Maygrass.
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Maygrass bundle from an
Ozark dry shelter.
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By the time American Bottom residents were introduced to maize, they had
several hundred years of cultural experience maintaining gardens around their
villages. The broad spectrum diet of the Woodland Period included domesticated
plants such as squash, sunflower, marshelder, goosefoot, and maygrass, as well
as the fruits, seeds, and nuts of numerous wild plants like grape, blackberry
or raspberry, persimmon, hickory nuts, and acorns. Primary sources of meat in
their diet were fish, white-tailed deer, small-bodied mammals like rabbits,
squirrels and raccoons, and various aquatic fowl, particuarly swans, geese and
ducks.
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