Characterizing variation in late precontact diets using dental microwear texture analysis: a Caborn-Welborn example

ABSTRACT

The Caborn-Welborn phase identifies late precontact and early postcontact (ca. AD 1400–1700) peoples of the lower Ohio River valley in Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois who coalesced following the collapse of the Angel chiefdom. Our current understanding of Caborn-Welborn foodways is that they, like their contemporaries in other parts of eastern North America, subsisted largely on maize and wild game, supplemented by a wide range of other wild and cultivated foods. While technically accurate, this generic picture of late precontact diets does not do justice to the many microclimatological and cultural nuances that characterized local native southeastern and midwestern diets. Dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) is a method to understand diet by analyzing the microscopic scratches and pits left on teeth during mastication. Combining DMTA with other lines of evidence, we confirm previous studies that indicate that at least some Caborn-Welborn peoples consumed less maize than their ancestors living at the Angel site. Rather than understanding Caborn-Welborn peoples as practicing a generic late precontact subsistence strategy, our study highlights how Caborn-Welborn peoples chose to eat less maize and consume more hard wild foods such as nuts compared with their contemporaries.

KEYWORDS:

• Leonard site
• Murphy site
• Angel site
• Bicycle Bridge site
• Orendorf site
• Taylor Mound site
• Bioarchaeology
• Dental analysis
• Mississippian
• Diet
• Ohio River Valley

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the editor and reviewers of this manuscript. Special thanks to Rebecca Van Sessen for making the casts and molds of the Caborn-Welborn site teeth, Jeremy Wilson for providing macrowear and pathology information for the Orendorf site, Indiana University in Bloomington for curating the 32 Caborn-Welborn molars, and Cheryl Munson for her foundational work on these sites and the Caborn-Welborn period.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Unpublished data are maintained by the University of Indianapolis Department of Anthropology. Additional data was compiled from the references cited in Table 1 and throughout the article.

Notes

1 The raw macrowear and pathology data were supplied for the Orendorf site by Jeremy Wilson. The database was created by Dawnie Steadman in the early 2000s and includes the age and sex estimates from Steadman. The data was then analyzed for macrowear and dental caries information. Individuals were included for this study if they had permanent dentition. They were separated into male and female groups based on the sex determination from the raw data. Individuals listed as “probable male” were included in the male calculations and individuals listed as “probable female” were included in the female calculations. Individuals that did not have sex information were not included.

Additional information

Funding

Dr. Schmidt's profilometry was funded by the National Science Foundation [grant number BCS-0922930].