Reframing the question of Baytown food production: plant remains from the Oliver site, northern Yazoo Basin, Mississippi

Abstract

ABSTRACT Site densities in Mississippi's Upper Yazoo Basin indicate that populations increased in numbers during the Late Woodland period. Plant remains recovered during salvage operations at the Oliver site in Coahoma County contribute to a database confirming the importance of both wild and cultivated resources for Baytown people of that time. Because the samples reported here were retrieved by water screening rather than flotation, small seeds are uncommon. Still, all four starchy seed taxa and both oily seed crops belonging to the Eastern Agricultural Complex were recovered, along with the unidentified grass known as Type X. The abundance of acorn shell at Oliver and nearby sites with Baytown components calls for more inquiry into how acorns were accessed, processed, cooked, and eaten. We call attention to the pottery that occurs in high frequencies, suggesting that much of it was used to store, cook, and leach tannins from acorns, as well as to prepare other foodstuffs. Discussions of early agriculture in the Yazoo Basin once focused on corn, subsequently incorporating pre-corn native crops. We propose an expanded concept of food production that includes management of nut tree groves and tending of gardens to partially explain the thickly populated Late Woodland Delta landscape.