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A publication of the Archaeological Institute of America

Scientific analyses and experimental archaeology determine that mysterious, 1000year-old balls of clay found at Yucatn site were used in cooking
Monday, February 11, 2013

What is it?
Cooking Balls
Date
ca. A.D. 800-950
Material
Pottery
Found
Escalera al Cielo, Yucatn, Mxico.
Dimensions
1 to 2 inches in diameter, approximately the size of a handful of clay.

(Photo: Courtesy of Bolonchen Regional Archaeological Project)

When archaeologist Stephanie Simms


of Boston University uncovered dozens
of fired clay balls at the site of Escalera
al Cielo in Yucatn, Mexico, she wasnt
sure what to make of them. At first I
thought they could be slingshot
ammunition or raw materials for pottery
production, says Simms. But by using
sophisticated techniques to examine
the artifacts on the microscopic level,
as well as a battery of experiments,
Simms and her team were able to
reconstruct their entire historyfrom
raw material to manufacture to use
and conclude that the balls had, in fact,
been used for cooking.
The cooking balls were formed with
local clay left over from pottery
production or collected from the
immediate vicinity, allowed to dry, and
then fired. Once they had hardened,
they were used to line a shallow pit and
a fire was built on top of them. When
the fire was reduced to embers, food
was placed on the spheres, which
would distribute the heat evenly. The
entire oven was then covered in leaves
and earth to seal in the heat. Simms
found evidence that the balls had been
heated to between 900 and 1,300
degrees
Fahrenheit,
temperatures
consistent with cooking fires, and that
there were traces of starch residues
from maize, beans, squash, and
arrowroot on the artifacts.

There is ample ethnographic evidence of these of this type of pit oven, usually lined with
stones, in the region. Its also possible that the cooking balls were heated and placed directly
into pots containing soups or stews.

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