Read: 5186, From 2014-02-05 00:33:44

Teosinte is a wild grass, which is closely related to maize. In fact, it is generally considered the ancestor of modern maize and has been recovered from cave sites in Oaxaca, Mexico occupied by humans as long as 4000 years ago.

By simulating the environment when corn was first exploited by people and then domesticated, Smithsonian scientists discovered that corn's ancestor, a wild grass called teosinte, may have looked very different then than it does today. The fact that it looks more like corn under these conditions may help to explain how teosinte came to be selected by early farmers who turned it into one of the most important staple crops in the world.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104061821300983X