Domestication History of Squashes (Cucurbita spp)

Squash (genus Cucurbita), including squashes, pumpkins, and gourds, is one of the earliest and most important of plants domesticated in the Americas, along with maize and common bean. The genus includes 12–14 species, at least six of which were domesticated independently in South America, Mesoamerica, and Eastern North America, long before European contact. Fast Facts: Squash Domestication Scientific Name: Cucurbita pepo, C. moschata, C. argyrospera, C. ficifolia, C. maximaCommon Names: Pumpkins, squash, zucchini, gourdsProgenitor Plant: Cucurbita spp, some of which are extinct  When Domesticated: 10,000 years agoWhere Domesticated:  North and South AmericaSelected Changes: Thinner rinds, smaller seeds, and edible fruit Six Main Species There are six cultivated species of squash, which in part reflect different adaptations to local environments. For example, the figleaf gourd is adapted to cool temperatures and short days; butternut squash is found in the humid tropics, and pumpkins grow in the widest range of environments. In the table below, the designation cal BP means, roughly, calendar years ago before the present. Data in this table has been assembled from a variety of published scholarly research. Name Common Name Location Date Progenitor C. pepo spp pepo pumpkins, zucchini Mesoamerica 10,000 cal BP C. pepo. spp fraterna C. moschata butternut squash Mesoamerica or northern South America 10,000 cal BP C. pepo spp fraterna C. pepo spp. ovifera summer squashes, acorns Eastern North America 5000 cal BP C. pepo spp ozarkana C. argyrosperma silver-seeded gourd, green-striped cushaw Mesoamerica 5000 cal BP C. argyrosperma spp sororia C. ficifolia fig-leafed gourd Mesoamerica or Andean South America 5000 cal BP unknown C. maxima buttercup, banana, Lakota, Hubbard, Harrahdale pumpkins South America 4000 cal BP C. maxima spp adreana Why Would Anybody Domesticate Gourds? Wild forms of squashes are harshly bitter to humans and other extant mammals, so bitter that the wild plant is inedible. Interestingly, there is evidence that they were harmless to mastodons, the extinct form of American elephants. Wild squashes carry cucurbitacins, which can be toxic when eaten by smaller-bodied mammals, including humans. Large-bodied mammals would need to ingest a huge amount to have an equivalent dose (75–230 whole fruits at once). When the megafauna died off at the end of the last Ice Age, wild Cucurbita declined. The last mammoths in the Americas died off about 10,000 years ago, around the same time squashes were being domesticated. Archaeological understanding of the squash domestication process  has undergone a considerable rethinking: most domestication processes have been found to have taken centuries if not millennia to complete. In contrast, squash domestication was fairly abrupt. Domestication was likely in part the result of human selection for different traits related to edibility, as well as seed size and rind thickness. It has also been suggested that domestication may have been directed by the practicality of dried gourds as containers or fishing weights. Bees and Gourds Stingless bee pollinating a gourd flower. RyersonClark / iStock / Getty Images Plus Evidence suggests that cucurbit ecology is tightly bound up with one of its pollinators, several varieties of an American stingless bee known as Peponapis or the gourd bee. Ecologist Tereza Cristina Giannini and colleagues identified a co-occurrence of specific types of cucurbit with specific types of Peponapis  in three distinct geographic clusters. Cluster A is in the Mojave, Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts (including P. pruinosa); B in the moist forests of the Yucatan peninsula and C in the Sinaloa dry forests. Peponapis bees may well be crucial to understanding the spread of domesticated squash in the Americas because bees apparently followed the human movement of cultivated squashes into new territories. Entomologist Margarita Lopez-Uribe and colleagues (2016) studied and identified molecular markers of the bee P. pruinosa in bee populations throughout North America. P. pruinosa today prefers the wild host C. foetidissima, but when that is not available, it relies on domesticated host plants, C. pepo, C. moschata and C. maxima, for pollen. The distribution of these markers suggests that modern squash bee populations