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Evidence Found for Canals That Watered Ancient Peru RUNNING
WATER The sites of ancient irrigation canals. People in Peru's Zaña
Valley dug the canals as early as 6,700 years ago to divert river water
to their crops. By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD Published: January 3, 2006 It
was assumed that by 4,000 years ago, perhaps 1,000 years earlier,
large-scale irrigation farming was well under way in Peru, as suggested
by the indirect evidence of urban ruins of increasing size and
architectural distinction. Their growth presumably depended on
irrigation in the arid valleys and hills descending to coastal Peru.
But the telling evidence of the canals had been missing. Then Tom
D. Dillehay, an archaeologist at Vanderbilt University, started nosing
around the Zaña Valley, about 40 miles from the ocean and more than 300
miles north of Lima. On the south side of the Nanchoc River, he
and his team uncovered traces of the four canals, narrow and shallow,
lined with stones and pebbles, extending from less than a mile to more
than two miles in length. The canals ran near remains of houses, buried
agricultural furrows, stone hoes and charred plants, including cotton,
wild plums, beans and squash. "The Zaña Valley canals are the
earliest known in South America," Dr. Dillehay's team wrote in the
journal article. He added, by e-mail from Chile, that they were the
"earliest in the Americas." Evidence Found for Canals That Watered Ancient Peru RUNNING
WATER The sites of ancient irrigation canals. People in Peru's Zaña
Valley dug the canals as early as 6,700 years ago to divert river water
to their crops. By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD Published: January 3, 2006 It
was assumed that by 4,000 years ago, perhaps 1,000 years earlier,
large-scale irrigation farming was well under way in Peru, as suggested
by the indirect evidence of urban ruins of increasing size and
architectural distinction. Their growth presumably depended on
irrigation in the arid valleys and hills descending to coastal Peru.
But the telling evidence of the canals had been missing. Then Tom
D. Dillehay, an archaeologist at Vanderbilt University, started nosing
around the Zaña Valley, about 40 miles from the ocean and more than 300
miles north of Lima. On the south side of the Nanchoc River, he
and his team uncovered traces of the four canals, narrow and shallow,
lined with stones and pebbles, extending from less than a mile to more
than two miles in length. The canals ran near remains of houses, buried
agricultural furrows, stone hoes and charred plants, including cotton,
wild plums, beans and squash. "The Zaña Valley canals are the
earliest known in South America," Dr. Dillehay's team wrote in the
journal article. He added, by e-mail from Chile, that they were the
"earliest in the Americas." Sullivan's Expedition, New York 1779 Francis Whiting Halsey Among
the Indian towns which the expedition now entered and laid in ruins,
were these: Two miles above Newtown, one with eight houses; farther on,
Kanawaholla with twenty; Catharinetown with thirty or forty good
houses, fine corn fields, horses, cows, hogs, etc.; Kendaia with
twenty houses of hewn logs, some of them painted, peach-trees and an
apple orchard of sixty trees; Kanadesaga with fifty houses, and thirty
others near it, orchards and cornfields, the village being built around
a square in which trees were growing; Skoiyase with eighteen houses,
fields of corn and trees well laden with apples, this town being
destroyed by detachments under Colonel John Harper; Shenanwaga with
twenty houses, orchards, cornfields fenced in, stacks of hay, hogs, and
fowls; Kanandaigua with twenty-three "elegant houses, some framed,
others log, but large and new"; Honeoye with twenty houses; Kanaghsaws
with eighteeen houses; Gathtsewarohare with twenty-five houses, mostly
new, and cornfield which it took 2,000 men six hours to destroy; Little
Beard's Town, the great Seneca Castle, having 128 houses, mostly "large
and elegant, surrounded by about 200 acres of growing corn as well as
by gardens in which all kinds of vegetables were growing, from 15,000
to 20,000 bushels of corn being burned with the buildings," and finally
six or seven villages along the shores of Cayuga Lake, destroyed by a
detachment under Colonel William Butler. One of these Cayuga
towns was Chonobote where were found peach-trees numbering 1,500, all
of which were cut down. At Kanadesaga, besides apple and peach trees,
there were mulberry-trees, and the growing vegetables were onions,
peas, beans, squashes, potatoes, turnips, cabbages, cucumbers,
watermelons, carrots, and parsnips. General Clinton describes the corn
as "the finest I have ever seen." One of the officers saw ears twenty
inches long. Under the white man, fifteen years later, this Genesee
country was to acquire new and lasting fame for extraordinary fertility. Thus
was all that garden land laid waste. "Corn, gathered and ungathered, to
the amount of 160,000 bushels," says Stone, "shared the same fate;
