Something revolutionary happened 3,500 years ago in the Americas. It led to an ALBA of sorts - a giant fair trade alliance. And it spread civilization quicker than almost any other event in human history.
In Mesoamerica 1500 BC there was only one location with village life with any signs toward civilization, along the Pacific Coast of Chiapas, Guatemala, and El Salvador, due to developing a counting and calendar system to track the high tides and allow for much greater fishing production. This advanced knowledge of the tides did little to grow a civilization since it was irrelevant to inland peoples and the tides along other parts of the coast did not follow the same pattern.
Yet, by 1400 BC, there were populated villages moving very quickly toward civilization in at least seven locations, in addition to the Pacific coast: northern Peten of Guatemala (Mirador), central Chiapas (Chiapa de Corzo), Olmec Gulf coast of Veracruz (San Lorenzo and Laguna de los Cerros), Oaxacan valley (San Jose Mogote), central Mexican valley (Tlapacoya and Tlatilco), Morelos Valley (Chalcatzingo), and northern Guerrero (Teopantecuanitlan).
This is also about the time that the Huastecan Mayan and Yucatecan Mayan language groups split off from the main line of Mayan languages. Another sign of quick dispersion of culture.
By 1500 BC, the peoples of Mexico and Central America had been growing squash for at least 5,500 years, corn for 5,000 years, and beans for 2,000 years. Corn was slowly evolving as it was continually hybridized to select the biggest cobs. But most people were still living in isolated groups, gaining much of their limited protein from fishing or hunting and gathering.
Scientists now know that corn produces a condition called 'pellegra', a type of malnutrition when people use corn as a staple crop. Pellegra was a major health concern in places like northern Italy in the 18th and 19th centuries and in the American south - over 1,300 pellegra deaths were counted in South Carolina as recently as 1915. That is because unsoaked corn, by itself, has a noted lack of the B vitamin niacin and amino acids lysine and tryptophan. Pellegra causes confusion, weakness, dermatitis and skin lesions, insomnia, dementia, and death. All things that could keep a civilization from forming. Beans also have lysine and tryptophan and together with corn makes a complete protein, but this wasn't enough to overcome the niacin deficiency of corn.
Soaking corn in ashes or in lime slake (calcium oxide) before cooking the corn releases the niacin when consumed and increases the lysine and tryptophan. How did the early Mesoamericans discover this? The very early corn had an extremely hard encasing, just like the grass it was hybridized from, teosinte. It could only be consumed by popping it or roasting it. In addition to releasing important nutritious elements, soaking corn in ashes or lime also breaks down the hard encasing of the corn kernels, making it possible to mash the corn to make it into masa, which could then be used to make atol, tamals, tortillas, and pupusas. One day, some uncooked corn kernels must have been left out in a gourd or ceramic container, some ashes accidently placed on top, and then it rained. In the morning, the family noticed very soft corn, perfect for mashing. Something that doesn't happen just with water soaking. And the tradition was born. Within a generation or two, the health benefits of the soaking would have also been noticed. Yes, tortillas are linked to higher civilization.
In the Nahuat language, this is called nixtamal, leading to the English word nixtamalization. Nixtamal probably comes from the Mayan - ix or ixim is corn in Mayan, and in Ch'orti Maya, grinding the soft corn is called muxi uixim. Corn mash, which is much easier after the nixtamal process, is a shared root word in all Mayan languages that separated at about 1500 BC. In addition, there are early Olmec drawings of tamals, which would be much easier to make after soaking the corn in ash- or lime-water. While the exact date is not known, I believe that it is such an important discovery that it would lead to a huge expansion in village life and population density. This leaves the most probable date of 1500 BC.
My sister in law eat a lot of tortillas and the skin on de arms and ankles are dry.
I born in a tortilleria, my family come to San Salvador from Chalchuapa, Cuisnahuat and Ahuachapan. Although nobody have pure blood, a lot of my family are “gente del campo”.
Posted by: rolando vela | 03/07/2010 at 08:52 AM
This is very interesting - thank you for sharing. Could you perhaps list your references where you found information about corn?
Posted by: Julia | 12/04/2011 at 02:57 PM