Ethnobotany of Prosopis spp.; past evience of the fruit use and experimenta archaeology applied to the interpretation of ancient food processing

Abstract

This chapter presents a wide panorama of Prosopis traditional significance around the world, making emphasis on present and ancient uses of the pods, and especially on food processing. Ethno and Palaeoethnobotanical approaches are employed, including Experimental Archaeology, to analyze published data. Similar complex systems of post-processing intensification methods and comparable final edible products were recognized either for traditional societies of the Argentinean-Paraguayan-Chilean and the Mexican-Texan center of diversification of the genus. However, it is in the Northwest cultural area of the latter, together with Cuyo and Patagonia, where ten millennia development of Traditional Botanical Knowledge associated to Prosopis pod food processing could be recognized, which accompanies social changes in subsistence strategy patterns. This is consistent with the archaeological record of Northern Chile and South Peru. It is suggested that Prosopis pod gathering and processing may have allowed risk-management and human resilience in arid setting, especially in the biogeographical South American Transition Zone.