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Oldest use of potatos found in

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posted on Jul, 5 2017 @ 06:31 PM
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UTAH


WHAAAAAAAT? Not SA?

Yep, the oldest know examples of people eating potatoes comes from a place in the four corners region called Potato Valley.





July 3, 2017—The town of Escalante in southern Utah is no small potatoes when it comes to scientific discovery; a new archaeological finding within its borders may rewrite the story of tuber domestication.

Researchers from the Natural History Museum of Utah and Red Butte Garden at the University of Utah have discovered potato starch residues in the crevices of a 10,900-year-old stone tool in Escalante, Utah — the earliest evidence of wild potato use in North America. This is the first archaeological study to identify a spud-bearing species native to the southwestern United States, Solanum jamesii, as an important part of ancient human diets. The researchers pieced together evidence from stone tools, ethnographic literature and modern gardeners to show that Utahans have used the species intermittently for over 10,000 years. The Escalante area was even previously known as “Potato Valley” to early settlers.



And it looks like they were cultivated, at the Utah sites.


he new study deals with S. jamesii, a wild species found in the shady shelter of oaks, sagebrush and piñon pines across the Four Corners region of the southwestern U.S. The so-called Four Corners potato is most abundant in the highlands of New Mexico, where its green leaves and delicate white flowers are scattered throughout piñon-juniper woodlands. In Utah, however, the plants only grow in sparse, isolated populations near archaeological sites, suggesting that ancient people carried the tubers to the area. Only five small populations of plants are known in the Escalante Valley, including one just 150 meters from the archaeological site, North Creek Shelter. Though rarely used today, the potato was an important staple for people living across its range.




“The use of Solanum jamesii by the Hopi people is not so much now, but in the past as the famers would be out in their fields down below the mesas they would dig the wild potatoes and bring it home to add to their diet,” says Max Taylor, botanist at the Hopi Tribe Water Resources Program. “There were many ways to prepare the potatoes, but one way for sure was to boil the potatoes in a white clay to draw out the toxins from the potato to make it edible. Tñhe particular clay is called the potato clay for that reason, it’s a clay similar to the one from which the potteries are made.”


I wonder if the process of mixing the potatoes with clay(dirt) is what was described in the Journal of Cabeza de Vaca, as the indians eating dirt?.
Utah Home to Earliest Potato
Fascinating stuff

edit on p0000007k31732017Wed, 05 Jul 2017 18:31:41 -0500k by punkinworks10 because: (no reason given)

edit on p0000007k32732017Wed, 05 Jul 2017 18:32:02 -0500k by punkinworks10 because: (no reason given)



posted on Jul, 5 2017 @ 06:47 PM
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a reply to: punkinworks10

Andean people used potatoes 7 or 8 thousand years ago. So yes, Utah's potatoes would be a new record.




posted on Jul, 5 2017 @ 06:54 PM
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Utah, not Idaho.....

Interesting!



posted on Jul, 5 2017 @ 07:32 PM
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a reply to: Trueman

Hi Trueman,
I was shocked that it was Utah amd not SA, and that they were cultivated, not just gathered from the wild.



posted on Jul, 5 2017 @ 07:38 PM
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originally posted by: punkinworks10
a reply to: Trueman

Hi Trueman,
I was shocked that it was Utah amd not SA, and that they were cultivated, not just gathered from the wild.

Yes, me too. Thank you so much for bringing something fresh.

Now I wonder..., what about corn?




posted on Jul, 5 2017 @ 07:40 PM
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Bah, everyone know that glorious Potat is native to Latvia. But greedy amerikanski is steal and leave nothing but rok for Komrads.



posted on Jul, 5 2017 @ 07:59 PM
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I wasn't aware that potatoes were even in North America before they brought them here. Strange new news. It figures though, maybe there are potatoes in the wild even around here. I know there are potatoes growing in the woods here wild, I planted some here and there. They have been growing for many years now, the potatoes get small and if the soil packs to solid they die off after about three years. But I have some areas that have potatoes from ten years ago still popping up. It's something to do with potatoes when they sprout instead of tossing them in the garbage. My way of prepping for TSHTF was to give the woods some potato plants. They can be used as seed and when put in fertile and soft soil they produce bigger potatoes again.

