Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T15:52:01.109Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reassessing the Traditional Interpretation of “Manioc” Artifacts in the Orinoco Valley of Venezuela

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Linda Perry
Linda Perry*
Affiliation:
Archaeobiology Laboratory, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution MRC 112, P.O. Box 37012, Washington, DC 20013-7012. ([email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

There exists general consensus in the archaeological literature that bitter manioc was a staple crop in precontact agricultural systems in the lowlands of South America. This view is based upon the indirect evidence derived from archaeological ceramic and lithic assemblages rather than archaeobotanical evidence, the preserved remains of bitter manioc itself. Studies of microlithic “manioc” grater flakes from Pozo Azul Norte-1, a site located in the middle Orinoco valley of Venezuela, reveal a much more complex function of these artifacts involving the processing of several starchy roots including arrowroot, guapo, yam, and ginger, as well as seeds including maize and possibly palm. The starch and use-wear data collected in these investigations indicate that archaeobotanical data are a more reliable means of assessing the function of these tools than are ethnographic analogues.

Hay consenso en la literatura arqueológica de que la yuca amarga constituía un cultivo importante en los sistemas agrícolas de las tierras bajas de Sudamérica anteriores al contacto. Esto se basa en evidencia indirecta aportada por las colecciones cerámicas y líticas arqueológicas y no tanto en la evidencia arqueobotánica, es decir en los restos preservados de la yuca misma. Los estudios en microlascas procedentes de ralladores de “yuca amarga” del sitio Pozo Azul Norte-1, ubicado en la cuenca del Orinoco medio de Venezuela, demuestran una función mucho más compleja para esta clase de artefactos, involucrando el procesamiento de varias raíces harinosas como arruruz, guapo, ñame, y jengibre, así como de semillas incluyendo maíz y posiblemente palma. Datos sobre granos de almidón y trazas de uso recopilados en esta investigación indican que la evidencia arqueobotánica resulta más confiable a la hora de averiguar la función de estas herramientas que aquella basada en analogías etnográficas.

Type
Reports
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , December 2005 , pp. 409 - 426
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by the Society for American Archaeology.

