Archaeobotanical Evidence Supports Indigenous Cucurbit Long-Term Use in the Mesoamerican Neotropics

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The squash family contains some of the most important crops cultivated worldwide. Squashes were among the first cultivated crop species, but little is known about how their domestication unfolded. We employ direct radiocarbon dating and morphological analyses of desiccated cucurbit remains from El Gigante Rockshelter, Honduras to reconstruct human practices of selection and cultivation of Lagenaria siceraria, Cucurbita pepo, and Cucurbita moschata. Direct radiocarbon dating indicates that humans started using Lagenaria and wild Cucurbita starting ~10,950 cal B.P., primarily as watertight vessels and possibly as cooking and drinking containers. A rind directly dated to 11,150–10,765 cal B.P. represents the oldest known bottle gourd in the Americas. Domesticated C. moschata subsequently appeared ~4035 cal B.P., followed by domesticated C. pepo ~2190 cal B.P. associated with increasing evidence for their use as food crops. Statistical analysis of seed size and shape show that archaeological C. pepo assemblage exhibits significant variability, representing at least three varieties: one similar to present-day zucchini, another like present-day vegetable marrow, and a native cultivar without modern analogs. Our archaeobotanical data supports the hypothesis that Indigenous cucurbit use started in the Early Holocene, and that agricultural complexity during the Late Holocene involved selective breeding that encouraged crop diversification.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53681