Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 573–591
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Journal of Archaeological Science
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Review
Rocks of ages: propagation of hot-rock cookery in western North America
Alston V. Thoms*
Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, 309J Anthropology Building, 4325 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-4352, USA
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 16 July 2008
Received in revised form
9 November 2008
Accepted 11 November 2008
Cook-stone technology’s Old-World roots were established by 30,000 B.P. and reappeared in the New
World by 10,000 B.P., after millennia of direct-fire cooking. Hot-rock cookery, which is necessary for
foods that require prolonged cooking, facilitated land-use intensification by affording greater utilization
of nutrients in available foods on a given landscape. This technology gradually diversified during the
early Holocene in western North America. By 4000 B.P. its initial intensification was underway; final
intensification began by 2000 B.P. and typically peaked during the last 1500 years. Propagation of hotrock cookery exemplifies pre-Columbian food crises and signals carbohydrate revolutions wherein more
high-cost foods feed growing populations. As modeled, cook-stone griddles, earth ovens and steaming
pits with rock heating elements are more costly facilities, insofar as fuel is used to heat rocks that, in turn,
extend cooking time and temperature. More expensive still is stone boiling, given that fuel heats rocks
that, in turn, heat water that cooks the food. Even more expensive in terms of energy expended is the
manufacture of heating elements in the form of stone, ceramic, and metal cooking containers, all of
which afford further evidence of land-use intensification.
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Fire-cracked rock
Earth oven
Stone boiling
Geophytes
Inulin
Late Pleistocene
Early Archaic
Cooking technology
Cooking food has been an integral part of human lifeways for at
least 150,000 years in the Old World and, insofar as is presently
known, for the entirety of human history in the New World. It was
only in the aftermath of a hundred thousand years or more of
direct-fire cooking in the Old World, and eating presumably
nutritious foods, that people began to systematically incorporate
heated stones into their cooking strategies. In North America, that
transition was underway after a scant few thousand years of
occupation. The seemingly punctuated development of hot-rock
cookery worldwide and its persistence in some regions to the
present day merit archaeological attention. Efforts to better
understand the nature, evolution, and implications of cook-stone
technology are well underway, as discussed herein.
This article reviews archaeological evidence for the onset and
proliferation of hot-rock cookery in western North America
beginning at least 10,500 years ago. It expands on a basic argument
that I have presented elsewhere: intensification of cook-stone
technology is a manifestation of land-use intensification that was
likely triggered by population packing (Thoms, 1989, 1998, 2008a).
It also elaborates on a working model I developed for expected
temporal patterns in the use of different kinds of hot-rock cooking
features in the archaeological record, including surface griddles,
earth ovens, as well as steaming and boiling pits (Thoms, 2003).
This article builds upon ethnographic and ethnohistoric accounts
* Tel.: þ1 979 862 8541; fax: þ1 979 845 4070.
E-mail address: a-thoms@tamu.edu
0305-4403/$ – see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jas.2008.11.016
about hunter-gatherer foodways and studies of hot-rock cooking
methods commonly used to render foods more nutritious and
digestible (e.g., Black and Creel, 1997; Kuhnlein and Turner, 1991;
Leach et al., 2006; Peacock, 2008; Thoms, 1989, 2008b; Wandsnider, 1997).
I endeavor to show that archaeological records in biogeographically diverse settings evidence a similar temporal trajectory
in the development of cook-stone technology during the Holocene
epoch. Similarities in cooking methods used by culturally diverse
populations in diverse settings reflect the fact that similar kinds of
plant and animal tissues respond in patterned fashions to heat and
moisture because of their biochemical properties (Wandsnider,
1997). As modeled here, continent-wide increases in use of rock
heating elements during the Holocene resulted primarily from
population packing and related intensification of broad-spectrum
foraging (cf. Binford, 2001). My primary archaeological contention
is that the spatio-temporal distribution of cook-stone features in
a given region serves as a useful measure of land-use intensification
(cf. Ames, 2005; Goodale et al., 2004; Holdaway et al., 2005; Lepofsky and Peacock, 2004; Thoms, 1989, 2008a).
This article emphasizes two geographic areas: (1) the inner Gulf
Coastal Plain of Texas, in the southeast corner of western North
America, which coincides roughly with the boundary among the
Southwest, Plains, and Southeast culture areas; and (2) the
montane terrain of the Plateau culture area in the west-central part
of the continent (Fig. 1). I draw mainly from my own archaeological
work in these regions, but I also discuss cook-stone chronologies
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A.V. Thoms / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 573–591
Fig. 1. Locations of areas and sites discussed in the text: (a) culture areas, physiographic regions, and ecological zones; (b) sites and site areas.
and feature types at sites in the Plains, Great Basin, Southwest,
California, and Northwest Coast culture areas.
To set a stage for an overview of hot-rock cookery propagation in
western North America, I begin with a global perspective on the
antiquity of cook-stone technology and follow-up with definitions
for, and comments about, cook stones, cook-stone technology, and
land-use intensification. Discussions of the importance of an
ecological perspective, the salient characteristics of cooking stones,
and their utility as a period marker follow.
1. Antiquity of hot-rock cookery
Our Old-World ancestors of more than 150,000 years ago
undoubtedly cooked food in, on, and above hot-coal fires (Klein and
Edgar, 2002), but they seldom used purposefully heated stones in
their cooking endeavors. Archaeological evidence for cooking fires
during the Lower Paleolithic is much debated, although many
researchers contend that Homo erectus groups cooked food, at least
occasionally (Bellomo, 1994; Binford and Stone, 1986; O’Connell
et al., 1999; Soler-Mayor, 1996; Wrangham et al., 1999). Neanderthals, on the other hand, regularly cooked their food, as evidenced
by open hearths on occupation surfaces as well as excavated
hearths scooped into underlying deposits that are associated with
charcoal and burned bone (Mellars, 1996: pp. 296–301). Homo
sapiens, regardless of age, appear to have been cooking fulltime
(Chazan, 2008; Petraglia, 2002).
It is not yet clear just when people began to systematically use
heated rocks, what I call cook stones, to facilitate cooking in
A.V. Thoms / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 573–591
deliberately constructed hearths. What cook-stone features have in
common, and thus what unites them under that rubric, is macroand microscopic evidencedwidely confirmed via middle range
research (e.g., Backhouse et al., 2005; Brink and Dawe, 2003; Clabaugh, 2000; Gose, 2000; House and Smith, 1975; Jackson, 1998;
Schalk and Meatte, 1988; Thoms, 1989)dthat the ostensibly oncehot rocks therein served as heating elements. That they were
heated sufficiently, typically in excess of 500 C, is evidenced
primarily by re-alignment of microscopic magnetic particles,
enhanced oxidation that produced a ‘‘reddened’’ appearance, and
micro- and macrofractures that yielded blocky and curvilinear
fragments with sharp edges. Features with cook stones heated in
situ are often distinguished by the presence of oxidized and carbonstained sediment, charcoal, and charred food remains (Thoms,
1986, 2008b; Wolynec, 1977).
There are rare cases of rock-filled ‘‘hearths’’ at Middle Paleolithic
sites, but most of those are equivocal as to function or cultural
origin (Mellars, 1996: pp. 296–301). Among the earliest cook-stone
features in Europe are those that date to the late Aurignacian
(ca. 32,000–33,000 B.P.) at Abri Pataud, Les Eyzies (Dordogne),
France (Movius, 1966). They tended to be basin shaped, about
1.5 m in diameter, and filled with heat-fractured river cobbles.
Similar features were present well into the Perigordian and, by ca.
18,000–21,500 B.P., smaller cook-stone features, perhaps used as
‘‘pot-boilers,’’ had made their appearance (Movius, 1966: pp. 320–
321). At Pincevent, a well-preserved late Pleistocene (ca. 10,700–
12,300 B.P.) reindeer-hunting site in central France, habitation areas
contain a variety of cook-stone features, including slab-lined and
rock-filled basins and dense, midden-like scatters (Carr, 1991;
Leroi-Gourhan, 1984). Rock-filled hearths and concentrations of
fire-cracked rock (FCR) are common at Solutrean, Magdelenian, and
Mesolithic sites elsewhere in Western Europe (Straus, 2006).
Cook-stone features were in use during the late Upper Paleolithic throughout other parts of the Old World as well (Petraglia,
2002). Investigations at Ohalo II, a ca. 23,000-year-old wet site
along the margins of the Sea of Galilee in Israel, revealed a small (ca.
30 cm in diameter), oven-like hearth in a shallow basin with
burned rocks in a circular pattern (Piperno et al., 2004). This feature
was interpreted as a bread-baking oven based on its spatial association with charred grass seeds and ground stone implements that
yielded starch grains from wild barley, wheat, and other grasses.
