A third possibility is that Pollo represents the domes- 
ticated form of a wild maize which once grew in Colom- 
bia and Venezuela. As the result of their genetic studies 
of the tunicate locus in maize, Mangelsdorf and Galinat 
(1964) have concluded that there were once at least two 
races of wild maize in Mexico. There may well have 
been additional wild races elsewhere in America, of which 
one was the ancestor of Pollo. 
The archaeological specimens from the El Tiestal site 
do not distinguish between the three above possibilities: 
(1) an early introduction of the race Confite Morocho 
from Peru, (2) an early introduction of the race, Nal-Tel 
trom middle America, (8) an independent domestication 
of an indigenous wild corn. They show only that there 
was cultivation of maize in Venezuela at an earlier date 
than had previously been reported. 
[111 ] 