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

References Cited

Atchison, Jennifer, and Fullagar, Richard 1998 Starch Residues on Pounding Tools from Jinmium Rock-Shelter. In A Closer Look, Recent Australian Studies of Stone Tools, edited by Richard Fullagar, pp. 109–126. Sydney University Archaeological Methods Series 6. Sydney.Google Scholar
Andersson, Lennart, Kennedy, Helen, and Hagberg, Mats 2001 Marantaceae. In Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Volume 6, edited by Julian A. Steyermark, Paul E. Berry, Kay Yatskievych, and Bruce K. Hoist, pp. 219–248. Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis.Google Scholar
Ayensu Edward, S., and Coursey, Donald G. 1972 Guinea Yams. The Botany, Ethnobotany, Use and Possible Future of Yams in West Africa. Economic Botany 26:301–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barse, William P. 1989 A Preliminary Archaeological Sequence in the Upper Orinoco Valley, Territorio Federal Amazonas, Venezuela, Ph.D. Dissertation. The Catholic University of America. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Barse, William P. 1990 Preceramic Occupations in the Orinoco River Valley. Science 250:1388–1390.Google Scholar
Barton, Huw, Torrence, Robin, and Fullagar, Richard 1998 Clues to Stone Tool Function Re-examined: Comparing Starch Grain Frequencies on Used and Unused Obsidian Artefacts. Journal of Archaeological Science 25:1231–1238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Briuer, Frederick L. 1976 New Clues to Stone Tool Function: Plant and Animal Residues. American Antiquity 41:478–484.Google Scholar
Cruxent, José M., and Rouse, Irving 1958 An Archaeological Chronology of Venezuela. Pan American Union Social Science Monographs, Washington D.C. Google Scholar
DeBoer, Warren 1975 The Archaeological Evidence for Manioc Cultivation: A Cautionary Note. American Antiquity 40:419–433.Google Scholar
Dickau, Ruth 2005 Source Use, Crop Dispersals, and the Transition to Agriculture in Prehistoric Panama: Evidence from Starch Grains and Macroremains. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Temple University, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Dole, Gertrude E. 1978 The Use of Manioc Among the Kuikuru: Some Interpretations. In The Nature and Status of Ethnobotany, edited by Richard I. Ford, pp. 217–247. Anthropological Papers No. 67, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Fullager, Richard 1994 Objectives for Usewear and Residue Studies: Views from an Australian Microscope. Helinium XXXIV:210–224.Google Scholar
Gould, Richard A., and Jo Watson, Patty 1982 A Dialogue on the Meaning and Use of Analogy in Ethnoarchaeological Reasoning. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1:355–381.Google Scholar
Gragson, Ted L. 1997 The Use of Underground Plant Organs and Their Use in Relation to Habitat Selection among the Pumé Indians of Venezuela. Economic Botany 51:377–384.Google Scholar
Greaves, Russell D. 1997 Ethnoarchaeological Investigations of Subsistence Mobility, Resource Targeting, and Technological Organization among Pumé Foragers of Venezuela. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Haslam, Michael 2003 Evidence for Maize Processing on 2000-Year Old Obsidian Artefacts from Copán, Honduras. In Phytolith and Starch Research in the Australian-Pacific-Asian Regions: The State of the Art, edited by Diane M. Hart and Lynley A. Wallis, pp. 153–161, Pandanus Books, Canberra.Google Scholar
Hather, Jon G. 1991 The Identification of Charred Archaeological Remains of VegetativeParenchymatous Tissue. Journal of Archaeological Science 18:661–675.Google Scholar
Hather, Jon G. 1994 The Identification of Charred Root and Tuber Crops from Archaeological Sites in the Pacific. In Tropical Archaeobotany Applications and New Developments, edited by Jon G. Hather, pp. 52–64. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Henderson, Andrew 1997 Arecaceae. In Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana, Volume 3, edited by Julian A. Steyermark, Paul E. Berry, and Bruce K. Hoist, pp. 32–121. Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis.Google Scholar
Howard, George 1943 Excavations at Ronquin, Venezuela. Yale University Publications in Anthropology, No. 28. Yale University Press, New Haven.Google Scholar
Iriarté, José, Holst, Irene, Marozzi, Oscar, Listopad, Claudia, Alonso, Eduardo, Rinderknecht, Andrés, and Montaña, Juan 2004 Evidence for Cultivar Adoption and Emerging Complexity During the Mid-Holocene in the La Plata Basin. Nature 432:614–617.Google Scholar
