of Corn and History

Where did corn come from?
Scientists have been asking this question since questions were born, as they realize the now plump and often deliciously buttered sidedish has nourished peoples across the world for thousands of years. But, since the discovery of Teosinte, the ancestor of modern and tastey corn, scientists have tried to answer another qustion, 'What did they do with this ancient, hard as nails seed?' Because Teosinte is nothing like our domesticated yellow friend, it is an unappetizing gray seed head with 5 to 12'kernels' on it.
Recently, geneticists found that corn was domesticated around 9,000 years ago, (though it was disputed for some time, until an archaeological expedition turned up fragments of Teosinte on old preserved grinding stones dating to roughly the same time period as the proposed domestication). The next obstacle was to come up with theories for what they did with the plant and its grindings.
One of the main theories is that ancient peoples used the stem juice to create a refreshing adult beverage, as its high starch and sugar content made it perfect for fermentation. But this theory was trumped by the findings that the ancient peoples used only the kernels, which were ground and presumably used as a flour or as a staple grain.
The two theories are still in contention (one scientists remains confident that the ancients squeezed the juice of the stems during harvest in the field and fermented it later), but the stone-findings point to the fact that our ancestors probably enjoyed, sortof, the hard and almost unbreakable Teosinte as a ground, powdery gruel. Praise the mays.


[Nathan Beck, Week 7, Group A]