Domesticated Sunflower in Fifth Millennium B.P. Temporal Context: New Evidence from Middle Tennessee

Abstract

Carbonized seeds of domesticated sunflower (Helianthus annuusvar.macrocarpusCkll.) recovered from the Hayes site in middle Tennessee yielded an accelerator date of 4265 ± 60 B.P. This is the earliest date for domesticated sunflower, extending the known age of this eastern North American domesticate by 1,400 years.