In southern New England 3,500 years ago, our ancestors did not have gardens with corn, beans, or squash. Instead, they ate wild plants, some of which were very nutritious.

Today, most plants that grow wild in New England are thought of as weeds. But thousands of years ago people here actually encouraged some of these plants to grow, because the leaves, seeds, stalks, and tubers, or underground stems, were edible.

Between 4,000 and 3,000 years ago, people in eastern North America learned to plant and tend a variety of plants—goosefoot, marsh elder, sunflower, and squash. Goosefoot, also known as chenopodium, is a common plant that is found along the banks of rivers and in other disturbed habitats. People gathered the stalks in August and September, dried them, and then shook them to collect the seeds, which are rich in protein. Archaeological evidence suggests that people here harvested and stored great quantities of these seeds.

Unlike domesticated plants, which require people to plant them, wild plants reproduce year after year on their own. Some archaeologists believe, though, that our ancestors may have played an active role in encouraging these wild plants to spread, perhaps by weeding out the other plants around them. Although people here wouldn’t have domesticated plants like corn for another 2,500 years, this was an early step toward planting and tending gardens.