Chili peppers reign as the world's most widely cultivated spice crop; farmers grow them in bulk, and self-described chili-heads breed ever-spicier varieties of the fruit. But before they conquered cuisines around the globe, chili peppers were domesticated in Central and South America.
Now, scientists say they've found the hotspot where ancient farmers first cultivated Capsicum annuum, the most common kind of chili pepper.
By drawing on genetic, archaeological, linguistic and ecological evidence, the researchers found that chili farming was born in central-east Mexico.
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