BOTANICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY | 
CampripGre, Massacuuserrs, Decemper 27, 1967 VoL. 22, No. 2 
PREHISTORIC MAIZE, TEOSINTE, AND 
TRIPSACUM FROM TAMAULIPAS, MEXICO 
BY 
PauL C. ManGetsporr, RicHarp S. MacNEIsu, 
AND Wa.LTON C. GaLinat * 
IN an earlier paper (Mangelsdorf et al., 1956) we de- 
scribed the prehistoric maize uncovered in archaeological 
excavations conducted by MacNeish in 1949 in La Perra 
Cave in the state of Tamaulipas, northeastern Mexico. 
The earliest of this maize, dated at 2500 B.C. by radio- 
carbon determinations of associated wood and leaves, 
was identified as a precursor of a still existing Mexican 
race Nal-Tel, one of the four Mexican races described 
by Wellhausen et al. (1952) as Ancient Indigenous. We 
did not regard this maize, although primitive in some 
characteristics, as wild corn. 
While excavating La Perra Cave, which is located in 
eastern Tamaulipas, MacNeish also made some prelimi- 
nary soundings in several caves in southwestern T'amau- 
lipas which persuaded him that still earlier corn, perhaps 
even prehistoric wild corn, might be found in the lower 
levels of the refuse of these caves. Accordingly in 1954, 
* The authors are respectively : Fisher Professor of Natural History, 
Harvard University; Head Department of Archaeology, University 
of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Associate Professor, Waltham 
Field Station, University of Massachusetts, formerly Research Asso- 
ciate, Bussey Institution, Harvard University. 
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