,A version of this paper was presented at a symposium, THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE
OHIO VALLEY, May 16-17, 2008, hosted by The Archaeological Society of Ohio,
Columbus, Ohio.
Diet, Food Preservation and Cooking Among
Ohio Valley Early Cultures
Richard Michael Gramly
American Society for Amateur Archaeology
P.O. Box 821
North Andover, Massachusetts
Abstract
The shift in lifestyle between Palaeo-American and
earliest Archaic cultures was profound and occurred
rapidly. It is hypothesized that in the Ohio valley change
took place during the terminal phase of the Early
Lanceolate (Agate Basin) Tradition or sometime within the
interval 12,000-12,500 calendar years ago.
Change is best seen in the leavings of food preparation
and consumption rather than modifications of the flaked
stone tool-kit.
DIET, FOOD PRESERVATION AND COOKING
AMONG OHIO VALLEY EARLY CULTURES
Richard Michael Gramly
The study of encampments and the activities that took
place at them is a fit undertaking for any North American
archaeologist -- not excluding archaeologists interested in
Ohio River Valley prehistory. Three basic categories of
data used in such a study are: 1) artifacts, 2) dietary
remains and 3) archaeological features. Here I am going to
focus upon the last two categories – dietary remains and
features. Of the two, features stand the best chance of
enduring and are, therefore, deserving of our attention.
But not ALL archaeological features are pertinent to
our discussion, rather, it is the ones with evidence of
burning and burning’s aftermath that I find fascinating. Of
course, features where fires burned provided heat and light,
but also they could have been used to prepare food.
Prepared food might have been for immediate consumption
or for long-term storage and use at a later date.
During the millennia since initial peopling of North
America methods of food preparation developed -- just as
the forms and shapes of artifacts did and just as the variety
and number of economically important animal and plant
species changed.
In the ethnographic present we learn about a
bewildering variety of foodstuffs, many of which were
prepared and cooked by the aid of fire. 1) Beds of rocks
upon the ground with fires kindled upon them, 2) racks
over fires, 3) in-ground ovens with or without rocks, 4)
shallow hearth basins, 5) heated stones used to boil stews
or to parch food within containers of various raw materials
– by all these means and others food across historic North
America was made ready for consumption or storage. Each
technique of food preparation might leave a particular trace
within the archaeological record – a trace that interpreters
of evidence may not confuse with any other.
Here and there one reads about reconstructions of
cooking features and simulations of cooking techniques, as
for example, replicated beds of heated rocks used to bake
agave leaves and to alter their starchy pith to sugar (see
Page 1997). Huge heaps of cracked rock, the aftermath of
generations of baking agave over stones, dot the West
Texas landscape. Among the fire-cracked rocks are many
stone artifacts, but seldom is there found a trace of agave
itself, which was the focus of all that labor.
I, too, have enjoyed replicating ancient shellfish bakes
that my students and I observed within the archaeological
record of coastal Long Island and adjacent New England.
(See Figure 1 series.) The ancient inhabitants of the North
Atlantic coast used earth ovens in conjunction with rocks
brought to a high heat. Their food preparation skills
doubtless were on a par with other traditional societies who
used earth ovens routinely, as for example, the Marquesans
of French Polynesia (Handy 1923: 186). One wonders, of
course, when cooking in earth ovens began among both
groups?
The Diachronic View
The evolution of food use, food preparation, and
associated features in North America during the past 1214,000 years is a demanding topic, presuming
encyclopedia-like knowledge. From time to time calls have
gone out for archaeologists to address the topic (e.g.,
Barnes 1980), but unlike King Arthur’s court, paladins
have been few.
In general, the best over-views of evolving food
preparation (cooking) are to be had from a close reading of
archaeological studies of single river basins. Such studies
routinely integrate sequences from many carefully
investigated, well-dated archaeological sites with highstandard descriptions of dietary remains and archaeological
features. Several examples might be mentioned; however,
the ones best known to me are the late Robert E. Funk’s
monumental investigations in the upper Susquehanna River
valley (Funk 1993 and 1998) and his colleague, Herbert
Kraft’s, smaller endeavor in the Tocks Island area of the
Delaware River valley (Kraft 1975).
Personally I am unaware of any study for the Ohio
River valley that is as detailed and exacting as the works of
Funk and Kraft, which covered long periods of the
archaeological record. There are, of course, welldocumented sequences of artifacts in association with
features at individual sites, as for example, Broyles’ (1971)
report about the St. Albans locality on the bank of West
Virginia’s Kanawha River -- tributary of the Ohio. The
variety of features (among a sample of 200) within the deep
cuts that she made was very limited – a significant
observation in my opinion.
