FARMERS in ancient Mexico were not only clued up on cultivating maize, peppers and cotton – it seems they were the first to grow sunflowers too. “Conventional wisdom is that sunflowers were cultivated in eastern North America,” says David Lentz at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio.
The crop was thought to have been introduced to Mexico by the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century. So, when Lentz discovered domesticated sunflower seeds in a 4100-year-old Mexican archaeological site in 2001, sceptics dismissed the find as an aberration.
Now Lentz’s team has unearthed further evidence that the sunflower has an ancient cultural history in the area. If it…
