N CORN COBS 



Flute-playing nomad of Andean 

 highlands. One of his ancestors, 

 perhaps the legendary flute player 

 Kocopelli, may have brought pod 

 corn to North America. This Indian 

 still carries an ear of pod corn in 

 his pack. 



Courtesy of Journal of Heredity 



occupying much attention in botani- 

 cal and archeological circles. 



Since maize is a thoroughly do- 

 mesticated plant, its movements from 

 the areas of its suspected origin — 

 in either Central or South America 

 — over all the Western Hemisphere 

 are actually a record of the move- 

 ments of the tribes who carried it. 



Thus, the archeologist sees in the 

 remains of ancient maize at camp 

 sites a fairly accurate record of the 

 maize that the inhabitants had or 

 brought with them into the area. 



Academic Question 



It is, of course, from the fragments 

 of corn cobs, oftentimes thoroughly 

 charred, that reliable evidence is un- 

 covered. 



The botanist has a much greater 

 stake in such finds. He asks the purely 

 academic question of the origin of 

 maize. Where and when, and on what 

 did this first domestication take 

 place? The last question is of such 



commercial importance that hybrid- 

 corn seed companies spend thousands 

 of dollars for archaeological studies. 



Haphazard Mixture 



The present source of commercial 

 inbred lines for the hybrid feed corns 

 of commerce is a haphazard mixture 

 of two main races of maize known as 

 Northern Flint and Southern Dent. 



A program to combine these two 

 races in a more deliberate way is 

 already showing promise of further 

 increasing our yields in the Corn 

 Belt. But both races are of unknown 

 ancestry, and at least one of them. 

 Southern Dent, is itself a mixture of 

 two or possibly three other races. 



Now it can be appreciated that this 

 mixing took place in time to allow 

 our early explorers to find a rather 

 well adapted corn being grown by 

 Indian tribes throughout the terri- 

 tories they visited. 



Please turn to next page 



Teosinte, the closest wild relative of corn. 

 Beneath the tassel on the right side of the 

 stalk is a small ear. 



Courtesy of Scientific American 



