Squash Grown 10,000 Years Ago In Peru

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.

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.”

The earliest evidence of growing wheat, barley and legumes dates to about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East.


SOURCE:
Live Science

This is an interesting discovery as it means that people in South America were developing
agriculture at the same time as those in the Middle-East.

Discoveries like this are very cool since only a few decades ago this kind of thing would
have been laughed at if it were suggested.


Comments, opinions?

Just came across this myself Iori.
Here's more on the agricultural samples discovered 20 years ago that have been retested using new techniques, dating one of the samples to between 9,240 and 7,800 years ago. The report has been published in the journal Science as you said.
Great to see that these archeologist's are able to go back and look back over previously discovered samples and reinterpret their data using new techniques.
There must be ton's of stuff sitting around in museums and labs around the world that has just been forgotten about that may benefit from being retested using our latest technologies.
There probably just isnt enough people and money to go around to get it done.
Does this finding affect any other previously sound theory's do you think regarding civilisations in the Old and the New world?
Before these new tests it states that it has pushed back their previously thought idea of when organised farming and trading emerged in the new world by nearly 5000 years.

latimes

"We always thought there was a gap of several thousand years before agriculture began in the New World," said archeologist Jack Rossen of Ithaca College in New York, one of the authors of the report in today's issue of the journal Science. The new find "is bringing it into line with dates from the Old World."

The plant remains found in the 1,500-foot-high Nanchoc Valley on the lower western slopes of the Andes were not native to the region but came from several other sites on the continent. So even though the communities were small and isolated, the residents were involved in some trade over fairly long distances.

These plants "did not typically grow wild in that area," said Dillehay, the study's lead author. "We believe they must have therefore been domesticated elsewhere first and then brought into this valley by traders or mobile horticulturists."

Nice thread,
mojo.


[edit to try and fix link but not working]Hmmmm...i give up.
[edit on 2/7/07 by mojo4sale]

[edit on 2/7/07 by mojo4sale]

[edit on 2/7/07 by mojo4sale]

[edit on 2/7/07 by mojo4sale]

little known fact
the word squash is derived from askutasquash which in the Algonquian language of the Narragansett people means "a green thing eaten raw." It was documented by Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, in his 1643 publication A Key Into the Language of America, 30 years later the Narragansett were nearly exterminated during King Philip's War.

Ecuador seems to be the area where farming began first
The oldest Capsicum (Chilli) starch grains were found in southwestern Ecuador at two sites dating from 6100BCE
The chili remains were associated with previously identified corn, achira, arrowroot, leren, yuca, squash, beans and palm fruit, adding to the picture of an early, complex agricultural system in that region
Maize fossils were also found at their earliest dates in Ecuador dating to 7000 to 8000 BCE
Ecuador in case you aren't aware is the ancient home of the Inca


oh btw
Greetings from England on this, your special day you scum sucking Rebels

No taxation without representation eh !!!
how did that turn out for you guys in the end ?
get your moneys worth did you ?


[edit on 4-7-2007 by Marduk]

Originally posted by mojo4sale
There must be ton's of stuff sitting around in museums and labs around the world that has just been forgotten about that may benefit from being retested using our latest technologies.
There probably just isnt enough people and money to go around to get it done.

That's SO true! There are (no kidding) some 20 tons of fossils in the museum paleo lab that need to be processed (mostly by volunteers like me) and who knows how much other stuff there is lying around in drawers or packed away neatly. Interesting material has been found simply by going through the Smithsonian's collections with new eyes.

Does this finding affect any other previously sound theory's do you think regarding civilisations in the Old and the New world?
Before these new tests it states that it has pushed back their previously thought idea of when organised farming and trading emerged in the new world by nearly 5000 years.

It does, and particularly in the area of South and Central America. This lends a lot of weight to the "humans arrived in the Americas more than 20,000 years ago" hypothesis.

Originally posted by Byrd
It does, and particularly in the area of South and Central America. This lends a lot of weight to the "humans arrived in the Americas more than 20,000 years ago" hypothesis.

I guess thats what i was sort of hinting at Byrd without wanting to be shouted down as a nutter.
If nothing else it may at least cause some previous theory's to be revisited and evidence re-examined. Cool that we are still constantly discovering new things every day isnt it.
I visit www.archaelogy.org every day and theres nearly always something new on their news page daily.

Originally posted by mojo4sale
I visit www.archaelogy.org every day and theres nearly always something new on their news page daily.

I went and looked at that site but couldn't find the news page
i use this one and google news alerts
www.archaeologica.org...

Originally posted by mojo4sale
I guess thats what i was sort of hinting at Byrd without wanting to be shouted down as a nutter.
If nothing else it may at least cause some previous theory's to be revisited and evidence re-examined

I don't think theres anyone disagreeing with the idea that there were humans in America prior to 20,000 years ago
but imo the culture that later became known had its genesis in later arrivals

Hi Marduk, i go to this page which ive saved in my favorites then at the top of the page, click on news and it will take you to the latest news items with clickable links to the story's. Most of the articles link to respectable sites like national geographic, nature, reuters and reputable news services. Every article ive followed up on from there has had solid links.

Sorry for being off topic.

mojo.

Originally posted by mojo4sale
I guess thats what i was sort of hinting at Byrd without wanting to be shouted down as a nutter.

