Reinhard Investigates Origin of New World Civilization

Karl Reinhard

Karl Reinhard, SNR professor of forensic sciences, is helping unearth clues as to how climate altered prehistoric nutrition and civilization in South America.

A February 11 National Public Radio report, “With Climate Swing, a Culture Bloomed in Americas,” detailed the investigations of the oldest evidence of civilization in the Americas. The chief archaeologist, Jonathan Haas, presented the evidence that climate change resulted in an inland movement of coastal populations who then developed irrigation and cultivation. Cultivated foods were traded for coastal products. Planned communities, monumental architecture, and cultural elaboration emerged from 3,000 BC to 1800 BC. The information from these ancient sites is so new that the culture has not yet been named. At this point, it is known from its region, Norte Chico. More information can be found at the project website.

Karl and Luis Huaman Mesía co-taught an intensive field class on Paleonutrition in March 2007 at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru, with help from UNL alum Pedro Tapia. Karl’s participation was funded by the Fulbright Senior Specialists Program. The class attracted 30 students, some of whom worked on dietary residues from the ancient Norte Chico sites. Other students worked with remains from later cultures in Peru and earlier cultures in Chile.

The class curriculum addressed a variety of archaeological methods. The students recovered and analyzed pollen grains, starch grainules, phytoliths, diatoms, seeds, fibers, root tissue, and fish bone. The class met six days a week, up to 12 hours per day, and by the end, the class covered what Karl normally teaches in three semester-long courses at UNL.

After 5,000 years, the preservation of plant remains was very bad. But refined analysis methods enabled the students to recover significant information. Multiple lines of analysis increased the diversity of identifiable plants. The Norte Chico macroscopic analysis revealed a chili pepper known as Aji (Capsicum). Starch analysis recovered evidence of another genus, Solanum, which includes the potato. Pollen analysis revealed more Solanum and in addition a related genus, Lycianthes. Starch analysis also revealed maize, although there was no evidence of maize in pollen analysis or macroscopic analysis. However, starch analysis shows that maize was a common dietary component. Almost as common as maize were seeds of guava.

The main dietary components suggest that the Norte Chico inhabitants obtained most protein from the ocean in the form of anchovies, most starch from cultivated maize, and most sugar from guayaba (guava). The largest component of their diet was fiber. Researchers have not yet been able to pinpoint its source.

Remnants of minor dietary components were diverse and reflected a broad-spectrum subsistence strategy. Mollusks augmented fish as a protein source. Sources of starch in addition to maize could have been sweet potato, potato, manioc and an Andean tuber known as arracacha. Aji chili peppers, squash, and perhaps tomato were part of the diet, as were grains from chenopodium and grass, and legumes, including cultivated beans and perhaps wild algarrobal, similar to mesquite. In conclusion, the Norte Chico sediment samples, despite preservation problems, are starting to reveal what was on the menu 5,000 years ago.

The Fulbright Senior Specialists program is increasing popular among faculty. The program funds a great variety of international activities. Further information can be found at their web site and through the UNL Fulbright Office (International Affairs, 420 University Terrace).

Karl Reinhard
Fulbright Senior Specialist, Botanical Archaeology
Professor, Forensic Sciences
School of Natural Resources
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
kreinhard1@mac.com