Ethnographic accounts from the region attest to flat bread being
prepared in similar ovens (Piperno et al., 2004).
Among the more ancient cook-stone features in Asia are those at
the Yokomine ‘C’ site on the southern Japanese island of Tanegashima (Dogome, 2000: pp. 1–2). The oldest two features were
buried 10 cm below a layer of presumably primary Tane-4 volcanic
ash, which is radiocarbon dated to about 30,500 B.P. One feature
consisted of a sandstone lens about 0.75 m in diameter and the
other is a sandstone-filled basin about 1.15 0.75 m in diameter
underlain by carbon-stained sediment. Fire-cracked sandstone
ranged in size from a few cm to 25 cm in maximum dimension.
Similar cook-stone features and FCR scatters were found in overlying, tephra-rich sediments, sandwiched between primary
deposits of well-known volcanic ashes, the youngest of which is
dated to about 6500 B.P. Several cook-stone features were associated with 12,000-year-old Incipient-Jomon pottery. Anvil stones,
hammer stones, grinding stones, pebble and flake tools, as well as
cores were recovered from levels above the Tane-4 volcanic ash
deposit. Cook-stone features and heavy stone tools were thought to
be indicative of a plant-based diet (Dogome, 2000: p. 2).
Deacon’s (2001) work in southern Africa attests to the importance of root foods in hominid evolution, and calls attention to the
use of geophytes by archaic and fully modern humans. Avery’s
(1974) studies in the area indicate that ‘‘stone hearths’’ are common
feature types at sites dating to the late Holocene. Based on data
575
compiled for the present article, however, it seems likely that cookstone features in southern Africa span the Holocene and a portion
of the late Pleistocene as well. In northwest Africa, rammadyat,
mounds of primarily FCR with shell, bone, and lithics, are attributed
to Mesolithic hunters-gatherers and they continued to be formed
for millennia thereafter (Honea, 1961).
The study of ‘‘heat retainer hearths’’dthose with cook-stone
heating elements, is also underway in Australia but no attempt is
made here to identify the oldest known cook-stone feature. In New
South Wales, for example, these features were common by the
middle Holocene and increased in frequency thereafter (Holdaway
et al., 2005). So too, information is being compiled on the nature
and distribution of cook-stone features in portions of South
America, usually as part of cultural resources management investigations. Most of the resulting data, however, have not yet been
published in archeological journals (Martijn M. van den Bel,
personal communication 2007).
Some of the cook-stone features at the sites in Australia, Africa,
Europe, Japan, the Middle East, and South America closely resemble
remains of earth ovens found throughout western North America.
Cleary, hot-rock cookery was well underway in the Old World when
some of its interlopers made their way to North America during the
late Pleistocene. Nonetheless, FCR is almost never found at Pleistocene-age Paleoindian sites in North America (Hammatt, 1976;
Petraglia, 2002; Reeves, 1990; Willey and Phillips, 1958; Wissler,
1940).
2. Cook stones and land-use intensification
Cook stones, as noted, are hot rocks used as heating elements in
earth ovens, steaming pits, and surface griddles, as well as those
used for stone boiling. Archaeologically, they are commonly
included under the FCR rubric or variants thereof. ‘‘Cook-stone
technology’’ is used herein in a fashion similar to tool-stone or
chipped-stone technology and specifically in reference to processes
employed in the procurement, utilization, and discard of rocks that
served as heating elements for cooking food (Thoms, 2003).
By land use, I mean the patterned exploitation of resources by
human groups, the manner in which they used places on the
landscape, the technologies they employed in the process, and the
effect of that exploitation on the ecosystem (Kirch, 1982). Land-use
intensification, as used herein, refers to a trend through the
millennia toward expenditure of more energy per unit area to
recover more food from the same landscape to feed more people
(Fig. 2) (cf. Basgall, 1987; Binford, 2001; Cohen, 1977, 1987; Johnson
Fig. 2. Working model for land-use intensification: effects of inherent population
growth and climatic perturbations (revised from Thoms, 2003: p. 88, Fig. 2).
576
A.V. Thoms / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 573–591
and Earle, 1987). For example, a marked increase in the use of
previously available but unused or under-used foods would suggest
land-use intensification (Lourandos, 1985). Subsistence intensification in many other parts of the world is marked by a rapid
increase in the number of sites and features indicative of exploiting
a given resource (e.g., Acuña, 2006; Ames, 2005; Dering, 2008;
Holdaway et al., 2005; Johnson and Hard, 2008; Lepofsky and
Peacock, 2004; Peacock, 1998; Price and Brown, 1985; Weiser 2006;
Yu, 2006).
Among the resources that can be intensively exploited are ‘‘root
foods,’’ more properly known as geophytes, perennial plants with
seasonally surviving buds (e.g., bulbs, corms, tubers, rhizomes)
located below ground surface (Raunkiaer, 1934). Elsewhere, I have
argued that the regular appearance of cook-stone features in the
archaeological record, especially large earth ovens (> 1.5 m diameter) used in bulk-processing geophytes, signaled the onset of landuse intensification during the early Holocene in the Pacific
Northwest and on the southern Great Plains (Thoms, 1989a: pp.
450–481, 2003, 2008a). Other aspects of this kind of intensification
during the Archaic period include less residential mobility
compared to the Paleoindian period, smaller group territories, and
fewer big-game animals per capita, coupled with greater use of
smaller animals, aquatic species, and plant foods in general (Binford, 2001; Fagan, 2000; Willey and Phillips, 1958).
3. An ecological perspective
To identify salient characteristics of cook-stone technology, it is
useful to establish an ecological context for the region(s) in question and, in particular, about the nature of intra-regional variability
in key resources. We need to know about the productivity of
potential major food resources and about the cooking requirements
of these food items (Kuhnlein and Turner, 1991; Peacock, 2008;
Smith et al., 2001; Thoms, 1989; Wandsnider, 1997). By knowing
about abundance, accessibility, seasonal availability, and processing
costs of a given food resource, we can develop well-informed
expectations and assess our interpretations about that food’s relationship to cook-stone technology. The value of an ecological
perspective can be illustrated by discussing examples of how and
why given foods are cooked using particular techniques.
Wandsnider’s (1997) seminal research calls attention to relationships between cook stones and cooking requirements for
carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. She points out, however, that
many foods, including geophytes, do not require extended cooking
times or boiling, the latter of which is necessary for producing
bone grease and rendering fat. Biscuit root (Lomatium spp.), a
carrot-family plant found in the drier regions of the Plateau, is
starch-rich and readily digestible after baking in hot coals for
a few hours at most or boiling them for a few minutes (Turner,
1997). Other things being equal, we might not expect to find much
evidence that large earth ovens with rock heating elements were
used to cook biscuit roots. Nonetheless, we know from archaeological records that biscuit-root ovens often had rock heating
elements, probably because they facilitated bulk cooking, for overwintering purposes, in a fuel-poor region (Thoms, 1989: pp. 328–
337).
Diverse cooking processes were also employed for sego lily
(Calochortus spp.), an ethnographically well-documented genus
found throughout the Plateau and Great Basin. In forested regions
of the Plateau, sego lilies were often steamed or cooked in hot coals
for a few hours at most (Thoms, 1998, 2008b). In the fuel-poor Great
Basin and similarly dry areas of the Plateau, these lily bulbs tended
to be cooked overnight in rock-filled earth ovens (Smith et al.,
2001). That the same geophytes were prepared in different ways,
depending in part on the ecological setting, suggests that we
also need to know about the nature and distribution of essential
non-food components, especially fuel, packing material, water, and
cook-stone raw material.
Camas (e.g., Camassia quamash, C. leichtlinii) is a seasonally
abundant and readily accessible lily-family plant with a nutritious
and storable bulb that grows throughout the southern Plateau,
southern Northwest Coast, northern California, and in the northern
Great Basin. Camassia scilloides, ‘‘eastern camas,’’ grows in the
southern Plains and throughout much of eastern North America
(Thoms, 2008a,b). Although procurement and storage costs for
camas are low compared to many edible geophytes, processing
costs are quite high (Thoms, 1989: pp. 218–245, 1998). For its
nutritional potential to be realized by humans, camas must undergo
hydrolysis, a process that effectively liberates readily digestible
fructose from inulin, an otherwise indigestible polysaccharide (i.e.,
non-reducing sugar). In laboratory settings, hydrolysis is largely
complete after boiling the bulbs for 80 min or soaking them in
dilute hydrochloric acid for 24 h (Konlande and Robson, 1972).