We await the published results of the recent digging at
the casino grounds near Louisville, Kentucky, along the
Ohio River, where we hear that rich, deeply stratified
Archaic deposits were explored. One anticipates that wide
trenches exposed many archaeological features that were
documented and dated.
Data from well-researched sites here and there along
the 1,000-mile course of the Ohio River and its tributaries,
taken together with information from stratified sites and
site-sequences in adjacent watersheds, furnish the
diachronic view we want. As we will discuss below, the
record spans more than 12,000 calendar years. It is only the
first few millennia that engage my attention, however.
During this time an Archaic lifestyle arose within the Ohio
River region and, spreading up- and down-river, it
replaced the more ancient, peripatetic Palaeo-American
way of living.
The Palaeo-American Era
Cooking features are rare and sometimes difficult to
identify at fluted point Palaeo-American sites. At the
Murray Springs Clovis site in Arizona (Haynes and
Huckell, editors, 2007), specifically within Area 4, an
animal kill locus and processing area, there were two
hearths. These features were little more than oval patches
of wood charcoal, burned bone, and heat-altered, flaked
stone artifacts (See pp. 120-121). At the Sugarloaf (Gramly
1998) and Vail (Gramly 1982) fluted points sites in New
England more substantial hearths had been kindled within
shallowly dug pits. On their peripheries were
concentrations of flaked stone artifacts including cached
objects (Figure 2). Hearths at both sites were roughly oval
in shape although the example at the Vail site was more
angular (Figures 3 and 4).
The rarity of hearths at Clovis sites, as well as at earlier
and later manifestations of the Fluted Point Tradition,
indicates most may have been superficial and laid directly
upon the ground. Too, where animal fat was in good supply
lamps may have been used. If they existed, lamps must
have been made of perishable substances, for none have
ever been found by an archaeologist.
Important to note, rocks were not used around Clovis
hearths. No fire-cracked rocks have ever been unearthed
within a Clovis cooking feature. The technique of boiling
with hot rocks was apparently unknown during that early
era. Further, roasting upon beds of heated rocks was not
practiced. However, cooking with rocks was routinely
performed in western Europe many thousands of years
prior to the New World Palaeo-American era (see Bricker
and David for a discussion of hearths at the Abri Pataud
site, 1984; Howell 1965: 164-165). In my opinion this
difference in cooking and culture between ancient people of
the New World and Europe is profound. It seems to argue
against any close relationship between the two.
Since no beds of rocks were laid upon the ground or
within ovens dug into the earth, we may conclude that
Palaeo-Americans did not rely upon bulk vegetal foods –
many of which demand long, slow cooking to make them
palatable. That Palaeo-Americans may have consumed very
few roots and vegetables, I realize, is hardly a surprise to
some readers. Here is a case of archaeological evidence
actually fitting cherished preconceptions.
Beds of heated rock are also useful in drying foods for
long-term preservation. With no direct evidence of food
preservation at Palaeo-American sites, one might be
tempted to assert that Palaeo-Americans did not preserve
surpluses of flesh and fat against times of want. Such an
assertion is unjustified as wind and sun may be used to dry
food, and in frosty neo-Arctic environments freezing may
have kept food very well.
Food Preparation During the Very Early and Early
Archaic
Extensive excavations staged over 18 years at the
Olive Branch Very Early Archaic site near the confluence
of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers (Gramly 2002, 2008)
yielded abundant evidence of fire and food preparation.
Literally tons of fire-cracked rock were unearthed from
stratified Dalton deposits (Figure 5) that were well dated to
the 10th millennium BP radiocarbon (11,100 – 12,000
calendar years).
This age is a full 500-1,500 years after the end of the
North American Fluted Point Tradition.
Despite the large amount of fire-cracked rock, I
observed 1) no long-lived hearths and hearth basins, 2) no
earth ovens, and 3) no dense spreads of rock that might be
interpreted as drying areas for food preservation.
Discoveries show that the inhabitants of Olive Branch
relied upon fish, deer, turkey and products of the forest
such as nuts; in other words, theirs was in every way an
Archaic diet. Such a suite of resources was sufficient to
sustain populations residing along the Ohio River for
thousands of years.
The lack of earth ovens is, in my opinion, highly
significant at such an extensive, intensively occupied
encampment. Also, they appear to be absent at slightly
more recent Early Archaic sites along the Susquehanna,
Delaware, and Kanawha Rivers. I take these facts to mean
that vegetal foods and perhaps shellfish benefitting from
baking were unimportant in the diet of Very Early and
Early Archaic groups of the general region. In time,
however, such cooking features would become
commonplace, and by the Late Archaic period few sites are
found without them.