Knuttson, Kjel 1988 Patterns of Tool Use: Scanning Electron Microscopy of Experimental Quartz Tools. Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis. Uppsala.Google Scholar
Lathrap, Donald W. 1970 The Upper Amazon. Thames and Hudson, London.Google Scholar
Mangelsdorf, Paul C., and Sanoja, Mario 1965 Early Archaeological Maize from Venezuela Harvard University Botanica Museum Leaflets 21:105–111.Google Scholar
Meggers, Betty J. 1996 Amazonia, Man and Culture in a Counterfeit Paradise. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Meggers, Betty J., and Evans, Clifford 1983 Lowland South America and the Antilles. In Ancient South Americans, edited by Jesse D. Jennings, pp. 287–335. W.H. Freeman, New York.Google Scholar
Morton, Julia F. 1981 Atlas of Medicinal Plants of Middle America Bahamas to Yucatan. Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois.Google Scholar
Ana, Narváez, and Stauffer, Fred 1999 Products Derived from Palms at the Puerto Ayacucho Markets in Amazonas State, Venezuela. Palms 43:122–129.Google Scholar
Pearsall, Deborah M. 1992 The Origins of Plant Cultivation in South America. In The Origins of Agriculture: An International Perspective, edited by C. Wesley Cowan and Patty Jo Watson, pp.173–205. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Pearsall, Deborah M. 1995 Domestication and Agriculture in the New World Tropics. In Last Hunters-First Farmers: New Perspectives on the Prehistoric Transition to Agriculture, edited by T. Douglas Price and Anne B. Gebauer, pp. 157–192. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Pearsall, Deborah M., Chandler-Ezell, Karol, and Zeidler, James A. 2004 Maize in Ancient Ecuador: Results of Residue Analysis of Stone Tools from the Real Alto Site. Journal of Archaeological Science 31:423–442.Google Scholar
Perry, Linda 2001 Prehispanic Subsistence in the Middle Orinoco Basin: Starch Analyses Yield New Evidence. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.Google Scholar
Perry, Linda 2004 Starch Analyses Reveal the Relationship Between Tool Type and Function: An Example from the Orinoco Valley of Venezuela. Journal of Archaeological Science 31:1069–1081.Google Scholar
Pickersgill, Barbara, and Heiser, Charles B. Jr. 1977 Origins and Distribution of Plants Domesticated in the New World Tropics. In Origins of Agriculture, edited by Charles A. Reed, pp. 803–835. Mouton Publishers, The Hague.Google Scholar
Piperno, Dolores R. 2005 Identifying Manioc (Manihot esculenta Crantz) and Other Crops in Pre-Columbian Tropical America Through Starch Grain Analysis: A Case Study from Central Panama. In Documenting Domestication, edited by Melinda Zeder and Bruce Smith. University of California Press, Berkeley, in press.Google Scholar
Piperno, Dolores R., and Holst, Irene 1998 The Presence of Starch Grains on Prehistoric Stone Tools from the Humid Neotropics: Indications of Early Tuber Use and Agriculture in Panama. Journal of Archaeological Science 25:765–776.Google Scholar
Piperno, Dolores R., and Pearsall, Deborah M. 1998 The Origins of Agriculture in the Lowland Neotropics. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Piperno, Dolores R., Ranere, Anthony J., Hoist, Irene, and Hansell, Patricia 2000 Starch Grains Reveal Early Root Crop Horticulture in the Panamanian Tropical Forest. Nature 407:894–897.Google Scholar
Pittier, Henri F. 1926 Manual de las Plantas Usuales de Venezuela. Litografía del Comercio, Caracas.Google Scholar
Purseglove, John W. 1974 Tropical Crops: Dicotyledons. Longman, London.Google Scholar
Purseglove, John W. 1979 Tropical Crops: Monocotyledons. Longman, London.Google Scholar
Reichert, Edward T. 1913 The Differentiation and Specificity of Starches in Relation to Genera, Species, Etc. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington D.C. Google Scholar
Rincón, Alicia M., Padilla, Fanny C., Araujo, Consuelo, and Tillett, Stephen 1999 Myrosma cannifolia, Chemical Composition and Physiochemical Properties of the Extracted Starch. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture 79:532–536.3.0.CO;2-J>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roosevelt, Anna C. 1978 La Gruta, An Early Tropical Forest Community of the Middle Orinoco Basin. In Unidad y variedad: Ensayos antropológicos en homenaje a José M. Cruxent, edited by Erika Wagner and Alberta Zucchi, pp. 173–199. Ediciones del Centro de Estudios Avanzados, Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas, Caracas.Google Scholar
