Maize Cultivation System

Timeline

1. c. -7000–1492the Americas · AmericasIndigenous peoples of the Americas domesticated wild teosinte into maize. Genetic studies in 2002–2004 concluded that domestication occurred only once, with the wild ancestor being Zea mays subsp. parviglumis from the highlands of the Balsas River basin in southwestern Mexico. Early maize cobs dating to about 6,250 years ago were excavated from the Guilá Naquitz cave in the Oaxaca Valley. Indigenous peoples developed the maize–bean–squash "Three Sisters" polyculture; maize became the core staple of Mesoamerican civilizations and spread throughout North and South America.
2. 1493–1600Europe, Africa, and Asia · AsiaMaize reached Spain soon after Columbus returned from his first voyage. By the 16th century it was cultivated in the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, and West Africa, becoming an important food crop on poor soils and appearing as shipboard rations on Atlantic routes.
3. 1601–1610major agricultural regions worldwide · globalBy the late 16th century, maize was fairly common in southern Europe and West Africa. Ming dynasty Chinese records document yushuyu/imperial wheat: Tian Yiheng's Liuqing Rizha (printed 1573) gives a relatively detailed account, and Li Shizhen's Comperta of Materia Medica (1596 Jinling edition) also includes a dedicated entry on yushuyu. In the early 17th century, Spanish and Portuguese colonies continued to promote maize as plantation rations, but the claim that "the global pattern was established in one stroke between 1601 and 1610" lacks a single-event basis; here it only indicates that the spread had become irreversible.