Phytolith Evidence for Early Holocene Cucurbita Domestication in Southwest Ecuador
Top Cited Papers
- 14 February 2003
- journal article
- other
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 299 (5609) , 1054-1057
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1080365
Abstract
Cucurbita (squash and gourd) phytoliths recovered from two early Holocene archaeological sites in southwestern Ecuador and directly dated to 10,130 to 9320 carbon-14 years before the present (about 12,000 to 10,000 calendar years ago) are identified as derived from domesticated plants because they are considerably larger than those from modern wild taxa. The beginnings of plant husbandry appear to have been preceded by the exploitation of a wild species ofCucurbita during the terminal Pleistocene. These data provide evidence for an independent emergence of plant food production in lowland South America that was contemporaneous with or slightly before that in highland Mesoamerica.Keywords
This publication has 8 references indexed in Scilit:
- Evidence for the control of phytolith formation in Cucurbita fruits by the hard rind ( Hr ) genetic locus: Archaeological and ecological implicationsProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2002
- Phylogenetic relationships among domesticated and wild species of Cucurbita (Cucurbitaceae) inferred from a mitochondrial gene: Implications for crop plant evolution and areas of originProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2002
- Phytoliths in Cucurbita and other Neotropical Cucurbitaceae and their Occurrence in Early Archaeological Sites from the Lowland American TropicsJournal of Archaeological Science, 2000
- The Initial Domestication of Cucurbita pepo in the Americas 10,000 Years AgoScience, 1997
- The domestication ofcucurbita (Cucurbitaceae)Economic Botany, 1990
- Diagnostic Opal Phytoliths from Rinds of Selected Cucurbita SpeciesAmerican Antiquity, 1987
- The Preceramic Las Vegas Culture of Coastal EcuadorAmerican Antiquity, 1985
- Agricultural Origins: Centers and NoncentersScience, 1971