An Analysis of Garbanzo Bean Remains at Mission San Luis de Talimali

Summary

This is an abstract from the "First Floridians to La Florida: Recent FSU Investigations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Were garbanzo beans grown at San Luis de Talimali or were they imported? Were they able to be cultivated at all in a Floridian climate? Who cooked with the beans- just the wealthy Spanish who imported them or anyone with a garden? What was their dietary importance? Garbanzo beans were a staple of the Spanish diet, and were one of the plants brought to La Florida. San Luis was one of the wealthiest Spanish missions in La Florida and played a crucial role in the success of the Mission system. The farms associated with San Luis produced a majority of foodstuffs for the rest of the province, however, modest archaeobotanical research has been conducted on the site. The results of this research will give a clearer picture of botanical foodways during the Mission Period. This will be done by analyzing flotation samples from multiple contexts of the site for the presence of garbanzo remains. This study will utilize flotation samples in the State of Florida collections, those excavated in Spring 2018 by Florida State University, and a modern comparative ethnobotanical collection to identify the remains. The presence of chickpea will be quantified by variety, temporally, and by feature function.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• First Floridians to La Florida: Recent FSU Investigations   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25795