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A recent study indicates that ancient peoples in Peru were eating popcorn. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Popcorn dates pretty far back—way earlier than Orville Redenbacher—according to a study published last week. The paper, which appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and was co-authored by Dolores Piperno, curator of New World archaeology at the Museum of Natural History, reveals that archaeologists have unearthed a number of corn samples from a pair of Peruvian excavation sites. Several of the specimens indicate that among many uses the ancient Peruvians found for the maize was one we still know well today: popcorn.

The samples include corncobs, husks and stalks, and date to 6,700 to 3,000 years ago, making the discovery the oldest corn sample ever found in South America, says Piperno. “Corn was first domesticated in Mexico nearly 9,000 years ago from a wild grass called teosinte,” she says. “Our results show that only a few thousand years later corn arrived in South America, where its evolution into different varieties that are now common in the Andean region began.”

The excavation sites, Paredones and Huaca Prieta, are located in a climate that allows such samples to be preserved for a long time. “The sites occur in a very, very arid climate, the coast of Peru, where it almost never rains,” Piperno says. “Those kinds of conditions are particularly good for preserving things, because it’s humidity that affects the preservation of plant remains over time.”

Some of the ancient corn cobs discovered in Peru. Photo courtesy of the Natural History Museum

Although there had been previous discoveries of microfossils—such as starch grains—finding entire cobs provides valuable information. “Microfossils give an excellent picture of if they’re eating corn, if corn is present, but what was missing was the morphological detail,” says Piperno. “This site provided actual cobs, information on the sizes of the cobs, and what they look like.” These findings will help researchers trace the early domestication of corn from teosinte, a complicated transformation that occurred thousands of years ago.

The samples indicate that the inhabitants of the site consumed the maize in several different ways—apart from popcorn, they consumed corn flour—but that it was still not a common food at the time. “It was probably a fairly minor component of the diet, because despite the very good preservation, not many cobs were found,” Piperno says.

How did the corn travel all the way from Mexico, its birthplace, to Peru, thousands of miles away? “People just passed it along,” says Piperno. “Farmers like to exchange goods and ideas, so it was probably just passed from person to person, from farmer to farmer.”

Got a burning question about popcorn or some other zany topic? We invite you to submit questions to our new reader forum, Ask Smithsonian. Each month, we’ll select a handful of reader-submitted questions to publish in Smithsonian magazine with answers from the Institution’s experts.

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Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami's trilogy kicks off with "Where is the Friend's Home?" Image courtesy of the Freer Gallery.

Friday, January 27 Iranian Film Festival: Koker Trilogy

Even if you haven’t made it to the Iranian Film Festival yet, don’t miss part 1 of the Koker Trilogy by internationally acclaimed director and screenwriter Abbas Kiarostami. The first film, “Where is the Friend’s Home?” employs the simple premise of a young boy traveling to his classmate’s village to return a book to weave a potent allegory on friendship, duty and the importance of breaking the rules sometimes. Free. 7:00 p.m. The second and third film will be shown Sunday: And Life Goes On at 1:00 p.m. and Through the Olive Trees at 3:00 p.m. Meyer Auditorium, Freer Gallery.

Saturday, January 28 Renwick Birthday Party

The Renwick Gallery turns the big 4-0 this weekend. Come celebrate with music, crafts, games, a scavenger hunt through the galleries, and, of course, cake. Free. 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Grand Salon, Renwick Gallery.

Sunday, January 29 Silkscreening Demo

Join local artist Kristina Bilonick for an art talk and demo of the silkscreen printing process. Bilonick is known for her interactive art installations incorporating screen printing, video and other media. Stick around afterward to try it yourself in a hands-on activity. Talk is free; activity has a minimal fee. Preregister by emailing AmericanArtLuce@si.edu. 1:30 p.m. American Art Museum.

For a complete listing of Smithsonian events and exhibitions visit the goSmithsonian Visitors Guide. Additional reporting by Michelle Strange.

Georgia O'Keeffe's handmade pastels. © Annie Leibovitz. From "Pilgrimage" (Random House, 2011).

