Archaeobotanical evidence supports indigenous cucurbit long-term use in the Mesoamerican Neotropics.

The squash family (Cucurbitaceae) contains some of the most important crops cultivated worldwide and has played an important ecological, economic, and cultural role for millennia. In the American tropics, squashes were among the first cultivated crop species, but little is known about how their domestication unfolded. Here, we employ direct radiocarbon dating and morphological analyses of desiccated cucurbit seeds, rinds, and stems from El Gigante Rockshelter in Honduras to reconstruct human practices of selection and cultivation of Lagenaria siceraria, Cucurbita pepo, and Cucurbita moschata.

Trans-Holocene Bayesian chronology for tree and field crop use from El Gigante rockshelter, Honduras.

El Gigante rockshelter in western Honduras provides a deeply stratified archaeological record of human-environment interaction spanning the entirety of the Holocene. Botanical materials are remarkably well preserved and include important tree (e.g.

Archaeological Central American maize genomes suggest ancient gene flow from South America.

Maize ( ssp. ) domestication began in southwestern Mexico ∼9,000 calendar years before present (cal. BP) and humans dispersed this important grain to South America by at least 7,000 cal.

High-precision chronology for Central American maize diversification from El Gigante rockshelter, Honduras.

The first steps toward maize ( subspecies ) domestication occurred in the Balsas region of Mexico by ∼9,000 calendar years B.P. (cal B.