New Evidence Concerning the Chronology and Paleoethnobotany of Salts Cave, Kentucky

Abstract

Recent research has resolved problems surrounding the chronology and archeobotanical record of the Salts Cave Vestibule. Formerly, widely disparate radiocarbon dates made assignment of the site to either the Late Archaic or Early Woodland period equally problematic. Eight new radiocarbon determinations from Vestibule charcoal indicate an occupation in the first millennium B.C., confirming an assignment to the Early Woodland period. Previous analyses of carbonized plant remains from stratified deposits in the Vestibule indicated that the domestication of two native plants, sumpweed and sunflower, preceded the introduction of cucurbits into this part of the Eastern Woodlands. Data from other Midwestern sites have contradicted this generalization. A recent analysis of a second series of archeobotanical samples indicates that cucurbits were present at Salts Cave as early as the domesticated native annuals. These new data render the archeobotanical record of Salts Cave less anomalous than previously, and support the currently accepted reconstructions of prehistoric subsistence change in the Eastern Woodlands.