SC - Peanuts-possibly OOP

[david friedman]

At 5:07 PM -0500 1/31/99, LrdRas at aol.com wrote:

>Does not the archeological finds of anchor stones from Chinese junkets off the
>the west coast of the states make an equally valid observation that peanuts
>MAY have been introduced  to the New World by Chinese traders during  pre-
>Columbian times?
>
>There is also evidence, IIANM, that a form of miniature corn forund in China
>predated Columbus as well as the possibility that certain capsicum varieties
>also existed in China pre-Columbian. Thgis is not to say that they are native
>of China necessarily but the possibility exists. that these plants were
>introduced by the Chi8nese through trade with early American Indian cultures.
>Thoughts?

I'm not up on the current literature, pro and con, on pre-columbian
contacts with the New World--my impression is that the facts are very much
disputed.

The problem is that we know that certain food plants, including peanuts,
capsicums, and maize, spread very fast once they were introduced after
Columbus. Capsicums, after all, give you a substitute for black pepper that
people can grow in their back yards in temperate climates. So I find it
implausible that they could have been introduced earlier, used in China
enough to leave evidence in the archaeological record, yet didn't spread.
Not impossible, but implausible.

David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/


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