Minisymposium 5: 10,000 years of maize

Abs # 15002: The Archaeology of Early Maize Dispersal and Use in Latin America

Presenter:	Piperno, Dolores , pipernod@tivoli.si.edu
Authors	Piperno, Dolores  (A)
Affiliations:	(A): Dept. of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

The archaeology of maize (Zea mays L.) is a complex subject and it is only during the past 10 to 15 years that archaeobotanists have started to put flesh to arguments concerning its earliest dispersals into the tropical forest and other areas south of Mexico. Unlike major cereals domesticated in the Old World (e.g., wheat, barley, rice, millets), maize did not become a major staple crop anywhere in the Americas until thousands of years after it was initially taken under cultivation and domesticated. The earliest history of maize is still to be documented with archaeological evidence, although numerous molecular data on maize’s ancestry indicate that maize’s hearth was the Central Balsas watershed of southwestern Mexico. A growing corpus of archaeological and paleoecological (lake core) data from phytolith, starch grain and pollen studies indicates that maize had spread into the tropical forest of southern Central America and northern South America by 7000 to 5000 ¹⁴C yr. B.P.. At that time, it was one among a number of root and seed crops that were being grown. Today, maize is of considerable importance in the ceremonial life of indigenous communities, and its initial spread out of Mexico may have been related in part to its desirability for chicha production and feasting.