Unsung Heroes of Cahokian Cuisine: The Materials and Methods for Nixtamalization in the American Bottom

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

People who rely on corn for significant portions of their diets must process it to improve its nutritional quality, or risk severe malnutrition. A common method historically employed throughout Mesoamerica and North America consisted of soaking corn kernels in an alkaline solution created from wood ash or burned limestone, a technique referred to as nixtamalization. Recent research on pottery and limestone recovered from the East St. Louis site (11S706) by the Illinois State Archaeological Survey during an Illinois Department of Transportation project has yielded intriguing new data indicating nixtamalization was also practiced in the American Bottom of present-day Illinois as Cahokia grew to prominence as the first and largest Indigenous city north of Mesoamerica (ca. 900–1100 CE). The results of a pilot study indicate corn was nixtamalized using such seemingly mundane materials as locally available limestone and crude pottery utensils known as stumpware. Here I present the results of this research, focusing on portable X-ray fluorescence analyses, morphological variability, and depositional contexts of archaeological samples of stumpware, and experimental use of stumpware replicas. Examining how corn was processed in this way reveals information concerning culinary choice, the development of new foodways, and the formation of community identities.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40101.0