Indigenous Plant Mastery in Glen Canyon Country
By Bob Hembree
The Desert Pharmacy
How Ancient Peoples Turned Poison into Food
Archaeological Discovery Reveals 10,900-Year-Old Potato Cultivation
A microscopic discovery in a Utah rock shelter has rewritten the history of potato cultivation in North America, revealing that indigenous peoples were processing a toxic wild potato species thousands of years before their South American counterparts began farming the crop that would eventually feed the world.
Dr. Lisbeth Louderback, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Curator of Archaeology at the University of Utah, made the breakthrough discovery while examining starch residues embedded in ancient grinding stones recovered from North Creek Shelter near Escalante. The 10,900-year-old potato starch granules she identified belonged to Solanum jamesii, commonly known as the Four Corners potato, a naturally poisonous plant no larger than a walnut.¹
"Grinding plant tissues with manos and metates releases granules that get lodged in the tiny cracks of stone, preserving them for thousands of years," Louderback explained. Her analysis revealed 323 total starch granules from 24 stone tools, with nine granules definitively assigned to S. jamesii and 61 additional granules classified as likely or possibly from the same species.²
Toxic Plant Required Complex Processing Knowledge
The Four Corners potato presents a significant challenge to anyone attempting to consume it. The small tubers contain high levels of glycoalkaloids, compounds that create an intensely bitter taste and can cause serious illness or death if consumed without proper preparation.
Indigenous peoples developed sophisticated processing techniques that transformed the poisonous tubers into nutritious food. Cynthia Wilson, a Navajo tribal member who founded Utah Diné Bikéyah's Traditional Foods Program, explained the traditional preparation: "The Navajo and Hopis boiled the potatoes with white clay to reduce the toxic glycoalkaloids."³
Wilson, who holds an MS in Nutrition from the University of Utah and is pursuing a PhD at UC Berkeley in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, emphasizes the deeper relationship Native peoples maintain with food. "Food is a living, breathing being who holds stories, songs, prayers, gifts and powers that are bestowed on us as relatives," she said. "Indigenous food activists today are reclaiming our oldest understandings of our individual relationships with food, including the spiritual elements."⁴
Nutritional Value Exceeded Modern Varieties
Despite its small size, the Four Corners potato offers exceptional nutritional benefits. Louderback noted that "in prehistory, the potato would have provided a reliable source of carbohydrates, protein, and minerals to hunter-gatherers in the American Southwest and significantly improved dietary quality."⁵
"This potato could be just as important as those we eat today not only in terms of a food plant from the past, but as a potential food source for the future," Louderback added, highlighting its potential relevance for modern agriculture facing climate challenges.⁶
Contemporary Relevance and Research Programs
Wilson's Traditional Foods Program has received substantial federal funding to continue Four Corners potato research, including a $95,000 USDA specialty food crop grant and $225,000 National Science Foundation grant. The program collaborates with more than 30 Indigenous farmers across the region.⁷
The discovery challenges established scientific understanding about agricultural origins in North America. Louderback's research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, represents the earliest evidence of wild potato use in North America, predating South American potato cultivation by thousands of years.⁸
Masters of Fire and Water
Engineering the Desert Landscape
Archaeological Evidence of Landscape Management
Before Lake Powell transformed Glen Canyon into a massive reservoir in the 1960s, the landscape contained evidence of sophisticated indigenous management systems. Emergency archaeological salvage operations conducted from 1957-1963 documented over 2,000 archaeological sites across 180 miles of river canyon, revealing evidence spanning at least 12,000 years of human occupation.⁹
The University of Utah led the archaeological work under Jesse D. Jennings, with 16 major sites excavated beginning in summer 1958. The project produced multiple volumes in the University of Utah Anthropological Papers series, documenting the scale of indigenous presence in Glen Canyon.¹⁰
Cultural Burning Created Productive Landscapes
Recent research has quantified the effectiveness of traditional burning practices used by indigenous communities. Studies of Karuk and Yurok cultural burning in California demonstrate measurable benefits for resource production and fire management.
