“…Southern Ontario, Canada, borders Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, Lake Huron and its Georgian Bay, and the St. Lawrence River (Fig. 1), and fish were important dietary components of Native Americans occupying this area 17 .Figure 1Locations of archaeological sites with samples used in the analyses. Figure 1 does not contain copyrighted material.…”
Freshwater and marine fish have been important components of human diets for millennia. The Great Lakes of North America, their tributaries and smaller regional freshwater bodies are important Native American fisheries. The ethnohistorical record, zooarchaeological remains, and isotopic values on human bone and tooth collagen indicate the importance of fish in fourteenth- through seventeenth-century ancestral Wendat diets in southern Ontario, which is bordered by three of the Great Lakes. Maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) was the primary grain of Native American agricultural systems in the centuries prior to and following sustained European presence. Here we report new Bayesian dietary mixing models using previously published δ13C and δ15N values on ancestral Wendat bone and tooth collagen and tooth enamel. The results confirm previous estimates from δ13C values that ancestral Wendat diets included high proportions of maize but indicate much higher proportions of fish than has previously been recognized. The results also suggest that terrestrial animals contributed less to ancestral Wendat diets than is typically interpreted based on zooarchaeological records.
“…Southern Ontario, Canada, borders Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, Lake Huron and its Georgian Bay, and the St. Lawrence River (Fig. 1), and fish were important dietary components of Native Americans occupying this area 17 .Figure 1Locations of archaeological sites with samples used in the analyses. Figure 1 does not contain copyrighted material.…”
Freshwater and marine fish have been important components of human diets for millennia. The Great Lakes of North America, their tributaries and smaller regional freshwater bodies are important Native American fisheries. The ethnohistorical record, zooarchaeological remains, and isotopic values on human bone and tooth collagen indicate the importance of fish in fourteenth- through seventeenth-century ancestral Wendat diets in southern Ontario, which is bordered by three of the Great Lakes. Maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) was the primary grain of Native American agricultural systems in the centuries prior to and following sustained European presence. Here we report new Bayesian dietary mixing models using previously published δ13C and δ15N values on ancestral Wendat bone and tooth collagen and tooth enamel. The results confirm previous estimates from δ13C values that ancestral Wendat diets included high proportions of maize but indicate much higher proportions of fish than has previously been recognized. The results also suggest that terrestrial animals contributed less to ancestral Wendat diets than is typically interpreted based on zooarchaeological records.
“…mays) [13], but also other crops, including common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), squash (Cucurbita pepo), and sunflower (Helianthus annuus) [14]. Non-cultivated foods included a wide range of terrestrial animals and plants [14,15], but with freshwater fish being an important source of animal protein for at least some populations [16,17]. The only domesticated animal present was dog (Canis lupus familiaris), which was consumed occasionally at feasts and ceremonies [18].The typical seventeenth-century AD ethnohistorically documented Iroquoian agricultural field consisted of many small mounds measuring approximately 46-120 cm in diameter and spaced 76-180 cm apart, which were formed with wooden, bone, antler, or stone hoes ([18], p. 178).…”
Native Americans developed agronomic practices throughout the Western Hemisphere adapted to regional climate, edaphic conditions, and the extent of dependence on agriculture for subsistence. These included the mounding or "corn hill" system in northeastern North America. Iroquoian language speakers of present-day New York, USA, and Ontario and Qué bec, Canada were among those who used this system. While well-known, there has been little archaeological documentation of the system. As a result, there is scant archaeological evidence on how Iroquoian farmers maintained soil fertility in their oftenextensive agricultural fields. Using δ 15 N values obtained on fifteenth-and sixteenth-century AD maize kernels from archaeological sites in New York and Ontario, adjusted to take into account changes that result from charring as determined through experiments, we demonstrate that Iroquoian farmers were successful at maintaining nitrogen in their agricultural fields. These results