Eastern Agricultural Complex was a group of plants that originally formed the basis of agriculture in eastern North America north of Mexico. These plants included squash, little barley, goosefoot or lambsquarters, erect knotweed, maygrass sumpweed or marshelder, and sunflower.

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  • Eastern Agricultural Complex was a group of plants that originally formed the basis of agriculture in eastern North America north of Mexico. These plants included squash, little barley, goosefoot or lambsquarters, erect knotweed, maygrass sumpweed or marshelder, and sunflower. Of these plants, sunflower and sumpweed have edible seeds rich in oil, erect knotweed has starchy seeds, maygrass and little barley are grasses that yield grains that may be ground to make flour, and goosefoot is a leafy vegetable related to spinach. The squash that was originally part of the complex was raised for edible seeds and to produce small containers, not for the thick flesh that is associated with modern varieties of squash. (Note that erect knotweed is a distinct species from the Japanese knotweed that is considered an invasive species in the eastern United States today. ) The archaeological record suggests that humans were collecting these plants from the wild by 6000 BC, then gradually modifying them by selective collection and cultivation over a period of centuries. Remains of domesticated squash date to 3000 BC, sunflower to 2840 BC, marshelder to 2400 BC, and goosefoot to 1700 BC. Slowly, these crops were replaced by the more productive crops developed in Mexico: maize, beans and additional varieties of squash. Although cultivation of maize in Mexico may date back as far as 10,000 years ago, it penetrated into regions dominated by the EAC around perhaps the 200 BC, and highly productive adapted strains became widely used around 900 CE. The spread was so slow because the seeds and knowledge of techniques for tending them had to cross inhospitable deserts and mountains, and because new varieties of plants had to be developed to suit the cooler climates and shorter growing seasons of the northern regions of the continent. It seems that maize was adopted first as a supplement to existing agricultural plants, but gradually came to predominate as its yields increased. Ultimately, the EAC was thoroughly replaced by maize-based agriculture; most EAC plants are no longer cultivated, and some of them (such as little barley) are regarded as pests by modern farmers.
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  • Eastern Agricultural Complex was a group of plants that originally formed the basis of agriculture in eastern North America north of Mexico. These plants included squash, little barley, goosefoot or lambsquarters, erect knotweed, maygrass sumpweed or marshelder, and sunflower.
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  • Eastern Agricultural Complex
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