section_path: Development and diffusion/In the Americas
section_name: In the Americas
paragraph_text: In the Americas
  
  The term "Neolithic" is not customarily used in describing cultures in the Americas. However, a broad similarity exists between Eastern Hemisphere cultures of the Neolithic and cultures in the Americas. Maize (corn), beans and squash were among the earliest crops domesticated in Mesoamerica: squash as early as 6000 BCE, beans no later than 4000 BCE, and maize beginning about 7000 BCE. Potatoes and manioc were domesticated in South America. In what is now the eastern United States, Native Americans domesticated sunflower, sumpweed and goosefoot c. 2500 BCE. In the highlands of central Mexico, sedentary village life based on farming did not develop until the "formative period" in the second millennium BCE.