Maize-based polyculture, not monoculture, sustained precolonial societies in the Brazilian Cerrado.

Abstract

Maize has long been argued to have played a key role in the transition to food production in the Americas. Recent work has even suggested that this included "monoculture" in parts of South America. Here, we report stable isotope data (δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N, and δ¹⁸O) of 101 human individuals from 37 late Holocene archaeological sites across the Cerrado (Brazilian savanna), Caatinga (dry forest), and Atlantic Forest biomes of central-eastern South America, in addition to present faunal baseline and radiocarbon dates. The results show cultural and economic diversity among archaeological traditions. Integrating archaeological, palaeoecological, and chronological data, we argue for the coexistence of a diversified and a more complex food production systems in the Cerrado biome, comparable to those of precolonial urban-scale populations practicing maize agriculture in the Amazon. These findings demonstrated that eastern South America populations practiced maize-based polyculture, reshaping current models of cultural and environmental dynamics in the Cerrado biome.