubanks, M.W.. 2000. Comparative analysis of the Rio Balsas and Tebuacán models for the origin of maize, Latin American Antiquity 11: 118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petersen, J.B. & Asch Sidell, N.. 1996. Mid-Holocene evidence of Cucurbita sp. from central Maine, American Antiquity 61: 685–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riley, T.J., Edcing, R. & Rossen, J.. 1990. Cultigens in prehistoric eastern North America: changing paradigms, Current Anthropology 31: 525–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riley, T.J., Waltz, G.R., Bareis, C.J., Fortier, A.C. & Parker, K.E.. 1994. Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates confirm early Zea ways in the Mississippi River valley, American Antiquity 59: 490–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rossen, J. 1988. Botanical remains, in Turnbow, G.A. & Sharp, W.E. (ed.), Muir: an early Fort Ancient site in the Inner Bluegrass: 243–64. Lexington (KY): University of Kentucky. Archaeological Report 171, Program for Cultural Resource Assessment.Google Scholar
Smith, B.D. 1992. Rivers of change: essays on early agriculture in eastern North America. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Smith, D.G. & Crawford, G.W.. 1997. Recent developments in lhe archaeology of the Princess Point complex in southern Ontario, Journal Canadien d’Archéologie 21: 932.Google Scholar
Stoltman, J.B. & Baerreis, D.A.. 1983. The evolution of human ecosystems in the eastern United States, in Wright, H.E. Jr (ed.), Late-Quaternary environments of the United States, Vol. 2. The Holocene: 252–68. Minneapolis (MN): University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M., Reimer, P.J., Bard, E., Beck, J.W., Burr, G.S., Hughen, K.A., Kromer, B., McCormac, F.C., Van Der Plight, J. & Spurk, M.. 1998. INTCAL98 Radiocarbon age calibration 24,000-0 cal BP, Radiocarbon 40: 1041–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, G.K. & Wilson, S.R.. 1978. Procedures for comparing and combining radiocarbon age determinations: a critical review, Archaeometry 20: 1931.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yarnell, R.A. 1976. Early plant husbandry in eastern North America, in Cleland, C. (ed.), Cultural change and continuity: essays in honor of James Bennett Griffin: 265—74. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Yarnell, R.A. 1986. A survey of prehistoric crop plants in eastern North America, Missouri Archaeologist 47: 4759.Google Scholar