Chile Peppers

Chiles have been a part of the human diet in the Americas; chiles being one of the earliest plants to be cultivated and domesticated in the New World. Archaeological evidence suggests that chiles were used as a food ingredient at least 8,000 years ago - around 6200 BC. Traces of chiles dating from this time have been found in burial in Peru: they were obviously seen as important enough to be carried into them hereafter! Chile peppers are thought to have been domesticated at least five times by prehistoric peoples in different parts of South, Middle and North America, from Peru in the south to Mexico in the north and parts of Colorado and the Ancient Pueblo Peoples of New Mexico. The Nahuatl Indians who inhabited southern Mexico and Central America around the 15th century called the plant chilli,
The plants proliferated and gradually spread from central South America through Central America, the Caribbean, into southwest North America. This migration was the result both of birds spreading the seeds, and of cultural exchanges and trade between the peoples of South America and Mesoamerica.
Chiles were common in Native Indian diets, used to add flavor and spiciness to food. Mayans cultivated many types of chile (at least 30 varieties) and recent evidence shows that Aztecs used them in almost every dish. The Aztecs’ sophisticated cuisine, which included mole, pipian sauces and tamales, derived from other pre-Columbian civilizations, laid the foundations for modern Mexican food.
It is also virtually certain that chiles were grown and used in what is now the U. S. by the ancestors of today's Southwestern Pueblo Indians some 1,000 years ago. It is known that wild chiles similar to the chiltepin grew in the Sonoran desert and were gathered by those tribes. In addition, inter-tribal trade brought other types of chiles to them from regions to the