Jan 26 - Wenke and Olszewski 262-270

Origins of Agriculture in the New World, Wenke and Olszewski 262-270

Answer two of the following three questions in a two part answer of no more than 200 words each.

1. What are the morphological changes associated with bean domestication versus the changes associated with maize? Compare this with the morphological changes in the rachis of wheat and barley in the process of south-west Asian plant domestication.

2. If the conditions that permitted plant domestication in Mesoamerica also occurred earlier during the Pleistocene, how does the model proposed by Richerson et al., mentioned earlier in the chapter, square with the evidence from Mesoamerica?

3. Discuss the extinct wild maize hypothesis versus teosinte debate.