Research published in Fire Ecology journal found that cultural burning produced a 13-fold increase in basketry stem production one growing season post-burn, with 6-fold greater stem production compared to shrubs at wildfire sites two growing seasons later. Cultural burn gathering rates reached 4.9 stems per minute per individual versus 1.6 stems per minute at wildfire sites.¹¹
A comprehensive Stanford University study covering more than 100,000 square kilometers of California forests over 20 years found that low-intensity fires provide a 60% reduction in catastrophic fire risk, with protective effects lasting at least 6 years.¹²
Historical Scale of Indigenous Fire Management
Oregon State University research revealed the vast scale of pre-colonial burning practices. Monte Carlo simulation models of Karuk ancestral territory showed 6,972 cultural ignitions occurred annually across 264,399 hectares of managed lands. Historically, pre-1850 burning in California totaled 2-5 million hectares annually (5-12 million acres), compared to California's current 37,000 hectares of prescribed fire.¹³
Water Management in Arid Environments
While formal terrace systems were limited in Glen Canyon proper, archaeological evidence suggests seasonal rather than permanent occupation by hunters and farmers who lived permanently on highlands. The challenging environment required sophisticated knowledge of water sources and seasonal resource management.¹⁴
Wilson emphasized the indigenous approach to land relationships: "I was always taught that we don't own the land, the land owns us. And it is our obligation, it's our duty to give back to the landscape and to always build our relationship through providing offerings to the landscape."¹⁵
Nature's Medicine Cabinet
When Traditional Knowledge Informed Modern Research
Zuni Medicinal Plant Knowledge System
The Zuni people developed one of the most comprehensive documented medicinal plant systems in North America. Academic research conducted during summers of 1977-1978 involved interviews with 27 Zuni medicine men and elders, documenting 138 plant species with medicinal uses described for 49 species.¹⁶
This systematic documentation, published by Scott Camazine and Robert A. Bye in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology, built upon earlier ethnobotanical work by Matilda Coxe Stevenson in 1915, providing a scientific framework for understanding traditional medicinal knowledge.¹⁷
Pharmaceutical Research and Traditional Knowledge
Contemporary pharmaceutical development draws significantly from traditional knowledge, with approximately 40% of pharmaceutical products deriving from nature and traditional medicine. Notable examples include artemisinin, derived from traditional Chinese medicine, which earned the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for malaria treatment.¹⁸
However, successful collaboration between pharmaceutical companies and indigenous communities remains challenging. Shaman Pharmaceuticals (1989-2001) represented an early attempt at ethical bioprospecting, developing Provir and Virend treatments from South American trees with traditional medicinal uses, but ultimately failed commercially despite promising research results.¹⁹
Ethical Frameworks for Traditional Knowledge
The documentation and research of traditional medicinal knowledge operates within frameworks designed to protect intellectual property rights and maintain tribal control over sensitive information. Many medicinal plant applications remain proprietary knowledge within tribal communities, shared only according to traditional protocols and governance systems.
Cultural Survival and other indigenous rights organizations have established principles for benefit-sharing arrangements that ensure economic benefits from traditional knowledge return to the communities that developed and preserved it, recognizing these knowledge systems as equivalent to modern pharmaceutical research and development.²⁰
Climate Lessons from the Past
Why Ancient Farming Offers Modern Solutions
Traditional Varieties Excel Under Environmental Stress
A comprehensive meta-analysis of 41 peer-reviewed publications comparing traditional crop varieties with modern cultivars revealed important differences in performance under varying conditions. While modern varieties typically provide higher yields under optimal farming conditions, traditional landraces often deliver superior provisioning services under non-optimal conditions and harsh environmental circumstances.²¹
Research on drought tolerance shows traditional varieties demonstrating greater resilience to higher temperatures and lower rainfall. By 2016, 22% of total U.S. corn acreage used drought-tolerant varieties, increasing from just 2% in 2012, indicating growing recognition of stress-tolerance importance.²²
Nutritional Advantages of Heritage Varieties
Traditional crop varieties often provide superior nutritional profiles compared to modern hybrids. Heirloom tomatoes contain three times more Vitamin A than modern hybrids, while heirloom spinach provides twice the folic acid of hybrid types. Heirloom sweet potatoes offer 50% more beta carotene than standard commercial varieties.²³
Seed Banking Programs Preserve Traditional Knowledge
Native Seeds/SEARCH, founded in 1983, represents the largest regional seed conservation program in the southwestern United States. The organization conserves more than 1,800 regional seed varieties in climate-controlled storage, with two-thirds of varieties originating from Native American communities tied to farming knowledge of more than 50 Indigenous groups.²⁴
The organization operates several distribution programs, including a Native American Seed Request Program providing 10 free packets per household annually, and Community Seed Grants offering up to 30 free seed packets for organizations. Seed exchange agreements require farmers to return five times the original amount after harvest (three times for Native farmers).²⁵
Contemporary Applications and Challenges
Wilson's work through Utah Diné Bikéyah's Traditional Foods Program demonstrates practical applications of traditional agricultural knowledge. The program has received significant federal funding and works with more than 30 Indigenous farmers to maintain traditional varieties and growing methods.
