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The 8th millennium BC spanned the years 8000 BC to 7001 BC. In chronological terms, it is the second full millennium of the current Holocene epoch and is entirely within the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) phase of the Early Neolithic. It is impossible to precisely date events that happened around the time of this millennium and all dates mentioned here are estimates mostly based on geological and anthropological analysis, or by radiometric dating.
Poaceae or Gramineae is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns and pasture. The latter are commonly referred to collectively as grass.
Maranta arundinacea, also known as arrowroot, maranta, West Indian arrowroot, obedience plant, Bermuda arrowroot, araru, araruta, ararao or hulankeeriya, is a large, perennial herb found in rainforest habitats. Arrowroot flour is now produced commercially mostly in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Arrowroot was one of the earliest plants to be domesticated for food in northern South America, with evidence of exploitation or cultivation of the plant dating back to 8200 BC.
Popcorn is a variety of corn kernel which expands and puffs up when heated; the same names are also used to refer to the foodstuff produced by the expansion.
Nixtamalization is a process for the preparation of maize (corn), or other grain, in which the corn is soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution, usually limewater, washed, and then hulled. This process removes up to 97%–100% of aflatoxins from mycotoxin-contaminated corn. The term can also refer to the removal via an alkali process of the pericarp from other grains such as sorghum.
Phytoliths are rigid, microscopic structures made of silica, found in some plant tissues and persisting after the decay of the plant. These plants take up silica from the soil, whereupon it is deposited within different intracellular and extracellular structures of the plant. Phytoliths come in varying shapes and sizes. Although some use "phytolith" to refer to all mineral secretions by plants, it more commonly refers to siliceous plant remains. In contrast, mineralized calcium secretions in cacti are composed of calcium oxalates.
New World crops are those crops, food and otherwise, that were native to the New World before 1492 CE and not found anywhere else at that time. Many of these crops are now grown around the world and have often become an integral part of the cuisine of various cultures in the Old World. Notable among these crops are the Three Sisters: maize, winter squash, and climbing beans.
Sorghum bicolor, commonly called sorghum and also known as great millet, durra, jowari / jowar, or milo, is a grass species cultivated for its grain, which is used for food for humans, animal feed, and ethanol production. Sorghum originated in Africa, and is now cultivated widely in tropical and subtropical regions. Sorghum is the world's fifth-most important cereal crop after rice, wheat, maize, and barley, with 59.34 million metric tons of annual global production in 2018. S. bicolor is typically an annual, but some cultivars are perennial. It grows in clumps that may reach over 4 m high. The grain is small, ranging from 2 to 4 mm in diameter. Sweet sorghums are sorghum cultivars that are primarily grown for forage, syrup production, and ethanol; they are taller than those grown for grain.
Huaricanga is the earliest city of the Norte Chico civilization, called Caral or Caral-Supe in Peru and Spanish language sources. "It existed around 3500 BC and was the oldest city in the Americas and one of the earliest cities in the world." This Late Archaic site is located in the arid Fortaleza Valley on Peru’s north central coast. It is 14 mi (23 km) inland from the Pacific Ocean. The site covers a total area of 100 hectares, and is the largest Late Archaic construction in the Norte Chico region.
The Las Vegas culture is the name given to many Archaic settlements which flourished between 8000 BCE and 4600 BCE.(10,000 to 6,600 BP) near the coast of present-day Ecuador. The name comes from the location of the most prominent settlement, Site No. 80, near the Las Vegas River and now within the city of Santa Elena. The Las Vegas culture represents "an early, sedentary adjustment to an ecologically complex coastal environment."
Deborah M. Pearsall is an American archaeologist who specializes in paleoethnobotany. She maintains an online phytolith database. She is a full professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, where she first began working in 1978. She received her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1979, with a dissertation entitled The Application of Ethnobotanical Techniques to the Problem of Subsistence in the Ecuadorian Formative.
Maize, also known as corn, is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The leafy stalk of the plant produces pollen inflorescences and separate ovuliferous inflorescences called ears that yield kernels or seeds, which are fruits.
