Anthropologists working on the slopes of the Andes in northern Peru have discovered the earliest-known evidence of peanut, cotton and squash farming dating back 5,000 to 9,000 years. Their findings provide long-sought-after evidence that some of the early development of agriculture in the New World took place at farming settlements in the Andes.
The discovery was published in the June 29 issue of Science.
The research team made their discovery in the �anchoc Valley, which is approximately 500 meters above sea level on the lower western slopes of the Andes in northern Peru.
They seem to base "domestication" or agriculture on a lack of wild species of the plants in the area they were found. If true, that will probably be the arguable point, if they haven't gone a long way towards demonstrating that it never grew there. But, I should get a look at the article over the weekend.