their fruit-trees were cut down, and the Indians were hunted like wild
beasts, till neither house nor fruit-trees, nor field of corn, nor
inhabitant, remained in the whole country." He adds, that in this
expedition more towns were laid in ashes and a broader extent of
country ruined than had ever before been the case on this continent. Sullivan's
rigorous measures have been severly criticized, but he had instructions
from Congress to be severe. Washington's letter declared that "the
immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their
settlements." The country was not to be "merely overrun, but
destroyed." In a letter to Laurens in September of this year,
Washington said: "The Indians, men, women and children, are flying
before him [Sullivan] to Niagara, distant more than one hundred miles,
in the utmost consternation, distress, and confusion, with the Butlers,
Brant, and the others at their head." ***** When Sullivan
finally departed from the country, the Indians returned to witness the
desolate state of their ancestral homes - blackened ruins, with fields
of corn and gardens overturned. Mary Jemison says there was not enough
left to keep a child. Homeless now, in their own land, the Indians
marched to Niagara,where, around the fort, the English built huts for
them to pass the winter in. Owing to the severe cold, hunting became
impossible that season; so that they were forced to live on salted
food, which produced scurvy, and hundreds of them died. The Old New York Frontier by Francis Whiting Halsey, pages 280-283 Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1901 Indian 'kitchen' unearthed in park construction Posted: January 23, 2006 by: The Associated Press _http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096412323_ (http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096412323) CHARLESTOWN,
Ind. (AP) - Workers building a boat ramp at southeastern Indiana's
Charlestown State Park have uncovered the apparent remains of a
4,000-year-old ''kitchen'' ancient American Indians tribes may have
used to prepare their winter food supply. The discovery of the site in eastern Clark County prompted the state to temporarily halt work on the Ohio River boat ramp project. Bob
McCullough, who heads an archaeological survey team from Indiana
University - Purdue University Fort Wayne, said the low-lying area was
probably used by nomadic tribes of hunters and gatherers. He said they
appear to have collected hickory nuts, used large slabs of rock to
crush them and then made fires to boil them and extract fatty oils. Tribes often stored such high-energy nut oils for use during the lean winter months, McCullough said. The
IPFW team has made two trips to the site and plans a third study of the
area. The archaeological work is required under federal and state
historic preservation laws. No human remains or bones have been found at the site. McCullough said he was surprised by how well-preserv ed the cooking area site was, but he said it was protected over the centuries by layers of silt deposited by floodwaters. Michael
Strezewski, the lead archaeologist from IPFW on the first two visits to
the park last fall, estimated the site dates from about 2000 B.C. He
said it contains large amounts of Laurel chert, a stone from which
stone tools can be created. Other artifacts included stone slabs
used for grinding and cracking nuts, the remains of fire pits and some
charred bits of plant material. The area being studied is part of
a 2,700-acre expansion at the park closed to the public. Over the
years, several archaeological sites have been found in the park area. Larry Gray, the park's property manager, said the $3 million project to install
a five-lane boat ramp, a picnic area, parking lot and riverfront
walking trail would probably be delayed until late this year or next
year. ''I wish we were going to be prepared to open it in April
or May this year, but we're not. We have to do things properly, and it
takes time,'' he said. 12) See Plimoth Plantation, “No Popcorn!,”
www.plimoth.org/library/thanksgiving/nopopc.htm, and “A First
Thanksgiving Dinner for Today,”
www.plimoth.org/library/thanksgiving/afirst.htm. See also Margaret M.
Bruchac and Catherine O’Neill Grace, op. cit. The Pilgrims and Indians feasted on turkey, potatoes, berries, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and popcorn. Fact:
Both written and oral evidence show that what was actually consumed at
the harvest festival in 1621 included venison (since Massasoit and his
people brought five deer), wild fowl, and quite possibly nasaump-dried
corn pounded and boiled into a thick porridge, and pompion-cooked,
mashed pumpkin. Among the other food that would have been available,
fresh fruits such as plums, grapes, berries and melons would have been
out of season. It would have been too cold to dig for clams or fish for
eels or small fish. There were no boats to fish for lobsters in rough
water that was about 60 fathoms deep. There was not enough of the
barley crop to make a batch of beer, nor was there a wheat crop.
