It’s one of the most widely produced crops on Earth – a staple in diets worldwide, a primary feed for livestock, and a component in fuels, plastics and more. It permeates modern life, and we owe its existence to ancient Indigenous farmers.
Maize, aka corn, was first domesticated in southern Mexico some 9,000 years ago. Much of today’s corn descends from varieties grown by Native farmers in the eastern U.S. Now, a study suggests the Big Bend’s prehistoric people have a role in this important agricultural story. It’s a reminder of how, with rigorous science, seemingly arcane facts can open surprising vistas into the past.
Dr. Bryon Schroeder is the director of Alpine’s Center for Big Bend Studies.
“The genetics of maize here show that there's another entry point into the United States,” Schroeder said, “which is pretty cool. There's another early entry point up the Rio Conchos and up the Rio Grande, and that's what their genetic projections show.”
With an international group of scientists, Schroeder co-authored a recent paper on the origins of maize in eastern North America.
That our region would figure in those origins might seem unlikely. It was long assumed the Big Bend’s Archaic people were strictly hunter-gatherers. Yet recent finds have upended that assumption. Archeologists have learned that corn was being grown in northern Chihuahua more than 3,000 years ago. And corn cobs recovered from Spirit Eye Cave, south of Marfa, have been dated to 2,100 years old.
To understand the origins of eastern U.S. maize, the forebear of much modern corn, English scientists conducted genetic analysis on prehistoric maize from Arkansas, from Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, and from Mexico. And Schroeder shared samples from three Big Bend sites: Spirit Eye Cave, Bee Cave and Tranquil Rockshelter. The results hint at complex networks of trade in the prehistoric world.
As corn moved north from its tropical home, ancient farmers developed varieties adapted to their unique conditions. Desert-adapted varieties emerged in what’s now Arizona thousands of years ago. Big Bend people seem to have embraced that desert maize, but to have modified it with stock from elsewhere in present-day Mexico.
And they stuck with their variety. While the Spirit Eye corn is 2,000 years old, the other Big Bend samples date to between 500 and 700 years ago – yet genetically they’re almost identical.
“Trans-Pecos-variety maize stays basically untouched for like 1,500 years,” Schroeder said. “That seems very interesting – that you would sort of tune a variety towards the Trans-Pecos growing conditions. And then it's basically unaltered for 1,500 years.”
And their work had a legacy. The research showed that, in developing their varieties, Native farmers in the eastern U.S. seem to have drawn from maize both from the western deserts, and from the Big Bend.
As they developed distinctive forms of maize, prehistoric peoples not only selected for shorter growing seasons, but for starchiness over sweetness. Schroeder said this may reflect how people were using corn in their cuisines – whether it was for tortillas or tamales, atole or whole roasted ears. The spread of diverse types of corn probably wasn’t just a matter of hardiness – but also of changing tastes.
“We've got to understand the traditional diets and how they're incorporating it,” Schroeder said, “and that probably explains the multiple entries as much as anything – is that issue of taste, that people have tastes, which I think is fun.”
The Big Bend can feel remote today, and it’s possible to imagine it’s always been a kind of “hinterland.” Yet as maize research and other new archeological discoveries reveal, it’s always been connected to the wider world.
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