Preliminary archaeogenomic insights on the domestication of the avocado tree

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The avocado is one of the most popular fruits exported worldwide and was originally domesticated in three independent episodes that resulted in the three main horticultural varieties we see today. One region of origin spans from the highlands of southern Mexico to the highlands of Honduras. The El Gigante Rockshelter is a site in the Southern highlands with remarkable preservation conditions that promoted the conservation of desiccated avocado rinds dated between 11 and 1ka. I plan to analyze the genomes of these ancient avocados to understand how and why they fell under domestication. Through a suite of bioinformatic tools, I will assess the similarities between ancient and modern avocado cultivars to determine the loss of genetic diversity associated with domestication, the potential for long-distance fruit exchange, and the degree to which the ancient specimens are ancestral to the domesticates thought to have originated in the region of El Gigante. I predict that early (~4ka) ancient tissue will have a greater degree of ancestry to modern Honduran domesticates, while later (2.5-1ka) remains may have originated from an exotic region, which would signify the establishment of long-distance exchange networks following the emergence of the Formative and Classic state-level society.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38969.0