On Dec. 4, 2024, an international team of scientists led by the Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics, GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, found that 1,000-year-old Ozark specimens of maize shows a close affinity with the lineage that ultimately became the Northern Flints, a major contributor to modern commercial maize.

The researchers generated paleogenomic data to reconstruct how maize first reached this region and how it was selected during the process. Whole-genome sequencing data from 32 archaeological maize samples was generated, ranging in age from 3,390 years BP to the present and in depth of coverage from 0.01 to 6.83× (mean ∼1.36×) at the accessible regions of the maize genome. Twenty-nine of the sequenced samples were radiocarbon dated.

Genomic ancestry analyses reveal recurrent movements northward from different parts of Mexico, likely culminating in at least two dispersals from the U.S. Southwest across the Great Plains to the Ozarks and beyond.

The history of selection of maize in ENA could provide important insights on how the crop responded to the local conditions and whether certain traits were favored by farmers. The study findings were published in Cell.