ens the objection that a species so unpromising for food 
purposes would never have been domesticated. There is 
no evidence, however, archaeological, historical or con- 
temporary, to show that teosinte was ever employed for 
food in this manner. When teosinte is used for food, as 
it occasionally is today in times of food shortage, the 
fruits are crushed ona metate or with a mortar and pes- 
tle, and the meal of the crushed caryopses is separated 
from the fragments of the bony fruit case.’ 
Langham’s (13) data on the inheritance of character- 
istics which distinguish teosinte and maize indicate simple 
Mendelian inheritance for several characters and lend 
some support to Emerson’s (unpublished) contention 
that a few large scale mutations could transform teosinte 
into maize. But the much more extensive data of Man- 
gelsdorf (14) and of Rogers (38, 84) show that the genes 
which distinguish maize and teosinte are numerous and 
are distributed among a majority of the chromosomes. 
The highly significant studies of Rogers seem to have 
been completley overlooked by both Weatherwax and 
Randolph; at least they are not cited in their extensive 
bibliographies. 
The recent studies of Barghoorn, Wolfe and Clisby 
(3) on fossil pollen in Mexico lend no support to the 
teosinte theory. Although pollen of both maize and 
Tripsacum was found at great depths, the pollen of teo- 
sinte occurred only near the surface in the upper levels 
of the drill core where maize pollen was abundant sug- 
gesting that the practice of agriculture had begun. 
Furthermore, the maize pollen found at the lower levels 
is as large as any modern maize pollen and shows no re- 
semblance to teosinte pollen in the ratio of total diameter 
to the diameter of its pore. If this fossil pollen is as old 
as it is estimated to be — 80,000 years or more — the 
' Personal communication from the late R. H. Barlow. 
[ 432 ] 
