Huitlacoche (pronounced wheat-lah-CO-chay) is a mushroom that only grows on ears of corn. It gives an earthy flavor to soup, tamales, and other traditional Tex-Mex dishes. If Huitlacoche is too much of a mouthful, you can use the new name by which it's sold in cans: Mexican Truffle. THE BASKETMAKERS: Another name for Utsilago maydis fungus is "corn FARMERS WITH SPEAR-THROWERS This girl is learning to use an atlatl at FAMSI's smut", because of its black smudgey spores. It is "Basketmaker" is the name archaeologists now give to a Native American Archaeology Kids Camp in Crystal River, Florida. culture in the southwestern United States. more common during droughts, and ruins the crops. The Basketmaker periods go from 1200 B.C. to 750 A.D. We know from artifacts that they were accomplished gardeners of squash and corn all along. The modern varieties we enjoy owe a great deal to their careful cultivation choices. They lived in Then again, pound for pound, Mexican Truffle is farming towns, or "pueblos", so they are also called "ancestral Puebloans". worth far more than the corn on which it grows. So thrower"... but that's not as exciting. and some say Ottle-Ottle but some people say A

A pretty word with an ugly meaning... TLA remember: One person's agrarian nightmare can be Settlements of Basketmaker culture people are found all the way from New Mexico and Arizona to south Texas. 100 years ago, archaeologists gave them the exotic TL is more properly pronounced another person's culinary treasure! sounding name of "Anasazi". Ana sazi is Navajo for "Enemy Ancestors". It was wrongly guessed that they were a frightening race of cannibals who suddenly drove At-Lattle. everybody else to live high up on barren cliffs. Now we know that back then, those places were near lush forests with streams. The cultural evidence for eating human

meat just isn't there. So, modern archaeologists don't use this insulting made-up Y ou word anymore. The Tale of the Mammoth's Tailflap could Addle-Addle

A cave painting from The cave paintings of Rouffignac were suspected of We don't know what these folks called themselves, but we don't think that they were say "spear Rouffignac, France being fake for many years. The oldest writing about the any more hostile than anyone else back then, anywhere. They didn't leave behind much pottery but they were extremely good at weaving textiles, nets, and baskets. 15,000 years old cave is by Francoise de Belleforest in1675. We also know that they were still using the spear-thrower and dart technology Mammoths were not known to have a two-lobed called the atlatl. We've found intact examples in caves alongside precious bags trunk until the 1900's, when frozen specimens were found. of corn and squash seeds. A forger might have made a lucky guess, since African elephants also have two "fingers". Modern people often call a spear-thrower an "atlatl", a Nahuatl word (from central Mexico). The atlatl is really a world-wide weapon. We have examples of atlatls from Africa 25,000 years However... Amazing Cave Finds! old. In Peru, the atlatl is still used for hunting and it's called an estolcia. In Australia, it's a woomera. The oldest example known is 27,000 years old, and it was found in France. The Modern elephants don't have French call it a propulseur. No matter what your ethnic background, you can be sure a little flap or pad at the base of your ancestors used them. the tail, which the Rouffignac artists This atlatl was used by hooking the first two fingers faithfully recorded. This feature wasn't through the holes. Atlatls were still in use in the 1600's. known about until modern times. This is This one is from Tarasca, and it is in the Smithsonian one of the many reasons that, even without now. (The Tarascans were the enemies of the Aztecs.) dating methods, we know the paintings are These atlatls were found in Broken Roof Cave, authentic, and not a hoax. in New Mexico. (Peabody Museum) It's straight and has no weight. There are many ways to make an atlatl!

one piece of wood Reconstruct a Basketmaker atlatl 24" One of the last steps in making an atlatl is to expose it to steam or boiling water, and put it between two ledges, with a weight in the middle to bend it. 1/2" 5" 1/4" 7/8" 3/4" 3" a scrap of thin leather 1" X 7"

a "boatstone": a small oval rock with a flat side

The atlatl weight can be tied on with three But is this authentic...? No. This method is a guess. pieces of sinew or yarn. The first two pieces Wood and sinew are very fragile. They usually don't survive after thousands of years. An intact piece of 1/2" tie the boatstone on loosely. The the third wood or bone this old is very rare! piece goes between the atlatl and the weight, 3" and tightens the first two cords. If the hunter doesn't like the balance, the third cord can be loosened to move the weight, and re-tied.