Plant histories
The history behind a number of crop plants.
Looking at where they originated, their domestication, the introduction of these crops to Europe, how European attitudes to them changed over the centuries and ultimately how our changing demands have influenced the plants themselves.
Domestication of the potato
The first humans to use potatoes would have collected them from the wild. The domestication of the potato began when humans stopped foraging for potatoes and started to grow them instead. The potatoes that we eat today are descendants of the first potatoes to be grown for human use.
Evidence suggests that it was in the Andes, on the borders of lake Titicaca, that humans first started to cultivate potatoes. The importance of the potato plant to humans in this region is down to its ability to grow in the severe weather found at high altitudes.
An aerial photo of Lake Titicaca. It was on the borders of this lake, which crosses the mountainous border between Bolivia and Peru, that scientists think humans first grew potatoes for food.
Photographer: NASA. Copyright free
Potato remains have been found preserved underground in Peru that suggest potato cultivation started over 7000 years before present. That is almost 2,000 years before the birth of Ancient Egypt. Potato cultivation has formed the basis of many civilisations in this region since then and is still important today.
The Andean peoples have an ancient method of preserving potatoes for up to several years: First they lay the potatoes out on the ground over night to freeze them, and then in the morning, they trample the potatoes with their feet and leave them exposed to the intense warmth of the sun.
This process (repeated three times) drives the moisture out of the potatoes, enabling them to be kept for longer before going rotten. It is a primitive method of freeze-drying. Potatoes that have been treated in this way are known as chuño. Freeze-drying is used today to preserve food for camping trips or even space travel.
Freeze dried ice cream. This ice cream has been freeze dried to be taken into space. It will keep for a long time. For thousands of years Peruvians have been using a similar method to preserve potatoes.
Photographer: NASA. Copyright free
Domestication describes the changes that occur to species as a result of their deliberate cultivation by humans.
