< home # store # services # articles # game # app #contact >

Solanum lycopersicum was more likely the first domesticated tomato
It was domesticated in western south America around 7,000 years ago. The process involved selective breeding, which transformed a small, wild fruits into the larger cultivated varieties we know today.

Early native peoples in Andean Peru and Ecuador likely first cultivated wild tomato relatives with small but edible fruit

Humans selected for: Larger fruit size, Less bitterness and toxins, More palatable flavor, Traits favorable for cultivation and harvesting

Tomatoes are self-pollinating and exclusively inbreeding due to the arrangement of its flower parts

Wild relatives are native to western South America. Particularly coastal Peru, Ecuador and nearby regions
80,000 Years Ago wild tomatoes were likely small and blueberry-sized. Without any human domestication.

Over generations, selective breeding focused on traits like fruit size and flavor, resulting in the diverse cultivars we see today.

Today, tomatoes are the most widely grown vegetable crop globally, highlighting their significance in agriculture and culinary traditions. Check them out with some more neolithic architecture today.

Bibliography:
National Science Foundation. Researchers trace evolution of the domesticated tomato. NSF – U.S. National Science Foundation. https://www.nsf.gov/news/researchers-trace-evolution-domesticated-tomato

Kiple, K. F. and K.C. Ornelas (Eds.). 2000. The Cambridge world history of food. Cambridge University Press.

Nesbitt, T.C. and Tanksley, S.D. 2002. Comparative sequencing in the genus lycopersicon: implications for the evolution of fruit size in the domestication of cultivated tomatoes. Genetics 162: 365-379.

Peralta, .E. & D.M. Spooner. 2000. Classification of wild tomatoes: a review. Kurtziana 28 (I):    45-54.

Raziard et al. 2020 .Genomic evidence for complex domestication history of the cultivated tomato in Latin America. Mol. Biol. Evol. 37(4):1118–1132.

Schwarz, D.,    A.J. Thompson, and H.P. Klaring. 2014. Guidelines to use tomato in experiments with a controlled environment.    Frontiers in Plant Science 5:625