The author of this article, Robinson, repeatedly claims that indigenous americans were incapable of and ignorant towards selective breeding. This is false.
He proposes that teosinte spontaneously mutated into maize, which is totally contrary to the accepted history, I've never even heard anyone make this claim.
Samples of maize in its modern form have been found directly dated back 6000 years, and inferentially dated back 9000 years, to the advent of agriculture in the western hemisphere.
Matsuoka showed through molecular dating that maize was likely domesticated from a single source in a single event around 9000 years ago.
Matsuoka Y, Vigouroux Y, Goodman MM, Sanchez J, Buckler ES, Doebley JF. 2002. A single domestication for maize shown by multilocus microsatellite genotyping. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 99: 6080-4.
Robinson's claims here that north american indigenous peoples didn't breed for traits and this was a new thing that only the english did is totally absurd. Various groups developed their own varieties that were attuned to their particular land and territory. Tribes as far north as Manitoba grew vast tracts of land in maize varieties they developed that were frost tolerant!
Boyd recently did an analysis of microfossils from ancient northern pottery to identify ancient maize farming regions and found that nearly every site tested had maize, including multiple sites that were north of the subarctic zone.
He proposes that teosinte spontaneously mutated into maize, which is totally contrary to the accepted history, I've never even heard anyone make this claim.
Samples of maize in its modern form have been found directly dated back 6000 years, and inferentially dated back 9000 years, to the advent of agriculture in the western hemisphere.
Matsuoka showed through molecular dating that maize was likely domesticated from a single source in a single event around 9000 years ago.
Matsuoka Y, Vigouroux Y, Goodman MM, Sanchez J, Buckler ES, Doebley JF. 2002. A single domestication for maize shown by multilocus microsatellite genotyping. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 99: 6080-4.
Robinson's claims here that north american indigenous peoples didn't breed for traits and this was a new thing that only the english did is totally absurd. Various groups developed their own varieties that were attuned to their particular land and territory. Tribes as far north as Manitoba grew vast tracts of land in maize varieties they developed that were frost tolerant!
Boyd recently did an analysis of microfossils from ancient northern pottery to identify ancient maize farming regions and found that nearly every site tested had maize, including multiple sites that were north of the subarctic zone.
http://anthropology.lakeheadu.ca/personal/mboyd/uploads/Boyd...