are the result of massive range expansion from out of Mesoamerica into the temperate regions of North America. Their findings suggest that the bee colonized eastern NA after C. pepo was domesticated there, the first and only known case of a pollinators range expanding with the spread of a domesticated plant. South America Microbotanical remains from squash plants such as starch grains and phytoliths, as well as macro-botanical remains such as seeds, pedicles, and rinds, have been found representing C. moschata squash and bottle gourd in numerous sites throughout northern South American and Panama by 10,200–7600 cal BP, underlining their probable South American origins earlier than that. Phytoliths large enough to represent domesticated squash have been found at sites in Ecuador 10,000–7,000 years BP and the Colombian Amazon (9300–8000 BP). Squash seeds of Cucurbita moschata have been recovered from sites in the Nanchoc valley on the lower western slopes of Peru, as were early cotton, peanut, and quinoa. Two squash seeds from the floors of houses were direct-dated, one 10,403–10,163 cal BP and one 8535-8342 cal BP. In the Zaà ±a valley of Peru, C. moschata rinds dated to 10,402-10,253 cal BP, alongside early evidence of cotton, manioc, and coca. C. ficifolia was discovered in southern coastal Peru at Paloma, dated between 5900-5740 cal BP; other squash evidence that has not been identified to species include Chilca 1, in southern coastal Peru (5400 cal BP and Los Ajos in southeastern Uruguay, 4800–4540 cal BP. Mesoamerican Squashes The earliest archaeological evidence for C. pepo squash in Mesoamerica comes from excavations carried out during the 1950s and 1960s in five caves in Mexico: Guilà ¡ Naquitz in Oaxaca state, Coxcatlà ¡n and San Marco caves in Puebla and Romero’s and Valenzuela’s caves in Tamaulipas. Pepo squash seeds, fruit rind fragments, and stems have been radiocarbon dated to 10,000 years BP, including both direct-dating of the seeds and indirect dating of the site levels in which they were found. This analysis allowed also to trace the dispersion of the plant between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago from south to north, specifically, from Oaxaca and southwestern Mexico toward Northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. Xihuatoxtla rock shelter, in tropical Guerrero state, contained phytoliths of what may be C. argyrosperma, in association with radiocarbon-dated levels of 7920/- 40 RCYBP, indicating that domesticated squash was available between 8990–8610 cal BP. Eastern North America In the United States, early evidence of the initial domestication of Pepo squash comes from different sites from the central midwest and the east from Florida to Maine. This was a subspecies of Cucurbita pepo called Cucurbita pepo ovifera and its wild ancestor, the inedible Ozark gourd, is still present in the area. This plant formed part of the dietary complex known as the Eastern North American Neolithic, which also included chenopodium and sunflower. The earliest use of squash is from the Koster site  in Illinois, ca. 8000 years BP; the earliest domesticated squash in the midwest comes from Phillips Spring, Missouri, about 5,000 years ago.   Selected Sources Brown, Cecil H., et al. The Paleobiolinguistics of the Common Bean (Phaseolus Vulgaris L.). Ethnobiology Letters 5.12 (2014): 104–15.  Giannini, T. C., et al. Ecological Niche Similarities of Peponapis Bees and Non-Domesticated Cucurbita Species. Ecological Modelling 222.12 (2011): 2011–18.  Kates, Heather R., Pamela S. Soltis, and Douglas E. Soltis. Evolutionary and Domestication History of Cucurbita (Pumpkin and Squash) Species Inferred from 44 Nuclear Loci. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 111 (2017): 98–109.  Kistler, Logan, et al. Gourds and Squashes (Cucurbita Spp.) Adapted to Megafaunal Extinction and Ecological Anachronism through Domestication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112.49 (2015): 15107–12.  Là ³pez-Uribe, Margarita M., et al. Crop Domestication Facilitated Rapid Geographical Expansion of a Specialist Pollinator, the Squash Bee Peponapis Pruinosa. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Scie nces 283.1833 (2016).  Zheng, Yi-Hong, et al. Chloroplast Phylogeny of Cucurbita: Evolution of the Domesticated and Wild Species. Journal of Systematics and Evolution 51.3 (2013): 326–34.

