For Native Americans, putting dinner on the table was a terrifying, oftentimes death-defying,
and always full-time job.
While many of their foods aren't even around anymore, others have cropped up as trendy
new dining options.
This is what Native Americans ate every day before Europeans came.
While the Clovis likely weren't the first people to set foot on American soil, they
were responsible for some of the earliest settlements, and they were such good hunters
they've been blamed for the mass extinction of one of their favorite meals: The mammoth.
The rise of the Clovis does coincide with the downfall of the mammoths, along with other
Pleistocene megafauna.
Bones found across 19 Clovis sites suggest that while they were eating a lot of mammoth,
they were also eating bison, mastodon, deer, rabbits, and caribou.
Their diet depended greatly on what was nearby, and megafauna seems to be the overwhelming
preference.
Clovis hunters in Mexico stalked the gomphotheres.
As seen from this small section of a gomphothere jaw, they were massive, elephant-like creatures.
They also went extinct during this period.
In the far north they hunted something even more surprising: Camels.
Camels roamed wide sections of what's now Canada, until the Clovis likely hunted them
to extinction.
The Folsom people lived in the area of the Great Plains from around 9,000 to 8,000 BCE.
Given the sheer number of knives, blades, and distinct leaf-shaped projectiles they
left behind, it's clear they were more hunters than gatherers.
The extinction of the mammoth forced later peoples to find something else to hunt, and
that new prey ended up being bison.
Because bison are faster, lighter, and smaller than mammoths, new technology, like the pointed
projectiles used by the Folsom, were developed to make hunting more efficient.
The Folsom didn't use spears like the Clovis before them.
Instead, they hunted with arrows and darts.
The Folsom people were so dependent on bison as a food source, they became migratory, following
the great herds across the plains of North America.
These bison weren't what we think of today.
They were bison antiquus, a massive, now-extinct ancestor of the modern-day bison.
Bison antiquus were 15 feet long, stood seven feet tall at the shoulder, and had horns with
a three-foot span.
Compare these ancient beasts to modern-day bison which are around ten feet long, and
you'll have a whole new appreciation for the Folsom who hunted these massive creatures
with bows and arrows.
Somewhere between 7,000 and 4,500 BCE, the Plano culture emerged.
In addition to their diet, which consisted primarily of bison, they were defined by their
hunting techniques, traditions, and the development of an innovative food preservation method.
The Plano hunted entire herds of bison at a time.
They transitioned from hunting a single animal to using a method known as the “buffalo
jump,” where large groups of hunters herded bison off the edge of a cliff.
Because of the preservation techniques they invented, the Plano were able to store all
of the meat for extended periods of time.
The meat was dried in the sun, then mixed with seeds, berries, and fat.
They would then pack this mixture into the animal's intestines making a prehistoric sausage
called pemmican.
Unfortunately for the Plano, shifts in weather patterns on the plains resulted in the reduction
of herd numbers.
With fewer bison to hunt, the entire society started to fade, until the Plano people ultimately
disappeared forever.
The Yurok are a native people that are actually still around in the 21st century.
In many respects, they still hold on to their old ways of living.
This includes a continued reliance on the same food sources they've utilized for generations.
"We have a family hold down away here that my ancestors have fished since the beginning
of time."
The tribe has traditionally lived on the Klamath River along the coast of California.
They have relied on foods like seaweed, mussels, salmon, sturgeon, and candlefish as the backbone
of their diet.
They've also drawn from the land, hunting deer and elk, but also thriving on acorns,
berries, and a variety of teas.
The Yurok have even been known to consume banana slugs.
Even today, the Yurok still harvest from the same mussel beds and wild salmonberry bushes
they have for generations, and they're hoping to teach future generations to do the same.
The Poverty Point Heritage Center is located in Louisiana, and it's said that at about
the same time Stonehenge was being built, Native Americans were moving around two million
cubic yards of dirt to build massive mounds, earthworks, and circles.
The Poverty Point site was mysteriously abandoned around 1,100 BCE, but the earthworks and traces
of the builders' everyday lives remained.
Most of these native peoples' food came from the water.
Fish was their primary protein source.
However, archaeologists have also discovered traces of nuts, aquatic plants, and tubers.
And because no signs of agriculture have been discovered at the sites, it's believed that
they were strictly hunter-gatherers.
Based on the remains discovered in the area, it's likely that the people of Poverty Point
hunted freshwater fish, turtles, snakes, alligators, frogs, and small mammals like rabbits and
squirrels.
Bones of waterfowl such as ducks and geese have also been discovered at many of these
sites.
The Anasazi are best known for their incredible cave dwellings chiseled out of rocks in the
American Southwest.
But they are notable for other reasons as well.
These ancient Americans developed a society that helped bridge the gap from being hunter-gatherers
to utilizing more modern agricultural technology.
Around 1,200 BCE, human beings began settling the region of the Southwest.
The territory they occupied was large enough to grow crops.
At first they focused on corn, and they didn't just grow it, they selectively cross-bred
crops in order to create new, hardier varieties.
