LIMA, June 29 (UPI) -- An archeologist from Vanderbilt University says domesticated squash seeds found in the Andes of northern Peru are almost 10,000 years old.
Archeologist Tom D. Dillehay said the seeds are twice the age of previously discovered cultivated crops in the region, The New York Times said Friday.
The findings were published Friday in the journal Science.
Anthropologists says the seeds show that farming developed in parts of the Americas as early as in the Middle East.
The squash seeds were found in Nanchoc Valley, about 400 miles north of Lima. Researchers also found peanut hulls and cotton fibers that date back 6,000 to 8,500 years, as well as stone hoes, furrowed garden plots and small irrigation canals.
The New York Times said experts in ancient agriculture suspect the transition from foraging to farming started much earlier and was not as abrupt a transformation as previously thought.
