Ancient Popcorn Dates to 6,000 Years Ago

See, you have your assumptions based on evidence and then the ground shifts — literally.

Researchers digging along the coast of Peru have discovered evidence of people eating popcorn nearly 1,000 years earlier than we previously thought. That's quite a number of years back in time, any way you pop it.

We used to be convinced that popcorn originated in Mexico about 8,000 years ago and then traveled with migrants at a snail's pace to the rest of South America, showing up finally in what is now Peru about 3,000 years ago. (If that seems like a long time, remember that snails don't move very fast at the best of times.)

Now, however, after finding cobs, husks, stalks, and tassels at two mound sites on the northern coast of the country, archaeologists from Vanderbilt and the Peruvian National Academy of History are prepared to assert that the people there were making and eating popcorn as early as 6,700 years ago. (That would still be a slow transition from nearby Mexico, but remember that we don't always find everything that other people leave behind, especially when we as a species have a tendency to build right on top of previous settlements. Remember as well that snails don't move very fast at the best of times.)

Another intriguing element to this is that the dating to 6,700 years ago means that the consumption of this popcorn preceded the development of ceramic pottery in the region. How did the ancient people get their corn to pop all those years ago? Answering that question will undoubtedly lead to a heated debate, as will determining what the ancient people did while munching their popcorn. (This was long before even silent movies, after all.)

It should be noted as well that popcorn — or any kind of corn, for that matter — wasn't the big deal for Mexican and South American peoples that it was for the ancient folks further north on the North American continent. So it's not surprising that archaeologists haven't found huge numbers of shrines to the venerable husks in the middens and other mounds around the place.