Maize is domesticated in Mexico, a New World origin of farming
Farming arises again, independently, on the other side of the planet
Quick facts
- When
- By about 8,700 years ago (roughly 6700 BCE)
- Where
- Central Balsas River Valley, southern Mexico
- Wild ancestor
- Teosinte (Balsas teosinte, Zea mays ssp. parviglumis)
- Significance
- An independent New World origin of farming, separate from the Old World
What happened
Farming was not a single event that spread from one place; it arose independently in several parts of the world, and the clearest proof is in the Americas. In the Central Balsas River Valley of southern Mexico, people domesticated maize from a wild grass called teosinte, specifically Balsas teosinte. Starch grains and phytoliths recovered from grinding tools at the Xihuatoxtla shelter show maize was present there by about 8,700 years ago, and genetic analysis of hundreds of plants independently points to a single domestication in southern Mexico around 9,000 years ago, from teosinte of the Balsas drainage. The researchers note this happened at about the same time as, but entirely separately from, the rise of farming in the Old World.
Why it matters
Maize is the staple that would later feed the civilizations of the Americas, from the Maya to the Aztec, and its domestication is a completely independent invention of agriculture, oceans away from the Fertile Crescent, with no contact between them. It is the strongest single argument that farming was something humans discovered more than once, not a one-time accident.
How we know
Two peer-reviewed PNAS studies, both accessed via PubMed Central, establish this: one reports the starch-grain and phytolith evidence dating maize at Xihuatoxtla to about 8,700 years ago and names Balsas teosinte as the wild ancestor; the other, using genetic microsatellite data from 264 plants, finds a single domestication in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from Balsas-drainage teosinte.
Sources
- Piperno et al.. Starch grain and phytolith evidence for early maize in the Central Balsas Valley, Mexico (PNAS, Piperno et al. 2009, via PubMed Central) (2009) · Peer-reviewed (author-declared)pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov · Cited as a "journal" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Matsuoka et al.. A single origin of maize from Balsas teosinte, by microsatellite genotyping (PNAS, Matsuoka et al. 2002, via PubMed Central) (2002) · Peer-reviewed (author-declared)pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov · Cited as a "journal" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Genetic, evolutionary and plant breeding insights from the domestication of maize (eLife, via PubMed Central) (2015) · Peer-reviewed (author-declared)pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov · Cited as a "journal" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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