Mayas were the first to cultivate calorie-rich manioc in America

The Mayas supported their dense population by cultivating manioc across large plantations, recent excavations by archaeologists from the University of Colorado at Boulder has revealed.

Washington, Aug 21 : The Mayas supported their dense population by cultivating manioc across large plantations, recent excavations by archaeologists from the University of Colorado at Boulder has revealed.

The researchers, excavating an ancient Maya village in El Salvador buried by a volcanic eruption 1,400 years ago, discovered an ancient field of manioc, the first evidence for cultivation of the calorie-rich tuber in the New World.

CU-Boulder anthropology Professor Payson Sheets, who has been directing the excavation of the ancient village of Ceren since its discovery in 1978, said the field was discovered under roughly 10 feet of ash.

Considered among the best-preserved ancient village in Latin America, Ceren's buildings, artefacts and landscape were frozen in time by the sudden eruption of the nearby Loma Caldera volcano about 600 AD, and provides a unique window on the everyday lives of prehistoric Mayan farmers.

In June, the researchers used ground-penetrating radar, drill cores and test pits to pinpoint and uncover several large, parallel planting beds separated by walkways.

Ash hollows in the planting beds left by decomposed plant material were cast with dental plaster to preserve their shapes and subsequently were identified as manioc tubers, an important, high-carbohydrate food source for Latin Americans today.

Prof. Sheets said the discovery marks the first time manioc cultivation has been discovered at an archaeological site anywhere in the Americas.

"We have long wondered what else the prehistoric Mayan people were growing and eating besides corn and beans, so finding this field was a jackpot of sorts for us. Manioc's extraordinary productivity may help explain how the Classic Maya at huge sites like Tikal in Guatemala and Copan in Honduras supported such dense populations," said Prof. Sheets.

He said they found evidence that new stalks were planted "just hours before the eruption".

"The manioc bushes had just been cut down, most of the tubers harvested and the beds replanted with manioc stalks placed horizontally in the soil to regenerate bushes for the next cycle of growth," said Prof. Sheets.

The presence of volcanic ash just underneath hand-shaped dirt overhangs in the beds indicates this, he said.

"What we essentially found was a freshly planted manioc field that was 1,400 years old. Once again, we felt like we were right on the heels of these ancient people because of the exquisite preservation provided by the volcanic ash," he said, adding that each hand-shaped planting bed was about three feet wide and two feet high - about 10 times larger than traditional planting beds for corn.

Each manioc stalk, or cutting, had been carefully placed in the ground with a growth "node" pointing toward the surface to generate a new bush and several nodes pointing down to generate the edible tubers and regular roots, Prof. Sheets said.

ANI