XVI International Botanical Congess

This paper will focus on plant use activities of the early inhabitants of Precolumbian Mesoamerica and how they redistributed germplasm of domesticates and influenced populations of wild species. Charcoal from Anacardium occidentale (cashew) discovered in Middle Formative deposits (ca. 900 B.C.) at Yarumela in Honduras provides early evidence of this South American domesticate. A second example comes from the Ceren site in El Salvador. Trachypogon plumosus was once used by the Late Classic inhabitants to thatch the roofs of their houses, but today the grass is rare to absent in the Zapotitan Valley. Anthropogenic forces undoubtedly played a role in its local decline. Finally, Helianthus annuus (sunflower), believed to have been a North American domesticate, found its way into early pre-Olmec deposits on the Gulf Coast of Mexico.