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Table of Contents

• Iowa’s Earliest Residents
  • Rummells-Maske Site
  • Carlisle Cache
• Prairie Peninsula in Iowa Over the Last 18,000 Years
• Cast of Plants
  • Sunflower
  • Little Barley
  • Goosefoot or Lamb’s Quarters
  • Marshelder or Sumpweed
  • Erect Knotweed
  • Maygrass
  • Gourds and Squashes
  • Maize or Corn
  • Beans
  • Tobacco
• How Do We Know?
• Cultivated or Domesticated?
• Major References for Crops of Ancient Iowa

Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.)

Common Bean is a native cultigen of the South and Central American tropics, was the last major crop plant to become established prehistorically in the eastern United States and Midwest. Together with corn and squash, beans formed the triumvirate of Native American gardens—the so-called “Three Sisters”—repeatedly described in the Euroamerican accounts at the time of historic contact.

Spreading first to the American Southwest over 2,000 years ago, it took more than 1,000 years before beans arrived in the Midwest. From one species, hundreds of historic and modern varieties were grown including kidney, lima, pinto, and navy beans. Beans appeared in Iowa as early as A.D. 1250, reported in quantity in Late Prehistoric Glenwood sites in the western part of the state, and rarely in Mill Creek contexts. Beans found in Glenwood lodges are small, about the size of modern navy beans. Beans are also recovered from many Oneota sites including those occupied at the time Europeans first arrived.

Beans added nitrogen to early gardens, enriching the soil for companion plants, particularly corn. Corn stalks in turn offered a support for the bean vines to climb. Together corn and beans alone supplied a diet complete in plant protein. Both could be dried and stored for use throughout the winter and kept as seed for the following year’s crop. Prepared by boiling, parching, frying, and grinding, beans were often cooked with corn, squash, and meat. They were made into soups, cakes, and bread.

Major References

Adair, Mary 2010
Adrain, Tiffany S. 2003
Asch, David L. 1995
Asch, David L. and William Green 1992
Dunne, Michael T. 2006

Image Credit:
Wendy and Michael Scullin
Tracey Slotta @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database
Melanie Riley and Mary Kathryn Rocheford, OSA (map)