First Evidence of Pre-columbian New World Barley - Insights - Volume 4

First Evidence of Pre-columbian New World Barley

Insights Volume - 4, Issue - 1Provo, Utah: Maxwell InstituteThe views expressed in this article are the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Maxwell Institute, Brigham Young University, or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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First Evidence of Pre-columbian New World Barley

The December 1983 issues of Science 83 reports the discovery by professional archaeologists of what is apparently pre-columbian, domesticated barley among the ruins of the Hohokam civilization in Arizona.

This is a first! While we await the Carbon-14 dating and botanical reports on the grain this appears to give important support to Mosiah 9:9 (which says the Nephites grew barley) and for Alma 11:7 (which says the barley unit was a basic commercial measure in Zarahemla).

Many questions about the grain and about the Hohokam, of course, still remain. The Hohokam were possibly immigrants from Mesoamerica into Southern Arizona where they lived from 300 B.C. to A.D. 1450.

The Hohokam were described in the May 1967 issue of National Geographic, pp. 670-95. Watch for more information on this intriguing discovery.