Brian Walsh
My interests lie in learning of past peoples and civilizations through indirect means. I'm currently investigating the number of times Chenopodium was domesticated in the Americas. There are four American domesticates, C. quinoa and C. pallidicaule of South America, C. berlandieri subsp. nuttalliae of Mesoamerica, and the extinct C. berlandieri subsp. jonesianum of eastern-central North America. I am constructing a phylogeny to determine the evolutionary relationship among the extant domesticates and their potential wild progenitors using both nuclear and plastid markers. In June of 2012, I will amplify DNA from archaeological seeds of the extinct domesticate.
