Acorn Processing and Pottery Use in the Upper Great Lakes: An Experimental Comparison of Stone Boiling and Ceramic Technology

ABSTRACT

The adoption of pottery in the Upper Great Lakes region occurs quite late compared to the greater Eastern Woodlands. Recent organic residue analyses suggest that the earliest pottery in the Upper Great Lakes region was likely used to process acorns. Through experimental means using temperature as a proxy, this paper evaluates the efficacy of leaching tannins from acorns by comparing two regionally available cooking technologies: stone boiling versus simmering in a ceramic vessel. Our results indicate that tannins can be more effectively leached at simmering temperatures like those provided by ceramic vessels. At boiling temperatures, tannins are irreversibly bound to the acorn starches, rendering the nutmeat inedible in further processing. While there are a number of reasons to adopt and use pottery, it appears that processing acorns may be another important addition to this growing list.

KEYWORDS:

• Acorns
• Quercus
• tannin leaching
• adoption of pottery
• stone boiling
• experimental archaeology
• Upper Great Lakes
• foodways

Acknowledgements

We thank Kenneth Sassaman and two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments, all of which made this a much stronger paper. The purchase of acorns and necessary equipment for this research was made possible by a grant from the Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute at the University of Arizona (SBSRI Pre-Doctoral Research Grant #16PDF0610). Laboratory space was provided by the Laboratory for Traditional Technology and the University of Arizona. We would also like to thank James Trey Hill, Ethan Ingram, Dustin Lloyd, Christopher Nicosia, and Brooke Wamsley for assisting in acorn collection.

Notes on Contributors

Kelsey E. Hanson (M.S.) is a doctoral student at the University of Arizona with regional foci in both the Great Lakes region and the U.S. Southwest with broad interests in studies of migration, performance, craft specialization, identity, and religion. She is also interested in and actively engages with experimental archaeology and heritage management issues.

Paula L. Bryant is a staff archaeologist at the Illinois State Archaeological Survey in Elgin, Illinois where her research interests currently focus on the management of cultural resources within public lands.

Autumn M. Painter (M.S.) is a doctoral student in anthropology at Michigan State University where she is currently studying foodways and social interaction through zooarchaeological remains from the Morton Village site in the Illinois River Valley.

James M. Skibo is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Illinois State University, and former assistant director of the Laboratory for Traditional Technology at the University of Arizona. He has a long-standing interest in pottery and especially pottery function since his ethnoarchaeological work among the Kalinga. He currently is the Director of the Grand Island Archaeological Project in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. He is the author of over ten books and edited volumes that focus primarily on pottery, theory, and the archaeology of the Upper Great Lakes.

ORCID

Kelsey E. Hanson http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9262-4408

Autumn M. Painter http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8178-9183