Nez Perce Indians cooked camas by packing the bulbs between
layers of green plants, rich in water and organic acids that facilitated hydrolysis, and baking them for 48 h in earth ovens heated by
hot rocks and coals (Thwaites, 1959: pp. 127–131). In doing so, they
transformed tasteless, onion-shaped bulbs into sweet, fig-like
morsels (Thoms, 1989: pp. 179–217). It was necessary to use rocks
to capture and hold heat from the fire and coals because the heatmaintaining capacity of wood coals alone was not sufficient for the
two-day cooking time required for the bulbs to undergo adequate
hydrolysis. To the extent that camas and other inulin-rich, longcooking foods (Peacock, 2008), including agave (López et al., 2003),
were used regularly in the distant past, we would expect to find the
remains of large rock-filled earth ovens where these foods were
cooked (Thoms, 1989; Wandsnider, 1997).
4. Salient characteristics of cook stones and types
of cooking facilities
That cook stones were used in such a wide variety of ethnographically known cooking facilities in vastly different environmental settings attests to its utility, which is attributed to several
interrelated salient characteristics (Thoms, 2008b). Cook stones by
their very naturedrelative non-combustibility and high-density
materialdhave a potential to effectively and efficiently capture and
retain heat (Jackson, 1998; Thoms, 1989; Wandsnider, 1997;
Wolynec, 1977), which facilitated exploitation of a broad spectrum
of foods. Their heat-retention capacity, the first salient characteristic, enables prolonged baking in earth ovens of many kinds of
geophytes that, although abundant and readily available, require
cooking times in excess of 24 h to render them nutritious and
readily digestible.
Closely related to the heat-retention capacity of cook stones is
their fuel-sparing potential, which constitutes a second salient
characteristic. Through thermal conduction, rocks capture and
hold heat generated by scarce or fast-burning fuel that would
otherwise dissipate into the air or ground before many foods could
be cooked over flames and short-lived coals. Accordingly, cook
stones should be widespread in desert and grassland areas, as well
as in tropical regions where fast-growing, porous, charcoal-poor
wood is the primary fuel source. The third salient characteristic of
cook stones is their steam-generating and water-boiling potential.
Given requisite fuel costs of heating rocks sufficiently to generate
steam or boil liquids when quenched with water, for example to
steam shellfish or boil meat, these methods may be best represented in fuel-rich localities. On the other hand, the utility of
boiling foods, coupled with the fuel-sparing potential of cook
stones, indicates that stone boiling is likely to be important in
fuel-poor areas as well. Indeed this is the case, as shown by the
magnitude of stone boiling on the northern Plains and in the
A.V. Thoms / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 573–591
577
Arctic (e.g., Binford, 1978: pp. 158–159; Reeves, 1990). A final
salient characteristic that I note for cook stones is their datagenerating potential, which is herein illustrated.
Integration of cook-stone technology into land-use strategies
affords an important means of utilizing a greater proportion of
a given landscape’s food-resource potential (Lepofsky and Peacock,
2004; Thoms, 1989, 2003; Wandsnider, 1997; Wolynec, 1977). As
Driver and Massey (1957) illustrated 50 years ago, Native Americans, especially those in the western part of the continent, routinely
used cook stones as heating elements in earth ovens and for stone
boiling (Figs. 3 and 4). Hot-rock cooking methods in western North
America varied considerably, but they were patterned around
common themes, notably: (1) grilling or otherwise cooking on
open-air hearths with stone heating elements fired in situ; (2)
baking with stone heating elements, fired in situ or elsewhere, in
closed pits and mounds; (3) steaming with stone heating elements,
fired in situ or elsewhere, in closed pits and mounds; and (4) stone
boiling in open pits and non-ceramic vessels with stones heated on
nearby surface hearths/fires (Fig. 5; Thoms, 2008b). Another
important, albeit non-cooking, use of hot rocks was for sweat
bathing, a widespread practice throughout North America and
around the world during prehistoric and ethnographic eras (Driver
and Massey, 1957; Hodder and Barfield, 1991; Oswalt, 2002).
Each of the generic feature types depicted in Fig. 5 exhibits
considerable variation in construction techniques, size, morphology,
and rock type(s), as illustrated by the multitude of diverse ethnographic descriptions of earth ovens (Ellis, 1997; Thoms, 1989;
Wandsnider, 1997). In the Calispell Valley of northeast Washington,
archaeological remains of camas ovens with rock heating elements
about 2.5 m in diameter exhibit considerable morphological
Fig. 4. Ethnographically reported use of boiling as a cooking method in North America
(redrawn from Driver and Massey, 1957: p. 227, Fig. 40).
variation, including pits, platforms, and mounds. Repeated use of
a given place resulted in several types of ‘‘oven-middens,’’ each of
which might be 10 m or more in diameter and contain multiple
heating elements: (1) hillside platforms (terrace-like); (2)
hummocky areas on relatively flat sandy landforms; (3) shallow
depressions on sandy landforms; (4) ‘‘platforms’’ on flat- lands with
compact, hard-to-dig, poorly drained sediments; and (5) low
mounds on landforms with compact, hard-to-dig, poorly drained
sediments (Fig. 6). Such local variation probably results, in large
measure, from differences in slope, sediment texture, and sediment
moisture (Thoms, 1989: pp. 394–405).
Composed mainly of large cobbles and small boulders (ca. 5–
25 cm), cook-stone features tend to be structurally resistant to
pedoturbation and other natural site-formation processes, especially when compared to rockless hearths and ash-filled pits, or
concentrations of flakes, shells, and other small artifacts (Thoms,
2007a). As such, their spatial and temporal distributions provide
valuable data for land-use studies (cf. Holdaway et al., 2005). To the
extent that gender data from the ethnographic era can be used to
learn about the past (cf. Howard, 2003; Speth, 2000; Turner and
Turner, 2008), cook-stone features should be especially useful in
informing us about the archaeologically understudied role of
women in past land-use systems.
5. Cook stone as a period marker in North America
Fig. 3. Ethnographically reported use of earth ovens in North America (redrawn from
Driver and Massey, 1957: p. 234, Fig. 45).
Hearth remains of any kind are rarely found at North American
sites attributed to late-Pleistocene hunter-gatherers (Fagan, 2000;
Willey and Phillips, 1958). Fagan (2000: p. 93), in an overview of
the continent’s prehistory, concluded that by post-Clovis times
Plains bison hunters routinely dug ‘‘fire pits.’’ For example, the
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A.V. Thoms / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 573–591
Fig. 5. Examples of generic cook-stone facilities typical of those used in western North America: (a) closed earth oven with a fire-in-situ rock heating element; (b) closed steaming
pit with cook stones heated outside the pit; (c) open-air, hot-rock griddle; and (d) stone-boiling pit and surface fire for heating cook stones (from Thoms, 2007a: p. 485, Fig. 2).
Lindenmeier site in Colorado, a Folsom occupation, contained
remains of several well-preserved rockless hearths that are among
the continent’s oldest cooking features (Wilmsen and Roberts,
1978). No doubt the rarity of hearths at early Paleoindian sites
reflects low population densities and poor preservation conditions
for rockless cooking rather than a paucity of cooking fires per se.
There are very few examples of Folsom age cook-stone features
and scatters in western North America. One of those was found at
the Moose Creek site in central Alaska. It was a small hearth (ca.
50 cm. diameter) filled with FCR and an abundance of charcoal that
was radiocarbon dated to ca. 10,500 B.P. (Pearson, 1999). Almost as
old is a concentration of metamorphic FCR, more than a meter in
diameter, found at the Indian Sands site along the southern coast of
Oregon. The FCR concentration was associated with lithic artifacts
and dispersed charcoal fragments dated to ca. 10,430 B.P. (Davis
et al., 2006). Its function was not addressed.
Fire-cracked rocks are rare to absent at Paleoindian sites
throughout the Great Plains (Hammatt, 1976; Reeves, 1990), as
exemplified by the well-studied Blackwater Draw site in New
Mexico (Hester et al., 1972), the Lindenmeier site (Wilmsen and
Roberts, 1978), and the Agate Basin site in Wyoming (Frison, 1991).
Along the woodland-plains ecotone in Texas during the Paleoindian
period, the ‘‘absence of any type of stone hearth is striking’’ and has
been attributed to ‘‘technological limitations’’ (Story, 1990: p. 177),
an interpretation not supported by the arguments I offer herein.
Neither is FCR characteristic of Paleoindian sites in the American
Southwest (Cordell, 1997) where dependence on plant foods and
small game was arguably greater than on the comparatively bisonrich Plains or in the deer-rich Southeast. FCR also appears to be
lacking at Paleoindian sites in the Northern Rocky Mountains
(Brumley and Rennie, 1993) as well as in California (Fagan, 2003;
Moratto, 1984). Interestingly, a dearth of cook stones also holds true
for Paleoindian sites in the American Southeast (Anderson and
Sassaman, 1996).
