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Science 16 February 2007:
Vol. 315. no. 5814, pp. 986 - 988
DOI: 10.1126/science.1136914
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Reports

Starch Fossils and the Domestication and Dispersal of Chili Peppers (Capsicum spp. L.) in the Americas

Linda Perry,1 Ruth Dickau,2 Sonia Zarrillo,2 Irene Holst,3 Deborah M. Pearsall,4 Dolores R. Piperno,1,3 Mary Jane Berman,5 Richard G. Cooke,3 Kurt Rademaker,6 Anthony J. Ranere,7 J. Scott Raymond,2 Daniel H. Sandweiss,6,8 Franz Scaramelli,9 Kay Tarble,10 James A. Zeidler11

Chili peppers (Capsicum spp.) are widely cultivated food plants that arose in the Americas and are now incorporated into cuisines worldwide. Here, we report a genus-specific starch morphotype that provides a means to identify chili peppers from archaeological contexts and trace both their domestication and dispersal. These starch microfossils have been found at seven sites dating from 6000 years before present to European contact and ranging from the Bahamas to southern Peru. The starch grain assemblages demonstrate that maize and chilies occurred together as an ancient and widespread Neotropical plant food complex that predates pottery in some regions.

1 Archaeobiology Program, Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Post Office Box 37012, Washington, DC 20013–7012, USA.
2 Department of Archaeology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive, NW, Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4, Canada.
3 Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado Postal 0843–03092, Balboa, Republic of Panama.
4 Department of Anthropology, 107 Swallow Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA.
5 Center for American and World Cultures, 105 MacMillan Hall, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056, USA.
6 Climate Change Institute, University of Maine, 120 Alumni Hall, Orono, ME 04469–5773, USA.
7 Department of Anthropology, Temple University, 1115 West Berks Street, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA.
8 Department of Anthropology, South Stevens 5773, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469–5773, USA.
9 Centro de Antropología, Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas, Carretera Panamericana, Kilometer 11, Altos de Pipe, Venezuela.
10 Departamento de Arqueología, Etnohistoria y Ecología Cultural, Escuela de Antropología, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas 1041, Venezuela.
11 Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA.

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Genetic diversity and structure in semiwild and domesticated chiles (Capsicum annuum; Solanaceae) from Mexico.
A. Aguilar-Melendez, P. L. Morrell, M. L. Roose, and S.-C. Kim (2009)
Am. J. Botany 96, 1190-1202
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Cultural ecology: emerging human-plant geographies.
L. Head and J. Atchison (2009)
Progress in Human Geography 33, 236-245
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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
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Evolutionary ecology of pungency in wild chilies.
J. J. Tewksbury, K. M. Reagan, N. J. Machnicki, T. A. Carlo, D. C. Haak, A. L. C. Penaloza, and D. J. Levey (2008)
PNAS 105, 11808-11811
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Directly dated starch residues document early formative maize (Zea mays L.) in tropical Ecuador.
S. Zarrillo, D. M. Pearsall, J. S. Raymond, M. A. Tisdale, and D. J. Quon (2008)
PNAS 105, 5006-5011
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Genetic and molecular regulation of fruit and plant domestication traits in tomato and pepper.
I. Paran and E. van der Knaap (2007)
J. Exp. Bot.
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Identification of teosinte, maize, and Tripsacum in Mesoamerica by using pollen, starch grains, and phytoliths.
I. Holst, J. E. Moreno, and D. R. Piperno (2007)
PNAS 104, 17608-17613
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Domestication of Plants in the Americas: Insights from Mendelian and Molecular Genetics.
B. Pickersgill (2007)
Ann. Bot. 100, 925-940
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Inaugural Article: Late Pleistocene and Holocene environmental history of the Iguala Valley, Central Balsas Watershed of Mexico.
D. R. Piperno, J. E. Moreno, J. Iriarte, I. Holst, M. Lachniet, J. G. Jones, A. J. Ranere, and R. Castanzo (2007)
PNAS 104, 11874-11881
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Precolumbian use of chili peppers in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico.
L. Perry and K. V. Flannery (2007)
PNAS 104, 11905-11909
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