From Birdseed to Superfood: Chenopodium Cultivation and Management across the Globe

DOCUMENT Citation Only Natalia Ryabogina. Robert Spengler.

Plants in the Chenopodium genus have attracted human interest around the globe for millennia; they have been used for grain and vegetable food as well as being a key forage plant for herd animals. Historically, several wild species have been economically significant across Eurasia, notably in Central Asia, and the genus has been domesticated in various parts of the world, including East Asia. Wild Chenopodium seeds are the dominant category of archaeobotanical remains found in the vast majority...

DOCUMENT Citation Only María Laura López. María Teresa Planella.

Argentina and Chile are the most austral American countries where Chenopodium species are recovered in several archaeological contexts. In both countries from the north to central and south, various issues are addressed from these findings such as hunter-gatherers subsistence strategies and chenopod grain morphological changes. Multi-proxy methods are used based on pollen, macro and micro botanical remains analyses, and isotopic data. However scarce botanical evidence has carried an uneven depth...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily McClung De Tapia.

Huauhtzontli, a cultivated chenopod widely distributed in the central highlands of Mexico, is generally believed to have been domesticated in prehispanic times. However, neither the timing nor the area of domestication have been clearly established. Morphometric analyses of modern fruits of the central Mexican subspecies of Chenopodium berlandieri and revision of archaeological specimens recovered from various excavations in the region suggest that domesticated fruits were not predominant,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Goldstein. Jon Hageman.

While chenopod cultivation has been documented extensively in North and South America, evidence for similar practices in the Maya area is lacking. Macrobotanical evidence of Chenopodium recovered from pre-Hispanic Maya archaeological sites is limited to a few seeds. In contrast, the palynological record suggests widespread tolerance across the entirety of the Maya area, if not intensive management or even cultivation of Cheno-am genera in some contexts. It is likely that chenopods are an...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jon Hageman. David Goldstein.

While chenopod cultivation has been documented extensively in North and South America, evidence for similar practices in the Maya area is lacking. Macrobotanical evidence of Chenopodium recovered from pre-Hispanic Maya archaeological sites is limited to a few seeds. In contrast, the palynological record minimally suggests widespread tolerance across the entirety of the Maya area, if not intensive management or in some contexts even cultivation of Cheno-am genera. It is likely that chenopods...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gayle J. Fritz. Karen R. Adams.

Chenopodium seeds are ubiquitous in archaeobotanical samples from sites across the U.S. Southwest, commonly interpreted as representing the harvest of wild populations or weedy plants that were encouraged to grow in garden plots and agricultural fields. Up to 75% of projects from various SW U.S. regions contained Chenopodium, and/or Amaranthus, and/or Cheno-am seeds. Archaeobotanists differ in how they recognize and report these seeds. At least 22 wild species of Chenopodium are native to one or...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Wohlgemuth. Maria C. Bruno.

Three decades of California paleoethnobotany have shown that Chenopodium is the most common small seed found in central California archaeological sites. Chenopodium is concentrated in sedentary residential communities in lowland areas, where historical population densities rivaled or exceeded those found elsewhere in the world. The most intensive use known for Chenopodium is from wetland areas of the Sacramento and Santa Clara valleys. Despite thousands of years as the pre-eminent small-seeded...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Xinyi Liu. Zhijun Zhao.

This article reviews the use of Chenopodium plants in Chinese archaeobotanical record. We will draw attention to two regions particularly, Northeast and Southwest China. We will consider the use of Chenopodium food in the context of origins of agriculture in China.