from:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0709171645.htm
Source: Smithsonian
Date: July 11, 2007
More on: Agriculture and Food, Ancient Civilizations, Endangered
Plants, Food, Archaeology, Fossils
Ancient Americans Liked It Hot: Mexican Cuisine Traced To 1,500 Years
Ago
Science Daily - One of the world's tastiest and most popular cuisines,
Mexican food also may be one of the oldest.
These chili peppers from the Guila Naquitz cave in Oaxaca Mexico date
to between A.D. 490 and 780, and represent two cultivars or cultivated
types. A Smithsonian scientist analyzed the chili pepper remains and
determined that Pre-Columbian inhabitants of the region hundreds of
years ago enjoyed a spicy fare similar to Mexican cuisine today.
(Credit: Linda Perry, Smithsonian Institution) Plant remains from two
caves in southern Mexico analyzed by a Smithsonian ethnobotanist/
archaeologist and a colleague indicate that as early as 1,500 years
ago, Pre-Columbian inhabitants of the region enjoyed a spicy fare
similar to Mexican cuisine today. The two caves yielded 10 different
cultivars (cultivated varieties) of chili peppers.
"This analysis demonstrates that chilies in Mexican food have been
numerous and complex for a long period of time," said lead author
Linda Perry, of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
"It reveals a great antiquity for the Mexican cuisine that we're
familiar with today."
Perry and Kent V. Flannery, of the University of Michigan, studied
desiccated plant remains from excavations in Guilį Naquitz and
Silvia's Cave, two dry rock shelters near Mitla in the Valley of
Oaxaca, southern Mexico. Guilį Naquitz is famous for its well-
preserved plant remains, dating back to the beginnings of squash
cultivation in Mexico some 10,000 years ago. Arid conditions through
the centuries prevented decay of the crop remains, which include corn,
squash, beans, avocados and chili peppers.
This new study focuses on the two upper layers of ash and debris known
as Zone "A" and "Super-A," spanning the period circa A.D. 500--1500.
Perry was able to distinguish different cultivars among the abundantly
preserved chili peppers, a type of analysis that had not been
completed on ancient Mexican chilies.
Perry found that peppers from Guilį Naquitz included at least seven
different cultivars. Peppers from the smaller sample in Silvia's cave
represented three cultivars.
It is unknown whether the cultivars found in the cave correspond to
modern varieties, or if they were types that died out after the
arrival of Europeans in Mexico. Perry said one looks like a Tabasco
pepper and another like a cayenne pepper, but it is difficult to know
how closely related they are to modern varieties without a genetic
analysis.
"What was interesting to me was that we were able to determine that
they were using the peppers both dried and fresh," Perry said.
(Chilies broken while fresh had a recognizable breakage pattern.) "It
shows us that ancient Mexican food was very much like today. They
would have used fresh peppers in salsas or in immediate preparation,
and they would have used the dried peppers to toss into stews or to
grind up into sauces like moles."
During the period circa A.D. 500--1500, the caves served as temporary
camps and storage areas for farmers from Mitla--a major town on the
river of the same name--whose cultivated fields evidently extended to
the slopes of the piedmont below Guilį Naquitz and Silvia's Cave. The
Zapotec-speaking people planted crops in several environmental zones--
river bottoms, piedmont and mountains-- probably as a way of buffering
risk; it also added variety to the diet.
"In the cave deposits, we can see excellent documentation for the
sophistication of the agriculture and the cuisine at this point in
time," Perry said. "You don't grow seven different kinds of chilies
unless you're cooking some pretty interesting food."
The study will be published the week of July 9 in the online edition
of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by
Smithsonian.