Direct detection of maize in pottery residues via compound specific stable carbon isotope analysis

Abstract

Discovering what was cooked in a pot by identifying lipids trapped in the potsherds has been a highly successful method developed in recent years. Here the authors identify a compound which shows the pots had been used to process maize – probably the most important foodstuff in later prehistoric North America. The uptake of maize is confirmed as coincident with the Mississippian fluorescence.