appeared again at the upper levels (above 8.6 meters), 
probably after the establishment of agriculture, suggests 
that the early fossil maize was that of a colony which 
became extinguished, perhaps through volcanic action. 
However, if wild maize grew in one Mexican valley it 
may well have grown in others and in similar sites in 
other regions. 
Archaeological maize from caves in Mexico and New 
Mexico—some of it not far removed in its characteristics 
from wild corn—also points to an early center of domes- 
tication in Mexico. Furthermore, the oldest archaeolo- 
gical corn so far discovered in South America—that de- 
scribed by Bird (5) from Huaca Prieta—is later than the 
earliest corn from either Bat Cave or La Perra Cave and 
is more advanced in its development. Finally, anthro- 
pologists now tend to believe that the prehistoric cultures 
of America had their beginnings in Middle America and 
spread from there to South America (45). 
For all of these reasons, Mangelsdorf concluded sev- 
eral years ago (26) that ‘‘Maize undoubtedly had at least 
one center of origin in Middle America.” 
This conclusion is, of course, directly contrary to our 
earlier one (31) that maize had its origin in the lowlands 
of South America—an assumption based on the fact that 
pod corn, which we then regarded and still regard as the 
ancestral form, was repeatedly encountered there and 
was apparently unknown in Mexico and Central Amer- 
ica. And then, too, with teosinte disposed of as a hybrid 
of maize and Tripsacum, there no longer seemed to be 
any compelling reason for looking to the region where 
teosinte is native as the center of origin of maize. We 
have never been convinced, as Weatherwax has appar- 
ently been (41, 42, 43), that corn’s center of origin must 
coincide with the center of diversity of its relatives, teo- 
sinte and ‘Tripsacum. 
[ 420 | 
