Archaeobotanical evidence supports indigenous cucurbit long-term use in the Mesoamerican Neotropics

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 14; no. 1; p. 10885
• Main Authors: Domic, Alejandra I., VanDerwarker, Amber M., Thakar, Heather B., Hirth, Kenneth, Capriles, José M., Harper, Thomas K., Scheffler, Timothy E., Kistler, Logan, Kennett, Douglas J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 13-05-2024; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/181/27; 631/449/2669; Agriculture; Archaeology; Bottle gourd; Carbon dating; Crop diversification; Crops; Crops, Agricultural; Cucurbita - anatomy & histology; Cucurbita pepo; Cucurbitaceae; Cucurbitaceae - anatomy & histology; Cultivars; Cultivation; Domestication; History, Ancient; Holocene; Honduras; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Lagenaria siceraria; Mesoamerica; multidisciplinary; Plant breeding; Radiocarbon dating; Radiometric Dating - methods; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Seeds; Seeds - chemistry; Selective breeding; Squash; Statistical analysis; Tropical environments; Honduras; Domestication; Agriculture; Bottle gourd; Squash; Mesoamerica
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-60723-1

The squash family (Cucurbitaceae) contains some of the most important crops cultivated worldwide and has played an important ecological, economic, and cultural role for millennia. In the American tropics, squashes were among the first cultivated crop species, but little is known about how their domestication unfolded. Here, we employ direct radiocarbon dating and morphological analyses of desiccated cucurbit seeds, rinds, and stems from El Gigante Rockshelter in Honduras to reconstruct human practices of selection and cultivation of
Lagenaria siceraria
,
Cucurbita pepo
, and
Cucurbita moschata
. Direct radiocarbon dating indicates that humans started using
Lagenaria
and wild
Cucurbita
starting ~ 10,950 calendar years before present (cal B.P.), primarily as watertight vessels and possibly as cooking and drinking containers. A rind directly dated to 11,150–10,765 cal B.P. represents the oldest known bottle gourd in the Americas. Domesticated
C. moschata
subsequently appeared ~ 4035 cal B.P., followed by domesticated
C. pepo
 ~ 2190 cal B.P. associated with increasing evidence for their use as food crops. Multivariate statistical analysis of seed size and shape show that the archaeological
C. pepo
assemblage exhibits significant variability, representing at least three varieties: one similar to present-day zucchini, another like present-day vegetable marrow, and a native cultivar without modern analogs. Our archaeobotanical data supports the hypothesis that Indigenous cucurbit use started in the Early Holocene, and that agricultural complexity during the Late Holocene involved selective breeding that encouraged crop diversification.