Breaking a Preservation Barrier: Recovery of Charred Seeds in a 10,270 Year-Old Hearth on the High Plains of North America

ABSTRACT

Charred seeds, including those of goosefoot, amaranth, sedge, and possibly nightshade, were recovered from a Late Paleoindian context at the Bull Creek site in the Oklahoma panhandle. The use of these early successional plant resources at Bull Creek furthers our understanding of Paleoindian subsistence practices on the Plains, where preservation of plant remains is historically under-represented or under-reported. Bull Creek establishes an association between Paleoindians, broad-spectrum hunting, and wild-seed exploitation on the southern High Plains by 10,270 cal BP and documents an early phase of human/plant association in the mid latitudes of North America.

KEYWORDS:

• Paleoindian
• Chenopodium
• plant use
• Great Plains

Acknowledgements

This work was funded in part by private donations from Courson Oil and Gas, Perryton, Texas; Arnold Coldiron, Ohio; Fire Fly Distillery, Wadmala Island, South Carolina; and the Whitten Newman Foundation, Oklahoma. We thank the Editor, Ted Goebel, for his patience and support. We also thank the three reviewers whose comments improved the clarity and scope of this manuscript. Special thanks are extended to Solveig Turpin (Valhalla bound) for her comments on an early draft of this manuscript and her encouragement to see it to fruition.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Leland C. Bement is a Senior Researcher at the Oklahoma Archeological Survey, The University of Oklahoma. His research focuses on North American hunting and gathering societies, bison hunting on the southern Plains, and human environmental interaction.

Richard R. Drass is a Senior Researcher Emeritus at the Oklahoma Archeological Survey, The University of Oklahoma. His research focuses on Paleo-ethnobotany, southern Plains Villagers, and Native – European contact.

Linda Scott Cummings is Director of PaleoResearch Institute of Golden, Colorado as well as a palynologist-phytolith-starch analyst. Her research focuses on paleoenvironmental, subsistence, and paleonutrition interpretations across the Americas.

Dakota Larrick is a Graduate student in the Department of Anthropology and a Graduate Research Assistant at the Oklahoma Archeological Survey at The University of Oklahoma. Her research focuses on North American hunting and gathering societies, human landscape interaction, and human responses to climate change.