add to our archaeological knowledge of Iroquoian agronomic practices. Our results also indicate the potential value of obtaining δ 15 N values on archaeological maize in the investigation of Native American agronomic practices. OPEN ACCESS Citation: Hart JP, Feranec RS (2020) Using Maize δ 15 N values to assess soil fertility in fifteenth-and sixteenth-century ad Iroquoian agricultural fields. PLoS ONE 15(4): e0230952. https://doi.org/ 10.Groups using the mounding system in northeastern North American included Iroquoian language family speaking peoples in present-day New York, USA, and Ontario and Québec, Canada. From the fourteenth century AD onwards, Iroquoians lived in villages and towns that were occupied for 20 to 40 years or more [9] and housed hundreds to well over 1,000 individuals [10][11][12]. A major source of calories for these communities derived from agricultural produce, primarily maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) [13], but also other crops, including common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), squash (Cucurbita pepo), and sunflower (Helianthus annuus) [14]. Non-cultivated foods included a wide range of terrestrial animals and plants [14,15], but with freshwater fish being an important source of animal protein for at least some populations [16,17]. The only domesticated animal present was dog (Canis lupus familiaris), which was consumed occasionally at feasts and ceremonies [18].The typical seventeenth-century AD ethnohistorically documented Iroquoian agricultural field consisted of many small mounds measuring approximately 46-120 cm in diameter and spaced 76-180 cm apart, which were formed with wooden, bone, antler, or stone hoes ([18], p. 178). Each mound contained 3-4 maize plants [18]. Common bean vines often were grown in the same hills with maize whose stalks acted as climbing poles for the bean vines, while squash vines were planted at intervals and occupied spaces around the mounds [19,20]. These fields were highly productive with some estimates suggesting they surpassed that of contemporaneous European and Euro-American farms [21]. While t...
“…Freshwater fish was an important component of prehistoric human diets in many areas of the world as is evident from the recovery of fish bone on archaeological sites (e.g., Hawkins et al, 2019), analysis of lipids recovered from pottery (e.g., Craig et al, 2013), and isotopic analysis of human bone (e.g., Lillie et al, 2016). Analyses of dog bone from prehistoric archaeological sites has demonstrated that fish was also an important component of some dog diets (e.g., Fischer et al, 2007).…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The North American Great Lakes region, including the lakes, their tributaries, nearby smaller lakes and their tributaries, and the St. Lawrence River were important Native American fisheries (Cleland, 1982). The zooarchaeological record attests to the importance of freshwater fish in regional subsistence systems prior to sustained European presence in the region (e.g., Hawkins et al, 2019). Ethnohistoric records indicate the importance of freshwater fish in both human (Heidenreich, 1971) and dog (Lovis & Hart, 2015) diets in this and surrounding areas during the seventeenth-century AD and after.…”
Isotopic analysis of dog (Canis lupus familiaris) bone recovered from archaeological sites as proxies for human bone is becoming common in North America. Chronological placement of the dogs is often determined through radiocarbon dating of dog bone. The Great Lakes, their tributaries, and nearby lakes and streams were important fisheries for Native Americans prior to and after sustained European presence in the region. Carbon entering the food web in freshwater systems is often not in full isotopic equilibrium with the atmosphere, giving rise to spuriously old radiocarbon ages in fish, other aquatic organisms, and their consumers. These freshwater reservoir offsets (FROs) have been noted on human and dog bone in several areas of the world. Here we report the results of multi-tracer Bayesian dietary modeling using δ15N and δ13C values on dog bone collagen from mid-fifteenth to mid-sixteenth-century Iroquoian village sites at the headwaters of the St. Lawrence River, New York, USA. Results indicate that fish was an important component of dog diets. A comparison of radiocarbon dates on dog bone with dates on deer bone or maize from the same sites indicate FROs ranging from 97 ± 24 to 220 ± 39 14Cyr with a weighted mean of 132 ± 8 14Cyr. These results suggest that dog bone should not be used for radiocarbon dating in the absence of modeling to determine fish consumption and that previously reported radiocarbon dates on human bone from the larger region are likely to have FROs given the known importance of fish in regional human diets.
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