The Domestication of Maize and the Evolution of Agricultural Economies in the Balsas River Valley, Mexico

本研究的目的是研究玉米或玉米(Zea Mays L.)通过挖掘墨西哥西南部热带地区中央巴尔萨斯分水岭洞穴和岩石掩体中的考古沉积物，以及对从沉积物、石器和陶器中提取的植物遗骸进行宏化石(可见的种子和水果遗骸)和微化石(植硅体、淀粉粒、花粉)研究，开展了一系列与农业实践相关的研究。尽管长期以来人们认为玉米是在墨西哥干旱的高原上驯化的，但对现代野生和驯化玉米品种的分子研究现在表明，玉米很可能是在中央巴尔萨斯河谷驯化的。然而，考古学家既没有对该地区的早期遗址进行搜索，也没有进行挖掘。缺乏考古工作可能解释了为什么尽管进行了多年的研究，玉米驯化的最早阶段和其野生祖先teosinte作为食物植物的先前用途仍未被记录在案。在这一阶段的研究中将发掘的一些考古遗址是2003年1月进行的徒步调查。从遗址表面和以前挖掘的坑的废墟中发现的文物表明，这些遗址是在震前时代(约公元前2000年之前)占据的。还将在研究区域启动更多的徒步调查，以确定更多的测试地点，这些地点可能在全新世早期和中期，可能更早(约公元前10,000至3,000年)被占用。这项研究的结果有可能对世界上最重要的史前植物驯化中心之一的农业起源和进化的比较研究做出重要贡献。通过拟议中的墨西哥热带地区植物操纵和驯化序列研究，结合该地区的植被和气候历史-根据我们早期对从最后一个冰河时代(约14,000年前)到现代的湖泊沉积物岩芯的分析确定-将有助于提高人们对人类如何在现代之前数千年对其景观的动植物产生深刻影响的认识。这样的记录不仅具有特殊的学术价值。生态系统保护和恢复的模型依赖于像这样的纵向研究产生的经验数据。该项目还促进来自不同学科(考古学、古植物学和地质学)和国家(美国、墨西哥、乌拉圭和巴拿马)的科学家之间的合作，以及对来自不同国家(美国、墨西哥、加拿大和乌拉圭)的学生的培训。

The goal of this research is to study the evolution of corn or maize (Zea mays L.) and associated agricultural practices by excavating archaeological deposits in caves and rock shelters in the Central Balsas watershed, tropical southwestern Mexico, and carrying out macrofossil (visible remains of seeds and fruits) and microfossil (phytoliths, starch grains, pollen) research on plant remains retrieved from the sediments, stone tools, and pottery. Although maize was long thought to have been domesticated in the arid Mexican highlands, molecular studies of modern varieties of wild and domesticated Zea now indicate that maize was probably domesticated in the Central Balsas River Valley. However, archaeologists have neither carried out searches for, nor excavated, early sites in this region. The absence of archaeological work perhaps explains why, despite years of research, the earliest stages of maize domestication and prior use of its wild ancestor, teosinte, as a food plant have yet be documented. Some of the archaeological sites to be excavated during this phase of the research were located on foot surveys carried out in January of 2003. Artifacts recovered from the site surfaces and from the spoil piles of previously dug pits indicate that the sites were occupied in preceramic times (before ca. 2000 B.C.). Additional foot surveys will also be initiated in the study area to locate more sites for testing that may have been occupied during the early and middle Holocene periods, and possibly earlier (ca. 10,000 to 3000 B.C.). The results of this research have the potential to make an important contribution to the comparative study of the origin and evolution of agriculture in what was one of the world's most important centers of prehistoric plant domestication.The establishment through the proposed research of the sequence of plant manipulation and domestication in this tropical region of Mexico combined with the vegetational and climatic history of the region - determined from our earlier analyses of sediment cores from lakes dating from the last Ice Age (ca. 14,000 years ago) to the modern era - will contribute to an increased awareness of how human populations made profound impacts on the flora and fauna of their landscapes millennia before the modern era. Records such as these are not just of special scholarly interest. Models of ecosystem preservation and restoration rely on empirical data generated by longitudinal studies such as this one. This project also promotes collaboration among scientists from different disciplines (archaeology, paleobotany, and geology) and countries (United States, Mexico, Uruguay and Panama) as well as training of students from different countries (United States, Mexico, Canada and Uruguay).