Maize: bred from teosinte, once, about 9,000 years ago, then fed the world (Balsas region, southern Mexico)
Record: the document says itPattern: documents line upLens: our readingOpen: not yet proven
Year: 1492 · Places: Mexico, Europe, Africa
SUMMARYMaize: bred from teosinte, once, about 9,000 years ago, then fed the world (Balsas region, southern Mexico) [Connections: Tech of the Americas, Nov 5, 2026]
RECORDWikipedia ("Maize"): maize was domesticated from teosinte "only once, about 9,000 years ago" (Matsuoka et al. 2002); Balsas teosinte is "the crop wild relative genetically most similar to modern maize" (Doebley 2004). The oldest cobs, from Guilá Naquitz Cave, Oaxaca, are "roughly 6,250 years old." The main shape difference is "largely controlled by differences in just two genes." After 1492 it was "cultivated in Spain just a few decades after Columbus's voyages," then spread to Italy, West Africa and the Philippines (Earle 2012)
PATTERNPlant breeding that turned a grass with a few hard kernels into a staple crop, the biggest biotech handoff from the Americas to the world
LENS (WW9)The world eats our engineering every day