Maize Research Paper

Before Europeans came to the Americas, maize was the only one bread culture. Maize, also known as an Indian corn spread at a record speed across in the warmest parts of Europe. Corn produced much more grain that wheat and gave more calories per hectare than wheat. Europeans learned how to grow the corn properly, so it began to replace traditional crops in Europe. As a result, by 18th century, maize spread around the Europe, especially in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. The most important result of transporting the maize from the Americas to Afro-Eurasia is that this crop allowed to use the fallow land. As a result, the food supply increased, which led to the increase of the population. Maize stood alongside with wheat and rice. Corn became a food for poor people, and a great supply pigs and cattle. John Locke claims, “…plots of Maize in several parts, which the country people call Bled d’Espagne, & as they told me, serves poor people for bread… it being good nourishment for their cattle” (Stearns et al. 20). The author states that corn bread was served for the poor people, which had a positive result on the population

According to Burciaga, the history of the tortilla dates way back to the Mayan age in Mexico and possibly predating Europe's wheat bread. A popular Mexican folklore tells about a Mayan god who came down to earth, stole a grain of corn from the red ants and gave it to the first man and woman to walk the Earth. In many Indian cultures of the Americas, Maize festivals are celebrated to this day.

My focus is on the agriculture and maize domestication of both areas. Maize was first domesticated in Mesoamerica, southern Mexico about 9000 years ago and dispersed into the southwestern United States during the late middle archaic period.

a. The cultivation of maize, introduced heavily by sophisticated civilizations such as the Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs, helped to feed large population sizes, thus facilitating the spread of its cultivation across North America. By 2000 BCE, Pueblo peoples, due to the new cultivation of maize, developed irrigation systems. By 1000 CE, maize reached to modern-day SE America, which influenced Creek, Choctaw, and Cherokee peoples by growing and feeding their populations.

Maize was the basis of the feeding of pre-Columbian civilizations. It is very probable that these societies would not have developed without corn, because they supported and made possible the growth of its population in that cereal.

Corn crops were a staple life force in the early cultures of the natives. This caused the natives to cease their early practices of hunting, gathering and moving from place to place. It helped them transform into a more agricultural society. This crop was high in yield which could sustain a large population, therefore contributing to a growth and stability of their civilizations

The history of corn can be dated back to the beginning of time, but the use and value of corn had been unnoticed until it was introduce by the Native Americans. Where corn had seemed to be a big part of their everyday life from, being in myths, legends, and for a huge portion of their diet corn was an essential component. "when the Europeans had touched base to the New World during the late fifteenth century, the Native Americans had introduced corn what they had called maize to the Europeans .This crop was then later on grown and adapted from Canada to southern South America very quickly, which then began to form the new basis of the New World civilization" (Leventin & McManhon, 2012). The way corn has been changing and revolutionizing throughout time has been both fascinating and drastic. Rather than conventional corn being grown, it is genetically modified corn that have been dominating today 's crop industry and farming but the question remains as to how the various types of GMO corn has influenced the way it is grown and used and what its ramification are.

Much of the farming flourished in Mesoamerica, the Mexican valley of Tehuacan, is where the plant teosinte was specialized in becoming maize, the main crop of the Americas. They even learned that planting beans next to these crops enriched the soil to make them better. These great crops made for good trade with non-farming traders, due to their large surplus. Rich communities had become strong enough to capture their weaker neighbors and use them for labor and to gain riches such as land.

Native Americans started the development of maize. In 1491 Mann says, “Indians developed an extraordinary number of maize varieties for different growing conditions, which meant that the crop could and did spread throughout the planet”(pg17). With the spread of maize the Indians caused several

Never would someone had thought that the richness of a crop's production could bring power to early humans, becoming almost as a revolutionary concept. Today maize-fields are cultivated for food, economic and medicinally productions, but it does not represent anything special in today's society as it was before. In the Popol Vuh maize is an important concept and symbol that expands to ideas that many anthropologists and professionals cannot understand completely. Yet, when reading the Popol Vuh there are many examples of when maize is used to represent its importance. Maize is the most important idea in the Popol Vuh because it provides food, it results in wealth, it represents a political system and it shows hierarchy.

Growing up in Nebraska I can tell you that I have ingested my fair amount of corn and corn-based products, I mean we are the Cornhuskers after all. But what is so special about corn? I ask this question because I want to know what is so special about corn and why is it in almost anything and everything we eat. America's agriculture is vast in the many types of plants that are planted and harvested every year, such as soybeans and wheat that are also used as an ingredient in many of our foods that we consume every day. When trying to answer this question I had to do some of my own investigative work, just as Pollan did when finding out all he could find out about corn. I researched the most grown grains in America, since corn is a grain, and to no surprise, it was corn but the second majorly grown crop that we Americans plant was soybeans. From there I

Agriculture served as the material foundation for the natives. Corn was the heart of this foundation because it was so versatile. In

In North America and the Andean region of South America maize was an essential part of their life that they even worshiped it. Maize helped establish possible changes in modes of production and religion that focus on fertility and mother nature. Maize unified many Native American cultures and was found all over south and north america as far as Texas. Some of the commonly planted were maize, beans, and squash. The Olmec civilization was so advanced that some people began to think they came from outer space or that they suddenly arrived from Africa which I thought was pretty interesting to actually believe that the Olmec came from outer space just looking at the structures they built and being able to move a boulder more than fifty-six miles.

Forages in Australia are mainly kept in the country for use in feeding livestock. Excess forages are cut to be baled for hay or they are ensiled, which means to be cut and stored in a silo or similar type facility to be preserved as silage. Another newer and more popular use of forages are as cover crops in between growing seasons. This is a good way to improve soil health and it also creates another grazing area for livestock.

Larger grains the size of 70 µm first appeared 5,000 years B.C. and were common 4,000 years B.C. The size and axis/pore ratio had decreased in size to a size now typical of domesticated maize. It is important to note that the Zea found in San Andres were not native to the coastal Tabasco area and was an exotic species that was introduced to and cultivated by farmers. The appearance of this maize coincides with forest clearing in this area, probably for the purposes of agriculture, which was evidenced by charcoal. The settlement here was linked to the beach ridge and the lagoon which was attractive to maize farmers. Small Zea pollen disappeared after 2,500 years B.C. and around the same time, domesticated sunflowers appeared. The first sunflower seed found dates back to 2,667 calendar years. B.C., and the first sunflower fruit dates back to 2,548 calendar year B.C. The earliest date on maize in Mexico is 4,300 calendar year B.C. which meant that domestication had to have happened before 4,000 calendar year B.C. This early appearance of maize supports the supposed origin of agriculture in the New World in a humid, tropical setting and for early exchanges between Mesoamerica, and Central and South