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Fg, RARER RA, 
BOTANICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
CambripGe, Massacuusetts, Juty 12, 1938 VoL. 6, No. 4 
CUCURBITA MOSCHATA FOUND 
IN PRE-COLUMBIAN MOUNDS 
IN GUATEMALA 
BY 
Pau. A. VESTAL 
INVESTIGATIONS OF PLANT REMAINS found in the en- 
virons of prehistoric man are recondite and technical, the 
materials generally unattractive and the results often 
meager. The interest which we take in such remains is 
largely genealogical, influenced by the hope of finding 
evidence to determine the region and age in which certain 
species of plants were first cultivated. Questions of an- 
cestry and history touch us closely ; so an inquiry into the 
source and parentage of the plants with which man is as- 
sociated is fully as attractive as any question concern- 
ing the origin of the prototypal vegetation of the earth. 
There is a deep satisfaction in knowing how man lived in 
early times and what he used as food. 
During excavations of pre-Columbian mounds by 
Carnegie Institution of Washington at Uaxactun, De- 
partment of Petén, Guatemala, a number of plant re- 
mains were recovered. These have been submitted to the 
writer for identification. Among them was a carbonized 
peduncle of a cucurbit. This was found in Construction 
P, Burial 37, Room 54, Structure A-V. Mr. A. L..Smith, 
who was in charge of the expedition, gives this a Maya 
date of roughly 10.5.0.0.0, which, he states, according 
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