Do Cucurbita pepo Gourds Float Fishnets?

Among the various pre-maize indigenous crops of eastern North America, Cucurbita pepo gourd is the most enigmatic. C. pepo gourd remains have been found on mid-Holocene (8000–4000 B.P.) archaeological sites as far north and east as Maine. Their presumably extremely bitter flesh would have made the f...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American antiquity 2004-01, Vol.69 (1), p.141-148
Main Authors: Hart, John P., Daniels, Robert A., Sheviak, Charles J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Archaeological sites
Archaeology
Buoyancy
Crops
Economy and society
Ethnology and art
Fishing lines
Freshwater fishes
Fruits
Gill nets
Methodology and general studies
Paleoanthropology
Pepos
Plants
Prehistory and protohistory
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Summary:Among the various pre-maize indigenous crops of eastern North America, Cucurbita pepo gourd is the most enigmatic. C. pepo gourd remains have been found on mid-Holocene (8000–4000 B.P.) archaeological sites as far north and east as Maine. Their presumably extremely bitter flesh would have made the fruits inedible. Two not mutually exclusive hypotheses for use of the fruit are currently being debated: (1) the nutritious seeds were processed to remove bitterness and consumed, and (2) dried fruits were used as fishnet floats and/or containers for general use. We report on a series of experiments that demonstrate the gourds function extremely well as fishnet floats. These results lend support to the second hypothesis, but do not conclusively prove they were used for this purpose.
ISSN:0002-7316
2325-5064
DOI:10.2307/4128352