Maize

A tall cereal grass widely grown in Mexico, South America, and the US which originated as a staple food in Mexico about 9000 years ago. A field of maize is a milpa. No wild maize appears to exist today. The plant originated in the Central Mexican Highlands, where pollen belonging to maize, or one of its near relatives, has been found in cores from Mexico City, dated to between 60,000-80,000 bp. The earliest macrofossils of maize appear in the Tehuacan Valley in Mexico between 7000-5000 BC. These early finds have very small cobs and kernels and it has been suggested that they come from wild maize. Archaeologically, the oldest cultivated maize in Mexico is from the Coxcatlan period in the Tehuacan Valley (4800-3500 BC), and maize appears in the caves of Tamaulipas, northeast Mexico, around 3200 BC. In South America, the oldest direct evidence comes from the Valdivia culture of Ecuador, around 3000, though maize phytoliths were found in the preceding Vegas period, c 6000 BC. It was in fairly general use in the southwestern US by 1000 BC, though it did not reach the eastern Woodlands until about the time of Christ. It was an important early domesticated food plant in the New World and one of the trio which provided a balanced diet for early American farmers (the other two being beans and squash).

Zea mays (maize) is one of the cereal plants, nowadays grown widely in the USA, Mexico and South America, southeastern Europe and Southwest Asia. It was an important early domesticated food plant in the New World and one of the trio which provided a balanced diet for early American farmers (the other two being beans and squash). The plant originated in the Central Mexican Highlands, where pollen belonging to maize, or one of its near relatives, has been found in cores from Mexico City, dated to between 60,000 and 80,000 bp. The earliest macrofossils of maize appear in the Tehuacan Valley in Mexico between 7000 and 5000 be. These early finds have very small cobs and kernels and it has been suggested that they come from wild The earliest evidence of its cultivation comes from the succeeding Coxcatlan phase in the Tehuacan Valley (4800-3500 be). Remains dated to <3000 be were also found further to the north at Tamaulipas. Maize first appears in South American contexts on the Peruvian coast in the late Pre-ceramic Period VI; its earliest appearance in North America dates to c2500 be (see Bat Cave). Although diffusion from Mesoamerica is the most commonly held explanation for its occurrence elsewhere, independent domestication is still sometimes proposed. A plant of great variety and versatility, the ancestry of maize is a matter of considerable argument. Some scholars argue that it derives from an extinct wild form (the major proponent of this theory is Paul Mangelsdorf); others (notably G.W. Beale) claim that it derives from a wild grass called teosinte, still indigenous to the Mexican Highlands.