Bat Cave is an archaeological site in New Mexico, in the American southwest. The name actually refers to a complex of rockshelters, occupied from about 10,000 years ago up to the present, with evidence for early maize agriculture.
While radiocarbon dates have placed the corn kernels recovered from Bat Cave to 3500-3000 years ago (the corn was originally dated much earlier), Bat Cave still has the earliest corn in the region. Excavated by Herbert Dick in the late 1940s, the corn was examined by Paul Manglesdorf and Mary Eubanks.
Sources
Mangelsdorf, Paul C. 1954. New Evidence on the Origin and Ancestry of Maize. American Antiquity 19(4):409-410
Simmons, Alan H. New Evidence for the Early Use of Cultigens in the American Southwest. American Antiquity 51(1):73-89.
This article is a part of the About.com Guide to Archaic Period, and part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Any mistakes are the responsibility of Kris Hirst. .
