The debt we owe ancient farmers CHARLES BURY
We owe a lot to the ancient food pioneers.
The birth of gardening and agriculture is usually attributed to the early humans of the Middle East, in particular those living in the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now Iraq. But the horticultural history of the Americas is just as long. Unfortunately it's not as well recorded; the Spanish conquistadors took care of that, wiping out almost all traces of pre-Colombian civilization along with almost of the people.
As well as gold, silver and tobacco, the Spaniards pillaged the Indians' food supplies. Today we owe a lot to the ancient American food pioneers, especially if you're like me and live to eat.
Can you imagine a world without potatoes, tomatoes, corn, bananas, pineapples, lima beans, tea, chocolate, peanuts, cashews, cassava, sweet potatoes, papaya, pepper, paprika, allspice, arrowroot, and vanilla?
That's what it would be like if the first gardeners hadn't done their work.
In the hope of getting it right this time, I have lifted the following intact from the website of the University of Illinois: Many different Native American societies and agricultural systems evolved over time in the Americas. Although there is some disagreement among archaeologists about the time when humans first arrived on the continent, there is general agreement that humans were in the Americas by 11,000 years ago, and may have arrived as early as 15,000 years ago. The first arrivals crossed the Bering Strait from Asia during the last Ice Age and quickly spread throughout the Americas.
The first wave of these people are sometimes referred to as Paleoindians, who were entirely hunters and gathers. They followed large game, particularly mastodons, and there is evidence that suggests that hunting by these people contributed to the disappearance of these and other animals on the North American continent.
Earliest evidence for plant cultivation in the Americas appears to be about 10,000 years old in South America, where potatoes and a variety of other plants was first domesticated, and 9000 years old in Central America where corn and a variety of other crops were domesticated. Plant domestication appears to have started later in eastern North America, including the land that is now Illinois.
In the Mississippi River drainage basin, 7000-year-old archeological evidence indicates that humans began to occupy river flood plains continuously during the summer months. This occupation caused disturbances to the floodplain environment that appear to have favored certain weedy invader plants, such as curcubita, goosefoot, sumpweed and sunflower, which have edible seeds.
At some undetermined date, humans apparently began to cultivate these plants, and by 3000 years ago physiological differences had developed between a number of cultivated varieties and their wild relatives.
Maize (corn) appears to have been introduced into North America from the south about 1700 years ago, but it remained a relatively minor crop until about 800 years ago. At that time, the common bean was also introduced, and the corn-bean-squash complex was grown in several, but not all, regions of eastern North America. This was a period in which the climate was considerably warmer than it is today, known as the Medieval Warm Epoch. During this period, wild and domesticated species could be found much further north than their present ranges.
The introduction of corn and beans to North America appears to have displaced, to some extent, the use of indigenously domesticated plants, such as goosefoot and sunflower.
Nonetheless, there was still a great variety of domesticated crops grown in Native American fields, such as tobacco, peppers, cotton, amaranth, sunflower, Jerusalem artichoke, and many other plants. Additionally, different varieties of maize with different cob shapes and sizes appeared in different regions.
Europeans recorded the existence of short and long season corn varieties, but it has not yet been determined when or how these varieties were developed by Native Americans. Such crop diversity indicates a sophisticated knowledge of crop breeding and husbandry. Charlie Bury is a freelance writer based in Birchton, Quebec.
Copyright © 2000 Charles Bury/Log Cabin Chronicles/01.2000 |