Potatoes and sweet potatoes didn’t get from the south up to New England
until the 18th century, nor did sweet corn. Cranberries would have been
too tart to eat without sugar to sweeten them, and that’s probably why
they wouldn’t have had pumpkin pie, either. Since the corn of the time
could not be successfully popped, there was no popcorn. (12) Inca Potato Salad 1 pound purple potatoes* 1 onion, finely chopped 1 clove garlic, minced 1/2 to 1 teaspoons chili powder 1 tbl vegetable oil 1 1/2 cups vegetable broth 3/4 cup quinoa, rinsed and drained 1/4 teaspoon salt dash ground pepper 3/4 cup frozen corn, thawed
* Native Peruvian purple potatoes can be found in many specialty and
health food markets, if you can not find use russet potato. Wash potatoes; do not pare. Dice into 1/2-inch pieces. Sauté potatoes, onions, garlic and chili powder in oil until onions are tender. Add broth and mix well, bring to a boil. Stir in quinoa, salt and pepper; return to boil. Stir, cover and reduce heat, simmer 15 minutes. Turn off heat, add corn and let stand covered, 5 minutes. Mix gently to fluff. Serve warm or refrigerate an d serve cold. Variation: Add 1/2 cup dried chopped pineapple with corn Yield: 6 servings History of the Potato: A
high plateau in the Andean Mountains of South America is the birthplace
of the 'Irish' white potato that we eat today. The plateau, known today
as the Titicaca Plateau, stretches across part of the countries of Peru
and Bolivia. The Aymara Indians developed more than two hundred
varieties of the potato at elevations greater than 10,000 feet.
Potatoes formed the basis of the Aymara Indian and Incan diet.
Potatoes also were an important influence on Incan culture.
Potato-shaped pottery complete with eyes is commonly found at excavated
sites, sometimes having tiny heads growing out of the little eyes.
Incan units of time correlated to the length of time it took for a
potato to cook to various consistencies. Potatoes were even used to
divine the truth and predict weather. From the Andes to Europe:
When the Spanish Conquistadors didn't find the gold and silver they
were looking for in the late 1400s and early 1500s, they quickly
cornered the local potato market. Potatoes were soon a standard supply
item on their ships. The Spanish noticed that the sailors who ate papas
(potatoes) did not suffer from scurvy. Scurvy is a disease associated
with too little vitamin C in the diet. Potatoes have a lot of vitamin
C, easily preventing scurvy. No one knows exactly when potatoes
were first planted in European soil. For many reasons, the potato was
slow to become popular. At the time, only seed crops were grown in
Europe, and this vegetable was planted by cutting it into pieces to put
in the ground. The potato plant was also recognized to be a member of
the nightshade family, a group of plants that are generally very
poisonous. Amid fears of black magic and poisoning, it is thought that
the first to cultivate potatoes were probably the families of the
sailors who brought them back. By the late 1500s, historical records
show that the potato began to be used as a common provision in some
parts of Spain. Potato cultivation slowly spread to the low
countries and Switzerland. When introduced into Germany in the 1620s,
the nutritional properties of the potato were finally acknowledged.
Frederick the Great, the Prussian ruler, ordered his people to plant
and eat them as a deterrent to famine, a common and recurrent problem
of that period. People's fear of poisoning led him to enforce his
orders by threatening to cut off the nose and ears of those who
refused. Not surprisingly, this was effective and by the time of the
Seven Years War (1756-1763), potatoes were a basic part of the Prussian
diet. A similar story occurred in France. A young French
agriculturist and chemist, Antoine Augustin Parmentier, made it his
mission to popularize the potato after his experience as prisoner of
war in Prussia. With some clever marketing to King Louis XVI and Marie
Antoinette, and subtle scheming to convert the thinking of the
populace, Parmentier achieved his goals. Potato dishes were created in
great variety and the potato became a delicacy enjoyed by the nobility.
The French populace soon coveted potatoes for themselves. More Native American recipes, food information, restaurants, history and even humour can be found at http://nativechefs.com Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 15:00:56 EST From: ForCERTAIN62@aol.com Subject: Indian trade clues culled in cornfield _http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/nw_science/article/0,2668,ALBQ_21236_4426846,00.h tml_ (http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/nw_science/article/0,2668,ALBQ_21236_4426846,00.html) Indian trade clues culled in cornfield By _Sue Vorenberg_ (mailto:svorenberg@abqtrib.com) Tribune Reporter January 30, 2006 A field of red, yellow, blue, pink and white in northwest New Mexico could tell archaeologists how American Indians traded with each other thousands of years ago. The field in Farmington wasn't full of flowers, but 155 types of corn collected from Southwestern tribes in the past 50 years. New
Mexico State University is helping Iowa State University and the Crow
Canyon Archaeological Center in Colorado grow, study and catalog that
corn so archaeologists can compare it with corn found in the
prehistoric record. "Corn has a long history with humans - probably a
10,000-year history," said Karen Adams, director of environmental
archaeology at Crow Canyon. "It probably was developed by people in
Mexico that long ago and eventually came up into the American Southwest
(4,000 years ago)." The corn types were gathered by the Department of
Agriculture but hadn't been grown or studied until the project started
