Christine A. Hastorf
and Sissel Johannessen (Eds.)

Corn and Culture in the Prehistoric New World

Boulder, Westview Press, 1994.

E59.F63.C67 1994 Anthropology Library

"An encyclopedic treatment of corn, its biology, diffusion across the western hemisphere, archaeology, and aboriginal culture meanings. Originally conceived as a compendium to help paleoethnobotanists in their analyses, its breadth is substantially more expansive.... The editors ask why maize so changed New World cultures. Hastorf and Johannessen choose to see corn as an agent for transforming social and cultural identity. Theirs and the other papers examine the value of corn culturally, with a central theme of what one might view as an iconography of corn, that is, what was and is its symbolic value."

From: Larry J. Zimmerman 1995 review of "Corn and Culture in the Prehistoric New World."
Agricultural History, vol. 69, no. 3, p. 490-491.