From Blight we Rise
I give you Apios Americana, this legume grows a potato-like tuber and produces edible seeds; it grows in an abundance across eastern North America; from as far north as Nova Scotia to as far south as Florida. It was never domesticated and cultivated by cultures who had domesticated many plants that existed in the Eastern Agricultural Complex. With the Mesoamerican crops we see the Eastern Agricultural Complex disappear could something have been done to prevent the obliteration of the EAC? Could the EAC agricultural package have harmonized with the introduced Mesoamerican agricultural package and created a more sustainable and stable agricultural package that would foster the rise of civilizations in eastern North America that would rival those in Mesoamerica? This is an attempt to answer the questions that are posed above. This is a diverhistoric [1] North American cradle of civilization; this is From Blight We Rise.
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Our story begins in a place that in another time would be known as Ohio. Future diverhistorical archeologists will call the Late Archaic -Early Formative transitional Period between 1500 BCE and 800BCE. The people of the Ohio Valley [2] have begun to settle, shifting from hunter-gatherer bands to horticultural tribes. It is during this era that the eastern North America agriculture package [3] begins to be cultivated by the sedentary people of Ohio River Basin. Diverhistorical botanists and archeologists never know what sparks the domestication and cultivation of Apios Americana, they can approximate the beginning of the plants domestication in the Ohio River Basin, but they will never know the cause that led to the cultivation of the legume. Some speculate a shift in climactic conditions made the basin more conducive to the growth of fatter tubers, but there isn’t proper climatological or sedimentary evidence to show any kind of dramatic shift that made the valley more conducive to the cultivation of the Hopniss [4]. There is a young theory that proposes a fungal blight devastated the population of Hopniss in and around the Ohio River Basin thus prompting the cultivation of the Hopniss by the native people around the northern reaches of the Ohio River Basin.
Over time the people of the Basin learned to farm Hopniss. The cultivation of the Hopniss requires Direct-seeding; seeds took between 10 to 30 days to germinate. Unfortunately seedlings were small and early seedling growth was not vigorous. Seedling death, presumably from insects or diseases, plagued this technique; after germination, when the shoots began elongation, the plants were pinched back to the first leaves. This prevented the plants in a flat from twining on each other, allowing for better root development prior to planting and permitted plants from slower germinating seed to reach sufficient size to transplant. Along with transplant was the division of tubers into sections, thus allowing for the safer production of greater crop yields. Along with the development of a method of domestic cultivation came farming techniques that allowed for larger growth of the Hopniss tuber, because while Hopniss is found native growing in water-logged and acidic soils it soon became evident that the tuber grew best in well-drained soils; while moisture was important, excess moisture resulted in longer rhizomes.
***
The transition from a purely hunting and gathering way of life to a more settled farming way of life sometimes is referred to as the "Neolithic Revolution," but in Ohio, the process was more evolutionary than revolutionary. The increased level of control over their food supply, along with the necessity of cultivating their crops during the growing season, allowed (or required) the Early Formative people to settle in one place for longer periods of time. During the Late Archaic-Early Formative transitional period we see the rise of the Adena [5] in southern Ohio. The Adena lived in small villages near their gardens, but they moved frequently as they continued to follow a hunting and gathering way of life, which they supplemented with the harvest from their gardens. Adena pottery consisted of large, thick-walled vessels that were used to cook the ground-up seeds of many of the Eastern Agricultural Complex into a gruel something like oatmeal. With the advent of Hopniss farming the switch from horticulture to permaculture was far faster and far more drastic amongst the Aden than the “Neolithic Revolution”. The advent of permaculture in the Ohio River Basin definitively marked the beginning of the Formative Period. During the early to middle Formative era we see the Adena domesticate more plants to supplement their diets. With more the more sedentary lifestyle came larger towns and with the larger town came a sense of permanence that fostered the domestication and cultivation of new crops. Of these new crops the one that would affect the Adena the greatest would be the Corylus Americana [6]. Corylus Americana’s cultivation did not drastically affect the lives of the Adena in itself it was the secondary effects of its domestication that changed affected the Adena so greatly. While the Adena had become sedentary and had begun to build larger and larger sedentary towns, meat was still an important part of the diet of the Adena, but it became harder to supply meat year round for the populous of the sedentary villages. Fishing the Ohio River did not provide enough and hunting game was not a stable enough source of meat to be dependable. This is where Corylus Americana comes in; it was noticed that in fields where the multi-stemmed shrub were grown wildlife was attracted. During the winter months Ruffed Grouse [7] (Bonasa umbellus) flocked to the Corylus fields. At first the grouse were merely killed, but overtime the male grouse were fed by the Adena. Female grouse captured in the summer months were bred with male grouse, which had overtime developed to stay around the almost never ending food supply that the Adena threw their way. The eggs of the grouse were both eaten and raised by the Adena providing both a stable food source and a source of ceremonial feathers. Not long after the domestication of the grouse we see the domestication of the larger Eastern Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris). Like the grouse the Turkey provided a source of food and feathers that would make them vital aspects of the Adena’s food supply. One plant that was not truly domesticated by the Adena, but played a large role in the hierarchy and art of their culture was Sambucus Canadensis [8]. Though the berries of the tree were edible they were most often crushed and used with the sap of the tree to create a dark purple dye. This dye would be used in early Adena artwork as well as in early Adena tattooing [9].
