Food & agriculture · c. 6,000 BCE

Domesticated potato

Andean farmers bred bitter wild tubers into potatoes that thrive at 4,000 metres.

Potatoes were domesticated around Lake Titicaca between about 8000 and 5000 BCE, and Andean farmers developed thousands of varieties plus freeze-dried chuno for storage. The crop later transformed diets in northern Europe.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

Agriculture 9500 BCE

What it led to 1

Columbian exchange 1492

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

World population over a million years Latest: 6.27k million people (2000) Source: DeLong 1998, table 'Total World Population' (Kremer series); Kremer 1993, Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990, QJE 108(3)

World population Latest: 8.09B people (2023) Source: Our World in Data