Cultigens in Prehistoric Eastern North America: Changing Paradigms [and Comments and Replies]

Abstract

The widely accepted view that eastern North America was a separate center of plant domestication has resulted in an increasingly isolationist perspective on the region''s culture history and a neglect of research on the diffusion into it of tropical cultigens. New data on archaeobotanical macromorphologies, the chemical and chromosomal composition of archaeobotanical specimens, and the geographical distribution of archaeobotanical remains challenge old paradigms. In particular, the diffusion of tropical cultigens across the Caribbean must now be seriously considered. This paper reports on current research suggesting alternatives to existing paradigms in relation to four plants (maize, tobacco, beans, and chenopods) and stresses prehistoric eastern North America''s relationship to, instead of isolation from, Mesoamerica and South America.