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Boiled or roasted? Bivalve cooking methods of early Puerto Ricans elucidated using clumped isotopes.


ABSTRACT: 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.

SUBMITTER: Staudigel PT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6957291 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Boiled or roasted? Bivalve cooking methods of early Puerto Ricans elucidated using clumped isotopes.

Staudigel Philip T PT   Swart Peter K PK   Pourmand Ali A   Laguer-Díaz Carmen A CA   Pestle William J WJ  

Science advances 20191127 11


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 (<i>Phacoides pectinatus</i>) 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 s  ...[more]

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