‘Chilli peppers originated in the Americas —archaeobotany offers ecological strategies now'

Time of India

3 days ago

Katherine L. Chiou is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alabama
Katherine L. Chiou is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alabama. She tells Srijana Mitra Das in Times Evoke about
archaeobotany
— and the roots of plants:
Katherine Chiou works on South American plants from thousands of years ago. Yet, her enthusiasm travels effortlessly to today. Chiou describes her research to TE, 'I'm an archaeologist. Most of my work focuses on using plant remains to understand human relationships to the environment. I look at the impacts of
climate change
on past environments and
plant domestication
or how humans altered plants — and plants altered people.'
The archaeologist grows even more animated as we ask about one of h e r f a m o u s sites, the classic Maya village of Joya de Ceren, a pre-Hispanic farming community in El Salvador which, like Pompeii, was buried during an eruption of the Laguna Caldera volcano in AD 600, during the Maya empire's reign. The village had 200 agriculturalists — they built wattle and daub homes with grass-thatched roofs, organising different parts for sleeping, cooking, eating and storage, alongside maintaining kitchen gardens and fields. The volcanic explosion meant the villagers exited fast — but they left behind the materials of their daily lives, literally encased in ash.
HOT & HOTTER TO MILDEST? Originating in Mesoamerica, there are 4,000 varieties of chillies in the world — yet, there is a growing tendency to focus on a few kinds, causing the loss of biodiversity
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Chiou describes her fieldwork, 'Organic remains often don't preserve. Things that are carbonised, burned or charred, something insects won't eat or bacteria attack, last thousands of years. This village was completely covered in volcanic ash, which means everything got documented at a specific point in time. We could see the spatial layout of fields, gardens, a plaza, homes, etc. Usually, studies of the Maya era emphasise the monumental aspects of life, from the beautiful Maya pyramids to the intricate burials of elite members of society. With Ceren de Joya, we have a normal Maya village inhabited by common folk, where you can see the pathways they walked, the fields of maize they were growing, the corn stored in houses, walls where cacao grew, beans and crystals kept in niches, perhaps for ritual use, jars of squash, dried chili peppers hanging from the rafters, even a duck tied in a kitchen.'
Through such studies, Chiou focused on one South American plant, loved around the world now. She outlines, 'Chilli peppers are one of the world's most beloved crops — India, of course, goes all in on them.
Chilli peppers
have a mechanism for heat in terms of being pungent. People around the world enjoy that and grow an emotional attachment to the plant. We recognise five different species of chilli peppers, different ones prevailing in diverse regions — India has a lot of capsicum chinense, the US, capsicum annuum.'
Chiou elaborates, 'Humans began to experiment early with chilli across the Americas. The earliest evidence is a seed dating to 10,000 years ago from coastal Peru. Pre-Hispanic cultures show the chilli pepper on various kinds of iconography. It had culinary uses but people also used it medicinally. In the highland Andes, there were subterranean tunnels where priests congregated, probably burning chilli peppers to create smoke while ingesting hallucinogens. Later, the Inca burnt large piles of chilli peppers to create a tear gas and ward off the Spanish conquest. Inca writings say Inca tables should have chilli and salt and there are images of deities holding chilli peppers.'
Colonialism changed the plant — and the lives of those who loved it. Chiou explains, 'With the arrival of Columbus, chilli peppers start moving into Eurasia and Africa. The Indian subcontinent got it quite early. It got indigenised — the chilli became so important to people, it seems it was always there.'
And yet, the chilli shrank. Chiou says, 'There's a constriction in the number and types of chilli peppers grown now. Supermarkets in the US have limited varieties. This suits an industrial capitalist system, with more standardised tastes for products. But there is a loss of genetic material. Diverse types are left aside for the more commercially viable.'
The selection of chillies has even deeper roots. Chiou says, 'I researched one species spread over 7,000 years in coastal Peru. Early on, there was a lot of diversity in types of chilli peppers there. As time went by, a monoculture developed — eventually, people were eating just one type. It is possible the Inca rulers expressed a size preference. There was a dramatic increase in the size of seeds. Different crops the Inca grew became bigger — there's a maize variety called Cuzco gigante with large kernels. We see the same with chillis. Then, once the Spanish came, suddenly, chillis became smaller again.'
ARCHIVED: Both Mayan pyramids and cassava leaves offer histories
Such insights compose archaeobotany. Chiou says, 'Our field provides evidence that is more representative of wide swathes of society. Typically, there are records of only higher-status individuals or a preference for documenting some things, not others. Archaeobotany looks at the most mundane things — the scholar James Deetz calls these 'small things forgotten'. By studying how people were truly living in their environment, we can discuss multi-cropping, environmental engineering, composting, etc. — in Moche sites in Peru (200- 800 CE), we found evidence of people making fertiliser, using fish and plant remains through droughts and conflict. Many of those botanical varieties are now disappearing. Archaeobotany documents them, giving insights into how we might construct our behaviour today.'