A seedy slice of history: Watermelons actually came from northeast Africa

Using DNA from greenhouse-grown plants representing all species and hundreds of varieties of watermelon, scientists discovered that watermelons most likely came from wild crop progenitors in northeast Africa. The study corrects a 90-year-old mistake that had previously tied watermelons to South Africa. The genetic research is consistent with newly interpreted Egyptian tomb paintings that suggest the watermelon may have been consumed in the Nile Valley as a dessert more than 4,000 years ago.

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