TY - JOUR
T1 - Boiled or roasted? Bivalve cooking methods of early Puerto Ricans elucidated using clumped isotopes
AU - Staudigel, Philip T.
AU - Swart, Peter K.
AU - Pourmand, Ali
AU - Laguer-Díaz, Carmen A.
AU - Pestle, William J.
N1 - Funding Information:
Archaeological investigations were conducted under the terms of ARPA Permit CRJNWR121517, issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Funding: The Thermo-253 mass spectrometer was acquired using funds from NSF grant EAR0926503 to P.K.S.
PY - 2019/11/27
Y1 - 2019/11/27
N2 - Cooking technique reflects a combination of cultural and technological factors; here, we attempt to constrain bivalve cooking temperatures for a pre-Columbian Puerto Rican native population using carbonate clumped isotopes. Analyses of 24 bivalve specimens (Phacoides pectinatus) from a shell midden in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, suggest that samples were heated up to 200°C, indicating that roasting rather than boiling may have been the preferred cooking technique. More than half of analyzed samples exhibited a distinct change from modern uncooked shells, possibly reflecting different cooking techniques or the use of a single method wherein shells are unevenly heated, such as when placed on a heated surface. Roasting bivalves would not necessitate the use of ceramic technologies, an observation concurrent with the absence of such artifacts at this site.
AB - Cooking technique reflects a combination of cultural and technological factors; here, we attempt to constrain bivalve cooking temperatures for a pre-Columbian Puerto Rican native population using carbonate clumped isotopes. Analyses of 24 bivalve specimens (Phacoides pectinatus) from a shell midden in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, suggest that samples were heated up to 200°C, indicating that roasting rather than boiling may have been the preferred cooking technique. More than half of analyzed samples exhibited a distinct change from modern uncooked shells, possibly reflecting different cooking techniques or the use of a single method wherein shells are unevenly heated, such as when placed on a heated surface. Roasting bivalves would not necessitate the use of ceramic technologies, an observation concurrent with the absence of such artifacts at this site.
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U2 - 10.1126/sciadv.aaw5447
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.aaw5447
M3 - Article
C2 - 31976365
AN - SCOPUS:85076352937
VL - 5
JO - Science advances
JF - Science advances
SN - 2375-2548
IS - 11
M1 - eaaw5447
ER -