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The Mystery of the Watermelon s Origins May Have Been Solved
Photo: NOAH SEELAM/AFP via Getty Images (Getty Images)
Researchers have identified the likely origins of
Citrinus
lanatus vulgaris, commonly known as the watermelon, according to a new study. Their work pegs a Sudanese melon as the progenitor of the iconic green-striped fruit.
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Watermelons are native to Africa, but exactly when, where, and how a watermelon predecessor was domesticated and turned into the fruit we know today has long been a mystery to botanists.
The team’s research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, follows up on years of work on the biogeography of the melon genus,
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May. 25, 2021
Where did the watermelon come from? Inquiring minds want to know, and now maybe they do.
We did know that millet was domesticated in ancient China, and barley, oats and wheat in Mesopotamia or thereabouts. The goat and sheep were also brought into our fold in the Middle and Near East, too. But the watermelon?
When or where we started to farm watermelon is entirely unclear. But archaeologists suspect certain images in Nile Valley tombs dating to about 4,360 years ago were exactly this fruit – or rather, its predecessor. It was eaten as a dessert, the team writes. The ancient pictures of the putative watermelon are a key pointer.