Piperno Dolores R, Stothert Karen E
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), Balboa, Panama.
Science. 2003 Feb 14;299(5609):1054-7. doi: 10.1126/science.1080365.
Cucurbita (squash and gourd) phytoliths recovered from two early Holocene archaeological sites in southwestern Ecuador and directly dated to 10,130 to 9320 carbon-14 years before the present (about 12,000 to 10,000 calendar years ago) are identified as derived from domesticated plants because they are considerably larger than those from modern wild taxa. The beginnings of plant husbandry appear to have been preceded by the exploitation of a wild species of Cucurbita during the terminal Pleistocene. These data provide evidence for an independent emergence of plant food production in lowland South America that was contemporaneous with or slightly before that in highland Mesoamerica.
从厄瓜多尔西南部两个全新世早期考古遗址中发现的南瓜属（南瓜和葫芦）植物硅酸体，经直接测定其碳-14年代为距今10130至9320年（约公元前12000至10000年），这些植物硅酸体被认定源自驯化植物，因为它们比现代野生类群的硅酸体大得多。在末次更新世晚期，南瓜属的一个野生种被利用，之后似乎才开始了植物栽培。这些数据为南美洲低地植物粮食生产的独立出现提供了证据，这一过程与中美洲高地的情况同时或略早。
