Goin’ on Forever: A Retrospective on Karen Adams and Relationships with Maize

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Enduring Relationships: People, Plants, and the Contributions of Karen R. Adams" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

For over three decades Dr. Karen R. Adams has been at the forefront of research on the origins and long-term evolution of maize (Zea mays subsp. mays) in the US Southwest and northwestern Mexico. Dr. Adams has approached untangling the complex and oft convoluted histories of maize in a collaborative and multi-disciplinary fashion. Amongst her immense research contributions are collaborative, controlled grow-outs of native maize varieties with agronomists, soil scientists and Indigenous farmers, detailed analyses and experimental studies examining modern and ancient maize morphology, and the major environmental and cultural influences on the attributes of maize most commonly preserved in the archaeological record, studies of nutritional content of Indigenous maize varieties, and the documentation of thousands of archaeological maize fragments spanning over three millennia prior to Spanish contact. We explore the voluminous contributions Dr. Adams has made to our understanding of ancient maize in the greater Southwest/Northwest over the course of her career and chart a path forward for studies of ancient maize inspired by her work.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Enduring Relationships: People, Plants, and the Contributions of Karen R. Adams

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40102.0