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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

Goosefoot (Chenopodium berlandieri Moq.)

Goosefoot or Lamb’s Quarters is one of a number of wild varieties belonging to the genus Chenopodium found in eastern North America today. It occurs in fields, gardens, waste areas, and forest edges, and thrives in full sun and partial shade. It sprouts easily from seed, does not require orderly cultivation, and may reach a height of eight feet. It begins to flower in June and fruits thereafter. Another burst of flowering and fruiting from a second crop may occur in late summer or early fall.

Chenopodium was important and widely grown throughout prehistoric North America, although its origin as a native plant or one introduced from Mexico is unclear. Recent evidence suggests the former. The oldest archaeologically documented domesticated Chenopodium seeds in eastern North America come from two rockshelters in Kentucky and date 3800 years ago.

Goosefoot is widely reported in abundance at archaeological sites in Iowa from Late Archaic through Woodland times. Only maize occurs more frequently. Late Archaic features at Sand Run West (13LA38) and Terminal Archaic and Early Woodland features at the Gast Spring site (13LA152), dating 2,800 to 3,000 years ago, produced domesticated goosefoot. It remained an important crop for later prehistoric economies, even after the introduction of corn. Domesticated Chenopodium makes up 50 to 90 percent of identifiable small seeds found in late prehistoric Great Oasis and Mill Creek sites.

Early peoples ate both the nutritious starchy seeds and leaves of Chenopodium. Young plants are edible as greens in early summer, the tips of the plant until midsummer. The greens are a rich source of vitamin A, thiamine, and riboflavin. The seeds—parched, roasted, or boiled—provide high amounts of carbohydrates and minor amounts of fats and proteins. Ceramic cooking pots appear in the archaeological record at about the same time as cultivated plants like goosefoot— probably no coincidence. The seeds from early starchy and oily-seeded cultigens required extended cooking to make them more edible. Historic tribes dried, cooked, and ground goosefoot seeds into flour to make a bread and thickener for soup or stew.

Although goosefoot is frequently reported at Iowa sites, early identifications still pose problems of classification. Only instances where researchers identified seeds to genus and species, or expressed confidence that the archaeological specimens likely represented cultivated or domesticated forms, are listed on the table and at the site locations shown on the map.

Major References

Adrain, Tiffany S. 2003
Asch, David L. and William Green 1992
Dunne, Michael T. 1997
Dunne, Michael T. and Green, William 1998
Green, William and Shelly Gradwell 1995
Jones, Douglas W. 1993
Lopinot, Neal H. 1987
Smith, Bruce 1996

Photographs of goosefoot and seeds

Image Credit:
Wendy and Michael Scullin
Melanie Riley and Mary Kathryn Rocheford, OSA (map)