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[1]: Diver coming from the Latin word for different “Diversus”.
[2]: For the sake of convenience I’m going to refer to geographical locations by their OTL names.
[3]: The diverhistorical package is pretty OTL; it has Cucurbita pepo (already long since cultivated), Hordeum pusillum, Chenopodium berlandieri, Polygonum erectum, Phalaris, Iva annua, Helianthus annuusm, and the diverhistorical addition of Apios Americana.
[4]: As other members of the Apios genus will be cultivated later, Apios Americana will be identified as the Hopniss.
[5]: The Adena culture was a semi-sedentary culture that rose during this era in OTL. They are fairly similar to their OTL counterparts in the beginning but will diverge more and more as time passes.
[6]: The American Hazelnut (Corylus Americana) produces edible nuts that are smaller than the more commonly grown filbert of OTL. In OTL It is planted by wildlife enthusiasts to attract and keep game in an area.
[7]: The male catkins of Corylus Americana are a food staple of ruffed grouse throughout the winter.
[8]: Sambucus canadensis (American Elderberry) produces edible berries but other parts if the plants are toxic and contain calcium oxalate crystals.
[9]: The art of tattoo has independently evolved all over the world, it is believed that the stylized zoomorphs or curvilinear geometric designs that are prominent in the Adena stone tablets are stamps that were used to imprint on to clothing, animal hides, and skin. It is believed that the imprint on the skin was an outline for a tattoo.
I give you Apios Americana, this legume grows a potato-like tuber and produces edible seeds; it grows in an abundance across eastern North America; from as far north as Nova Scotia to as far south as Florida. It was never domesticated and cultivated by cultures who had domesticated many plants that existed in the Eastern Agricultural Complex. With the Mesoamerican crops we see the Eastern Agricultural Complex disappear could something have been done to prevent the obliteration of the EAC? Could the EAC agricultural package have harmonized with the introduced Mesoamerican agricultural package and created a more sustainable and stable agricultural package that would foster the rise of civilizations in eastern North America that would rival those in Mesoamerica? This is an attempt to answer the questions that are posed above. This is a diverhistoric [1] North American cradle of civilization; this is From Blight We Rise.
--
Our story begins in a place that in another time would be known as Ohio. Future diverhistorical archeologists will call the Late Archaic -Early Formative transitional Period between 1500 BCE and 800BCE. The people of the Ohio Valley [2] have begun to settle, shifting from hunter-gatherer bands to horticultural tribes. It is during this era that the eastern North America agriculture package [3] begins to be cultivated by the sedentary people of Ohio River Basin. Diverhistorical botanists and archeologists never know what sparks the domestication and cultivation of Apios Americana, they can approximate the beginning of the plants domestication in the Ohio River Basin, but they will never know the cause that led to the cultivation of the legume. Some speculate a shift in climactic conditions made the basin more conducive to the growth of fatter tubers, but there isn’t proper climatological or sedimentary evidence to show any kind of dramatic shift that made the valley more conducive to the cultivation of the Hopniss [4]. There is a young theory that proposes a fungal blight devastated the population of Hopniss in and around the Ohio River Basin thus prompting the cultivation of the Hopniss by the native people around the northern reaches of the Ohio River Basin.
Over time the people of the Basin learned to farm Hopniss. The cultivation of the Hopniss requires Direct-seeding; seeds took between 10 to 30 days to germinate. Unfortunately seedlings were small and early seedling growth was not vigorous. Seedling death, presumably from insects or diseases, plagued this technique; after germination, when the shoots began elongation, the plants were pinched back to the first leaves. This prevented the plants in a flat from twining on each other, allowing for better root development prior to planting and permitted plants from slower germinating seed to reach sufficient size to transplant. Along with transplant was the division of tubers into sections, thus allowing for the safer production of greater crop yields. Along with the development of a method of domestic cultivation came farming techniques that allowed for larger growth of the Hopniss tuber, because while Hopniss is found native growing in water-logged and acidic soils it soon became evident that the tuber grew best in well-drained soils; while moisture was important, excess moisture resulted in longer rhizomes.
