Maize for the Gods: unearthing the 9,000-year history of corn

Description

The archaeology of Maize -- The place of Maize in (agri)cultural origin stories -- Old puzzles and new questions about Maize's origins and spread -- Timing is everything: dating Maize -- Maize through a magnifying glass: macro-remains -- Maize through a microscope: micro-remains -- Elemental Maize: tracing Maize isotopically -- Genetically modified Maize; the old way: by agriculture1 -- Daily tools and sacred symbols.;"Maize is the world's most productive food and industrial crop--grown in more than 160 countries and on every continent except Antarctica. Maize for the Gods brings together new research by archaeologists, archaeobotanists, plant geneticists, and a host of other specialists as they trace the history of Maize, exploring the complex ways that this single plant and the peoples who domesticated it came to be inextricably entangled with one another over the past nine millennia. From Maize's first appearance and domestication in ancient campsites and settlements in Mexico to its intercontinental journey throughout most of North and South America, this history is also the story of the artistic creativity, technological prowess, and social, political, and economic resilience of America's first peoples."-- The archaeology of Maize -- The place of Maize in (agri)cultural origin stories -- Old puzzles and new questions about Maize's origins and spread -- Timing is everything: dating Maize -- Maize through a magnifying glass: macro-remains -- Maize through a microscope: micro-remains -- Elemental Maize: tracing Maize isotopically -- Genetically modified Maize the old way: by agriculture1 -- Daily tools and sacred symbols.