Monagrillo is an archaeological site in south-central Panama with ceramics that have been shown by radiocarbon dating to have an occupation range of about 2500 BC—1200 BC. The site is important because it provides the earliest example of ceramics in Central America along with one of the earliest examples of maize agriculture in the region. The site lies along Panama's most fruitful seacoast. and reached a maximum living area of 1.4 ha
Olga Francesca Linares was a Panamanian–American academic anthropologist and archaeologist, and senior staff scientist (emerita) at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama, who have supported much of her research throughout her career. She is well known for her work on the cultural ecology of Panama, and more recently in the Casamance region of Southern Senegal. She is also concerned with the social organization of agrarian systems as well as the relationship between "ecology, political economy, migration and the changing dynamics of food production among rural peoples living in tropical regions".
Oña Canton is a canton of Ecuador, located in the Azuay Province. Its capital is the town of Oña, Ecuador. Its population at the 2001 census was 3,231.
Huaca Prieta is the site of a prehistoric settlement beside the Pacific Ocean in the Chicama Valley , just north of Trujillo, La Libertad Province, Peru. It is a part of the El Brujo Archaeological Complex, which also includes Moche (culture) sites.
Starch analysis or starch grain analysis is a technique that is useful in archaeological research in determining plant taxa on a microscopic level. It can also be used in day to day life by specialists within the pharmaceutical and food industries in order to determine taxa origins and food quality. Specifically in regards to archaeology though, the identification of starch grains, through this context is done by comparison identification, in which several attributes of the grains are compared to other known samples in order to determine the type. This comparison technique, when done microscopically allows for the specific taxa identification of starch grains found on specific artifacts, such as ground stone tools, within soils, through dental calculus, or found in reference to ceramic vessels. Starch grain analysis can be helpful as a supplement to other forms of study to understanding tool use, agricultural activities, as well as other plant based subsistence strategies, and to reconstruct plant based diets throughout time.
Mireya D. Correa is a Panamanian botanist and plant taxonomist known for her work with the flora of Panama.
Erella Hovers is an Israeli paleoanthropologist. She is currently a professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, working within the Institute of Archeology. The majority of her field work is centered in the Horn of Africa, with a primary focus on Ein Qashish, Israel and Eastern Ethiopia. Her research concentrates on the development of the use of symbolism during the Levantine Middle Palaeolithic and Middle Stone Age. Other research interests include lithic technology, taphonomy, and general behavior of early hominids.
Paula Jo Reimer is an archaeologist, geologist, and climate scientist. Reimer is Director of the 14Chrono Centre for Climate, the Environment, and Chronology at Queen's University Belfast.
References
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- ↑ Gonzalez JH (2017-02-10). "Dolores Piperno". Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Retrieved 2018-11-24.
- ↑ Metcalf, William E.; Casey, P. J. (1988). "Understanding Ancient Coins: An Introduction for Archaeologists and Historians". The Classical World. 81 (4): 315. doi:10.2307/4350200. ISSN 0009-8418. JSTOR 4350200.
- ↑ "Oldest evidence for processing of wild cereals: starch grains from barley, wheat, on grinding stone". EurekAlert!. Retrieved 2020-06-25.
- ↑ "Wild grass became maize crop more than 8,700 years ago". EurekAlert!. Retrieved 2020-06-25.
- ↑ "Anthropologist Finds Earliest Evidence Of Maize Farming In Mexico". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2020-06-25.
- ↑ Carroll, Sean B. (2010-05-24). "Tracking the Ancestry of Corn Back 9,000 Years". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-06-25.
- ↑ "An origin of new world agriculture in coastal Ecuador". EurekAlert!. Retrieved 2020-06-25.
- ↑ Yeager, Ashley (2014-05-06). "Earth & Environment: Huge space rock rattled Earth 3 billion years ago". Science News. 185 (10): 16. doi:10.1002/scin.5591851016. ISSN 0036-8423.
- ↑ January 2012, Remy Melina 20. "Evidence for Oldest Popcorn in South America Discovered". livescience.com. Retrieved 2020-06-25.
- ↑ "Neanderthal extinction not caused by diet". ZME Science. 2011-01-05. Retrieved 2020-06-25.
- ↑ "Pomerance Award for Scientific Contributions to Archaeology - Archaeological Institute of America". www.archaeological.org. Retrieved 2018-11-11.