About 15 years ago, maybe. But the "Clovis first" folks have had to accept that there's very good data for older settlements. Within the past 4 years, the Mesa Verde site has pretty much been established as proof of settlements up to 20,000 years ago. Given the widespread distribution of humans in North America, an even earlier date is also possible.

I visit www.archaelogy.org every day and theres nearly always something new on their news page daily.

Thanks for the new link! I should add it to the resources.

Originally posted by Byrd
[ Given the widespread distribution of humans in North America, an even earlier date is also possible.

are you talking about sapiens sapiens or simply homo ?

First out - I know next to nothing about anthropological ideas about genesis of human cultures....

But I do know about cultivation of squash and cultivation of crops like wheat and rice. They are rather different in prinicple. A squash can be grown easily from the seed you find in the fruit you eat. Just chuck away the seed and you end up with a plant where it falls. Each plant produces loads more fruits. Easy. Whereas crops like wheat and rice reuqire a more formalised and deliberate allocation of land to its use, and then its subsequent processing into something more useful. The one is essentially domestic and/or personal, the other is more communal and organised.

Not wishing to imply anything, but just putting the info there for anyone that wants to weigh up things.

With best wishes.

Originally posted by Marduk

Originally posted by Byrd
[ Given the widespread distribution of humans in North America, an even earlier date is also possible.

are you talking about sapiens sapiens or simply homo ?

Homo sapiens sapiens. Erectus was widely distributed as well but there's no evidence that h.sap.sap. evolved simultaneously in two different areas of the world.

but there is plenty of evidence of something intelligent walking around in the Americas before Homo Sapiens Sapiens had evolved at times when the Berengia route would have been open to anyone prepared to walk over it from Asia
such as during the Riss Ice age (180,000 - 130,000 years bp)
and in some circles Homo erectus is believed to be an Asian lineage derived from Homo ergaster as mentioned in the 1984 and 1994 volumes of Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg
try saying that when youre drunk



[edit on 5-7-2007 by Marduk]

Originally posted by Marduk
but there is plenty of evidence of something intelligent walking around in the Americas before Homo Sapiens Sapiens had evolved at times when the Berengia route would have been open to anyone prepared to walk over it from Asia

[edit on 5-7-2007 by Marduk]

Yeh there was that funny sloth, and the big smart mastadon and the sarcastic tiger.

Sorry couldnt be helped.

Its really more about when cultivation and trade began though really isnt it, from the original article, not necessarily when the area was first populated. And does that mean that those sth american civilisations are much older than originally thought, not just scattered tribes.

Originally posted by mojo4sale
Its really more about when cultivation and trade began though really isnt it, from the original article, not necessarily when the area was first populated. And does that mean that those sth american civilisations are much older than originally thought, not just scattered tribes.

the oldest trace of civilisation and widespread farming are from around 4000bce in the norte chico valley which resulted in places like Caral and Aspero
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

before that useful things like squash gourds would have been widely prized trade items being passed from one tribe to another and on down through family lines
the lack of any evidence that the Gourds were cultivated was a bit telling in the original article
here are the two quotes from the anthropologist Tom D. Dillehay of Vanderbilt University

“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.

and

“The plants we found in northern Peru did not typically grow in the wild in that area,” Dillehay said. “We believe they must have therefore been domesticated elsewhere first and then brought to this valley by traders or mobile horticulturists.

the rest is speculation on the part of Randolph E. Schmid who is lets face it a journalist
he seems to have added this quote

“Many scholars, including myself, believe that the profound environmental transitions and associated changes in the distribution and abundance of wild plants and animals that occurred around the world as the ice age was ending 11,000-10,000 years ago was significant in the development of agriculture in several geographically widespread places at this time,” Piperno commented.

from Dolores Piperno, curator for archaeobotany and South American archaeology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History just to add weight to his argument without actually elucidating on the fact that she isn't saying the ice age ended 10,000 years ago and people were farming ten minutes later. the changes she is talking about took thousands of years to take place
when you look for other evidence like I did in a previous post you find that nothing is dated to 10,000bce that proves farming
there is a big difference between trading items that grow naturally and understanding the connection between seeds, sun and water.....

all the early South American cultures from the Supe Valley to the Mojos culture (excavated by Katsuyoshi Sanematsu if you want to google it) relied heavily on fishing for their food
this doesn't indicate they relied upon or even needed vegetables in any large quantity.....
if there had been widespread farming earlier than this then why were all the best known cultures not doing it thousands of years later.........

heres a clue though
all these vegetables so far discovered and believed to be evidence of agriculture are of the type that have seeds integrated into the flesh of the plant (i.e. not produced in inedible pods) that are unaffected by the human digestive system
now I wonder what they used for fertiliser
theres a line from Crocodile Dundee I'm thinking of right now
know the one I mean

This is a very interesting subject but it begs a question, what were the precursers of all these food plants?
Now I am no horticulturist but plants like wheat, barley, and maybe maize do have wild equivelants that do not have the size and nutritional values as the recognised "domesticated" versions.
This maybe the case with squash and other food plants I don't know.
So who created these more effecient food plants, as I understand it hybridising and cultivation takes a very long time and over this time you have not got a food crop so how can you spend the time in cultivation unless you are eating something else which you would have to spend time on either catching or finding.
Can you see the paradox here?
Sorry I do not have any sources here I may have to go and do some digging myself on the web.