Brazilian scientists have determined that ancient specimens of partially domesticated maize (Zea mays, also known as corn) originally from Peruaçu Valley in Minas Gerais state (Brazil) were the ...

Understanding the evolution and domestication of maize is important for many researchers. As one of the most important crops worldwide and one that appears very different from its wild relatives ...

Maize was domesticated from its wild ancestor more than 8,700 years according to biological evidence uncovered by researchers in the Mexico's Central Balsas River Valley. This is the earliest ...

Maize domestication, the commonly accepted theory goes, happened in the Balsas River Valley of south-central Mexico. Around 9,000 years ago, ...

The domestication of maize is one of the greatest examples of humankind's impact on evolution. Early farmers' pre-industrial plant breeding choices turned corn from a nearly inedible crop into the ...

Partially domesticated maize is found in caves in Minas Gerais state, Brazil Archeological samples of grains, straw and cobs collected from caves in Peruaçu Valley have primitive traits ...

From there, domesticated maize moved eastward as part of an overall expansion and intensification of agriculture that archaeologists have noted in the region. By around 4,000 years ago, Kistler said, ...

Maize domestication may have first occurred where this form of teosinte still grows, in the Central Balsas River Valley, which is located about 250 miles east of Guilá Naquitz.

Maize is one of the world’s most widely grown crops. It is used for both human and animal foods and holds great cultural significance, especially for Indigenous peoples in the Americas. Yet despite ...

Native Americans alone domesticated nine of the most important food crops in the world, including corn, more properly called maize (Zea mays), which now provides about 21 percent of human ...