By 500 BCE, the Anasazi were also growing beans and later added squash to their diet.
These vegetables were supplemented with meat from rabbits and deer.
It's also worth noting that they were experts at sun-drying their food.
Most of their veggies were sun-dried, and in the early years of their society, they
would store the results in baskets.
As the Anasazi matured, they turned to pottery for their food storage needs.
Traditional game and vegetables might not have been the only food the Anasazi fed on.
Historical records show signs that the Anasazi eventually started to descend into anarchy.
Leadership dispatched squads to keep the peace as villages turned on each other.
Eventually, village rivalries turned into massacres that ended in mass slaughter and
even cannibalism.
These horrors lasted for centuries, even after the arrival of the Spanish.
Between 100 BCE and 500 CE, the region of the North American continent that became the
U.S.A. was dominated by a group of related cultures known collectively as The Hopewell.
These Native Americans were also connected to a vast trade network that went all the
way into Yellowstone.
The results of this trading were that while many localities had their own diets, which
often included deer, fish, nuts, seeds, and berries, they also had access to goods from
other regions.
While it's not clear how much was traded and how much was brought in from seasonal migrations,
we do know that local goods were often found very far from home.
The Yellowstone area, for example, was a source of bighorn sheep and obsidian, while the Great
Lakes supplied copper and silver.
The Appalachian regions had mica and steatite, much of which was used for tools.
This made it possible to carry out the kind of agriculture that allowed mass production
of things like tobacco, sunflowers, and knotweed.
This was a huge revolution, because the agriculture that defined the Hopewell marked the official
shift of Native American culture into full agricultural societies.
It's not clear where the Oneota came from, but we do know that they settled along the
northern Mississippi River and its tributaries.
Given that one of the tools most commonly associated with them are stone scrapers used
for cleaning buffalo hides, it's a safe assumption that they hunted a lot of buffalo.
The Oneota appeared around 1,150 CE and faded away after coming into contact with French
trappers.
During the height of their society they survived by hunting bison and deer and occasionally
elk.
They were also adept at growing corn, beans, and squash.
The Oneota relied heavily on plants that are largely considered weeds today.
Goosefoot and pigweed were major dietary staples.
And though it's not common anymore, they were also known to have eaten dogs.
We know all of this because the Oneota stored many of their perishable food stables in deep,
bell-shaped pits that were covered with logs and hides to keep scavengers out.
This also helped keep the food fresh, and consequently has provided a treasure trove
of information to archaeologists.
The Fort Walton Culture is the name given to the people who flourished around northern
Florida and the Mississippi River delta in the centuries leading up to the European occupation
starting around 1,200 CE.
They emerged after a group called the Weeden Island Culture, and for the most part they
gravitated toward living in and around swamps and lakes.
One of the things they were particularly good at making was ceramics.
Their pottery vessels were tempered with shells, and that was needed for cooking the large
amounts of corn that they grew.
This corn was different from what we're used to eating today.
It was small, with kernels so hard, it gained the nickname "Flint Corn."
It was mostly used to make hominy, hence the importance of the cooking vessels.
Fishing and seafood were also a major part of life, as was something called the “Black
Drink.”
Made from Yaupon holly, it wasn't made for consumption, but rather for purging the stomach
as part of a ritual leading to the eating of green corn.
Interestingly, the drink didn't actually induce vomiting, instead the vomiting was a learned
behavior associated with the drink.
When you think of America's prehistoric mound-builders, you're probably thinking of the Cahokia.
They were at the apex of their power between 1,050 and 1,200 CE.
At the height of their society, the Cahokia Mounds Complex had tens of thousands of residents,
and all of those people needed to eat.
The Cahokia absolutely revered the hard-working farmers that kept the masses fed.
Farmers were respected, for good reason, because they cultivated and domesticated crops like
the bottle gourd, squash, knotweed, and sunflowers.
The Cahokia weren't so different from us in a major way.
They absolutely needed their caffeine pick-me-up.
Analysis of residue left on Cahokia drinking cups show that they loved cassina.
Cassina is a type of tea made from a native holly that comes with a healthy dose of caffeine.
It was so popular that once Europeans did show up, they documented its widespread daily
use.
In 2017, artist Roxanne Swentzell spoke about a project she'd been working on for a while:
A cookbook based on the ancient traditional foods of the Pueblo, updated for a modern
audience.
She did it in the hope of helping alleviate the pain of some of the chronic health problems
plaguing Native Americans of the 21st century.
The traditional diet she spoke of consisted of deer, elk, buffalo, antelope, and bighorn
sheep.
Then there were the plants that were gathered which included teas, berries, roots, and mushrooms.
And as far as farming, she utilized ingredients like beans, squash, and corn.
Swentzell recruited a group of people who agreed to eat nothing but traditional Pueblo
foods for three months.
Most of the volunteers had chronic health issues like diabetes and high cholesterol.
The results were impressive to say the least.
"We had no idea how successful this would be.
Things that doctors told us could never be fixed were gone."
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