Squash Cultivated 10,000 Years Ago

Topic: Ancient Squash

June 29, 2007 — Agriculture was taking root in South America almost as early as the first farmers were breaking ground in the Middle East, new research indicates. Evidence that squash was being grown nearly 10,000 years ago, in what is now Peru, is reported in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.

A team led by anthropologist Tom D. Dillehay of Vanderbilt University also uncovered remains of peanuts from 7,600 years ago and cotton dated to 5,500 years ago in the floors and hearths of sites in the Nanchoc Valley of northern Peru.

“We believe the development of agriculture by the Nanchoc people served as a catalyst for cultural and social changes that eventually led to intensified agriculture, institutionalized political power and new towns in the Andean highlands and along the coast 4,000 to 5,500 years ago,” Dillehay said.

Dolores Piperno, curator for archaeobotany and South American archaeology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, said the report “adds to the accumulating data for agriculture in the Americas as old or nearly as old as that in the Old World, provides evidence for the domestication of a major species of squash native to South America, and documents ancient peanuts and quinoa.”

 

Original Article

Discovery.com

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