Judging from the dearth of cook stones at sites in western North
America that date prior to 10,000 B.P., it is reasonable to conclude
that Paleoindian diets focused on foods that were easily cooked on,
above, or in a bed of hot coals prepared on the ground surface or in
a shallow depression. Lean meat and fish, for example, cook quickly
on coals and an abundance of ethnohistorical data attests to
a variety of geophytes being cooked on/in coals (Thoms, 2006,
2008b; Wandsnider, 1997).
Clark Wissler was among the first archaeologists to discuss cook
stones as a North American culture-period marker. He entitled
a chapter in his book about North American Indians ‘‘Arrival of the
Stone Boilers’’ and wrote: ‘‘some time after the hunters had spread
over America a new people came upon the scene. They were
hunters still, yet less roving, and had a higher standard of living, but
their most outstanding peculiarity was to boil food with hot stones’’
(Wissler, 1940: p. 12). While many today would not place much
stock in the concepts of ‘‘new’’ people or ‘‘higher’’ living standards,
Wissler’s observations about the temporal distribution of firecracked rock, in one form or another, remain among the mainstays
of our ideas about Archaic cultures. His ostensible equation of the
onset of hot-rock cookery with stone boiling probably hearkens to
what he knew about how the Blackfeet and other Plains Indians
processed bison grease and made pemmican in the mid-nineteenth
century (Wissler, 1910). In light of his own ethnographic expertise,
which certainly included knowledge of earth ovens and steaming
pits, it seems unlikely that Wissler’s intent was to equate all
Archaic-age FCR features with stone boiling per se.
Willey and Phillips (1958: p. 110) subsequently offered their
perspective on hot-rock cookery during the early and middle
Holocene: ‘‘.of doubtful status as artifacts but extremely characteristic of Archaic sites in the Americas are masses of fire-cracked
stones used in pit roasting and stone boiling. In areas where stones
were unobtainable, objects of baked clay were used for the same
purpose’’. Only within the last few decades, however, have
A.V. Thoms / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 573–591
579
Fig. 6. Schematic cross-sections of different types of abandoned single-use and multiple-use camas ovens in the Calispell Valley of northeast Washington (from Thoms, 1998: p. 234,
Fig. 2).
archaeologists undertaken systematic studies of cook-stone
features (e.g., Backhouse et al., 2005; Black and Creel, 1997; Brink
and Dawe, 2003; Clabaugh and Thoms, 2007; Hodder and Barfield,
1991; Holdaway et al., 2005; House and Smith, 1975; Jackson, 1998;
Latas, 1992; McParland, 1977; Petraglia, 2002; Pierce, 1984; Roll,
1982; Schalk and Meatte, 1988; Thoms, 1986). The extent to which
studies pertaining to cook-stone technology have increased is
revealed effectively by Doleman’s (1996) well-circulated FCR bibliography as well as via a web-based search on ‘‘fire-cracked rock.’’
6. Regional archaeological records for hot-rock cookery
The presence of a few cook-stone features as early as 10,500 B.P.
indicates that the earliest use of cook stones in western North
America occurred during the waning stage of the late Pleistocene.
Said differently, by the time hot-rock cookery became archaeologically visible on a continental scale, during the early Holocene,
the practice was surely well established for centuries, perhaps
millennia. Hammatt (1976: p. 270) noted of the Southern Plains, for
example, that ‘‘the appearance of middens and hearths of burned
rock provide a clear means of recognizing an Archaic stage
occupation’’. In the Northeast as well, large, rock-filled earth ovens
are listed among the hallmarks of the early Archaic period (Funk,
1978). FCR features, including small earth ovens, were common in
the Southeast culture area by 9000 years ago (Anderson and Sassaman, 1996; Cable, 1996).
The following subsections provide various levels of information
about the ages and types of cook-stone features in western North
America. Fig. 1 illustrates the location of culture areas and archaeological sites discussed herein. My approach here is unabashedly
geographically scattered and patchy in its details. I contend,
however, that this small sample of archaeological sites in biogeographically diverse areas is sufficient to detect robust patterns in
the propagation of hot-rock cookery that, in turn, reflect long-term
dietary changes. By knowing something about cooking requirements for different types of food and the range of methods people
employed to cook them, it is possible to infer even more about past
land-use strategies. So armed, we can better assess our ideas about
how and why diets appear to have changed so dramatically within
a few millennia over such geographically expansive areas. Sites in
the sample reviewed here are discussed from oldest to youngest,
albeit often within sub-areas or region.
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6.1. Plains
In the Plains culture area, earth ovens with rock heating
elements became widespread during the first few millennia of the
Holocene epoch and continued to be used well into the historic era
(Thoms, 2008a). The Stigewalt site in central plains region of
southeastern Kansas yielded remains of large (>2 m diameter),
rock-filled earth ovens with charred onion (Allium spp.) bulbs dated
ca. 8810–7910 B.P. (Thies, 1990). The Gore Pit site in central Oklahoma contained similar features interpreted as probable vegetal
baking pits, one of which yielded radiocarbon ages of ca. 6030–
6145 B.P. (Hammatt, 1976). A comparatively small (ca. 1 m diameter) ‘‘baking oven,’’ dated to about 4800 B.P., is among the middle
Archaic features at the Lubbock Lake site on the Llano Estacado in
west Texas (Johnson, 1987: p. 133). Cook-stone features continue
into the late Archaic and Ceramic periods on the Panhandle Plains
in Texas where they include scatters of burned caliche, rock-lined
hearths, and rock-filled baking pits that functioned as plantcooking ovens (Boyd, 2004; Johnson and Holiday, 2004).
By the mid-Holocen, stone boiling probably was well underway
on the northern Plains. Excavations at the 6000-year-old Gowen
site in southern Saskatchewan, Canada revealed an abundance of
fractured bison bone along with the ‘‘presence of hearths and
a quantity of fire-cracked rocks suggests bone boiling, although
none of the fire-cracked rock was recovered from pit features’’
(Walker, 1992: p. 111). Drawing from Head-Smashed-In (Alberta,
Canada) and other northern Plains sites, Reeves (1990) argued that
stone boiling, a key component of pemmican technology, became
archaeologically visible for the first time about 4800 years ago. By
3000 B.P., stone boiling was characteristic of the ‘‘classic’’ Northern
Plains bison-hunting culture. It reached its peak during the Late
Prehistoric period, ca. AD 200–1750. Reeves considered the peak in
pemmican making to be a reflection of increasing native population. He noted that ‘‘some sites consist of solid pavements of
fire-cracked rock, macerated bone, hearths, and boiling pits. Hotrock roasting, baking, and steaming continue to be common
cooking techniques’’ (Reeves, 1990: pp. 186–187).
The Wilson-Leonard site, located along the western edge of the
Edwards Plateau in central Texas and just inside the southeastmost Great Plains, contained 10 small ‘‘stone-lined hearths’’ within
a component dated to ca. 9410–9990 B.P. (Bousman et al., 2002).
The site also contained remains of large earth ovens (ca. 2 m in
diameter) with rock heating elements, including one (Fig. 7) with
charred camas (Camassia spp.) bulbs that dated to ca. 8200 B.P.
(Collins, 1998). During the succeeding millennia, large, rock-filled
ovens became more common and are now recognized as the
Fig. 7. Remains of an earth oven at the Wilson-Leonard site in central Texas that
contained charred camas bulbs dated to ca. 8200 B.P. (author’s photograph).
building blocks of the region’s well-studied burned-rock middens
(Black and Creel, 1997). In some areas, especially along the margins
of the Edwards Plateau, camas and other lily bulbs were baked in
large earth ovens (Acuña, 2006; Boyd et al., 2004; Dering, 2003,
2008) but, more commonly, it was the repeated baking of agave,
sotol (Agavaceae family), and yucca-related plants (Dasylirion/Yucca
spp.) that created the distinctive mounds of cook stones (Black and
Creel, 1997; Dering, 1999).
Even a cursory review of archaeological literature points to
a seemingly unabated increase in the frequency of earth ovens on
the southern-most Plains during the Holocene. This increase is well
illustrated by the distribution of radiocarbon ages obtained from
burned-rock middens in the central part of the Edwards Plateau.
For that area, about 325 by 175 km in size, a plot of 141 radiocarbon
ages from 35 sites shows an initial increase in frequency by about
7000 B.P., followed by a marked increase beginning around
2000 B.P. and continuing into the historic era (Fig. 8) (Black and
Creel, 1997). It is worth noting that the steady increase in the
frequency of earth ovens contrasts with the well-known oscillations in climatic patterns during the Holocene (Bousman, 1998;
Nordt et al., 2002).
