Word: macneish
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Ancient Mexico is famous for its temples and pyramids; less known and harder to study are the lives of the ancient Mexicans. For nine years Archeologist Richard MacNeish of the Canadian National Museum has devoted himself to this job. Last week he was finishing the excavation of a cave in northeastern Mexico that contained a long cultural history of a Mexican people...
...high Sierra Madre Mountains of the State of Tamaulipas lived the Huasteca Indians, who were tough and somewhat provincial. They never reached the top level of indigenous civilization, but from Dr. MacNeish's point of view, they had an admirable habit: they lived or sheltered in dry mountain caves...
Since 1945 MacNeish has poked into more than 300 caves. In 1949 he found in one of them a primitive corncob which he sent to Botanist Paul C. Mangelsdorf of Harvard. Dated by radioactive carbon, it proved to be more than 4,000 years old and cleared up several mysteries about the origin of corn. Urged and partially financed by Harvard to find even older corn, MacNeish returned last year to Tamaulipas...
First sign of agriculture was squash seeds. Then came corn, the staff of Mexican life. The ears were only two or three inches long, and the kernels were covered with individual husks. Some cobs showed tooth marks; they had apparently been eaten as modern people eat sweet corn. MacNeish estimates that agriculture provided about 4% of the food at this period (4,000 years ago). The rest were wild plants and animals, which were hunted with the atlatl or spear-throwing stick...
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