ABSTRACT
Archaeological evidence for plant domestication provides critical documentation of the human manipulation of plant population genetics: absolute dating and cultural context. Archaeological evidence for maize domestication throughout the America is abundant. The focus of archaeological study of maize's origin and evolution has been the domesticates' initial appearance of the temporal documentation. The biological community has pursued other evidence that contemplates documenting processes associated with domestication. Molecular biology has focused not only on the genes attributed to domestication but has used these and numerous other genetic markers to discern how humans affected teosinte populations in their search for more productive or more readily harvestable phenotypes. Pollen and phytoliths have kept the antiquity of maize controversy alive. Phytoliths are more readily extracted from archaeological sediments than pollen, even though identification is more challenging than pollen simply because the shapes of these epidermal silica inclusions are more varied and less distinctive than maize pollen.
