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Digital
History>eXplorations>Columbus & the
Columbian Exchange>The
Columbian Exchange>Origins of Plants
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This
map shows the sites of domestication for a number of crops.
Places where crops were initially domesticated are called centres
of origin
This
image is from the USDA. |
Sources
for more information:
| Origins of Selected Plants |
| FRUITS: |
| apples |
"The center of diversity of the genus Malus is
the eastern Turkey, southwestern Russia region of Asia Minor.
Apples were probably improved through selection over a period
of thousands of years by early farmers. Alexander the Great is
credited with finding dwarfed apples in Asia Minor in 300 BC;
those he brought back to Greece may well have been the progenitors
of dwarfing rootstocks."
from Dr. Mark Rieger, University of Georgia
http://www.uga.edu/fruit/ |
| avocados |
"The avocado (Persia americana)
apparently originated in Central America, where it was cultivated
as many as 7,000 years ago. It was grown some 5,000 years ago
in Mexico and, but the time of Christopher Columbus, had become
a food as far south as Peru, where it is called palta. Legend
has it that Hernando Cortes found avocados flourishing around
what is now Mexico City in 1519. The English word "avocado" is
derived from the Aztec ahuacatl, which the Spaniards passed along
transliterated as aguacate."
from Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild
Conee Ornelas, Cambridge University Press:Cambridge, 2000, Volume
Two, p. 1725. |
| bananas |
"Edible
bananas originated in the Indo-Malaysian region reaching
to northern Australia. They were known only by hearsay in
the
Mediterranean region in the 3rd Century B.C., and are believed
to have been first carried to Europe in the 10th Century
A.D. Early in the 16th Century, Portuguese mariners transported
the plant from the West African coast to South America. The
types found in cultivation in the Pacific have been traced
to eastern Indonesia from where they spread to the Marquesas
and by stages to Hawaii."
from Purdue University
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/banana.html |
cacao
(source of Chocolate) |
"The first people known to have made chocolate
were the ancient cultures of Mexico and Central America. These
people, including the Maya and Aztec, mixed ground cacao seeds
with various seasonings to make a spicy, frothy drink. Later,
the Spanish conquistadors brought the seeds back home to Spain,
where new recipes were created."
from the Field Museum
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/Chocolate/history.html |
| coffee |
first consumed in the 9th century, when it was
discovered in the highlands of Ethiopia |
| grapes |
"There are in all between forty and fifty
species of true grape-vines, one native to Europe, twelve to
Asia, and thirty-five to N. America. The genus Vitis has a much
longer history than man. The earliest representative yet discovered
is the fossil species V. sezonnensis, which flourished in the
subtropical forests of what is now France during the Lower Eocene
epoch."
from Ethnobotanical Leaflets International Web Journal
http://www.siu.edu/~ebl/leaflets/grapes.htm |
| guavas |
"The guava has been cultivated and distributed
by man, by birds, and sundry 4-footed animals for so long that
its place of origin is uncertain, but it is believed to be an
area extending from southern Mexico into or through Central America.
It is common throughout all warm areas of tropical America and
in the West Indies (since 1526), the Bahamas, Bermuda and southern
Florida where it was reportedly introduced in 1847 and was common
over more than half the State by 1886."
from Purdue University
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/guava.html |
| lemons |
"...[the lemon's] original home may have
been in the north of India. It only reached the Mediterranean
towards the end of the 1st century AD, ... The Arabs seem to
have been largely responsible for the spread of lemon cultivation
in the Mediterranean region...Arab traders also spread the lemon
eastward to China..."
from The Oxford Companion to Food, by Alan Davidson, Oxford University
Press: Oxford, 1999, p. 449. |
| olives |
"Olive leaf fossils have been found in Pliocene
deposits at Mongardino in Italy. Fossilised remains have been
discovered in strata from the Upper Paleolithic at the Relilai
snail hatchery in North Africa, and pieces of wild olive trees
and stones have been uncovered in excavations of the Chalcolithic
period and the Bronze Age in Spain. The existence of the olive
tree therefore dates back to the twelfth millennium BC. The wild
olive tree originated in Asia Minor where it is extremely abundant
and grows in thick forests. It appears to have spread from Syria
to Greece via Anatolia (De Candolle, 1883) although other hypotheses
point to lower Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, the Atlas Mountains or
certain areas of Europe as its source area."