***
The transition from a purely hunting and gathering way of life to a more settled farming way of life sometimes is referred to as the "Neolithic Revolution," but in Ohio, the process was more evolutionary than revolutionary. The increased level of control over their food supply, along with the necessity of cultivating their crops during the growing season, allowed (or required) the Early Formative people to settle in one place for longer periods of time. During the Late Archaic-Early Formative transitional period we see the rise of the Adena [5] in southern Ohio. The Adena lived in small villages near their gardens, but they moved frequently as they continued to follow a hunting and gathering way of life, which they supplemented with the harvest from their gardens. Adena pottery consisted of large, thick-walled vessels that were used to cook the ground-up seeds of many of the Eastern Agricultural Complex into a gruel something like oatmeal. With the advent of Hopniss farming the switch from horticulture to permaculture was far faster and far more drastic amongst the Aden than the “Neolithic Revolution”. The advent of permaculture in the Ohio River Basin definitively marked the beginning of the Formative Period. During the early to middle Formative era we see the Adena domesticate more plants to supplement their diets. With more the more sedentary lifestyle came larger towns and with the larger town came a sense of permanence that fostered the domestication and cultivation of new crops. Of these new crops the one that would affect the Adena the greatest would be the Corylus Americana [6]. Corylus Americana’s cultivation did not drastically affect the lives of the Adena in itself it was the secondary effects of its domestication that changed affected the Adena so greatly. While the Adena had become sedentary and had begun to build larger and larger sedentary towns, meat was still an important part of the diet of the Adena, but it became harder to supply meat year round for the populous of the sedentary villages. Fishing the Ohio River did not provide enough and hunting game was not a stable enough source of meat to be dependable. This is where Corylus Americana comes in; it was noticed that in fields where the multi-stemmed shrub were grown wildlife was attracted. During the winter months Ruffed Grouse [7] (Bonasa umbellus) flocked to the Corylus fields. At first the grouse were merely killed, but overtime the male grouse were fed by the Adena. Female grouse captured in the summer months were bred with male grouse, which had overtime developed to stay around the almost never ending food supply that the Adena threw their way. The eggs of the grouse were both eaten and raised by the Adena providing both a stable food source and a source of ceremonial feathers. Not long after the domestication of the grouse we see the domestication of the larger Eastern Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris). Like the grouse the Turkey provided a source of food and feathers that would make them vital aspects of the Adena’s food supply. One plant that was not truly domesticated by the Adena, but played a large role in the hierarchy and art of their culture was Sambucus Canadensis [8]. Though the berries of the tree were edible they were most often crushed and used with the sap of the tree to create a dark purple dye. This dye would be used in early Adena artwork as well as in early Adena tattooing [9].
--
[1]: Diver coming from the Latin word for different “Diversus”.
[2]: For the sake of convenience I’m going to refer to geographical locations by their OTL names.
[3]: The diverhistorical package is pretty OTL; it has Cucurbita pepo (already long since cultivated), Hordeum pusillum, Chenopodium berlandieri, Polygonum erectum, Phalaris, Iva annua, Helianthus annuusm, and the diverhistorical addition of Apios Americana.
[4]: As other members of the Apios genus will be cultivated later, Apios Americana will be identified as the Hopniss.
[5]: The Adena culture was a semi-sedentary culture that rose during this era in OTL. They are fairly similar to their OTL counterparts in the beginning but will diverge more and more as time passes.
[6]: The American Hazelnut (Corylus Americana) produces edible nuts that are smaller than the more commonly grown filbert of OTL. In OTL It is planted by wildlife enthusiasts to attract and keep game in an area.
[7]: The male catkins of Corylus Americana are a food staple of ruffed grouse throughout the winter.
[8]: Sambucus canadensis (American Elderberry) produces edible berries but other parts if the plants are toxic and contain calcium oxalate crystals.
[9]: The art of tattoo has independently evolved all over the world, it is believed that the stylized zoomorphs or curvilinear geometric designs that are prominent in the Adena stone tablets are stamps that were used to imprint on to clothing, animal hides, and skin. It is believed that the imprint on the skin was an outline for a tattoo.
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