2023-10-13 12:01:49
Coprolites and artifacts recovered from the Huecoide and Saladoide archaeological sites. – CHANLATTE AND NARGANES, CC-BY 4.0 / EUREKA ALERT
MADRID, 13 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
DNA analysis of mummified feces have revealed that two pre-Columbian Caribbean cultures ate plants such as corn, sweet potatoes and peanuts, but also tobacco and cotton.
Coprolites can reveal clues about diet and lifestyle. In this study, Jelissa Reynoso-García, from the University of Puerto Rico, and her colleagues analyzed plant DNA isolated from coprolites taken from samples from archaeological sites of two pre-Columbian cultures (huecoid and saladoid) to find out what these people ate and drank. . They publish results in PLOS ONE.
The authors carefully extracted and analyzed plant DNA from ten coprolite samples from the La Hueca archaeological site in Puerto Rico. They compared the extracted plant DNA with a database of various coprolite samples and contemporary plant DNA sequences.
The results suggest that hollowoids and saladoids enjoyed a diverse and sophisticated food system, in which sweet potatoes, wild and domesticated peanuts, chili peppers, a domesticated strain of tomato, papaya and corn were detected.
The analysis also detected tobacco, possibly due to the use of chewing tobacco, inhalation of pulverized tobacco, or tobacco as a food additive for medicinal and/or hallucinogenic purposes. Also surprisingly, cotton, perhaps due to the use of ground cotton seeds for oil, or because women wet the cotton threads with their saliva, leaving threads in their mouths while they weaved.
The authors found no evidence of consumption of cassava/manioc/cassava (‘Manihot esculenta’), even though chroniclers often mentioned this plant as a staple food in the pre-Columbian Caribbean. The authors note that the elaborate cassava grating and drying techniques mentioned in these accounts could have degraded the plant’s DNA, or that it could be a seasonal staple.
Due to food preparation techniques, the fact that each coprolite sample is only a snapshot of what a specific person had recently been eating, and the limitation that the authors They were only able to identify plants that also appear in current DNA sequence databases. (without capturing any now-extinct, rare, or non-commercial crops), it is likely that hollowoids and saladoids ate other plants or fungi not mentioned here.
However, the authors hope that this analysis provides more information about the life of the pre-Columbian peoples of America.
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