Colonists from Mesoamerica Brought Maize Agriculture to the U.S. Southeast in Prehistoric Times

Maize agriculture was a relatively late introduction into the U.S. Southeast, established widely in the region only around 1000 years ago. From where it was introduced and by whom are unknowns. Speculation includes a U.S. Southwest origin and/or introduction from various parts of Latin America via water craft across the Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico. New linguistic evidence indicates that a Mesoamerican people, who migrated to the Southeast probably from northeast Mexico, brought maize cultivation to the area. These were ancestors of modern Chitimacha people of southern Louisiana whose language is now extinct, but survives in textual materials and voice recordings. Application of the comparative method of historical linguistics shows that Chitimacha and languages of the Totonacan and Mixe-Zoquean families of Mesoamerica share a common ancestor, a proto-language whose homeland was located somewhere in Mesoamerica. Words for maize, ‘to shell corn,’ leached corn (nixtamal/hominy), and cornfield reconstruct for this ancestral tongue, terms that survived in 20^th century Chitimacha (and, of course, also in modern Totonacan/Mixe-Zoquean languages). Chitimacha maize words are strikingly similar to maize terms from Caddo (Texas/Louisiana) and Catawba (Carolinas) languages suggesting that at least some Southeast groups acquired maize agriculture from Chitimacha speakers.