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Phytolith Evidence for the Early Presence of Maize in Southern Quebec

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Christian Gates St-Pierre  and
Robert G. Thompson
Christian Gates St-Pierre
Affiliation:
Département des sciences historiques, Université Laval, Pavilion Charles-De Koninck, 1030 avenue des Sciences-Humaines, Québec, CanadaGl V 0A6 (Christian.Gates.St-Pierre@hst.ulaval.ca)
Robert G. Thompson
Affiliation:
Archaeobiology Laboratory, Department of Anthropology, University of Minnesota, 395 Hubert H. Humphrey Center, 301 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455 (rthompso@umn.edu)
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Abstract

It has long been believed that maize (Zea mays spp. mays) was introduced in Quebec at around A.D. 1000, at the very beginning of the Late Woodland period. The identification and dating of maize phytoliths extracted from the carbonized encrustations on the interior surfaces of Native American ceramic vessels from three sites located in the St. Lawrence River valley, namely the Hector-Trudel, Station-4, and Place-Royale sites, indicate that this cultigen was rather introduced in that area during the Early Middle Woodland period, ca.400 to 200 B.C. These sites provide the northernmost and possibly the oldest evidence of maize consumption in northeastern North America. More samples of maize phytoliths from the same two sites were dated to the late Middle Woodland period, between A.D. 600 and 800, suggesting an increase in the ubiquity and importance of this new crop in the subsistence strategies. Moreover, the identification of an unknown variety of maize points toward the possibility that a new local variety of maize appeared during the process. This process might have been accompanied by a more intensive and complementary collecting of wild rice. Finally, the results support the hypothesis of an in situ origin of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians.

Résumé

Résumé

L'introduction du maïs (Zea mays) dans l'alimentation des populations amérindiennes du Québec méridional est traditionnellement située vers l'an 1000 de notre ère, au début du Sylvicole supérieur. L'identification et la datation de phytolithes de maïs extraits des croûtes carbonisées de vases en céramique amérindiens provenant des sites de Pointe-du-Buisson et de Place-Royale, dans la vallée du Saint-Laurent, montrent que ce cultigène y fut plutït introduit au cours de la période du Sylvicole moyen ancien, il y a 400 à 200 ans avant notre ère. Ces données représentent les évidences de consommation de maïs les plus septentrionales et potentiellement les plus anciennes dans le Nord-Est américain. Plusieurs autres échantillons de phytolithes de maïs datent pour leur part de la période du Sylvicole moyen tardif, entre 600 et 800 ans de notre ère. L'identification d'une variété de maïs inconnue des banques de données utilisées laisse croire qu ‘il pourrait s‘agir d‘une variété locale s‘étant développée au cours du processus d‘adoption du maïs, un processus qui semble s‘être accompagné de la collecte plus intensive de riz sauvage (Zizania aquatica or Z. palustris). Finalement, ces données appuient l'hypothèse d'un développement sur place des Iroquoiens du Saint-Laurent au moins depuis le Sylvicole moyen ancien.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 80 , Issue 2 , April 2015 , pp. 408 - 415
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 2015

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