Throughout the Archaic, one might believe, the
definition of food expanded to include things that would
have been eschewed at an earlier time. As population grew,
so did reliance upon foods that required more preparation.
Expansion of the resource base required refinements in
cooking, which are mirrored but weakly within the
archaeological record.
The Transition from Palaeo-American to Archaic
The idea of an “economy or lifestyle in transition” is a
concept with no real basis in day-to-day human behavior. It
is but a construct of prehistorians who synthesize the past
for students like ourselves. If you are an hunter-gatherer,
you are either making a living by one means or you are not
making a living by that means. There can be no middle
ground for members of societies without institutionalized
“safety nets” against want. You cannot make “part of a
living” and survive unless you consume stored energy (like
coal and oil) or inherited wealth.
As we begin to fill in gaps of the prehistoric record and
understand the exact nature of early economies, the
duration of the transition period between Palaeo-American
and Archaic shrinks. One day, when our knowledge of the
past is fully matured, the duration of the transition period
will have shrunk to zero.
At this moment we can say that an economic
“transition” took place prior to 12,000 calendar years BP
(the date of the deepest cultural zone at the Olive Branch
site) but after 12,500 calendar years BP (the end of the
Fluted Point Tradition as marked by the Folsom archaeological culture; see Meltzer 2006).
During this 500-year period the Ohio River valley as
well as parts of the High Plains (Frison and Stanford 1982)
supported makers of lanceolate projectile points, who were
bearers of an Agate Basin Tradition. On the High Plains
studies of faunal remains show an economy based upon an
extinct form of bison and, therefore, typically PalaeoAmerican. What may have been the dietary foundation in
the East is unknown but it need not have been identical.
Since no food remains have been recorded from any
Ohio Valley site of the transition period, we have only
archaeological features to guide us. Alas they are very few.
Archaeological excavations at the William H. Zimmer
Generating Station site in the floodplain of the Ohio River
in Clermont County, Ohio (Roper and Bradley 1991),
specifically at 33Ct476P, exposed a cultural zone known as
Occupation 2 with a radiocarbon date of 10,240 +/- 110
years BP (Beta-17774). This determination falls neatly
within our hypothesized transition period. Although no
completed lanceolate projectile points were unearthed with
Occupation 2, it is likely that they were the Rice Lanceolate
type, which belongs to the terminal phase of the Agate
Basin Tradition. Complete points of this type are on record
for the Zimmer site (Figure 6).
Most important for guessing what may have been the
economy of the makers of Rice Lanceolate points at the
level of Occupation 2, was the discovery of a pitted stone
(Figure 7) and an enigmatic lense of tightly-packed pebbles
(Figure 8) near hearth Feature 1 (Figure 9).
Pitted stones of the sort discovered at the Zimmer site
were recovered within the Dalton zone at the Olive Branch
site and, thus, are a feature of an Archaic economy. They
have not been reported from any station of the Fluted Point
Tradition or any other Palaeo-American site known to me.
As for the pebbles, we are challenged to make an
interpretation. I favor the notion that they represent an early
attempt at cooking with rocks. Later experimentation would
reveal that larger rocks -- all of one sort and homogeneous
in their make-up -- were best for preparing food. How long
it took early groups to perfect cooking with rocks we
cannot know, however, injuries from exploding rocks may
have been an incentive to rapid learning!
If future fieldwork supports the hypothesis that bearers
of the Agate Basin Tradition in the Ohio River valley
practiced a very early form of Archaic economy, as I think
they must have done, then the Ohio Valley may be added
to the list of world regions where innovative food-use and
preparation occurred precociously. Its onset was the Early
Holocene – a most fascinating era for students of culture
change.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Bradley Lepper for furnishing
photographs and information about the William H. Zimmer
Generating Station sites. A grant-in-aid from the
Archaeological Society of Ohio paid for the radiocarbon
date from the Vail site – see Figure 4.
Richard Michael Gramly, PhD
North Andover, Massachusetts
References Cited
Barnes, Ruth Carol
1980 Feature analysis: A Neglected tool in archeological survey and interpretation. Man in the
Northeast 20: 101-114.
Bricker, Harvey M. and Nicholas David
1984 Excavation of the Abri Pataud, Les Eyzies
(Dordogne). American School of Prehistoric
Research Bulletin 34. Peabody Museum of
Archaeology and Ethnology. Cambridge.
Broyles, B. J.
1971 Second Preliminary Report: The St. Albans Site
(46 Ka 27), Kanawha County, West Virginia.
West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey,
Report of Investigations, Number 3.