6.2. Post Oak Savannah, Gulf coastal plain of Texas
Cook-stone facilities were in use by 10,000 B.P. along the
southwestern-most stretch of the continent’s woodland-plains
ecotone (Fields, 2004). Much of this ecotone lies within an
ecological region known as the Post Oak Savannah and, as noted, its
southern margin coincides with the intersection of the Plains,
Southwest, and Southeast cultural areas (Fig. 1a). By the midHolocene, hot-rock cookery was well established throughout the
savannah regions of north-central Texas and south-central Oklahoma and it was in full swing by late Holocene times (Thoms, 1994,
2004, 2008a). Earth ovens of various sizes with rock heating
elements were especially common by 2500 B.P. and stone-boiling
features are reported as well (Fields, 2004; Rogers, 1997; Rogers
and Kotter, 1995). Stone-boiling features, represented by in situ
heating elements and FCR ‘‘dumps,’’ are also reported at the Lino
site in the south Texas brush country, well beyond the Post Oaks but
still on the Coastal Plain. Charcoal from these features yielded
radiocarbon ages between 3400 and 2000 B.P. (Quigg et al., 2001).
Fields (2004) argued that regular use of ceramic cooking
containers in the Post Oak Savannah during the Early Ceramic (i.e.,
Woodland) and Late Prehistoric periods led to marked declines in
the use of earth ovens and hearths with rock heating elements.
Rogers (1997) suggested that stone boiling became popular during
the Late Prehistoric period in the Post Oak Savannah and effectively
replaced cooking in earth ovens and open-air hearths with rock
heating elements. Here too, cooking in earth ovens appears to
precede the onset of systematic stone boiling by several millennia.
Excavations at the Richard Beene site, located in southern-most
Post Oak Savannah, revealed an unusually complete Holocene
record of hot-rock cookery (Clabaugh, 2000; Clabaugh and Thoms,
2007; Thoms and Mandel, 1992, 2007). Twenty components, buried
in 10 m of fine-grain alluvium, yielded dozens of cooking features
with heating elements made from calcite-cemented sandstone
(Fig. 9). The oldest cultural deposits at the site dated to about
8800 B.P. and they contained concentrations and scatters of sandstone FCR as well as one small containment hearth composed of
seven rocks (ca. 15 cm in size) in a circular configuration. Remains
of well-preserved large earth ovens with rock heating elements (ca.
>1 m diameter with ca. 50 kg of FCR) were recovered from overlying deposits dated ca. 8200–7600 B.P. This feature type was also
found in a 6900-year-old component, but there, small open-air
hearths (ca. .3–.5 m diameter) with griddle-like sandstone heating
A.V. Thoms / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 573–591
581
Fig. 8. Distribution of 141 radiocarbon assays (tree-ring corrected, delta 13 corrected, 2-sigma age estimate span) from burned-rock middens in central Texas (from Black and Creel,
1997: p. 274, Fig. 133).
elements (ca. 2–5 kg) were much more common than ovens (Clabaugh and Thoms, 2007).
One of three middle-Holocene components (ca. 4500 B.P.) at the
Richard Beene site contained comparatively high densities of FCR in
amorphous concentrations that probably represent naturally disarticulated (i.e., pedoturbated) earth ovens or perhaps larger
versions of griddle-like features. Late Holocene deposits, dated to
about 3000 B.P., also contained high densities of scattered FCR,
along with remains of small earth ovens, griddle-like hearths
(Fig. 9f), and one large (ca. 2 m diameter), basin-shaped earth oven
about 30 cm deep that contained only a few kg of FCR (Clabaugh
and Thoms, 2007). Based on feature morphology and experimental
work showing that the calcite-cemented sandstone tended to
disintegrate when heated and immersed in water, none of the
features were interpreted as representative of stone boiling (Jackson, 1998; Clabaugh and Thoms, 2007).
We expected the Richard Beene site to evidence increased use of
cook stones through time but, as shown in Fig. 10, FCR density
fluctuated considerably throughout the Holocene, with highdensity periods dated to ca. 8800, 5200, 3000, and 750 B.P. and
low-density periods around 6900–4500 B.P. (Thoms, 2007b). Fig. 10
does not tell the site’s whole cook-stone story, insofar as it excludes
three isolated earth ovens, dated between ca. 8200 and 7600 and
‘‘salvaged’’ in the midst of on-going construction (Fig. 11). Unlike
cook-stone features found in most of the site’s block-excavated
components, these particular features were not associated with
high densities of stone tools, debitage, mussel shells, and scattered
cook stones. Nonetheless, the presence of these ‘‘isolated’’ earth
ovens indicates that hot-rock cookery continued between 8000 and
7000 years ago. Furthermore, hot-rock cookery was well represented at other sites in the immediate vicinity during time periods
when it is poorly represented at the Richard Beene site (Thoms,
2007b).
Only one of three middle-Holocene components at the Richard
Beene site had a comparatively high density of scattered FCR. The
site’s major late Archaic component (ca. 3000 B.P.) also had a high
density of FCR, but similar-age components observed in nearby cut
banks and backhoe trenches had much lower densities. Intracomponent variability in FCR density may indicate seasonal variation in availability of food resources and, hence, in cooking
methods. The density of cook stones at a given site is, of course,
conditioned by the availability of cook-stone raw material. For
example, there are no sandstone outcrops near a partially excavated
multicomponent site (ca. 4500–750 B.P.) a few km upstream from
the Richard Beene site that lacked cook-stone features and yielded
only a few scattered pieces of FCR (Thoms, 2007b).
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A.V. Thoms / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 573–591
Fig. 9. Excavated cook-stone features at the Richard Beene site in south-central Texas: (a) excavations in progress at an 8800-year-old component ca. 10 m below surface in the
spillway trench for a proposed dam; (b) cook-stone concentration, probably reworked by floodwaters, in an 8800 year-old component; (c) FCR containment feature in another early
Holocene component; (d) cook-stone griddle feature in a 6900-year-old component; (e) disarticulated griddle feature in a 5200-year-old component; and (f) remains of two cookstone features, probably disarticulated open-air griddles in a 3000-year-old component (author’s photographs).
6.3. Southwest
In the American Southwest, ‘‘roasting ovens’’ are among the
‘‘technological Archaic features’’ that had developed by about
7750 B.P. (Cordell, 1997: p. 122). In the northern Chihuahuan Desert
near El Paso, Texas, rock-filled earth ovens of one form or another
are archaeologically visible and widespread by 4500 B.P. (Leach,
2005). Judging from the temporal distribution of 289 radiocarbon
assays on 135 cook-stone features on fans and the basin floor, these
features increased markedly in frequency around 3000 B.P. There
was a dramatic increase in oven size between 1300 and 1250 B.P.
but the frequency of cook-stone features remained relatively
unchanged. Interestingly, the timing of the increase in feature size
overlapped with the appearance of the first settled agricultural
villages in the region (Leach, 2005; Leach and Bradfute, 2004).
Cook-stone features that functioned as ‘‘roasting pits’’ are also
characteristic of Archaic sites in southeast New Mexico (Dolman,
1997), of Hohokam sites in southern Arizona (Fish and Fish, 1997),
and of sites in northern Arizona with ceramics and arrow points
(Sullivan et al., 2001). The widespread and common presence of
earth ovens during the agricultural period fits quite well with the
concept of land-use intensification in agriculturally marginal areas
wherein wild plant foods, presumably cooked in earth ovens,
contributed substantially to the carbohydrate intake from domestic
crops (Fish and Fish, 1997; Leach, 2005; Leach and Bradfute, 2004).
by 6500 years ago and seemingly disappeared by about 3500 B.P.
(Smith and McNees, 1999). By the onset of the middle Archaic
period (ca. 4500 B.P), earth ovens were widespread and common in
the middle Snake River basin, which forms the northern tier of the
Great Basin culture area (Butler, 1978).
To the west, in the Lahontan Basin, ‘‘cobble-lined earth ovens
and scatters of fire-cracked rocks’’ are found at residential sites
dated between 4000 and 2000 B.P. (Elston, 1986). In central
6.4. Great Basin
Substantial quantities of FCR and associated ‘‘hearths,’’ dated
between about 8600 and 7900 B.P., are reported from several sites
in the upper Green River basin in southwestern Wyoming, along
the northeastern margin of the Great Basin culture area (Smith
et al., 2003). Well-made, slab-lined features in cylindrical pits
interpreted as specialized earth ovens and possibly used for baking
sego lilies (Calochortus spp.) made their appearance in this region
Fig. 10. Graph of the average density of FCR in block-excavated components at the
Richard Beene site, south-central Texas (from Thoms, 2007b: p. 364, Fig. 15–41).
A.V. Thoms / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 573–591
583
of pestles and mortars, which are assumed to attest to a growing
importance of acorn usage, whereas milling stones and hand stones
are attributed to seed processing (Fagan, 2003: pp. 79–156).
