Eastern Agricultural Complex (sunflower, goosefoot)
Complejo agrícola del este de Norteamérica (girasol y quenopodio)
- Date
- c. 1800 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Newt Kash Hollow, Menifee, Kentucky, United States
- Credited to
- Late Archaic peoples of eastern North America
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Independent domestication of sunflower, goosefoot, marsh elder and squash in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys. It is one of the world's ten primary centres of agricultural origin.
An Indigenous contribution. For decades it was assumed that all North American agriculture came from Mexico; Smith (1989) demonstrated local domestication.
What it led to
- Woodland villages and the Hopewell culture
- sunflower as a global oilseed crop
- an agricultural base predating the arrival of maize