Paleo-ethno-what? :The Scientist [2009-03-01]


	The article you are attempting to read is Premium content which is only available to our online subscribers.

Subscribing to The Scientist is easy and inexpensive.

And you can choose from many options. Try us out with an online day pass starting at only $4.95. Or, get it all with unlimited online access to The Scientist Archive and door-to-door delivery of our monthly print magazine.


	The Scientist also offers site licenses to institutions and organizations. When your librarian adds The Scientist to the library's collection, you can get unlimited online access through your place of work or study. Recommend The Scientist today

	By Margaret Guthrie

Paleo-ethno-what? Paul Minnis of the University of Oklahoma in Norman is obsessed with a chile seed. He found it buried last summer, two meters below ground, in a pile of trash left behind a millennium ago by indigenous people in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico. "The chile seed came from a trash deposit under the floor of a room, suggesting it