Phytolith evidence for early Holocene Cucurbita domestication in southwest Ecuador

Science

Volumn 299, Issue 5609, 2003, Pages 1054-1057

  Piperno, Dolores R ^a,c   Stothert, Karen E ^b  

^a SMITHSONIAN TROPICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE   (Panama)

^b UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO   (United States)

^c STRI Unit 0948   (Peru)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

FOOD PRODUCTS; PLANTS (BOTANY);

DOMESTICATED PLANTS;

CARBON;

DOMESTICATION; HOLOCENE; PHYTOLITH;

AGRICULTURE; ARTICLE; DOMESTICATION; ECUADOR; HOLOCENE; NONHUMAN; PLEISTOCENE; PRIORITY JOURNAL; SQUASH;

AGRICULTURE; ARCHAEOLOGY; CARBON RADIOISOTOPES; CROPS, AGRICULTURAL; CUCURBITA; ECUADOR; FOSSILS; GEOLOGIC SEDIMENTS; SILICON DIOXIDE;

ECUADOR;

CUCURBITA;

EID: 0037436167     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.1080365     Document Type: Article

References (20)

1. K. V. Flannery, Ed., Guilá Naquitz: Archaic Foraging and Early Agriculture in Oaxaca, Mexico (Academic Press, Orlando, FL, 1986).
2. B. C. Smith, Science 276, 932 (1997).
3. C. O. Sauer, Agricultural Origins and Dispersals (American Geographical Society, New York, 1952).
4. D. R. Piperno, Phytolith Analysis: An Archaeological and Geological perspective (Academic Press, San Diego, CA, 1988).
5. K. E. Stothert, Am. Antiq. 50, 613 (1985).
6. K. E. Stothert, D. R. Piperno, T. C. Andres, Quat. Int., in press.
7. D. R. Piperno, T. C. Andres, K. E. Stothert, J. Arch. Sci. 27, 193 (2000).
8. Materials and methods are available as supporting material on Science Online.
9. D. R. Piperno, D. M. Pearsall, The Origins of Agriculture in the Lowland Neotropics (Academic Press, San Diego, CA, 1998).
10. T. C. Andres, R. W. Robinson, in Cucurbitaceae 2002, D. N. Maynard, Ed. (ASHS Press, Alexandria, VA, 2002), pp. 95-99.
11. M. Nee, Econ. Bot. 44, 56 (1990).
12. Despite extensive searches, no other wild Cucurbita has been found in Ecuador (10, 11). C. ecuadorensis is believed to have been at least semi-domesticated and used more commonly in the past than it is at the present time (10, 11). Many free-living populations, which are common in dry forest and along streams and road banks, have small (∼8 to 10 cm long) and bitter fruits. Vines found today in house gardens, where they are grown or maintained and consumed by humans or more commonly fed to domestic animals, have fruits with sizes of domesticated species (from 12 to 14 cm long and 12 to 18 cm in diameter) and other domesticated characteristics, such as nonbitter flesh, nonlignified rinds, and considerable variability in color and pattern (10).
13. S. R. Bozarth, Am. Antiq. 52, 607 (1987).
14. D. R. Piperno, I. Holst, L. Wessel-Beaver, T. C. Andres, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 99, 10923 (2002).
15. Phytoliths are placed in fruit rinds in such a way that they straddle the interface between the hypodermis and the outermost stone (lignified) cells. Phytolith thickness is greatly influenced by how large the stone cells are. Domesticated fruits make longer and larger stone cells than do wild fruits, hence phytolith thickness is also a sensitive indicator of domestication (14).
16. O. I. Sanjur, D. R. Piperno, T. C. Andres, L. Wessel-Beaver, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 99, 535 (2002).
17. D. W. Lathrap, D. Collier, H. Chandra, Ancient Ecuador: Culture, Clay, and Creativity, 3000-300 B.C. (Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, 1975).
18. D. M. Pearsall, in Dumbarton Oaks Conference on the Ecuadorian Formative, J. S. Raymond, R. Burger, Eds. (Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC, 1996), pp. 213-257.
19. J. R. Harlan, Science 174, 468 (1971).
20. Supported by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the Museo Antropológico, Banco Central del Ecuador (Guayaquil).