Plant geneticist Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra and an international team determined that maize moved into the Southwest via highland and low coastal routes. (Karin Higgins/UC Davis)
Posted on 01/11/2015 6:11:38 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The study, based on DNA analysis of corn cobs dating back over 4,000 years, provides the most comprehensive tracking to date of the origin and evolution of maize in the Southwest and settles a long debate over whether maize moved via an upland or coastal route into the U.S.
Study findings, which also show how climatic and cultural impacts influenced the genetic makeup of maize, will be reported Jan. 8 in the journal Nature Plants.
The study compared DNA from archaeological samples from the U.S. Southwest to that from traditional maize varieties in Mexico, looking for genetic similarities that would reveal its geographic origin.
"When considered together, the results suggest that the maize of the U.S. Southwest had a complex origin, first entering the U.S. via a highland route about 4,100 years ago and later via a lowland coastal route about 2,000 years ago," said Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra, an associate professor in the Department of Plant Sciences.
The study further provided clues to how and when maize adapted to a number of novel pressures, ranging from the extreme aridity of the Southwest climate to different dietary preferences of the local people.
Excavations of multiple stratigraphic layers of Tularosa cave in New Mexico allowed researchers to compare genetic data from samples from different time periods.
"These unique data allowed us to follow the changes occurring in individual genes through time," said lead author Rute Fonseca of the University of Copenhagen. Researchers used these data to identify genes showing evidence of adaptation to drought and genes responsible for changes in starch and sugar composition leading to the development of sweet corn, desired for cultivation by indigenous people and later Europeans.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
Plant geneticist Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra and an international team determined that maize moved into the Southwest via highland and low coastal routes. (Karin Higgins/UC Davis)
Bet no one who helped bring corn here ever imagined that we would grow so much that we could feed ourselves, export millions of bushels around the world, burn it to heat our homes and fuel our cars, and STILL have mountains of surplus.
Your tax dollars at work.
Not mine, I don’t pay California taxes. It’s a freebie for me:)
bump
Shades of Pre-historic Maiz amnesty
I thought they had found an ancient maze that had only two paths. I thought “That would be easy to figure out.”
Corn was genetically modified?
Ok. A ‘highland route’ and a ‘lowland coastal route’ but what does that mean?
How about a map of migration?
What, 4100 years ago it came down from the North, like Canada area? 2000 years ago it then came up from Chile?
Why would it come in from the top and later again up from the bottom? It had to cross over to get to the bottom, right?
This is confusing to me.
Europeans once teased Americans who ate corn for eating livestock feed.
It did not come from the north in either case.
That was the French... Italians took to corn fairly quickly and call sofkee A/K/A corn mush, ‘polenta.’
Good question. The nearest highlands to the American southwest are the Rocky Mountains.
Coldie, those most likely would be a combination of state and federal.
Makes me want to go out and buy some Mazola.
I grew up in NW Florida and no matter how careful you were, your corn would always have corn worms, I guess they are called corn borers in the tip of the ears. I mean every ear would have them.
It wasn’t quite as bad as it sounds as you could simply chop off that last couple of inches which would usually not have any useful corn on it anyway.
When I lived in Western Kansas, every single ear of corn would be perfect. Never any damage at all. Also their corn was really good.
I know:( But you pay more of it:)
They would have followed the high desert route, which would be the Chihuahua desert up into the Rio Grande valley. The southern extent of the Rockies are the Sangia de Christo Mts of northern New Mexico. There was extensive trade between different areas in Mexico and the Southwest, with some of the Spanish introduced European food crops actually arriving in New Mexico before the Spanish got here. It’s actually an unsurprising conclusion that the corn got here more than one way.
Please...`polenta’ is Italian for `we can’t afford pasta, pomodori, or sausage for supper’!
Spaghetti bolognese or even carbonara was to die for. Polenta meant layoffs at the mill.
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