When Europeans arrived in 1492, fields of corn grew throughout the Americas. Corn had been an agricultural staple for more than 8,000 years and represented one of the most remarkable plant breeding accomplishments of all time. In the cold regions of Canada and South America, American Indians developed rapidly maturing varieties. Inca farmers of Peru grew it on the terraced hillsides of the Andes, and Hopi farmers irrigated extensive fields in the dry heat of the Southwest. Corn, in its many varieties, was the foundation upon which the great civilizations of the Americas were built.
Archaeologists believe that corn traveled north from Mesoamerica, where it was first domesticated.
The first ears of corn, descended from a wild grass called teosinte, were very tiny. However, over the centuries, the Native peoples of the Americas developed varieties of corn that could sustain them. As varieties of corn adapted to different environments were developed, corn spread across the continents, becoming the staple of the majority of American Indian people and transforming life in the Americas.