Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities Journal

Maize has been a significant part of the North American diet for over 2000 years. Archaeological work has placed the origins of maize in the Midwest Native American diet at c. 900 CE; this timeline is based on the identification of maize kernels and cobs. Since humans began domesticating maize nearly 10,000 years ago, they have invented many ways to cook and process the plant. One of the many ways including a process called nixtamalization, which consists of soaking and boiling maize in a solution to enhance its nutritional value producing foods such as tortillas and hominy. To find evidence of this process, we apply the findings from archaeologists Johnson and Marston (2020) who conducted experimental analysis of nixtamalized maize to our analysis. The objective of this research project is to analyze ceramic samples from the pre-colonial Illinois site of East St Louis (ESTL) to identify the first direct evidence of nixtamalization in the Midwest region. The ceramics were washed with purified water, starches were extracted from this wash, and the sample was examined under a microscope. This research is the first step in establishing a timeline of nixtamalization use in the Midwest region, as well as deepening our understanding of the periodical depth of Indigenous cooking practices. This work supports existing indirect evidence of nixtamalization during the Mississippian period of the US Midwest and highlights the persistence of Indigenous foodways despite the impacts of colonialism.