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 22 June 2001:
Vol. 292. no. 5525, pp. 2260 - 2261
DOI: 10.1126/science.1062689
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Perspectives

ARCHAEOLOGY:
On Maize and the Sunflower

Dolores R. Piperno

Agriculture is believed to have arisen independently in six to eight independent centers, including both hemispheres of the Americas. In her Perspective, Piperno discusses recent work, which indicates that maize was domesticated at least 7100 years ago in tropical Mexico, 1000 years earlier than previous data indicated. The sunflower also seems to have been domesticated in Mexico, as well as in eastern North America. Molecular evidence is required to establish the origin of the sunflower with greater certainty.

The author is at the Center for Tropical Paleoecology and Archaeology at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), Box 2072, Balboa, Panama. E-mail: pipernod{at}stri.org

Read the Full Text


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Eastern North America as an independent center of plant domestication.
B. D. Smith (2006)
PNAS 103, 12223-12228
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

To Advertise     Find Products

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