Secrets of the 'Lost Crops' Revealed Where Bison Roam
Published:07 Jan.2021 Source:Washington University in St. Louis
If not for the wooly, boulder-sized beasts that once roamed North America in vast herds, ancient people might have looked past the little barley that grew under those thundering hooves. But the people soon came to rely on little barley and other small-seeded native plants as staple food.
New research from Washington University in St. Louis helps flesh out the origin story for the so-called "lost crops." These plants may have fed as many Indigenous people as maize, but until the 1930s had been lost to history.