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scienceAlso in this section: So how did ancient Panamanians make their gravy? by Eric Jackson Actually, its unclear that the oldest Panamanian chefs of whom we know used it to thicken gravy. But Princeton biologist Dr. Dolores Piperno does note that the data collected from very ancient grindstones indicates that thousands of years ago Panamanians used arrowroot. Piperno, who has done a lot of her ground-breaking work in Panama, was recently in town to participate in the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's annual science seminar. Her most famous scientific discovery was that on stones used to grind starch grains, microscopic particles remain for a very long time, and even though DNA analysis may not be possible with such small samples, these particles include cell vacuoles called plastids, which are "actually the places where plants store their energy." These fossilized plastids are specific as to the genders and species of different plants, which can be identified under a powerful microscope. Using this technique, Dr. Piperno and her colleagues have been able to determine, for example, that the Panamanians who left behind the oldest metates (grindstones) yet found and examined ate yams, squashes, corn and palm fruit. The latter, however, did not include piva nuts (also known as pixbae, piba or palm peach). Those were apparently much later imports from Amazonia. (It doesn't seem that the oldest Panamanians were vegetarians, but one does not look at plastids on grindstones to discover which fish, molluscs, birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals ancient peoples ate. For that you look primarily at the fossilized bones, shells, scales and feathers in very old human habitats, particularly their garbage dumps. The Smithsonian's Dr. Richard Cooke is the renowned expert in that field of Panamanian archaeology.) In some of her early published research about plastid analyses from metates found in Panama, Piperno more or less disproved the prevailing theories about where and when corn was first domesticated, by finding it here before it was thought to have been developed. But the search for corn's origins is still underway, she told The Panama News. So far the trail has been taking molecular biologists and archaeologists to the banks of the Rio Balsa in southwestern Mexico. "We have no evidence as yet as to its earliest domestication," she added. How far back can scientists go with the analysis of plastids from ground plant remains? It's a good question, Piperno answered, one that scientists are debating. The oldest ground food remains examined in this fashion so far came from a grinding stone found in northern Israel, which dates back some 20,000 years. So is that back to the dawn of agriculture? Dr. Piperno said that the find in Israel actually goes back earlier than that, to a time when people gathered and ground wild grains to eat.
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