Throughout her career, world-famous photographer Annie Leibovitz has produced countless stunning portraits of notable figures and celebrities. Her new show, “Pilgrimage,” which opened at the American Art Museum on January 20th, features photography that takes visitors on a biographical tour in a much different way. Rather than showing even a single face or human body, she captures objects and landscapes that shed light on a number of transformative figures in both American and world history—a range of people that includes Eleanor Roosevelt, Sigmund Freud and Annie Oakley.

Ironically, the exhibition arose from Leibovitz’ personal journey of renewal, she explained during a press tour of the exhibition yesterday. ”I didn’t quite know what I was doing when I was first doing it,” she said. “I was trying to find a reason to live, or a place to be inspired, and found that this country has a deep well of places to go.”

The project differs greatly from her previous work, Leibovitz says, because she conceived it while looking for an escape from many of the difficulties—financial and otherwise—that had recently come into her life. As she writes in the book that accompanies the exhibition, after her fortunes took a unexpected tumble, she took her children on a trip to Niagara Falls only to find that her credit card had been declined at the hotel where they had planned to stay. Dejected, she brought her children to the falls and was unexpectedly filled with inspiration. “I was sitting off to the side, feeling a little down, and I saw my children mesmerized, studying the falls,” she said. “I walked over, stood behind them, and took this picture. It’s a photograph that anyone can take—an American snapshot.”

Although Leibovitz was energized by the experience, she was unsure how to proceed. “I wasn’t totally sure if I should do the project, because I was worried,” she said. “These pictures had come out of an escape, of not being on assignment. I was worried that if I made it a project, then it would become something I had to do.”

Nevertheless, she put together a list of places that captured some of history’s most influential and fascinating people. Over the next several years, she traveled to dozens of locations—places like Graceland, Monticello and Yellowstone. “I was swept away when I walked into these places,” she said. “I found myself taking pictures without thinking about the consequences. I was seduced.”

Leibovitz' 2011 self-portrait. © Annie Leibovitz. From "Pilgrimage" (Random House, 2011).

Museum-goers who view the results of Leibovitz’ journey are sure to be seduced as well. The photographs in the exhibition range widely in scale, with some focusing on quotidian minutiae (such as Emily Dickinson’s nightgown) and others revealing vast and uniquely American landscapes (such as the Great Salt Lake or Yosemite Valley). In all cases, the photos convey how Leibovitz chose what to photograph: she captured the objects and scenes that most deeply moved her. The items—things like Georgia O’Keeffe’s handmade pastels, or John Muir’s botanical specimens—are just as moving in the gallery as they must have been when Leibovitz first set eyes upon them.

The journey that led to “Pilgrimage” was first prompted by Leibovitz’ own children, and she hopes the photography can resonate especially well with younger audiences. “When I came into the Smithsonian, there were so many children running around, and it was so exciting to see, so I hung the show low, for the children,” she said. “This book is dedicated to my children, and it’s something that we want to pass on to them. I can’t wait to see a young class in here and see what they think.”

Leibovitz says that she hopes the show will remind others just how much there is to see in this country—and inspire them to start their own pilgrimages. “It was so much fun. I only hope that others see what anyone can get out of this,” she said. “We have this great country, and you can just hit the road and find places that inspire and mean something to you.”

Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage is on view at the American Art Museum through May 20th. Signed copies of her book are available at SmithsonianStore.com.

Congolese artist Sammy Baloji combines images of past industry with modern photographs in a patchwork of memory and regret. Image courtesy of the Natural History Museum.

In Sammy Baloji’s native Congo, the mid-20th century is wistfully remembered as la belle époque, or the beautiful time. During the colonial era of the 1930s and 1940s, skilled Congolese laborers built a thriving copper mining industry that turned the city of Lubumbashi into a modernized center of wealth and cosmopolitan culture. This period saw unusual prosperity that permeated all levels of colonial society, from the Dutch colonial industrialists to the black Congolese workers.

This brief moment of universal prosperity is memorialized in “The Beautiful Time: Photography by Sammy Baloji,” now on view at the Natural History Museum. Baloji’s photographic collages superimpose this heyday of the past with the desolation of the present. The copper mines of today, abandoned and dormant, become backdrops for archival black-and-white photographs of mine workers and colonial officials.

