Friday, August 4, 2023
By Jessica Hernández
Located in the Tlacolula Valley, this site comprises a series of prehistoric caves and rock shelters with cave paintings dating back 12,000 years.
The earliest remains of domesticated plants were also found in them. UNESCO registered the Prehistoric Caves of Yagul and Mitla of the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, with the category of Cultural Landscape on August 1, 2010.
In some of these refuges, archaeological remains and relics of rock art have been found that are testimonies of the life of the first sedentary farmers.
In the Guilá Naquitz cave, 10,000 years old cucurbit seeds were found. They are the earliest remains of domesticated plants discovered in the American continent.
Right there, fragments of ears of corn were also found, one of the oldest testimonies of the domestication of this plant.
The cultural landscape of the Yagul and Mitla caves reveals the link between man and nature that gave rise to the domestication of plants in North America and paved the way for the development of Mesoamerican civilizations.
