Fueling Earth Oven Useage: Differential Trends in the Southern and Central Plains

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Hearths, Earth Ovens, and the Carbohydrate Revolution: Indigenous Subsistence Strategies and Cooking during the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene in North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The work of Alston Thoms and colleagues has highlighted the importance of earth oven cooking technologies throughout the world, and especially within North America. One advantage of earth oven (heated rock) cooking is the relatively conservative use of fire fuel materials, in comparison with direct fire cooking methods. As such, earth oven technologies are theoretically especially adopted in ecological zones where easily acquiring large quantities of fuel is difficult, such as the Great Plains of North America. Indeed, archaeological evidence of earth oven use in the Southern Plains south of the Red River is apparent and appears to increase in intensity through time. However, in the same broad ecological zone within the Central Plains, earth oven usage is much less apparent even though population densities are estimated to be higher. In both regions rocks are plenty and trees are few; however, I posit that intensification on bison products in the northern Southern and Central Plains, especially after 1350 CE, allowed for bison dung patties to be utilized as a low-cost alternative fuel source. This alternative fuel source would reduce the cost of direct-fire cooking technologies.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Hearths, Earth Ovens, and the Carbohydrate Revolution: Indigenous Subsistence Strategies and Cooking during the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene in North America   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37177.0