Geophytes, however, have also been recovered from central
California sites. For example, charred lily bulbs (Brodiaea spp.) were
recovered at six of 11 acorn- and seed-rich sites (Wohlgemuth,
1996). It is worth noting that, in the Plateau culture area, pestles
and mortars are widely considered to be indicative of root-food
processing, especially when they occur at sites with large rock-filled earth ovens that yield charred remains of geophytes (Roll and
Hackenberger, 1998; Thoms, 1989). The co-occurrence of lily bulbs
or other roots, pestles, mortars, and earth ovens with rock heating
elements opens central California’s resource-intensification doors
to geophytes.
6.6. Northwest coast
Fig. 11. Salvage excavation of an 8200-year-old earth oven with a rock heating element
at the Richard Beene site, south-central Texas (author’s photograph).
Wyoming and adjacent regions, for example, it has been argued
that the presence of ‘‘perhaps thousands of pit ovens’’ dated
between 1800 and 1000 B.P. ‘‘signals an important widening of the
prehistoric forager diet to include sego lily bulbs (or roots from
other species that grow in dry, sandy habitats of the region)’’ (Smith
et al., 2001: p. 180). As in other areas, cook-stone features tend to be
comparatively well represented throughout the Great Basin during
the late Archaic and Late Prehistoric periods.
6.5. California
The California culture area, especially the central region, is well
known for the importance of acorns. Its ethnographic records
invariably attest to masticating acorns with pestles and mortars,
leaching the resulting meal, and, typically, stone boiling it to make
gruel (Fagan, 2003). In the northern regions, rock-filled earth
ovens were used commonly to cook a variety of geophytes (Thoms,
1989).
A La Jolla-phase occupation in west-central California, for
example, contained a cook-stone ‘‘roasting platform’’ dated to ca.
6300 B.P. (Moratto, 1984: p. 97). In the east-central part of the state,
‘‘large rock-lined ovens of circular plan’’ are among the hallmarks of
Topanga phase, which dates ca. 2750–2500 B.P. (Moratto, 1984: p.
127). FCR is among the most common artifacts at the Late Period
Jasper Ridge site east of San Francisco (Bocek, 1986) as well as at
Chumash village sites in the southern part of the state (Glassow,
1997; Pierce, 1984). These few sites and features do not establish
any particular pattern in and of themselves, but they likely attest to
broad regional patterns of increasing use of cook-stone technology.
While ample ethnographic data attest to use of geophytes,
including camas, in central and northern California (Thoms, 1989;
Todt, 1997), there is comparatively little discussion in the archaeological literature about the importance of root foods in central
California during pre-Columbian times. Archaeobotanical data, as
widely interpreted, attest mainly to the regional roles of acorns and
grass seeds in land-use intensification (Wohlgemuth, 1996).
Ostensibly confirming evidence comes from increasing frequencies
As noted, the FCR concentration, dated to 10,430 B.P., at the
Indian Sands site along the southern Oregon coast is among the
oldest known cook-stone features in western North America (Davis
et al., 2006). Several millennia pass before hot-rock cookery
becomes commonplace along the Northwest Coast. A large ovenlike feature, dated to ca. 8540 B.P., at an upland site in Chester
Morse Reservoir southeast of Seattle is among several dozen such
features at the site (Samuels, 1993; Schalk and Meatte, 1988). In the
Comox Valley of eastern Vancouver Island (Canada) there are
several sites with low, stone-enclosed mounds ranging in length
and width from about 15 7 to 4 3 m and in height from 0.3 to
0.9 m (Capes, 1964). Constructed of earth and FCR, they date
between 4500 and 1980 B.P., and contain discrete lenses of FCR,
charcoal, and oxidized sediments characteristic of earth ovens.
Recovered food remains included carbonized seeds and charred
bulbs, tentatively identified as camas, along with bracken fern
rhizomes, and deer and elk bones (Capes, 1964). It seems likely that
these mounds were constructed as well-drained platforms on
which earth ovens could be built and used in what would otherwise
be a seasonally saturated landscape (Thoms, 1989: pp. 297–298,
401).
At the Hannavan Creek site in the upper Willamette Valley of
western Oregon, charred camas (Camassia spp.) bulbs recovered
from an earth oven with a rock heating element yielded radiocarbon ages of ca. 7750 B.P.–6830 B.P. (Cheatham, 1984, 1988). The
overall trend for camas exploitation, and hence cook-stone usage,
in this region was toward gradual increasing intensification, with
the notable exception of an unusually high frequency of camas
ovens in the 5000–4000 B.P. period. This pattern is illustrated in
Fig. 12, which is based on 28 camas-related radiocarbon ages from
a dozen sites located along a 180-km stretch of the Willamette
River and its tributaries (Thoms, 1989: pp. 313–325). Subsequent
studies confirm this pattern and highlight the development, soon
after 2000 B.P., of ‘‘mound sites’’ that are attributed to more
intensive use and management of nearby camas grounds (Roulette,
2006). These low mounds may have been built to provide
comparatively well-drained occupation platforms on an otherwise
seasonally saturated and muddy valley floor.
Most of the camas-related features in the Willamette basin postdated 4500 B.P. and coincided with essentially modern climatic
conditions that favor forest expansion. To the extent that camas
intensification was underway some 4500 years ago, it may have
been accompanied by intentional burning of selected parts of the
landscape, in this case to prevent arboreal vegetation from
encroaching on camas meadows (Thoms, 1989: pp. 302, 321–323).
The role of burning to enhance plant-food productivity is widely
recognized along the Northwest Coast and throughout the Pacific
Northwest (e.g., Boyd, 1999; Lepofsky et al., 2005; Storm and Shebitz, 2006).
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A.V. Thoms / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 573–591
Fig. 12. Distribution of 28 radiocarbon assays (uncalibrated) from camas ovens and related features at 12 sites in the upper Willamette Valley, western Oregon (redrawn from
Thoms, 1989: p. 321, Fig. 24).
6.7. Plateau
Cook-stone features interpreted as hearths and pit ovens, along
with others described as FCR features not associated with oxidized
sediments, were found at sites near the junction of the Okanogan
and Columbia Rivers in central Washington that dated between ca.
7800 and 5500 B.P. (Chatters, 1986). Throughout the Plateau, cookstone features including rock-filled earth ovens are found at
a variety of Archaic and Late Prehistoric sites and they are associated with charred bone, river-mussel shells, and geophytes (Thoms,
1989: pp. 325–353; Chatters and Pokotylo, 1998).
The Plateau is the most root-rich of the continent’s culture areas
and in many regions geophytes were staples (Ames and Marshall,
1980; Darby, 2005; Peacock, 1998; Thoms, 1989; Turner, 1997).
Camas (Camassia quamash), the area’s ethnographically most-used
geophyte, is well represented in archaeological records of the
southern Plateau. Charred remains of biscuit roots (Lomatium spp.),
spring beauty (Claytonia lanceolata), onions (Allium spp.), arrowleaved balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata), wapato (or arrowhead,
Sagittaria latifolia) and other lilies have also been recovered from
cook-stone features in the southern and northern Plateau areas
(Lepofsky and Peacock, 2004; Peacock, 1998, 2008; Thoms, 1989:
pp. 326–329, 1998).
Root-baking earth ovens with rock heating elements date as
early as 6200 B.P. at Kettle Falls on the upper Columbia River in
Washington (Goodale et al., 2004). To the north, in upland
meadows of the northern or Canadian Plateau, the oldest rock-filled, root-baking earth ovens (n ¼ 30) date to about 3300 B.P. and
intensification around 2400 B.P. is evidenced by an increase in the
number of earth ovens. Frequencies remained constant in that
region until ca. 1500 B.P. when the number of upland ovens
declined; after about 800 B.P. oven sizes decreased but their
frequency increased (Lepodfsky and Peacock 2004). Large, rockfilled ‘‘roasting pits’’ are also common at major pit-house villages
dated to the last 1500 years and, there, they may evidence
communal feasting (Hayden and Cousins, 2004).
Archaeological investigations in the Calispell Valley of northeastern Washington revealed an unusually detailed and long-term
history of camas exploitation (Thoms, 1989). This small valley, ca.
40 by 10 km, was among the most productive of ethnographically
known camas grounds in the southern Plateau. Valley-wide,
reconnaissance-level surveys and full-scale excavations revealed
several village sites, mainly along the Pend Oreille River, and dozens
of camas processing sites along the edges of the expansive wet
meadowsdprimary camas habitatdthat comprised the valley
floor. At camas processing sites, remains of rock-filled earth ovens
with charred camas bulbs often extended over several hectares and
were marked by carbon-stained sediments and thousands of kilograms of scattered FCR (Fig. 13). Intact rock heating elements
ranged from 1.7 to 3.5 m in diameter and weighed from ca. 500 to
1000 kg.
