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Re: maize in Europe and India: a twisted tale



In article <pmv100.26.32C67888@psu.edu> pmv100@psu.edu (Peter van Rossum) writes:


>The fact is that no one has reported Precolumbian corn cobs in Old World
>contexts even though they are extremely durable (for plant remains),
>extremely easy to identify, and should be very widespread if they made 
>up any significant portion of a people's diet.  This should give us pause 
>for concern that the identification is not correct.


I have no expertise in this matter, but have been following this thread of and 
on.  I have one simple question that goes along with the above statement.  If 
corn (maize) were to have been introduced into the "Old World" at such an 
early date, would it not have spread rapidly and been in wide use since, as it 
did when it was definitely introduced after Columbus & Co?  If such a thing 
had happened, we certainly would have evidence for widespread use of such a 
plant, conspiracy or no--am I correct in this assumption?

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