in 2004. Compared with other countries - especially Latin American
countries - the United States lags in characterizing its corn, which is
also called maize, said Candice Gardner, a plant biologist with the
USDA in Iowa. "The races of maize in the U.S. have not been
accurately described," Gardner said. The USDA has a collection of
18,000 types of maize from all over the world, she added. The 155 types of corn in the study were harvested in 2005, and the organizations
have just finished characterizing the differences in size, shape and
color, among other things, said Mick O'Neill, superintendent at the
NMSU Agricultural Science Center in Farmington. "The colors
were just amazing," O'Neill said. "The rainbow was mind-blowing - we
had white, yellow, red, pink, deep blues that looked almost black,
blues, deep red. I don't think we had any green. That's the only one I
can think we didn't have." Shapes of the corn also varied. Some plants
were 2.5 feet tall, others were 10 feet tall. Some were bushy with many
stalks on each plant. Others had one main stalk - more like the variety grown in commercial agriculture. Tribes in the Southwest grow relatives of older types of corn than those grown commercially in the United States, Adams said. Understanding
the different types and how they are distributed can teach
archaeologists about the ways in which different types were traded
thousands of years ago, she said. "The Rio Grande pueblos have very
large corn - they're like bludgeons," Adams said. "You could hit
somebody over the head with them." The main type of Pueblo Indian corn
is about 16 inches long and weighs about a half-pound. It's a type
called flour corn, because it is easy to grind and use in baking. Pima
Indians in Tucson, on the other hand, have a very different type of
corn. "It has very small and delicate ears," Adams said. "It's not all
flour corn." The Pima have hard kernel corn, which they
traditionally grind into pieces and cook in a water mush, she said.
Navajo Indians have corn types similar to those used by the Pueblo
tribes, which might indicate an ancient trading network, Adams said.
The Navajos started out as hunters and gatherers and began farming corn
much later than the Pueblo tribes, said Tazbh McCullah, a Navajo and
marketing director at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. Now, corn is
revered and used in a variety of ceremonies by just about all the
Southwestern tribes, she said. "It's the staff of life," McCullah said
of the importance of corn in her culture. "It's a reliable food source.
It can be used in a number of ways. It's nutritious. It's portable.
It's a wonderful gift to receive as well as to give." DNA of the
different types of corn will make the overall picture of the ancient
trading network more clear, but the three organizations are still
looking for funding for that part of the project, Adams said. DNA
analysis will be helpful because similar colors and shapes of corn can
be deceiving - they might not actually be close genetic relatives even
though they look alike, Adams said. For example, if the scientists find that all blue corn has similar genetic traits,
that would make it more likely that it was frequently traded among the
tribes. If they are genetically dissimilar, that could mean the types
evolved in isolation with much less trading, Adams said. The
data will also help archaeologists figure out the kinds of corn they
find at sites. Corn at sites is usually burned and hard to categorize,
she said. "W e've never had any well-described Native American corn to compare to the archaeological record," Adams said. CORN FACTS An
ear of corn averages 800 kernels in 16 rows. Corn is grown on every
continent except Antarctica. Americans consume 17 billion quarts of
popcorn each year. The average American eats about 54 quarts. People
in Mexico might have domesticated corn as far back as 10,000 years ago.
Corn first came to the Southwest about 4,000 years ago as people in
Mexico traded with their northern neighbors. During World War II, when
sugar was sent overseas for the troops, Americans ate three
times as much popcorn as usual. Source: Archaeologist Karen Adams;
www.campsilos.org; www.popcorn.org. Copyright 2006, The Albuquerque Food past and present : _http://www.teacheroz.com/food.htm_ (http://www.teacheroz.com/food.htm) big section on prehistoric Apparently there's a prehistoric diet movement, check it out here: _http://www.paleofood.com/_ (http://www.paleofood.com/) Students break bread with history Newport fourth-graders go native in food-based project to study colonial life on California's early 19th century missions. By Michael Miller (Published: February 13, 2006) For her class project on life in the California missions, Melia Spooner-Heath decided to cook an authentic mission meal, circa 1800. And that meant forsaking Betty Crocker. Nine-year-old
Melia, a fourth-grader at Newport Elementary School, baked corn bread
and served it to her class last week. She and her older brother had
ventured to the San Bernardino Mountains to pick acorns, then cracked
them with bricks, leached the tannin from them and ground them into
dust with a Native American pounding stone. In the end, Melia said, the dish came out fine -- even if it took days to make. "Everyone thought it was pretty good," she said. "It's sweet." On Thursday, Melia's bread was among the projects lining the multipurpose
room for Newport Elementary's Mission Walk, an event that capped a
month-long unit on California's colonial history. The school's three
fourth-grade classes created models of the 26 missions and also cooked,
painted pictures and made other crafts that evoked the West Coast of
two centuries ago.
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