Pecan food potential in prehistoric North America
2000
Hall, G.D.
Pecans are native to a number of states in southern and midwestern United States and to scattered locations in Mexico, but are most common in Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. They have been growing over their present range in the U. S. for at least 8000 years and, based on archaeological and ethnohistoric data, were an important source of food for people who inhabited certain areas within this range in prehistoric and early historic times. In addition to being fixed in space and highly productive, pecan groves produce a food that requires little processing to be suitable for human consumption. However, the groves have strong biennial production cycles so that yield in a given region can vary dramatically from year to year. The groves comprising the greatest concentrations of pecans in the U. S. may have influenced the formation of prehistoric territories and thus affected interregional exchange through reciprocal resource-sharing alliances.
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