Alternative Recipes: Exploring the Diversity of Foods Prepared in Prehistoric Earth Oven Cooking

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Camas (Camassia spp.) was among the most important foods for many cultural groups of the Pacific Northwest in the past. The Pend Oreille Valley in northeastern Washington and the Kalispel people were particularly known for their large camas fields and the archaeological record of the valley is replete with earth oven features. Archaeological site 45PO422, located along the Pend Oreille River on Kalispel ancestral lands, was an earth oven site, presumed to be the location of significant camas processing. Bulk soil samples, archived for the past 20 years, were floated and processed for the identification of charred plant remains. A total of 17 plant species were identified to the genus or lower taxonomic level. Culturally important plant taxa include nodding onion (Allium cerranum), kinnikinnick (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi), berry (Vaccinium sp.), chokecherry (Prunus virginiana), hawthorn (Crataegus sp.), and pine (Pinus albicaulis, Pinus contorta, and Pinus ponderosa). This work supports the Kalispel Tribe’s long-term interests in understanding its history of food selection, food security, and food safety.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25855