Humans may have rescued pumpkins from extinction
Turns out pumpkins were to prehistoric mastodons as pumpkin spice lattes were to millennials in 2012. Only, just as the PSL's fortunes eventually waned, pumpkins nearly vanished forever when mastodons and other large mammals went extinct about 10,000 years ago.
Without mastodons munching on them regularly, the seeds of pumpkins, gourds, and squash would have been unable to spread their favorite way (that is, in mastodon dung). Suddenly, the plants were at risk of being wiped out forever. It wasn't mice that brought pumpkins back from the brink either; since smaller mammals have more taste receptors for bitter foods, they avoid eating things like squash, which have bitter seeds. That leaves one probable pumpkin savior remaining: humans.
Researchers now believe that our ancestors may have cultivated pumpkins themselves, creating land where the plants could grow. "Any sort of clearing or burned out area, that's the sort of niche they favor," Dr. Logan Kistler, a molecular anthropologist and author of the pumpkin study, told The New York Times.
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So in a week, when you're digging into a delicious slice of pumpkin pie, go ahead and take a moment to be thankful for the prehistoric people who made it all possible.