Roosevelt, Anna C. 1980 Parmana: Prehistoric Maize and Manioc Subsistence along the Amazon and Orinoco. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Roosevelt, Anna C. 1997 The Excavations at Corozal, Venezuela: Stratigraphy and Ceramic Seriation. Yale University Publications in Anthropology No. 83, New Haven.Google Scholar
Roth, Walter E. 1916 The Arts, Crafts, and Customs of the Guiana Indians. Bureau of American Ethnology Publication No. 18. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Rouse, Irving 1978 The La Gruta Phase and its Implications. In Unidad y variedad: Ensayos antropológicos en homenaje a José M. Cruxent, edited by Erika Wagner and Alberta Zucchi, pp. 203–229, Ediciones del Centro de Estudios Avanzados, Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas, Caracas.Google Scholar
Rouse, Irving, and Allaire, Louis 1978 Caribbean. In Chronologies in New World Archaeology, edited by R. Ervin Taylor and Clement W. Meighan, pp. 431–481. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Sanoja, Mario 1979 Las culturas formativos del Oriente de Venezuela: La Tradición Barrancas del Bajo Orinoco. Estudios, Monografias, y Ensayos No. 6, Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la Historia, Caracas.Google Scholar
Sanoja, Mario and Vargas, Iraida 1983 New Light on the Prehistory of Eastern Venezuela. In Advances in New World Archaeology Volume 2, edited by Fred Wendorf and Angela E. Close, pp. 205–244. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Sauer, Carl O. 1952 Agricultural Origins and Dispersals. American Geo-graphical Society, New York.Google Scholar
Schultes Richard, E., and Raffauf, Robert F. 1990 The Healing Forest: Medicinal and Toxic Plants of the Northwest Amazonia. Dioscorides Press, Portland, Oregon.Google Scholar
Tarble, Kay 1994 Concepción y uso del espacio en la época precolombina tardía en el área del Barraguán, Estado Bolívar. Trabajo de Ascenso, Escuela de Antropologia, Facultad de Economía y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Central de Venezuela.Google Scholar
Téllez, Oswaldo 1988 Dioscoreaceae. In Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Volume 4, Caesalpiniaceae Ericaceae, edited by Paul E. Berry, Bruce K. Holst, and Kay Yatskievych, pp.686–696. Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis.Google Scholar
Towle, Margaret A. 1961 The Ethnobotany of Pre-Columbian Peru. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Ugent, Donald, and Cummings, Linda S. 2004 Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Ethnobotanical Leaflets. Electronic document, http://www.siu.edu/∼ebl/amylose.htm, accessed August 4, 2005.Google Scholar
Ugent, Donald, Dillehay, Tom D., and Ramírez, Carlos 1987 Potato Remains from a Late Pleistocene Settlement in South-central Chile. Economic Botany 41:17–27.Google Scholar
Ugent, Donald, Pozorski, Shelia, and Pozorski, Thomas 1981 Prehistoric Remains of the Sweet Potato from the Casma Valley of Peru. Phytologia 49:401–415.Google Scholar
Ugent, Donald, Pozorski, Shelia, and Pozorski, Thomas 1982 Archaeological Potato Tuber Remains from the Casma Valley of Peru. Economic Botany 36:182–192.Google Scholar
Ugent, Donald, Pozorski, Shelia, and Pozorski, Thomas 1984 New Evidence for Ancient Cultivation of Canna edulis in Peru. Economic Botany 38:417–432.Google Scholar
Ugent, Donald, Pozorski, Shelia, and Pozorski, Thomas 1986 Archaeological Manioc (Manihot) from Coastal Peru. Economic Botany 40:78–102.Google Scholar
Ugent, Donald, and Verdun, Michael 1983 Starch Grains of the Wild and Cultivated Mexican Species of Solanum, Subsection Potatoe. Phytologia 53:351–363.Google Scholar
Vargas, Iraida 1979 La tradicion Saladoide del Oriente de Venezuela: La Ease Cuartel. Estudios, Monografias y Ensayos No. 5. Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la História, Caracas.Google Scholar
Vargas, Iraida 1981 Investigaciones arqueológicas en Parmana: los sitios de La Gruta y Ronquin, Estado Guarico, Venezuela. Estudios, Monografias y Ensayos No. 20. Biblioteca de la Academia Nacional de la História, Caracas.Google Scholar
Willey, Gordon R. 1971 An Introduction to American A rchaeology Volume 2: South America. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Zucchi, Alberta, Tarble, Kay, and Eduardo Vaz, J. 1984 The Ceramic Sequence and New TL and C14 Dates for the Aguerito Site of the Middle Orinoco. Journal of Field Archaeology 2:155–180.Google Scholar