Toward linking maize chemistry to archaeological agricultural sites in theNorth American Southwest

Maize (Zea mays L.) was the staple domestic food crop for Ancestral Pueblo people throughout the northern American Southwest. It is thought to have be en the basic food of the inhabitants of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, a locatio n that was a major centre of Ancestral Pueblo building and population durin g the 11th and early 12th centuries AD. Modern heirloom varieties of Native American corn have been difficult to grow in experimental fields in Chaco Canyon. Given an abundance of apparent storage structures in Chacoan buildi ngs, it is possible that some corn recovered from archaeological contexts, was imported form surrounding areas. The ultimate goal of this research is to determine whether the corn in Chao Canyon was grown locally or imported. This paper establishes the feasibility of a method to accomplish this goal . This study reports the results of using inductively coupled plasma-mass s pectrometric (ICP-MS) instrumentation to determine chemical constituents of experimental fields and modern heirloom varieties of Native American corn. Analysis of 19 elements is adequate to differentiate soil and corn from th ree field areas. These results are promising: however, a number of problems , including post-depositional alterations in maize, remain to be solved.