The integration of traditional ecological knowledge into modern agricultural systems faces challenges including climate changes that may make historical growing conditions unavailable and knowledge gaps resulting from cultural disruption. However, successful programs demonstrate the feasibility of preserving traditional varieties while adapting to contemporary conditions.
Glen Canyon's Submerged Legacy
The creation of Lake Powell flooded over 2,000 documented archaeological sites containing evidence of indigenous agricultural and resource management systems developed over millennia. The salvage operations led by the University of Utah from 1957-1963 could only document a fraction of the cultural knowledge represented in these submerged landscapes.²⁶
As drought conditions continue to lower Lake Powell's water levels, archaeological sites are re-emerging, providing new opportunities to document traditional knowledge systems. At least 25% of originally documented sites remain on dry land, offering ongoing research possibilities.²⁷
The surviving knowledge keepers among Four Corners tribes continue to preserve traditional agricultural wisdom through programs that combine cultural preservation with climate adaptation research. Their work demonstrates that ancient solutions can address modern challenges, offering guidance for creating resilient food systems capable of thriving under changing environmental conditions.
Footnotes
- Louderback, L.A., and Pavlik, B.M. (2017). "Starch granule evidence for the earliest potato use in North America." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114(29): 7606-7610.
- PotatoPro. (2017). "Starch residue in ancient tool proves potato use in Utah goes back 10,000+ years."
- Harvard Divinity School Video. (2024). "Religion and Democratic Ideals: Rematriation, Land, and Healing."
- Wilson, Cynthia. (2018). "Commentary: Reclaiming ancestral foodways in honor of Indigenous Peoples' Day." Salt Lake Tribune, October 7.
- Louderback, L.A. (2020). "In Search of Prehistoric Potatoes." Archaeology Magazine, March/April.
- Natural History Museum of Utah. "Indigenous Foods - Stay Curious, Utah!"
- Utah Diné Bikéyah Traditional Foods Program documentation.
- Louderback & Pavlik, PNAS (2017).
- National Park Service Glen Canyon Archaeological Documentation.
- University of Utah Anthropological Papers, Glen Canyon Series.
- Greenler, S.M., et al. (2024). "Blending Indigenous and western science: Quantifying cultural burning impacts in Karuk Aboriginal Territory." Ecological Applications.
- Stanford University. (2023). "Low-intensity fire as a mechanism of coexistence." Science Advances.
- Oregon State University. (2024). "Research showcases Indigenous stewardship's role in forest ecosystem resilience."
- Glen Canyon Archaeological Survey documentation.
- Science Moab Interview with Cynthia Wilson.
- Camazine, Scott & Robert A. Bye. (1980). "A study of the medical ethnobotany of the Zuni Indians of New Mexico." Journal of Ethnopharmacology 2(4): 365-388.
- Stevenson, Matilda Coxe. (1915). "Ethnobotany of the Zuni Indians." SI-BAE Annual Report #30.
- World Health Organization. "Traditional medicine has a long history of contributing to conventional medicine."
- Cultural Survival documentation on pharmaceutical bioprospecting.
- Cultural Survival. "The Source of Our Cures: Pharmaceutical benefits and indigenous knowledge."
- Massimiliano, F., et al. (2018). "More than Yield: Ecosystem Services of Traditional versus Modern Crop Varieties Revisited." Sustainability 10(8): 2834.
- USDA Economic Research Service. (2019). "Drought-Tolerant Corn in the United States."
- Survival Seeds. "Exploring The Connection Between Heirloom Seeds And Food Heritage."
- Native Seeds/SEARCH organizational documentation.
- Native Seeds/SEARCH program descriptions.
- University of Utah Glen Canyon Archaeological Salvage Project records.
- KNAU. (2022). "Archaeological sites once thought lost under Lake Powell reappear as water drops."