Editing Peach (section)

=== History ===
[[File:Dried date, peach, apricot, and stones. From Lahun, Fayum, Egypt. Late Middle Kingdom. The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London.jpg|thumb|Dried date, peach, apricot, and stones from Lahun, Fayum, Egypt, Late Middle Kingdom, [[Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology]], London]]

Which peaches might be wild type or feral escapes from cultivation is still an open scientific question.{{sfn|Zheng|Crawford|Chen|2014|p=2}} The authors of the [[Flora of China (series)|Flora of China]] wrote in 2003 that completely wild peach trees no longer exist and this view is widely accepted.{{sfn|Lingdi|Bartholomew|2003}}{{sfn|Yu et al. 2018|p=2}} Although its botanical name ''Prunus persica'' refers to Persia peaches originated in China,{{sfn|Thacker|1985|p=57}} where they have been cultivated since the Neolithic period.{{sfn|Zheng|Crawford|Chen|2014|p=4}} From the 1980s to the 2010s it was believed that cultivation started around 2000 BCE.{{sfn|Singh et al. 2020|p=90}}{{sfn|Vaughan|Geissler|2009|p=82}} In 2014 new research was published showing that domestication occurred as early as 6000 BCE in [[Zhejiang Province]] on the central east coast of China. The oldest archaeological peach stones are from the [[Kuahuqiao]] site near [[Hangzhou]]. Archaeologists point to the [[Yangtze River Valley]] as the place where the early selection for favorable peach varieties probably took place.{{sfn|Zheng|Crawford|Chen|2014|pp=3–4}}

A domesticated peach appeared very early in Japan, in 4700–4400 BCE, during the [[Jōmon period]]. It was already similar to modern cultivated forms, where the peach stones are significantly larger and more compressed than earlier stones. This domesticated type of peach was brought into Japan from China. Nevertheless, in China itself, this variety is currently attested only at a later date around 3300 to 2300 BCE.{{sfn|Zheng|Crawford|Chen|2014|pp=1, 5, 7}}

In India, the peach first appeared sometime between 2500 and 1700 BCE, during the [[Indus Valley Civilisation|Harappan period]] in the [[Kashmir]].{{sfn|Fuller|Madella|2001|p=341}}

It is also found elsewhere in [[West Asia]] in ancient times.{{sfn|Ensminger et al. 1994|p=1719}} Peach cultivation reached Greece by 300 BC.{{sfn|Vaughan|Geissler|2009|p=82}} [[Alexander the Great]] is sometimes said to have introduced them into Greece after conquering Persia, but no historical evidence for this claim has been found.{{sfn|Davidson|1999|p=588}} Peaches were, however, well known to the Romans in the first century AD;{{sfn|Vaughan|Geissler|2009|p=82}} the oldest known artistic representations of the fruit are in two fragments of wall paintings, dated to the first century AD, in [[Herculaneum]], preserved due to the [[Vesuvius]] eruption of 79 AD, and now held in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples.{{sfn|Sadori et al. 2009|p=46}} Archaeological finds show that peaches were cultivated widely in Roman northwestern Continental Europe, but production collapsed around the sixth century; some revival of production followed with the [[Carolingian Renaissance]] of the ninth century.{{sfn|Blan|2019|pp=523–525}}

[[File:Peach house at scone palace.jpg|thumb|Illustration of the peach-house at [[Scone Palace]], Scotland]]
An article on peach tree cultivation in Spain is brought down in [[Ibn al-'Awwam]]'s 12th-century agricultural work, ''Book on Agriculture''.{{sfn|Ibn al-'Awwam|1864|pp=315–318}} The peach was brought to the Americas by Spanish explorers in the 16th century, and eventually made it to England and France in the 17th century, where it was a prized and expensive treat. Although Thomas Jefferson had peach trees at Monticello, American farmers did not begin commercial production until the 19th century in Maryland, Delaware, Georgia, South Carolina, and finally Virginia.{{sfn|Fogle|1965|p=1}}

The Shanghai honey nectar peach was a key component of both the food culture and agrarian economy the area where the modern megacity of [[Shanghai]] stands. Peaches were the cornerstone of early Shanghai's garden culture. As modernization and westernization swept through the city the Shanghai honey nectar peach nearly disappeared completely. Much of modern Shanghai is built over these gardens and peach orchards.{{sfn|Swislocki|2009|pp=29–64}}

The first European botanist to argue that the peach did not originate in Persia was [[Augustin Pyramus de Candolle]] in 1855. He argued on the basis of it not being mentioned by [[Xenophon]] in 401 BCE or by other early sources that it could not have arrived there much before it was imported to Rome in the 100s BCE. An important western botanist to argue for a Chinese origin of the species was Ulysses Prentiss Hedrick in 1917. Chinese literature records the fruit for at least 1000 years before its appearance in Europe.{{sfn|Faust|Timon|1995|p=338}}

==== Peaches in the Americas ====
Peaches were introduced into the Americas in the 16th century by the [[Spanish Empire|Spanish]]. By 1580, peaches were being grown in Latin America and were cultivated by the remnants of the [[Inca Empire]] in Argentina.{{sfn|Capparelli et al. 2005}}

[[File:Drying Peaches at Isleta (NBY 6209).jpg|thumb|Drying peaches at [[Pueblo of Isleta]], New Mexico {{circa|1900}}]]
In the United States the peach was soon adopted as a crop by [[Native Americans of the United States|American Indians]]. In the eastern U.S. the peach also became naturalized and abundant as a feral species.{{sfn|Holland-Lulewicz et al. 2024|pp=1–2}} Peaches were being grown in Virginia as early as 1629. Peaches grown by Indians in Virginia were said to have been "of greater variety and finer sorts" than those of the English colonists. Also in 1629, peaches were listed as a crop in [[New Mexico]].{{sfn|Jett|1977|p=683}} [[William Penn]] noted the existence of wild peaches in [[Pennsylvania]] in 1683.{{sfn|Fair|2002|p=374}} In fact, peaches may have already spread to the [[American Southeast]] by the early to mid 1600s, actively cultivated by indigenous communities such as the [[Muscogee]] before permanent Spanish settlement of the region.{{sfn|Holland-Lulewicz et al. 2024|pp=2–4}}

Peach plantations became an objective of American military campaigns against the Indians. In 1779, the [[Sullivan Expedition]] destroyed the livelihood of many of the [[Iroquois]] people of [[New York (state)|New York]]. Among the crops destroyed were plantations of peach trees.{{sfn|NPS Staff|2020}} In 1864, [[Kit Carson]] led a successful U.S. army expedition to [[Canyon de Chelly National Monument|Canyon de Chelly]] in Arizona to destroy the livelihood of the [[Navajo]]. Carson destroyed thousands of peach trees. A soldier said they were the "best peach trees I have ever seen in the country, every one of them bearing fruit."{{sfn|Sumrak|2017}} The Navajo signed a treaty with the US government in 1868 and were able to return to the canyon. They had saved peach pits and some trees resprouted from stumps and so by the 1870s and 1880s many peach orchards had been restored.{{sfn|Dolan|Wytsalucy|Lyons|2024}}