Morgantown.
Frison, George C. and Dennis J. Stanford
1981 The Agate Basin Site. Academic Press. New
York.
Funk, Robert E.
1993 Archaeological Invesigations in the Upper
Susquehanna Valley, New York State. Vol. 1.
Persimmon Press. Buffalo, N. Y.
1998 Same. Vol. 2.
Gramly, Richard Michael
1982 The Vail Site: A Palaeo-Indian Encampment in
Maine. Bulletin of the Buffalo Society of Natural
Sciences 30. Buffalo, N.Y.
1988 The Sugarloaf Site: Palaeo-Americans on the
Connecticut River. Persimmon Press. Buffalo,
N.Y.
2002 Olive Branch: A Very Early Archaic Site on the
Mississippi River. American Society for
Amateur Archaeology. North Andover, MA.
2008 Return to Olive Branch: Excavations 20022005. American Society for Amateur
Archaeology. North Andover, MA.
Haynes, C. Vance, Jr. and Bruce B. Huckell (eds.)
2007 Murray Springs: A Clovis Site with Multiple
Activity Areas in the San Pedro Valley, Arizona.
Anthropological Papers of the University of
Arizona 71. Tucson.
Handy, E. S. Craighill
1923 The Native Culture in the Marquesas. Bernice P.
Bishop Museum Bulletin 9. Honolulu.
Howell, F. Clark (ed.)
1965 Early Man. Life Nature Library. Time Incorporated. New York. (see pages 164-5 relating to
the Abri Pataud).
Kraft, Herbert C.
1975 The Archaeology ofdthe Tocks Island Area.
Archaeological Research Center. Seton Hall
University Museum. South Orange, N.J.
Meltzer, David J.
2006 Folsom: New Archaeological Investigations of a
Classic Paleoindian Bison Kill. University of
California Press. Berkeley.
Page, Jake
1997 Hot-rock cooking party. Smithsonian magazine
(November). Pp. 26-28. Washington, D.C.
Roper, Donna C. and Bradley T. Lepper
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at the William H. Zimmer Generating Station,
Clermont County, Ohio. Commonwealth
Cultural Resources Group. Jackson, MI (on file).
Captions for Figures
Figure 1a.View of Mt. Sinai Harbor from the Pipestave
Hollow Late Archaic site, Long Island Sound,
Suffolk Co., New York. 1978.
Figure 1b. Partial suite of Late Archaic projectile points
from the Pipestave Hollow site. Most are datable
to 1,900-2,500 years BC (radiocarbon).
Figure 1c. 1978 excavations at the Pipestave Hollow site.
During the Late Archaic the site was used intensively and may have been inhabited the
full year.
Figure 1d. Late Archaic earth oven used to bake shellfish
and perhaps vegetal foods. Pipestave Hollow
site.
Figure 1e. First step in replicating a late Archaic shellfish
bake: An ancient earth oven filled with rocks.
Figure 1f. Second step: Igniting the fire.
Figure 1g. Third step: Allowing the fire to burn out.
Figure 1h. Fourth step: Adding the clams.
Figure 1i. Fifth step: Cooking proceeds under a thick
blanket of marsh grass.
Figure 1j. Sixth step: The feast begins!
Figure 2. Sugarloaf Palaeo-American (fluted point) site,
central Massachusetts. This 30-item cache of
flaked stone tools and the Clovis fluted point
were deposited near an ancient hearth. 1995
photo.
Figure 3. Fluted point from the Vail site, Oxford County,
NW Maine.
Figure 4. Hearth feature (Feature), Vail site, 1980 photo.
Charcoal from this pit, the only one of its type
unearthed at this encampment, yielded a C-14
date of 10,710 +/- 50 years BP (12,700 calendar
years).
Figure 5. Soil profile at the Olive Branch site spanning
nearly the entire 10th millennium BP (radiocarbon). 1995 photograph.
Figure 6. Rice Lanceolate type point, Agate Basin
Tradition, Zimmer site, Clermont Co., Ohio.
Brad Lepper photograph.
Figure 7. Pitted stone in situ, Occupation 2, Zimmer site,
Ohio River floodplain, Clermont Co., Ohio.
Brad Lepper photograph (Nov. 1987).
Figure 8. Lense of pebbles, Occupation 2, Zimmer site –
an early use of rocks in food preparation?
Brad Lepper photograph of 1222N 310E at site
33Ct476.
Figure 9. Plan view of Feature 1 at 1221N 308E, Zimmer
Site, Clermont Co., Ohio. This feature furnished
a radiocarbon date on wood charcoal of 10,240
+/- years BP (Beta-17774).