Eighty-five camas-related radiocarbon ages from 13 sites were
obtained from charcoal and charred camas bulbs recovered from
earth ovens (n ¼ 58), other cooking features, and midden deposits.
Their frequencies per unit time provide a useful measure of
temporal trends in cook-stone usage (Fig. 14). The oldest age estimate for an earth oven was ca. 5510 B.P.; the youngest age was
modern, which probably attested to camas processing within the
last 150 years. As I interpreted it, the array of radiocarbon ages
indicates: (1) earth ovens were in regular use by 5500 B.P; (2)
a period of intensification of camas exploitation and earth-oven
usage took place between 3500 and 2500 B.P.; (3) a marked decline
or nadir in camas exploitation occurred between 2500 and
1500 B.P.; and (4) a period of final intensification lasted from about
1500 to 150 B.P. (Thoms, 1989: pp. 430–437).
In the Calispell Valley, there is little direct correlation between
cook-stone usage and climatic conditions. Intensive camas exploitation took place during comparatively warm/dry and cool/moist
periods, and under modern climatic conditions (Fig. 14). It is
noteworthy, however, that the nadir in the frequency of camasrelated radiocarbon ages corresponds with a period of increased
bison presence in the nearby steppes (Schroedl, 1973). That people
would ‘‘switch prey’’ from camas to bison and focus their subsistence activities on upland steppes, given an option to do so, is
entirely compatible with land-use intensification as modeled in
Fig. 2. Other things being equal, bison are a higher ranked and lower
cost food resource than either camas or salmon, both of which
served as mainstays throughout the mid and late Holocene in much
of the Plateau (Thoms, 1989). Chatters (2004: p. 73) argued to the
contrary. He noted that bison were not sufficiently abundant to
cause the nadir in camas-related ages and that the nadir also exists
in temporal distributions of radiocarbon ages throughout the
Plateau. To Chatters, this pattern suggested that an overall decrease
in human population, as a result of increased inter-group violence,
A.V. Thoms / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 573–591
585
Fig. 13. Examples of camas ovens and carbon-stained sediments at several sites in the Calispell Valley, northeastern Washington: (a) carbon-stained sediments in oven-midden area
(CVAP-39) with a camas oven dated to ca. 2930 B.P.; (b) carbon-stained sediments at an oven-midden complex (CVAP-6) with a camas oven dated to ca. 490 B.P.; (c) camas oven at
45PO139 dated to ca. 3460 B.P.; (d) cross-section of an undated camas oven at 45PO140; (e) camas oven, dated to ca. 3360 B.P., and possible storage pit at 45PO139; and (f) block
excavations at 45PO141, a camas processing site, showing high density of scattered cook stones (author’s photographs).
afforded a better explanation than an increase in the availability of
bison per se.
6.8. Discussion
Substantial weight is given in the foregoing reviews to radiocarbon ages from cook-stone features as measures of land-use
intensification in general and, specifically, of increasing dependence on cook-stone technology. Of course, sampling and preservation biases undoubtedly limit the reliability of inferences derived
from arrays of radiocarbon ages. Older charcoal is less likely to be
preserved than younger charcoal and older cook-stone features are
more likely than younger features to undergo transformation
processes that render them unrecognizable due to reuse and
various forms of pedoturbation.
As Black and Creel (1997) demonstrated in one case-study, the
advent of AMS dating also helped resolve preservation issues and
clearly led to the ‘‘discovery’’ of additional old earth ovens that
would have remained undated by assays of conventional-size
charcoal samples. The propensity for archaeologists to search
disproportionately for older sites probably contributes substantially toward offsetting chronologically related preservation issues.
Sampling biases are mitigated, in part, because cook-stone features
are quite visible and, hence, readily discovered. Moreover and other
things being equal (e.g., environmental conditions), cook-stone
features are comparatively resistant to site-formation processes
and, hence, more likely to preserve embedded charcoal.
Disparate as they are in scope, the area overviews presented
here highlight broad patterns in the evolution of cook-stone technology in western North America. These include: (1) the oldest
known cook-stone features date to around 10,500 B.P. and signal
entirely new directions in cooking strategies; (2) by 8500 B.P., the
propagation of cook-stone technology was archaeologically visible
and, hence well underway, in most biogeographical regions of
western North America; (3) by 4000 B.P. in most areas, there was
usually a marked increase in the number and diversity of cookstone features; and (4) the highest density and greatest diversity of
features in most areas, including agricultural regions, occurred
during the last 2000 years. These broad-pattern concepts are
readily testable by compiling and comparing additional, basin-wide
and regional-scale data.
Increasing, sometimes oscillating, usage of cook stones during
the Holocene is seen at various spatial scales almost everywhere
archaeologists have examined long-term trends. It is apparent
throughout the northern grasslands of the Northern Plains culture
area (Reeves, 1990). The pattern prevails in savannah regions of the
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A.V. Thoms / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 573–591
Fig. 14. Distribution of 85 radiocarbon (uncalibrated) assays from camas ovens and related features at 13 sites in the Calispell Valley, northeastern Washington (redrawn from
Thoms, 1989: p. 432, Fig. 44).
Southern Plains (Black and Creel, 1997; Fields, 2004; Thoms, 2004)
and the steppe country of the northern Great Basin (Smith and
McNees, 1999). It also holds true for much of the Southwest culture
area (Cordell, 1997; Leach, 2005), as it does for the well-forested
Willamette and Calispell valleys in the Northwest Coast and
southern Plateau, respectively (Ames, 2005; Thoms, 1989) and for
the northern Plateau (Ames, 2005; Goodale et al., 2004; Lepofsky
and Peacock, 2004). Future studies will surely provide more precise
chronological detail for the onset and propagation of hot-rock
cookery and more will be learned about cook-stone features and
technology in general as once-hot rocks continue to garner
archaeological attention.
7. A working model for long-term changes in
cook-stone technology
The land-use intensification component of the model (Fig. 15)
predicts a positive correlation between the amount of FCR generated as a by-product of hunter-gatherer cooking and the quantity of
difficult-to-cook foods they consumed. In particular, an increase in
consumption of long-cooking plant foods should result in an
increase in an increase in the quantity of FCR on a given landscape.
Big-game intensification, in the absence of large ceramic cooking
pots, is also likely to result in an increase of FCR via stone boiling, as
more effort is expended to obtain a greater proportion of the
calories available in meat, fat, and bones.
The technology component of the working model (Fig. 16)
stipulates that cooking methods becomes less efficient through
time, in terms of heat energy expended per unit calorie, as more
costly foods are used. As modeled, this trend is a response to
population packing and climatic changes that effectively lower
a region’s carrying capacity under its prevailing land-use system
(cf. Binford, 2001). Changes in cooking technology, however, do not
necessarily result in the replacement of old methods by new ones.
As shown in Fig. 16, more costly methods are expected to be added
to the repertoire, eventually becoming commonplace; less costly
methods continue to be used for easily cooked foods.
Direct-fire cooking is arguably the most efficient and the most
ancient cooking technique and it seems likely that, on occasion, it
would have been done in conjunction with fire-containment and
furniture rocks, perhaps used to prop up skewered food or as
working surfaces. We may yet find evidence that cook-stone
features were used routinely during the late Pleistocene in western
North America, but, to date, the evidence is scant prior to
10,000 B.P. Rockless ovens are also likely to have been used occasionally during the late Pleistocene to cook starch-rich plants and
lean meat for several hours or perhaps overnight (cf. Wandsnider,
1997: p. 32). Their appearance, however, is expected to post-date
open-air hearths, given that ovens are more costly to build and
require longer cooking times. Among the oldest rockless earth
ovens in western North America are the 9400-year-old features at
the Barton Gulch site in the Ruby Valley of southwest Montana
(Davis et al., 1989).
As modeled, initial use of cook stones should be represented by
the addition of a few rocks in small cooking fires. This relatively
effortless endeavor would be especially useful for open-hearth
roasting in fuel-poor areas. Anywhere, however, a few cook stones
would serve well as hot-rock griddles or food warmers and extend
the cooking time beyond that afforded directly by the fuel source.
Fig. 15. Working model for land-use intensification: expected temporal patterns for
cook-stone densities on regional landscapes (revised from Thoms, 2003: p. 93, Fig. 11).
A.V. Thoms / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 573–591
587
Fig. 16. Working model for land-use intensification: expected temporal patterns for the onset of different cooking methods (revised from Thoms, 2003: p. 94, Fig. 12).
