Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T18:44:50.938Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Isotopic Evidence for Early Maize Cultivation in New York State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

J. C. Vogel  and
Nikolaas J. Van Der Merwe
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Plants metabolize carbon dioxide photosynthetically either through a 3-carbon (Calvin) or 4-carbon pathway. Most plants are of the C-3 type; C-4 plants are primarily grasses adapted to hot, arid environments. Since C-4 plants have a higher 13C/12C ratio than C-3 plants, animals and humans with a significant C-4 plant food-intake will have higher 13C/12C ratios as well. Maize is a C-4 plant, hence maize cultivators living in predominantly C-3 plant environments should show significant isotopic differences from local hunter-gatherers in their skeletal remains; the importance of maize in their diet should also be measurable. The practicability of this method is demonstrated for New York State archaeological materials and wider implications are mentioned.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , April 1977 , pp. 238 - 242
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1977

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

Bender, M. M. 1968 Mass spectrometry studies of carbon-13 variations in corn and other grasses. Radiocarbon 10:468–72.Google Scholar
Craig, H. 1953 The geochemistry of the stable carbon isotopes. Geochimica et Cosmochimica, Acta 3:53–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatch, M. D., and Slack, C. R. 1966 Photosynthesis by sugarcane leaves. A new carboxylation reaction and the pathway of sugar formation. Biochemical Journal 101: 103–11.Google Scholar
Hatch, M. D., Slack, C. R., and Johnson, H. S. 1967 Further studies on a new pathway of photosynthetic carbon dioxide fixation in sugar-cane and its occurrence in other plant species. Biochemistry Journal 102:417–22.Google Scholar
Kortschak, H. P., Hartt, C. E., and Burr, G. O. 1965 Carbon-dioxide fixation in sugarcane leaves. Plant Physiology 40:209–13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lipe, W. D., and Elliott, D. N. 1970 The Engelbert Site Project. Binghamton, N.Y. Google Scholar
Mü nnich, K. O., and Vogel, J. C. 1958 Durch atomexplosionen erzengter radiokohlenstoff in der atmosphäre. Naturwissenschaften 45:327–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neales, T. F., Patterson, A. A., and Hartley, V. J. 1968 Physiological adaptation to drought in the carbon assimilation and water loss of xerophytes. Nature 219:469–72.Google Scholar
Ritchie, W. 1965 The archaeology of New York State. New York: Natural History Press.Google Scholar
Troughton, J. H. 1971 Aspects of the evolution of the photosynthetic carboxylation reaction in plants. In Photosynthesis and photorespiration, edited by Hatch, M. D., Osmond, C. B., and Slater, R. O.. New York: Wiley-Interscience.Google Scholar
van der Merwe, N. J. 1973 New wrinkles in radiocarbon. Paper delivered at Plains Anthropological Conference, Columbia, Mo.Google Scholar
Vogel, J. C. 1959 Isotopentrennfaktoren des Kohlen stoffs im Gleichgewichtssystem Kohlendioxyd-Bikarbonat- karbonat. Ph.D. thesis, Heidelberg.Google Scholar
Vogel, J. C. n.d. Fractionation of the carbon isotopes during photosynthesis. Plant Physiology, in press.Google Scholar
Vogel, J. C., and Waterbolk, H. T. 1967 Groningen radiocarbon dates VII. Radiocarbon 9:107–55.Google Scholar
Vogel, J. C., and Waterbolk, H. T. 1972 Groningen radiocarbon dates X. Radiocarbon 14:6–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winter, J. 1971 A summary of Owasco and Iroquois maize remains. Pennsylvania Archaeologist 4.Google Scholar