What happened in the gap between these two realities? The invisible step—30 years of civil war, the assassination of the first legally elected Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, and rampant government corruption—haunts every photograph. “The archival photograph is always in the front plane and the desolation is in the back,” curator Mary Jo Arnoldi says. “What’s missing is the memory of those 30 years. He’s celebrating the work of his grandfathers who built this great modern colony, and then he’s indicting his father’s generation who squandered it through the government’s corruption.”

A rare archival photo of Lubumbashi women is juxtaposed with the barrenness of the modern mines.

“The Beautiful Time” came to the Natural History Museum from the Museum of African Art in New York City. “I was very interested in it because the permanent exhibit here, “African Voices,” is focused on giving voice to Africans themselves to tell their stories about contemporary Africa and their history, as opposed to the museum always being the voice,” Arnoldi says. She plans to use volunteer facilitators to help direct visitors and explain the links between Baloji’s work and the rest of the African Voices exhibit. “In the permanent exhibit, our main topics are the value of work, how wealth is created, the colonial experience,” Arnoldi says. “And [Baloji's] photographs speak to all of these things in a really compelling way. It gives it a visual voice as opposed to just text.”

The colonial industry of Lubumbashi in many ways adds nuance to the conventional history of colonized Africa. “The Belgians invested, but the people who actually did the work were Congolese,” Arnoldi points out. “They became a very skilled group of people. They sent their kids to school and built this very modern city. We’re talking about a very modern population of people with technological skills who are running a pretty sophisticated industry.”

Arnoldi brings a new element to the previous show at the Museum of African Art. She added commentary from Baloji’s fellow Congolese artist and collaborator, poet Patrick Mudekereza, to flesh out the story beyond the cold historical facts. According to Mudekereza, Baloji is challenging the romantic narrative of the period.  “Sammy’s photographs are not nostalgic celebrations of the beautiful time, which is a phrase we often hear the older generation use when referring to the golden age of the colonial mining industry,” Mudekereza writes in one of the show’s inscriptions. “Rather, his pictures speak to today, implying a failure by our leaders to provide our people with a means to create a more beautiful time than before.”

Noticeably, there are no contemporary Congolese people in the photographs. Baloji avoids the use of city’s current inhabitants because he wants them to be active viewers of the history he depicts. As Arnoldi says, “These are directed to a global art audience, but also directed very specifically to a young Congolese audience, to his generation.”

Inscribed on the wall outside the African Voices exhibit is a Sierra Leonean proverb: “Know the road you’ve come down or you can’t know where you’re going.” Arnoldi sees this proverb as central to Baloji’s work. “He’s saying you have to understand your past. You have to understand the past of who built these mines. You have to understand what happened to them,” she says. “In order to move forward, you have to own your history.”

The Beautiful Time: Photography by Sammy Baloji opened on January 7th and runs through 2012 at the Natural History Museum.

A still life from Annie Leibovitz's Pilgrimage, on view at the American Art Museum. Image courtesy of Annie Leibovitz/Contact Press Images.

Tuesday, January 24 Annie Leibovitz’s Pilgrimage

Renowned portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz comes to the American Art Museum to discuss her latest project, Pilgrimage, currently on view. Called an “icon-maker” by the New York Times, Leibovitz departs from her usual celebrity portraits to a deeply personal, largely unpeopled study of places and objects that have moved her over the years. Free. This event is sold out, but a stand-by line will be formed at 5:30 p.m. Talk starts at 7:00 p.m. McEvoy Auditorium, American Art Museum.

Wednesday, January 25 Profile America Forum on American Indian and Alaska Native Populations

At this forum, the U.S. Census Bureau will release a 2010 Census brief on the status of American Indian and Alaska Native populations across the country. Following the presentation, museum director Kevin Gover will moderate the discussion with an expert panel on the current social and economic impact of the American Indian and Alaska Native populations. Free. 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. Museum of the American Indian.

Thursday, January 26 Flights of Fancy

In the latest program of the Air and Space Museum’s Flights of Fancy story series, kids of all ages will learn about the historic 1969 flight of Apollo 11 in a story-telling of Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 by Brian Floca. Free. 11 a.m., repeating Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Air and Space Museum.

For a complete listing of Smithsonian events and exhibitions visit the goSmithsonian Visitors Guide. Additional reporting by Michelle Strange.