Cotton remains from archeological sites in central coastal peru

Cotton remains from four archeological sites in central coastal Peru, representing a time sequence from about 2500 to 1000 B.C., were compared with similar materials obtained from living wild and cultivated forms of Gossypium barbadense L. The comparison revealed that the archeological cotton samples were primitive forms of Gossypium barbadense, differing little from present-day wild forms of the same species. Although not the earliest cottons recorded for the New World, they appear to represent the earliest stages of cotton domestication yet recorded.