Chatted with a volunteer at a dig site in New Mexico who showed me a tiny, 800-year-old corn cob

3 comments

3 Comments

What kind of dig site was it, like a pueblo or something else? It's wild to hold something that old (and that small) that was part of someone's daily life. Did the volunteer talk about how the corn was different back then compared to what we eat now? I'm always curious about the actual people who grew it.

the_rose24d ago

It was actually a Hohokam site in Arizona, not a pueblo. The volunteer said the corn cobs were tiny, like the size of a thumb. Modern corn is a giant swollen thing from thousands of years of breeding. Holding that little cob really did make me think about the person who dropped it, maybe grinding it for hours to make a meal. It's a direct link to their daily struggle.

knight.xena24d ago

Wow, that really makes you realize how much work went into just getting enough food back then.