Modern corn is a food staple, animal feed, biofuel, industrial sweetener, alcohol base, and even a source for bio-plastics. But what do we really know about how corn came to be so ubiquitous in ancient and modern societies? Heather Thakar is an archaeobotanist at Texas A&M University and an expert in the early domestication history of tropical plants in the Americas. In this presentation she discussed active research coming from the El Gigante Rockshelter in Honduras, a site of incredible ancient plant preservation that is challenging what we know about maize domestication. 

Moderator: Briana Pobiner, paleoanthropologist and educator at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

This Zoom webinar with Heather Thakar aired live on September 21, 2023 as part of the ongoing "HOT (Human Origins Today) Topic" series.