from the International Olive Council
http://www.internationaloliveoil.org/web/aa-ingles/oliveWorld/olivo.html |
| papayas |
"Though the exact area of origin is unknown, the
papaya is believed native to tropical America, perhaps in southern
Mexico and neighboring Central America. It is recorded that seeds
were taken to Panama and then the Dominican Republic before 1525
and cultivation spread to warm elevations throughout South and
Central America, southern Mexico, the West Indies and Bahamas,
and to Bermuda in 1616. Spaniards carried seeds to the Philippines
about 1550 and the papaya traveled from there to Malacca and
India. Seeds were sent from India to Naples in 1626."
from Purdue University
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/papaya_ars.html |
| peaches |
"Peaches were probably the first fruit crop
domesticated in China about 4000 years ago. Cultivars grown today
derive largely from ecotypes native to southern China, an area
with climate similar to that of the southeastern USA, a major
peach growing region. Peaches were moved to Persia (Iran) along
silk trading routes. In fact, the epithet persica denotes Persia,
which is where Europeans thought peaches originated. Greeks and
especially Romans spread the peach throughout Europe and England
starting in 300-400 BC."
from Dr. Mark Rieger, University of Georgia
http://www.uga.edu/fruit/ |
| pears |
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| pineapples |
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| VEGETABLES: |
| beans |
"Faba beans probably originated in the Near
East in late Neolithic times. By the Bronze Age they had spread
at least to Northern Italy and have been found in several lakeside
dwellings in Switzerland. The earliest findings in Britain date
back to the Iron Age at Glastonbury. They were widely cultivated
in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome."
from the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA)
http://www.icarda.cgiar.org/Publications/Cook/Faba%20Bean/FabaBean.html |
| corn
(maize) |
domesticated in Mesoamerica as long ago as 3600
B.C. in what is now central Mexico and then spread throughout
the American continents. |
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| manioc |
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| dandelions |
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| daisies |
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| melons |
"The culture of the watermelon goes back
to prehistoric times. It was grown by the ancient Egyptians,
as revealed by pictures that survive to the present. Old names
in Arabic, Berber, Sanskrit, Spanish, and Sardinian are all unrelated,
indicating great antiquity of culture in lands about the Mediterranean
and east as far as India. The long and general culture of the
watermelon from North Africa to middle Asia led to the view that
it was of Asiatic origin, although it had never been found wild
in Asia or elsewhere. Finally, however, about a hundred years
ago, the great missionary-explorer, David Livingstone, settled
the question of its origin. He found large tracts in central
Africa literally covered with watermelons growing truly wild."
from "Our Vegetable Travelers" by Victor R. Boswell, National
Geographic Magazine, 1949, Volume 96(2). |
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| peanuts |
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| peppers |
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| potatoes |
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| pumpkins |
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| radish |
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| rice |
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| squash |
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| sugar/sugarcane |
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| sweet
potatoes |
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| tobacco |
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| tomatoes |
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| chicle
(Source of Chewing Gum) |
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| GRASSES: |
| barley |
"Barley has a very debatable origin. There
are two different thoughts as to where barley was originally
cultivated. J.R Hardin says that barley cultivation originated
in Egypt. There is evidence of barley grains found in pits and
pyramids of Egypt over 5000 years ago. There has also been ancient
glyphs or pictorials showing barley dating back to 3000 BC. There
have also been references to barley and beer making in ancient
Egyptian and Sumerian writings. The other thought is that barley
was originally cultivated in China around 1500-2000 BC. This
is evident by ancient pottery found depicting the end of the
famine by having barley fall out of the sky"
from Ethnobotanical Leaflets International Web Journal
http://www.siu.edu/~ebl/leaflets/barley.htm |
| clover |
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| Kentucky
bluegrass |
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| oats |
"Oats...date from about 1000 BC in Central
Europe. However, the Greeks and Romans of classical times were
unimpressed, regarding oats as coarse, barbarian fare; and the
Romans used them mainly as animal fodder, but did foster the
growing of oats in Britain, where they were to become important
as a food for human beings."
from The Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson, Oxford University:Oxford,
1999, p. 547. |
| ragweed |
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| sugar and sugar cane |
"Sugar cane originated in New Guinea where it
has been known since about 6000 BC. From about 1000 BC its cultivation
gradually spread along human migration routes to Southeast Asia
and India and east into the Pacific. It is thought to have hybridised
with wild sugar canes of India and China, to produce the 'thin'
canes. It spread westwards to the Mediterranean between 600-1400
AD. Arabs were responsible for much of its spread as they took
it to Egypt around 640 AD, during their conquests. They carried
it with them as they advanced around the Mediterranean. Sugar
cane spread by this means to Syria, Cyprus, and Crete, eventually
reaching Spain around 715 AD."
from Plant Cultures: Exploring Plants and People
http://www.plantcultures.org/plants/sugar_cane_history_early_origins_and_spread.html |
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| wheat |
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