Who Invented Popcorn First?

Who can we thank for inventing popcorn first? The exact origins of popcorn aren’t truly known. We can narrow it down to a few different groups, and one or two general geographic areas, but that’s all we know about who invented popcorn first. The only thing that seems certain: popcorn began in the America’s. Popcorn has been around a long time. In fact, there is evidence of popping kernels in some very old archaeological sites. There have also been discoveries of crude popcorn poppers and some quite ornate.

Popcorn has been found in some unusual sites. I am a huge popcorn fan, however when my time on earth is through, I certainly don’t plan to be buried with popcorn. Yet that is just what seems to have happened with some of the ancient inhabitants of modern-day Peru. A tomb that has been dated to be over 1,000 years old, was found to contain unpopped popcorn grains. The deceased revered the popcorn enough to try and take it with him. His loved ones had preserved the kernels very well. When a few of the unpopped kernels were heated, they popped right up.

The Bat Cave, located in West Central New Mexico, contained whole ears of popcorn kernels. The original archaeologist have dated the ears to be 5,600 years old. There has been some debate as to the exact age of these samples. Some of the low estimates come at over 1750 years old. There are a few other opinions in between those two. It’s interesting to see how important our popcorn is - it has sparked an academic debate!

Possibly the oldest popcorn find was not actual kernels. It was pollen. A sample was found in a site that was buried 200 feet below Mexico City. The pollen was no longer active. It was in fact fossilized, but what else could be expected from a sample that was 80,000-years old. Read more