Stone boiling

Above-ground containers Above-ground cooking vessels used in stone boiling consisted of: bark baskets and bark containers; pottery; as well as suspended animal paunches and hides. the Māori of New Zealand have scaled-up wooden troughs known as , the name has since lent to introduced metal pots and pans. Below-ground containers Plains peoples are reported by Jack W. Brink, curator of archaeology with the Royal Alberta Museum, and Bob Dawe, assistant curator of archaeology with the Royal Alberta Museum, to have used below-ground boiling pits because the wind cooled above-ground containers before the rocks could efficiently heat the water which made the already fuel-intensive process less effective and viable. Rocks used in stone boiling were often fist-sized. At Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, no complete boiling stones were found after eight seasons of excavation, which according to Jack W. Brink and Bob Dawe attests to the rocks being reused. The rocks in question are hypothesized by Brink and Mr. Dawe to have been imported from a nearby river, and were more predominant in stone boiling than the available sandstone because the river rocks would heat up more slowly and transfer their heat more slowly making it a better material for cooking. == Usage ==

Purposes Indigenous peoples used stone boiling to produce nut oil, bone grease, and cook vegetable and meat stews. While the process is fuel-intensive, stone boiling, according to Gerald Anthony Oetelaar, professor of anthropology and archaeology at the University of Calgary, and Alwynne B. Beaudoin, head curator at the Royal Alberta Museum, helped to alleviate the pressures of increasing populations as more nutrients could be extracted from existing food sources. Bone grease, in particular, served an economic purpose on the plains as it is used in the production of pemmican. Pemmican was an important trade item and storable food source. Places Stone boiling was used across North America, especially among West and Northwest Coast peoples. Indigenous peoples living between 33- and 58-degrees latitude, and 100- and 130-degrees longitude are generally associated with the use of stone boiling based on Kit Nelson’s, professor of anthropology at Tulane University, model of 152 “cultural groups” drawn from three sources: the Database of North American Indians, Binford’s Hunter–Gatherer Database, and the eHRAF files. Access to the requisite fuels to heat stones is likely associated with stone boiling's use. For example, the Deg Hit'an and the Aleut used this cooking technique despite being above the 58-degrees latitude generalized threshold, which Harold E. Driver and William C. Massey attribute to their access to wood. == See also ==