Maize domesticated in Mexico
From a grass with a few hard seeds to the staple of the Americas
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The difference between teosinte and maize is so great that botanists long refused to believe they were the same species; genetics settled it. Maize alone causes deficiency disease, but combined with beans and squash — the "three sisters", grown together in one field — they form a complete diet. That combination carried every later civilisation in the Americas.
For children
The wild plant teosinte carries a small spike with a few rock-hard seeds. Over thousands of years farmers in Mexico selected the largest and softest, until they had the maize cob. It may be the most dramatic transformation humans have ever worked on a plant.
Connects to
Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org