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Canavalia Beans in American Prehistory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Jonathan Sauer  and
Lawrence Kaplan
Jonathan Sauer
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles, California
Lawrence Kaplan
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts
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Abstract

The naturally pantropical genus Canavalia is the source of four domesticated species, of which C. plagiosperma and C. ensiformis evidently evolved under aboriginal New World cultivation. Their exact origins are uncertain because the archaeological record is concentrated in dry regions where they arrived as irrigated crops. Prehistoric cultivation of C. plagiosperma is known only from coastal Peru where it has been grown continuously for at least 4,000 years. The earliest secure record of C. ensiformis is from about A.D. 900 in Oaxaca, but charred seeds from about 300 B.C. in Yucatan probably belong to this species. Later archaeological records of C. ensiformis are available from a few Arizona sites and from Peruvian sites occupied in the early Colonial period. Canavalia and Phaseolus beans are generally associated in prehistoric cultures. Since the latter are rated as superior food, the role of Canavalia is puzzling. Meager historical and ethnographic evidence offers few clues.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , October 1969 , pp. 417 - 424
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1969

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