Nutritional Adaptations to Early Maize Cultivation: Earliest Isotopic Evidence of Maize Based Animal Provisioning in the Neotropics Tracing Early Maize-Based Animal Provisioning
Departmental News
Posted: Jul 10, 2026 - 12:00pm
Nadia Neff, PhD candidate in Archaeology, is first author on the new paper Nutritional Adaptations to Early Maize Cultivation: Earliest Isotopic Evidence of Maize Based Animal Provisioning in the Neotropics Tracing Early Maize-Based Animal Provisioning published in Science Advances, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Abstract
The ancient Maya built their societies on maize, yet maize is surprisingly low in lysine, an essential amino acid that serves as a crucial building block of protein. Without enough lysine, people cannot build and maintain body tissues like muscles and bones. As much as 70% of the protein in ancient Maya diets was ultimately derived from maize. But there is a major problem: an adult would have to eat over 13 pounds of dry maize kernels (nearly 40 pounds of fresh maize) every day to get enough lysine, an impossible amount. How then did early maize farmers survive and thrive when maize consumption was rapidly increasing? A team of researchers led by UNM PhD candidate Nadia Neff looked beyond direct maize consumption, expanding their scope to the entire food web. Using cutting-edge biochemical and statistical techniques to trace individual amino acids from plants into ancient human diets beginning 6,100 years ago, they found maize-eating animals, such as turkeys, may have served as biological “protein concentrators.” Because many animals can eat far more food relative to their body size than humans, they can obtain all the lysine they need from maize alone. When people eat those animals, they are essentially accessing concentrated maize-derived lysine converted into high-quality animal protein. These findings suggest that maize farming and animal management evolved hand in hand and are reshaping our understanding of how ancient communities built nutritionally sustainable diets, while posing new questions about the intertwined origins of crop cultivation and animal management. Their findings provide new perspectives that will continue to shape discussions of modern-day food security and agricultural sustainability.