Incorporation of dozens or hundreds of kilograms of cook stones as
heating elements in closed earth ovens and steaming pits is
considerably more labor intensive than building a hot-rock griddle
on the surface or in shallow basins. As such, ovens and steaming
pits are expected to post-date the regular usage of cook stones in
surface hearths.
Steaming pits are widely noted in ethnographic records of the
Northwest Coast and elsewhere in western North America (Driver
and Massey, 1957; Thoms, 2006). They are not, however, commonly
reported at archaeological sites in interior regions, perhaps because
of the difficulty of distinguishing them from earth ovens. As per the
working model, evidence for pit steaming should become archaeologically visible about the same time as earth ovens with rock
heating elements.
Rock-filled earth ovens were clearly used to cook a variety of
foods but they tend to be indicative of foods that require longer
cooking times, especially geophytes. As discussed, rock heating
elements also appear to be characteristic of fuel-poor environments where it is often necessary to capture heat from flames
generated by fast-burning fuel (e.g., woody plants and brush
species as opposed to trees in desert environments). In any given
biogeographical region, however, a marked increase in the use of
hot-rock ovens is an expected signature of land-use intensification
(Fig. 15).
Because stone boiling is even more costly, in terms of heat
expended and labor invested per unit calorie, than pit cooking with
hot rocks, its regular appearance in the archaeological record is
expected to post-date the widespread occurrence of rock-filled
oven and pit-steaming features. Intensive use of cook stones during
the ethnographic period should be characteristic of areas where
hunter-gatherer land-use systems persisted. In agricultural regions
(Driver and Massey, 1957; Shott, 1997), as well as where huntergatherers regularly used pottery (Fields, 2004; Rogers, 1997; Rogers
and Kotter, 1995), stone boiling appears to have been replaced
largely by pot boiling.
To the extent that fast-cooking corn, beans, and squash effectively
replaced long-cooking wild plant foods, we should also see
a decrease in the use of hot-rock ovens. This seems to be the case in
much of eastern North America (Thoms, 2003). That being said,
surges in the cook-stone revolution in the Southwest, including one
around 1300 years ago, coincide with agricultural intensification and,
arguably, with increased population packing (Leach, 2005). With the
advent and widespread distribution of metal cooking vessels in the
post-Columbian era, hot-rock cookery probably was relegated to
special occasions. For example, large earth ovens with rock heating
elements are likely to have been used to prepare enough food to feed
many people at one time (Binford, 1983; Hayden and Cousins, 2004)
or to bulk process alcoholic beverages (Driver and Massey, 1957).
588
A.V. Thoms / Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 573–591
The foregoing model is readily testable with new data as well as
by re-analysis of data employed in developing it. Recent advances in
paleomagnetic studies have proven useful in distinguishing between
cook stones used in stone boiling, which were heated in one place
and cooled rapidly in another place, and those used in earth ovens,
which were heated and cooled slowly in the same place (Gose,
2000). Thermo-chemical weathering analysis of once-hot rocks has
shown that the magnitude of weathering of a given rock type is
determined in large measure by the amount of time the rock
remained hot (Jackson, 1998). As such, rocks used in stone boiling are
expected to exhibit significantly less thermo-chemical weathering
than rocks used in steaming or roasting in an open-air hearth; those
used in earth ovens for prolonged baking are expected to exhibit
considerably more weathering than steaming or grilling stones.
AMS dating allows age estimates to be obtained from soot (i.e.,
carbon stains) on/in individual pieces of FCR, which greatly
improves chances of dating cook-stone features in charcoal-poor
settings (Quigg et al., 2000). Fatty-acid residues on FCR hold
promise for identifying the kinds of foods prepared in a given
cooking facility (Buonasera, 2005; Quigg et al., 2001). Starch-grain
and phytolith analyses may be practical for some cook stones,
including those used in stone boiling, as well as for feature-fill
sediment (e.g., Eccleston, 1999; Kamiya, 2007; Piperno, 2005;
Piperno et al., 2004; Torrence and Barton, 2006).
Analysis of feature size, morphology, and spatial distribution of
FCR is especially useful in distinguishing among features that
functioned as earth ovens for prolonged baking, as steaming pits
and short-term baking pits, and as boiling pits (e.g., Clabaugh,
2000; Ellis, 1997; Smith et al., 2001; Thoms, 2006, 2008b;
Wandsnider, 1997; Wolynec, 1977). For example, ethnographic and
archaeological records indicate that ovens with rock heating
elements more than 2 m in diameter tended to be fired for two or
three days; those with heating elements a meter or so in diameter
were typically used for 24 h or less.
8. Concluding comments
By the late Pleistocene, hot-rock cookery was well developed in
the Old World but at the same time in the New-World food was
prepared almost exclusively in rockless cooking facilities. Nonetheless, it is likely that the collective knowledge of America’s
earliest Paleoindians included elements of Old-World cook-stone
technology, along with tool-stone, bone, hide, wood, and a multitude of other technologies. That neither the newcomers nor their
descendants for several millennia used cook stones regularly
enough to render them archaeologically visible is consistent with
the working model presented here. As per the model’s primary
theoretical tenet, propagation of hot-rock cookery is triggered by
population packing, which is measured in terms of a given region’s
food-resource potential relative to its extant land-use system
(Binford, 2001). Easily cooked foods, including lean meat and
starch-rich geophytes, along with nuts and fructose-rich berries
and fruits, were readily available to the earliest occupants of the
new land. There was little to compel them to systematically invest
ostensibly leisure time in the comparative drudgeries inherent in
cook-stone technology. That would come soon enough.
‘‘Stone-lined hearths’’ at the Wilson-Leonard site and elsewhere
in the eastern half of Texas (Bousman et al., 2002; Fields, 2004),
a rock-filled hearth in central Alaska (Pearson, 1999), and an FCR
concentration on the Oregon coast hint that the onset of cook-stone
technology in the New World may have been underway by
11,000 B.P. By 8000–9000 years ago, hot-rock cookery, especially
earth ovens, was widespread in the western part of North America
and probably elsewhere in the New World. Its initial propagation
signaled significant usage of difficult-to-cook-but-nutritious plant
foods, a hallmark of Archaic lifeways.
Early rounds of cook-stone intensification in western North
America occurred some 4000–5000 years ago. That timeframe
coincides with the onset of ceremonial mound construction in the
Southeast and related development of complex hunter-gatherer
societies (Ames, 2005; Price and Brown, 1985; Prentiss and Kuijt,
2004; Saunders et al., 1994) that are arguably responses to population packing (Binford, 2001). Furthermore, intensification of
stone boiling, a major component of the final round of cook-stone
intensification, coincides with the ‘‘container revolution’’ when
ceramic cooking vessels became prevalent in eastern North America and parts of the Southwest 2000–3000 years ago (Fagan, 2000:
p. 403; Sassaman, 1993).
Increased usage of cook stones was gradual at first, but it
signaled the onset of an important element of land-use intensification during the early and middle Holocene: an increase in the use
of previously under-used plant foods and animal fats. It also foreshadowed a marked increase in the use of cook stones, and
presumably more expensive food resources, during the late Holocene. In turn, intensive use of cook stones in earth ovens and stone
boiling signaled either the pending dominance of agriculture as the
primary land-use system or further intensification of hot-rock
cookery in non-agricultural regions.
A marked increase in cook-stone use of any kind is arguably
indicative of what Mark Cohen (1977) called a ‘‘food crisis in
prehistory.’’ Accordingly, the ancient roots of geophyte- and seedbased carbohydrate revolutions, a key component of post-Pleistocene
adaptations, are aptly manifested by the evolution of cook-stone
technology (Thoms, 2008a). As modeled here, land-use intensification is a long-term and often punctuated process. Climatic
changes, in conjunction with population packing, are likely to have
altered relationships between available foods and human demography, and thereby effectively reset the carrying-capacity clock.
Acknowledgements
Research for this paper was funded or otherwise supported by
the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M University and
grants through the University’s Enhance Scholarly and Creative
Activities Program, the Mexican American and U.S. Latino Research
Center, and the Glasscock Center for Humanities. Michael Crow,
Masahiro Kamiya, and Patricia Clabaugh generated several of the
maps and graphs. Discussions with colleagues helped to fine-tune
some of my arguments, especially conversations with Lewis Binford, Steve Black, C. Britt Bousman, Vaughn Bryant, Greg Burtchard,
Douglas Boyd, Patricia Clabaugh, Michael Collins, J. Philip Dering,
Amber Johnson, Jeffrey Leach, Robert Mierendorf, Michael Quigg,
Randall Schalk, and Luann Wandsnider. This paper also benefited
considerably from review comments and editing provided by
Rhonda Holley, Masahiro Kamiya, Patricia Clabaugh, and two
anonymous reviewers.
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