Hmmm. I see the pictures of the potato flowers on the plants and they remind me of the tree in South America that has the zombie flower. I wonder if these potato flowers have any effect like those zombie flowers. I see the flowers every year in my garden but never even thought what properties they may have. When the flowers come on the potato plant, the deer are attracted to the potatoes and come and eat some. Buzzzzz?
edit on 5-7-2017 by rickymouse because: (no reason given)



posted on Jul, 5 2017 @ 08:05 PM
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Idaho is going to be mad.
The last thing we need right now is weaponized Idaho potato farmers setting their sights on Utah.
edit on 2017-07-05T20:11:57-05:002201705America/Chicago7 by c2oden because: potato potatoe



posted on Jul, 5 2017 @ 08:43 PM
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originally posted by: c2oden
Idaho is going to be mad.
The last thing we need right now is weaponized Idaho potato farmers setting their sight on Utah.
They have potato cannons that can hit North Korea.



posted on Jul, 5 2017 @ 08:53 PM
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originally posted by: skunkape23

originally posted by: c2oden
Idaho is going to be mad.
The last thing we need right now is weaponized Idaho potato farmers setting their sight on Utah.
They have potato cannons that can hit North Korea.


I heard the Idiohian potato cannons often mis-fire and almost always land in the sea of Japan.
They can't reach the Korean penisula.
Even if they could, the Idiohoans would never send the first potato bomb.
Everybody should just leave them alone until they actually launch a potato.



posted on Jul, 5 2017 @ 09:36 PM
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a reply to: punkinworks10

More proof that the Irish were the first Europeans to reach the Americas.



posted on Jul, 5 2017 @ 10:37 PM
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originally posted by: TobyFlenderson
a reply to: punkinworks10

More proof that the Irish were the first Europeans to reach the Americas.
I believe they also found minute traces of onions+sour cream.



posted on Jul, 5 2017 @ 10:53 PM
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a reply to: punkinworks10

Wow! so what does this imply about culture and technological migration, or was this an independent development which is quite possible.



posted on Jul, 5 2017 @ 11:36 PM
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Spider879,
You have raised a very interesting question I had planned on bringing up while responding to Trueman.
It would seem to be an isolated independant development, or is it?
Two different species of potato were developed in north and south america, with this predating south american domestication by ,3-4k years.
But, in Utah 11kya ish, new people are moving into the area that are likely originally from south america.
Now, did the people in SA start exploiting wild potatoes before they came north, to find a different variety, or was it basin and ranges people, who had a history of gathering tubers and grinding them on metates, moving east to find a new tuber?



posted on Jul, 6 2017 @ 12:08 AM
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Home, sweet home... Potatoho...





posted on Jul, 6 2017 @ 12:12 AM
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"Potatoes...You gotta be poor to eat potatoes!"--Tuco the Rat, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

I never understood that line. Potatoes are glorious! The true staple of the earth.



posted on Jul, 6 2017 @ 01:48 AM
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a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

That was a common european attitude about potatoes in the 18&19th centuries.

"Only animals eat what grows in the dirt, while men make bread."
Potatoes were originally imported as animal feed, and there was a stigma associated with eating them.
One of the early varietals was so bad even animals didnt want to eat them, and the famous mis-quote of Marie Antoinette, "Let them eat cake", was in response to a protest by people over being given feed potatoes, after a particularly bad wheat harvest.
The weather at the time, although rotten for the grains, was great for the potato, and there was such a surplus they were piled in the streets, yet the french refused to eat them.
The potato became a staple for the poor in britain, and the poorest of all were the irish.



posted on Jul, 6 2017 @ 01:59 AM
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a reply to: punkinworks10




The weather at the time, although rotten for the grains, was great for the potato, and there was such a surplus they were piled in the streets, yet the french refused to eat them. The potato became a staple for the poor in britain, and the poorest of all were the irish.


The irony about the above statement , the French get to name the fried version of it, today potatoes can be found among gourmet dishes of many varieties when it was once considered food fit for swines..

edit on 6-7-2017 by Spider879 because: (no reason given)



posted on Jul, 6 2017 @ 02:05 AM
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originally posted by: Spider879
a reply to: punkinworks10




The weather at the time, although rotten for the grains, was great for the potato, and there was such a surplus they were piled in the streets, yet the french refused to eat them. The potato became a staple for the poor in britain, and the poorest of all were the irish.


The irony about the above statement , the French get to name the fried version of it, today potatoes can be found among gourmet dishes of many varieties when it was once considered food fit for swines..


That statement has much truth to it, horses(noble creatures) turned their noses up at the early potato, while pigs(well, swine) loved em.



posted on Jul, 6 2017 @ 08:20 AM
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originally posted by: Spider879
a reply to: punkinworks10

Wow! so what does this imply about culture and technological migration, or was this an independent development which is quite possible.


This was my first thought as well. The 800 year difference between demostication in Utah and the Andes definitely leaves enough time for cultural diffusion but there doesn't seem to be a clear or concise answer yet and independent demostication definitely can't be ruled out.







 
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