The origins of corn

Corn, or maize, now accounts for over 20% human caloric intake.  But the exact origins of corn were in doubt until recently.  Early genetic experiments (before genetic testing) pointed to teosinte.  And newer genetic experiments (proper sequencing) suggest that teosinte was domesticated starting about 9,000 years ago:

"In order to trace maize’s paternity, botanists led by my colleague John Doebley of the University of Wisconsin rounded up more than 60 samples of teosinte from across its entire geographic range in the Western Hemisphere and compared their DNA profile with all varieties of maize. They discovered that all maize was genetically most similar to a teosinte type from the tropical Central Balsas River Valley of southern Mexico, suggesting that this region was the “cradle” of maize evolution. Furthermore, by calculating the genetic distance between modern maize and Balsas teosinte, they estimated that domestication occurred about 9,000 years ago."

And it was probably a slow process:

"It is estimated that the initial domestication process that produced the basic maize form required at least several hundred to perhaps a few thousand years."

Read the full New York Times article here.

Comments

 It is interesting to see

Submitted by miked on Fri, 05/28/2010 - 09:09.

 It is interesting to see when we started trying to eat this stuff. One thing I didn't know till recently about corn was the nixtamalization process. (if the link doesn't work, head to wikipedia) Apparently the tradition involves soaking the corn in an alkali solution which frees naicin for absorption and kills mycotoxins found on the corn. It also adds a bunch of nutrients absent to untreated corn kinda like industro-ag fortifies bread. A lot of cultures south of the border still use this process but a lot of American corn products (obviously) do not employ the process. What we have is another unhealthy grain made even worse because its not being prepared in a traditional manner.  If you see a corn product like a tortilla or chips that claim to be treated with lime thats your ticket to nitamal-style corn... Not that it's paleo, but for our corn loving friends (or when we break down and go for the tacos instead of the carne asada) we can at least get the right stuff.  

 JohnIf you are really

Submitted by John Nelson on Sat, 05/29/2010 - 16:50.

 JohnIf you are really interested in this you should scoop out "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan. The first 109 pages are all about corn and how it has wormed its way into the modern food chain. The last part is all about hunting and gathering or foraging food in the modern world.