Recent DNA analyses of bottle gourds found at several sites throughout the Americas has resolved a long-standing mystery, as well as adding evidence establishing the early date of domestication of the bottle gourd plant.

Before the analyses, archeologists could only speculate that it had probably floated across the Atlantic, as the bottle gourd is native to Africa and not the Americas, but upon examining the DNA, they found that the American samples most closely matched the varieties of the African bottle gourd found in Asia, not Africa.

It was thus concluded that early migrants from Asia had deliberately brought the bottle gourd to the Americas, at least ten thousand years ago.

Archaeologists think that the original and evolutional shape of clay pottery was modeled on the shape of certain gourd varieties.

The avocado tree also has a long history of cultivation in Central America.

The oldest evidence of avocado use was found in a cave located in Coxcatlán, Puebla, Mexico, that dates to around 10,000 BCE.