Keith M Prufer presents Unraveling the Long Road to the Maize Diet in the Neotropics of Mesoamerica

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 Unraveling the Long Road to the Maize Diet

in the Neotropics of Mesoamerica

by

Keith M Prufer

Pollen and starch grain evidence indicates that domesticated maize (Zea mays subspecies mays) first appears in the Balsas region of Mexico by ~9,000 years ago, but few data exist on when corn became an integral part of the human diet in Mesoamerica.  In this talk I present new data for a transect spanning 9,500-1,200 years ago of stable isotopes of carbon showing the adoption of maize was gradual, later than might be expected, and resulted in a maize dependent diet in the neotropics by 4000 B.P.

Keith M. Prufer is a Professor of Anthropology and director of the Environmental Archaeology Laboratory at the University of New Mexico.  For 25 years he has conducted excavations in the Maya Lowlands focusing on human-environmental relationships.  His newest project is investigating the Paleoindian and Archaic origins of humans in the neotropics through studies of diet, technology, and genomics.