The War On Drugs And Its Impact On The United States

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Kurt Vonnegut The Concept Of Postmodernism - 1598 Words

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Confucianism and Christianity Essay Example For Students

Confucianism and Christianity Essay Confucianism and Christianity Essay M. Douglas McKinney Philosophy of Religion The premise of Confucian teachings are centered around the idea of Jen or the virtue of humanity (Ching 68). To accomplish this divinity, five relationships must be honored: ruler and minister, father and son, husband and wife, elder and younger brother, and friend and friend (Hopfe). These relationships led a push for a revolution of the political system to adopt the methods of Jen. Confucius sought to revive the ancient Chinese culture by redefining the importance of society and government. He described a society governed by reasonable, humane, and just sensibilities, not by the passions of individuals arbitrarily empowered by hereditary status (Clearly). He felt that this could be achieved through education and the unification of cultural beliefs. He believed that a nation would be benefited by citizens that were cultivated people whose intellects and emotions had been developed and matured by conscious people (Clearly). He felt that those born into the feudal system were had a personal duty to excel socially by means of power. Those who were of lesser class should also seek out education to better themselves. All purposes for betterment of man and society as one whole is known as Li. Li means the rationalized social order (Yutang). Confucius felt that love and respect for authority was a key to a perfect society; this strict respect was practiced through rituals and magic (Smith). The Confucius traditions have caused a tradition to set within its institution and is extremely active. It has, unfortunately, allowed the political institution to manipulate the Confucius system. As with Christianity. Christianity also preaches a divine, brotherly love. Modern Christianity seeks to discover a rational understanding of the person as did Confucius (Ess ed. 381); yet, Christianity feels that faith in the Jesus Christ as a personal savior is essential to this enlightenment. It was also under the guise of Christianity that it had to confront totalitarian systems dehumanize uses of power in its sphere of influence (state and church, and these systems triumphed under the banner of de-Christianization (Ess ed. 384). Unlike Confucius reformers of their corrupt state pushed the beliefs of the true ideals of Confucius, Christians believed in an Absolute against all absolving of the relative, can protest in the name of God (Ess ed. 384). Some would argue that Confucius did support and an Absolute, but he described it as the entirety of Heaven. Several scholars believe that his Heaven was analogous to the God unto which Christians served. Christians feel that in order to also gain a Jen-like status one must have a serious relationship with the church and Jesus Christ himself. Confucius differed in that they feel that the body, mind and soul must be recognized as one to reach Jen (Smith). Through education or ritual practices one gains wealth. With wealth one achieved power. These are the essentials to living a good life (OBrire). However, relationships between men is the most desirable. These aspects are the embodiment of Li. Li was love for authority and respect for others (Alexander). Christianity also looks at wealth in a slightly different manner. At the heart of the Christian faith and at its source of its traditions in Scripture is the belief in a covenant (Carmen 17). It is the promise between God and the individual that ensures (through faith) that ones kindly actions on Earth will be divinely awarded. The five relationships of Jen are also honored in Christianity with references to Honor thy father and mother, for this is the first commandment with promise (Ephesians 6:1). It is prevalent that Christianity and Confucius are very similar in their philosophy. Some would argue that Confucius lack of a strong theology is its failure to comply with the Christian ethics. Others would say it is there drive to be a virtuous individual compensates for this tedium. They equally feel that relationships with neighbors and family is an integral part of becoming virtuous. Free Media Violences: Boy Killed by 19 inch Essay Christians rely on the teachings of Jesus while the Confucius look towards those who have wealthy estates. This point conveys that Christians may be more dependent on their spiritual guidance opposed to the Confucius examination of the worldly infrastructure of trial and error. Thus it is not surprising that when faced with a choice of both religions, an individuals merit may be the deciding factor on which is more ideal for them. Philosophy .