Cacao consumption during the 8th century at Alkali Ridge, southeastern Utah
Highlights
► We report Theobroma cacao in R/O vessels at Alkali Ridge, southeastern Utah. ► Cacao was found in shallow bowls decorated with a non-local design system. ► The non-local R/O design system contrasts with local B/W design system. ► Cacao use coincides with the establishment of the corn lifeway during the 8th century. ► We associate cacao use with the migration of corn farmers from Mexico into the Southwest.
Introduction
We report the discovery of theobromine, the biomarker for Theobroma cacao in Abajo Red-on-Orange (R/O) bowls at Site 13 on Alkali Ridge, southeastern Utah. This 8th century use of cacao is the earliest documented presence of cacao in the Ancestral Puebloan area, coming well before cacao was consumed by those associated with the Chaco Phenomenon in the 11th–12th centuries (Crown and Hurst, 2009; Washburn et al., 2011). We argue that the presence of cacao use in early Ancestral Puebloan sites engaged in corn agriculture was not coincidental. Both corn and cacao originated far to the south in Mexico. Numerous studies have shown that corn, once introduced, was adopted rapidly by cultures throughout the Americas. This new food as well as associated technologies, beliefs and practices reached the Four Corners area during the late Basketmaker II (1000 BC–AD 400) (Matson, 2002). By the Pueblo I period (AD 700–900) corn agriculture was supporting the growth of large pithouse villages such as Alkali Ridge. We hypothesize that Abajo R/O bowls with cacao—a new vessel form decorated with a non-local design system—mark the presence of one of these new farming groups moving into the area.
In 1931–1933, J.O. Brew (1946) excavated thirteen sites on Alkali Ridge to flesh out knowledge of the Pueblo II period in the Basketmaker to Pueblo sequence. Unexpected was the discovery at Site 13 of rows of surface jacal storage rooms fronted by pithouses (Brew, 1946, p. 290) and a new ceramic assemblage of finely crafted, thin-walled, polished shallow bowls decorated with red designs on an unslipped orange ground (Abajo R/O) as well as sherds indicating a polychrome variety, Abajo Polychrome. Brew's six tree ring cutting dates c. AD 770 ± 10 (Brew, 1946, Table 3) and Robinson and Cameron's assignment of AD 778 (Robinson and Cameron, 1991, p. 24) date this site to the late 8th century during the Pueblo I period.
The decorated ceramic assemblage at Site 13 is almost purely Abajo R/O (AD 750–800). Similarly, at another nearby site in Monument Canyon, Monument Village, Abajo R/O predominates over the later redware Bluff B/R in a ratio 30:1 (Allison, 2008). In contrast, in sites outside southeast Utah Abajo R/O is present in much lower percentages relative to the other decorated types (e.g. Allison, 1995, 2008, 2010; Gooding, 1980; Leh, 1942; Lightfoot, 1994; Martin, 1939; Morris, 1959). INAA analyses (Allison, 2010:46) indicates that Abajo R/O was made from distinctive red firing clays found in Montezuma Canyon in southeastern Utah. Site 13 is located on a ridge just to the west of Montezuma Canyon in the center of this production area. Binocular inspection by Anna Shepard indicated that the Abajo wares are tempered with sand, oligoclase and hornblende (Shepard in Brew, 1946; pp. 251–252).
Recent research (Washburn et al., 2011) documented cacao consumption at Pueblo Bonito in a suite of non-local vessel forms—cylinder jars, sharp shouldered pitchers and shallow bowls—similar to those used by the Maya elite for the preparation, serving and consumption of their cacao beverage (Reents-Budet, 2006). Since the ceramic assemblage at Site 13 included a new vessel form—the shallow bowl--similar to the small shallow bowls at Pueblo Bonito and since they also were decorated with a design system that had no local antecedents, we hypothesized that the Abajo R/O bowls from Site 13 as well as a black polished cylinder jar base sherd found at Site 1, a Pueblo III site, might contain cacao. In addition, because cacao was also found in local vessels in the Chaco sites, we also tested vessels from the local ceramic assemblage – corrugated jars, PI black-on-gray (B/G) bowls and later Pueblo II black-on-white (B/W) vessels (shallow bowls, vertical sided pitchers, a ladle) from other sites on Alkali Ridge (Sites 5, 8 12) as well as two localities in La Plata County, southwestern Colorado (Table 1). All vessels sampled are from the collections of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.
Section snippets
Experimental procedure and analysis of methylxanthines
The same water wash collection procedure and analytical instrumentation utilized in our analysis of Chaco and Hohokam ceramics (Washburn et al., 2011) was followed. De-ionized water (25–30 mL) was pipetted on the sides and bases of each vessel for c. 5 min. and transferred to sample vials. After concentration of each sample to 1 mL and subsequent centrifugation to remove sediments, LC/MS analyses were run using a hybrid LTQ-Orbitrap mass spectrometer (Thermo Scientific, San Jose, CA) interfaced
Assessment of methylxanthine detection
Given the extensive documentation of Theobroma cacao usage in Mesoamerica (Hall et al., 1990; Henderson et al., 2007; Hurst et al., 2002; Powis et al., 2002) and the presence of theobromine and/or caffeine in 75% of our samples from these early villages in the northern Southwest, one explanation of our results is that cacao usage accompanied migrants who introduced and spread the corn lifeway from Mesoamerica throughout the American Southwest. It is notable that our documentation of cacao in
Comparative symmetry analysis of B/W and R/O design systems
To bolster our claim that the presence of R/O bowls represents a new group in the area, we demonstrate that the R/O design system is distinct in both design motifs and structure from the local B/W design system. The R/O bowls are decorated with bold designs of triangles and wavy line series that covered the entire interior surface. In contrast, the contemporary B/W ceramics of the area are decorated with designs composed of two to four separate motifs arranged around the interior walls of deep,
Discussion
We argue that the thin-walled and highly polished R/O bowls decorated with bold geometric designs in two-dimensional and finite layouts typed as Abajo R/O found as the dominant decorated ware at Site 13, Alkali Ridge have no antecedents in the local B/W design system. We suggest that the new technology and design system on this ware was brought by a group of people who moved into the area and built Site 13 during the Pueblo I period. Group in-migration has also been documented during this
Acknowledgments
We thank the Research Committee and Genevieve Fischer, T. Rose Holdcraft and Susan Haskell at the Peabody Museum, Harvard University for facilitating the testing of the vessels. We thank Rainer Bussmann of the Missouri Botanical Garden and James Duke emeritus, US Department of Agriculture, for help in assessing the chemistry of plants. We thank the Pharmaceutical Institute, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Princeton, NJ for access to the LC-MS instrumentation. This research was not supported by outside
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