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Young World
Much about manioc
COMPILED BY ROHINI RAMAKRISHNAN
Photo: Reuters
Calorie-rich tuber : Cultivated by an ancient civilisation
The ancient Maya cultivated crops of manioc — also known as cassava —some 1,400 years ago, according to archaeologists studying a Maya farm preserved in volcanic ash. The discovery may help solve the long-standing mystery of how the ancient culture produced enough energy-rich, starchy food to support its large city-centred populations. “There’s a good chance that this will change the way we look at how the Mayans fed themselves,” said study le
ader Payson Sheets, an anthropologist at University of Colorado at Boulder. Sheets’s team found the ancient manioc field near Ceren, a Maya village in El Salvador about 25 kilometres west of modern-day San Salvador. The team was excavating what it thought was an ancient cornfield when it discovered traces of cultivated manioc roots perfectly preserved by a volcanic eruption.
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