[Aztlan] manioc

[Diehl, Richard]

Many thanks to Nick, Jeff, Mary, and Sid for their useful comments. Sid,
do not get me going on grits: I grew up on the hash brown potatoes side
of the Mason-Dixon Line. I was not aware of the linguistic and
archaeological evidence for manioc. Now I know how I will spend some of
July 4: eating bar-b-que, drinking beer, and reading about manioc! The
Science issue that carries the article by Tom Dillehay and his
colleagues on the Peruvian finds also has an interesting essay by
Michael Balter on analysis of microscopic starch grains as a means of
identifying tropical plants. That has set me to thinking that it may be
time to revisit the long-dormant idea that the amorphous obsidian chips
so common in early lowland Mesoamerican archaeological sites were used
to grind manioc tubers. Some experimental evidence tended to support
this hypothesis but there was never conclusive proof. Perhaps starch
grain studies of samples recovered from such chips (and not washed
squeaky clean by over-eager lab workers) will someday provide additional
evidence of the use of this South American domesticate in Mesoamerica.
Sounds like a good graduate student thesis to me.
Dick