Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 9 May 1997:
Vol. 276. no. 5314, pp. 932 - 934
DOI: 10.1126/science.276.5314.932
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Reports

The Initial Domestication of Cucurbita pepo in the Americas 10,000 Years Ago

Bruce D. Smith

Squash seeds, peduncles, and fruit rind fragments from Archaic period stratigraphic zones of Guilá Naquitz cave in Oaxaca, Mexico, are assigned to Cucurbita pepo on the basis of diagnostic morphological characters and identified as representing a domesticated plant on the basis of increased seed length and peduncle diameter, as well as changes in fruit shape and color, in comparison to wild Cucurbita gourds. Nine accelerator mass spectrometer radiocarbon dates on these specimens document the cultivation of C. pepo by the inhabitants of Guilá Naquitz cave between 10,000 to 8000 calendar years ago (9000 to 7000 carbon-14 years before the present), which predates maize, beans, and other directly dated domesticates in the Americas by more than 4000 years.

Archaeobiology Program, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, USA.

Read the Full Text


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Agricultural origins in North China pushed back to the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary.
G. W. Crawford (2009)
PNAS 106, 7271-7272
   Full Text »    PDF »
The cultural and chronological context of early Holocene maize and squash domestication in the Central Balsas River Valley, Mexico.
A. J. Ranere, D. R. Piperno, I. Holst, R. Dickau, and J. Iriarte (2009)
PNAS 106, 5014-5018
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Starch grain and phytolith evidence for early ninth millennium B.P. maize from the Central Balsas River Valley, Mexico.
D. R. Piperno, A. J. Ranere, I. Holst, J. Iriarte, and R. Dickau (2009)
PNAS 106, 5019-5024
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
The Putative Mesoamerican Domestication Center of Phaseolus vulgaris Is Located in the Lerma-Santiago Basin of Mexico.
M. Kwak, J. A. Kami, and P. Gepts (2009)
Crop Sci. 49, 554-563
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Gourds afloat: a dated phylogeny reveals an Asian origin of the gourd family (Cucurbitaceae) and numerous oversea dispersal events.
H. Schaefer, C. Heibl, and S. S Renner (2009)
Proc R Soc B 276, 843-851
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Tracing the Geographic Origins of Major Avocado Cultivars.
H. Chen, P. L. Morrell, V. E. T. M. Ashworth, M. de la Cruz, and M. T. Clegg (2009)
J. Hered. 100, 56-65
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) as a pre-Columbian domesticate in Mexico.
D. L. Lentz, M. D. Pohl, J. L. Alvarado, S. Tarighat, and R. Bye (2008)
PNAS 105, 6232-6237
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Did farming arise from a misapplication of social intelligence?.
S. Mithen (2007)
Phil Trans R Soc B 362, 705-718
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Eastern North America as an independent center of plant domestication.
B. D. Smith (2006)
PNAS 103, 12223-12228
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
The Cucurbit Images (1515-1518) of the Villa Farnesina, Rome.
J. JANICK and H. S. PARIS (2006)
Ann. Bot. 97, 165-176
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Inaugural Article: Reassessing Coxcatlan Cave and the early history of domesticated plants in Mesoamerica.
B. D. Smith (2005)
PNAS 102, 9438-9445
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Phytolith Evidence for Early Holocene Cucurbita Domestication in Southwest Ecuador.
D. R. Piperno and K. E. Stothert (2003)
Science 299, 1054-1057
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Evidence for the control of phytolith formation in Cucurbita fruits by the hard rind (Hr) genetic locus: Archaeological and ecological implications.
D. R. Piperno, I. Holst, L. Wessel-Beaver, and T. C. Andres (2002)
PNAS 99, 10923-10928
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Phylogenetic relationships among domesticated and wild species of Cucurbita (Cucurbitaceae) inferred from a mitochondrial gene: Implications for crop plant evolution and areas of origin.
O. I. Sanjur, D. R. Piperno, T. C. Andres, and L. Wessel-Beaver (2002)
PNAS 99, 535-540
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Documenting plant domestication: The consilience of biological and archaeological approaches.
B. D. Smith (2001)
PNAS 98, 1324-1326
   Full Text »    PDF »
The earliest archaeological maize (Zea mays L.) from highland Mexico: New accelerator mass spectrometry dates and their implications.
D. R. Piperno and K. V. Flannery (2001)
PNAS 98, 2101-2103
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Archaeological evidence of teosinte domestication from Guila Naquitz, Oaxaca.
B. F. Benz (2001)
PNAS 98, 2104-2106
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Domestication and the origins of agriculture: an appraisal.
A. M. Mannion (1999)
Progress in Physical Geography 23, 37-56
   Abstract »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)