[Aztlan] Maize Farming In Mexico - Earliest Evidence

[Elaine Day Schele]

>From Science Daily:
Source: Florida State University
Date: April 9, 2007
Anthropologist Finds Earliest Evidence Of Maize Farming In Mexico
Science Daily - A Florida State University anthropologist has new evidence that ancient farmers in Mexico were cultivating an early form of maize, the forerunner of modern corn, about 7,300 years ago - 1,200 years earlier than scholars previously thought.

Professor Mary Pohl conducted an analysis of sediments in the Gulf Coast of Tabasco, Mexico, and concluded that people were planting crops in the "New World" of the Americas around 5,300 B.C. The analysis extends Pohl's previous work in this area and validates principles of microfossil data collection.

The results of Pohl's study, which she conducted along with Dolores R. Piperno of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in the Republic of Panama, Kevin O. Pope of Geo Arc Research and John G. Jones of Washington State University, will be published in the April 9-13 edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

For the rest of the story: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070409181647.htm