News Archaeology

Here’s how ancient Amazonians became master maize farmers

Engineered waterways helped Casarabe people turn savannas into year-round crop fields

A closeup of multiple overlapping ears of maize, each a different color

Maize was a key food source for ancient Casarabe people in what is now Bolivia. To fuel a growing society, Casarabe farmers built waterways that let them grow the nutritious crop year-round on savannas.

Jolkesky/iStock/Getty Images Plus

By Bruce Bower

Water engineers in ancient South America turned seasonally flooded Amazonian savannas into hotbeds of year-round maize farming.

Casarabe people built an innovative, previously unrecognized network of drainage canals and water-storing ponds that enabled two maize harvests annually, say geoarchaeologist Umberto Lombardo of the Autonomous University of Barcelona and colleagues.