For over 10,000 years, earth ovens (semi-subterranean, layered arrangements of heated rocks, packing material, and food stuffs capped by earth) have played important economic and social roles for Indigenous peoples living across the arid landscapes of western North America. From hunter-gatherers to formative horticulturalists, sedentary farmers, and contemporary Indigenous groups, earth ovens have been used to convert inedible plants into digestible food, fiber, and beverages.
The remains of earth ovens range from tight, circular clusters of burned rocks, generally labeled “hearths” by archaeologists, to the massive accumulations of fire-cracked rock referred to as earth oven facilities, roasting pits, or burned rock middens. Remnants of these oven forms are common across the arid and semi-arid landscapes that stretch from Texas to California and south into Mexico. Despite the ubiquity of earth ovens from late Paleoindian times until today, and their broad spatial and cultural distribution, these features remain an under-studied aspect of Indigenous lifeways.
This edited volume explores the longevity and diversity of earth oven baking and examines the subsistence strategies, technological paradigms, and social contexts within which earth ovens functioned. It is the first study to cover such a broad geographic area, reflecting an array of promising research that highlights ongoing efforts to understand the archaeological record of earth ovens.
Author(s): Charles W. Koenig; Myles R. Miller
Publisher: University of Utah Press
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: xi; 246
City: Salt Lake City
Tags: History--Earth Oven; Ethnology--Hot-Rock Cooking; History--North America--United States--Texas; History--North America--Mexico
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
1. Lighting the Fire: An Earth Oven Introduction | Charles W. Koenig and Myles R. Miller
Part I. Hunter-Gatherers of “Texas”
2. Late Paleoindian Earth Ovens in the Texas Big Bend | Richard Walter and Bryon Schroeder
3. Central Texas Plant Baking | Richard McAuliffe, Raymond Mauldin, and Stephen L. Black
4. Using Fire-Cracked Rock to Evaluate Earth Oven Intensification in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Texas | Charles W. Koenig, Emily R. McCuistion, Stephen L. Black, Charles D. Frederick, J. Phil Dering, J. Kevin Hanselka, Leslie Bush, and Ken L. Lawrence
Part II. Hunter-Gatherers of the Southern Great Basin and Lower Colorado River
5. Fire on the Mountain: The Use of Earth Ovens for Agave and Pinyon Processing in the Sheep Range, Nevada | Spencer Lodge
6. Hot-Rock Cooking of Desert Lily (Hesperocallis undulata) and Winding Mariposa Lily (Calochortus flexuosus) Bulbs in the Lower Colorado River Basin | Eric Wohlgemuth, Daron Duke, Sarah K. Rice, James R. Kangas, and Mark C. Slaughter
Part III. Agriculturalists of the U.S. Southwest and Northern Mexico
7. Labor, Ritual, and Path Dependence: The Social Dimensions of Earth Oven Use in Southern New Mexico and West Texas | Myles R. Miller and Timothy B. Graves
8. Social Implications of Roasting Pits in Southern Arizona Hohokam Rockpile Fields | Suzanne K. Fish and Paul R. Fish
9. Tradition and Community: Hornos, Thermally Altered Soils, and Communal Feasting among the Hohokam | Eric S. Cox, Gary Huckleberry, and Douglas B. Craig
10. An Ethnoarchaeology of Earth Ovens in the Sierra Catorce, Mexico | Richard Stark
Part IV. Earth Oven Discussion
11. Hot-Rock Cooking in the U.S. Southwest and Mexican Northwest: An Emphasis on Practice and Significance among Village Farmers | Paul R. Fish
12. Learning from Rock: Cook-Stone Technology’s Epistemological Maturation | Alston V. Thoms
References
Contributors
Index
