Avocados are one of today’s most beloved foods, valued for their rich flavor, healthy fats, and essential nutrients. But long before they became a global superfood, avocados evolved as nourishment for giant Ice Age animals like sloths and mammoths. When those creatures vanished, humans stepped in, reshaping the fruit through domestication and forest management. Ancient Hondurans were skilled forest managers and tree farmers much earlier than previously known and domesticated avocado and likely other tree crops long before the arrival of domesticated maize, beans, or squash.
At the El Gigante site in the southern Honduran highlands, evidence shows people tending avocado trees as early as 11,000 years ago. By 3,500 years later, they had cultivated avocados with larger size and thicker skins, making the fruit both more nutritious and easier to transport.
For millennia avocados were grown from seeds, and valuable genetic variations still survive in wild populations, yet today the avocado industry depends on a single cloned variety, making it vulnerable to disease and climate change. Archaeobotanist Heather Thakar explores how the deep and fascinating history of avocados can offer insights for modern agriculture.
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