First Direct AMS Dates on Early Maize From Tehuacán, Mexico

252

155

The study of crop origins has traditionally involved identifying geographic areas of high morphological diversity, sampling populations of wild progenitor species, and the archaeological retrieval of macroremains. Recent investigations have added identification of plant microremains (phytoliths, pollen, and starch grains), biochemical and molecular genetic approaches, and dating through 14 C accelerator mass spectrometry. We investigate the origin of domesticated chili pepper, Capsicum annuum, by combining two approaches, species distribution modeling and paleobiolinguistics, with microsatellite genetic data and archaeobotanical data. The combination of these four lines of evidence yields consensus models indicating that domestication of C. annuum could have occurred in one or both of two areas of Mexico: northeastern Mexico and central-east Mexico. Genetic evidence shows more support for the more northern location, but jointly all four lines of evidence support central-east Mexico, where preceramic macroremains of chili pepper have been recovered in the Valley of Tehuacán. Located just to the east of this valley is the center of phylogenetic diversity of Proto-Otomanguean, a language spoken in mid-Holocene times and the oldest protolanguage for which a word for chili pepper reconstructs based on historical linguistics. For many crops, especially those that do not have a strong archaeobotanical record or phylogeographic pattern, it is difficult to precisely identify the time and place of their origin. Our results for chili pepper show that expressing all data in similar distance terms allows for combining contrasting lines of evidence and locating the region(s) where cultivation and domestication of a crop began.

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Multiple lines of evidence for the origin of domesticated chili pepper,Capsicum annuum, in Mexico

Kraft

Brown

Nabhan

et al. 2014

252

155

“…The earliest widely accepted evidence of maize comes from San Marcos Cave in the Tehuacán region of Oaxaca, accelerator mass spectrometry dated to ∼5,600 years before present (YBP) (dates are presented as calibrated calendar years unless otherwise noted) (13). However, recent phytolith data have pointed to an origin in the lowland tropics of Tabasco more than 7,000 YBP (14).…”

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confidence: 99%

Evaluating the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis with genetic variation exhibited by populations in the Southwest and Mesoamerica

Kemp

González‐Oliver

Malhi

et al. 2010

The Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis posits that prehistoric population expansions, precipitated by the innovation or early adoption of agriculture, played an important role in the uneven distribution of language families recorded across the world. In this case, the most widely spread language families today came to be distributed at the expense of those that have more restricted distributions. In the Americas, Uto-Aztecan is one such language family that may have been spread across Mesoamerica and the American Southwest by ancient farmers. We evaluated this hypothesis with a large-scale study of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y-chromosomal DNA variation in indigenous populations from these regions. Partial correlation coefficients, determined with Mantel tests, show that Y-chromosome variation in indigenous populations from the American Southwest and Mesoamerica correlates significantly with linguistic distances (r = 0.33-0.384; P < 0.02), whereas mtDNA diversity correlates significantly with only geographic distance (r = 0.619; P = 0.002). The lack of correlation between mtDNA and Y-chromosome diversity is consistent with differing population histories of males and females in these regions. Although unlikely, if groups of Uto-Aztecan speakers were responsible for the northward spread of agriculture and their languages from Mesoamerica to the Southwest, this migration was possibly biased to males. However, a recent in situ population expansion within the American Southwest (2,105 years before present; 99.5% confidence interval = 1,273-3,773 YBP), one that probably followed the introduction and intensification of maize agriculture in the region, may have blurred ancient mtDNA patterns, which might otherwise have revealed a closer genetic relationship between females in the Southwest and Mesoamerica.mtDNA | Uto-Aztecan | Y chromsome | maize | migration

“…These five caves have shaped our understanding of the early history of plant domestication and food production economies in Mesoamerica. Reanalyses of maize (Zea mays) (4,(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13), bean (Phaseolus sp.) (14), and cucurbit (Lagenaria siceraria and Cucurbita sp.)…”

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confidence: 99%

Reassessing Coxcatlan Cave and the early history of domesticated plants in Mesoamerica

Smith

2005

107

Reanalysis and direct accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dating of the cucurbit assemblage from Coxcatlan Cave provide information on the timing and sequence of the initial appearance of three domesticated plants in the Tehuacá n Valley (Puebla, Mexico) and allow reassessment of the overall temporal context of plant domestication in Mexico. Cucurbita pepo is the earliest documented domesticate in the cave, dating to 7,920 calibrated calendrical (cal) years B.P. The bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) is dated at 7,200 cal years B.P. Cucurbita argyrosperma does not appear until 2,065 cal years B.P. The earlier identification of Cucurbita moschata specimens is not confirmed. Seventy-one radiocarbon dates, including 23 accelerator mass spectrometry dates on cucurbits, provide ample evidence of postdepositional vertical displacement of organic materials in the western half of Coxcatlan Cave, but they also indicate that the eastern half of the cave was largely undisturbed.archaeology ͉ Mexico ͉ cucurbits ͉ agriculture T he shift from a hunting and gathering lifestyle to economies based on domesticated species of plants and animals marks a major transition in human history. This emergence of food production economies occurred independently in Ͼ6 different regions of the world between Ϸ11,000 and 5,000 years ago, as human societies domesticated a wide range of plant and animal species (1, 2). Research on plant and animal domestication and the associated transition to food production has rapidly expanded in recent years because new perspectives, approaches, and technologies are being used in the analysis of plant and animal remains recovered from archaeological contexts (3).Rather than focusing on newly excavated sites, recent research has often involved the reexamination of key museum collections of plant and animal remains that were excavated and initially analyzed decades ago. In Mexico, for example, the most significant advances in understanding the transition to food production in this major center of agricultural origin have resulted from the reanalysis of early domesticated plant assemblages that were recovered in the 1950s and 1960s from cave sites in Tamaulipas (Romero's and Valenzuela's Caves) (4), Puebla (Coxcatlan and San Marcos Caves) (5), and Oaxaca (Guilá Naquitz Cave) (6). These five caves have shaped our understanding of the early history of plant domestication and food production economies in Mesoamerica. Reanalyses of maize (Zea mays) (4, 7-13), bean (Phaseolus sp.) (14), and cucurbit (Lagenaria siceraria and Cucurbita sp.) (4, 15, 16) assemblages from these caves have focused on confirming both their domesticated status (on the basis of clearly defined morphological criteria) and their true age [through accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating], in addition to tracing morphological change and crop selection through time.Direct AMS dating and clear confirmation of domesticated status and taxonomic assignment are also the primary focus for this reanalysis of the cucurbit assemblage ...