Utah's Potato Valley Was Feeding People 10,000 Years Ago
By Swati Bhasin On 07/04/17 AT 3:34 AM
The potatoes we eat today are varieties of a single species, Solanum tuberosum, domesticated in the South American Andes more than 7,000 years ago. In this photo, potatoes are seen at a supermarket in Kiev, Ukraine, April 7, 2016. Photo: Reuters/Gleb Garanich
In what can be called the earliest documented use of potatoes in North America, researchers from the Natural History Museum of Utah and Red Butte Garden at the University of Utah have discovered potato starch residues in the crevices of a 10,900-year-old stone tool in Escalante, Utah. To early pioneer settlers, the Escalante area was known as the “Potato Valley.”
The report, published online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, is probably the first archaeological study to identify a spud-bearing species native to the southwestern United States – Solanum jamesii – an important part of the ancient human diets.
http://www.ibtimes.com/utahs-potato-valley-was-feeding-people-10000-years-ago-2561090
