Basic Species Information
The botanical name for the sweet potato is Ipomoea batatas [L.] (Lam). The most common indigenous names for the sweet potato tuber in Central and South America include batata, boniato, camote, batata doce, and apichu. From Peru, Hawaii, and Samoa to the Philippines, sweet potato is known by a broad range of cognates: kumar, uala, umala, and kamote, respectively. The sweet potato is called kumara in New Zealand. Eastern Africans know the sweet potato as cileraabana, “protector of the children,” and it is called ubhatata in South Africa. It is known as kara-imo, “Chinese potato” in southern Kyushu, and in most other parts of Japan, it is known as satsuma-imo, “Japanese potato.”
Timing and Tracking Domestication
The sweet potato is considered to originate in the New World, although its precise origin is not well defined. Archaeological remains of the storage roots, or tubers, of sweet potato show it was long used as a food source by the inhabitants of Peru....
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References
Austin, D. F. 1988. The taxonomy, evolution and genetic diversity of sweet potatoes and related wild species, in P. Gregory (ed.) Exploration, maintenance, and utilization of sweet potato genetic resources: 27-60. Lima: CIP.
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Huamán, Z. & D. P. Zhang. 1997. Sweetpotato, in D. Fucillo et al. (ed.). Biodiversity in trust – conservation and use of genetic resources in CGIAR centers: 29-38. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Further Reading
Bovell-Benjamin, A. C. 2007. Sweet potato: a review of its past, present and future role in human nutrition. Recent Advances in Food & Nutrition Research 52: 1-59.
- 2009. Sweetpotato utilization in human health, industry and animal feed systems, in R. C. Ray & K. I. Tomlins (ed.) Sweet potato: postharvest aspects in food feed and industries: 193-224. New York: Nova Science Publishers.
Hirst, KK. n.d. Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) domestication. Domestication and spread of the sweet potato. Available at: http://archaeology.about.com/od/domestications/qt/sweet_potato.htm (accessed 12 June 2012).
Ugent, D. & L. W. Peterson. 1988. Archaeological remains of potato and sweetpotato in Peru. CIPCircular 16:1-9.
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Bovell-Benjamin, A.C. (2014). Sweet Potato: Origins and Development. In: Smith, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_2189
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