What is Peanut

The domesticated peanut is an amphidiploid or allotetraploid, meaning that it has two sets of chromosomes from two different species. The wild ancestors of the peanut were thought to be A. duranensis and A. ipaensis, a view recently confirmed by direct comparison of the peanut's chromosomes with those of several putative ancestors.This domestication might have taken place in Argentina or Bolivia, where the wildest strains grow today. In fact, many pre-Columbian cultures, such as the Moche, depicted peanuts in their art.
Evidence demonstrates that peanuts were domesticated in prehistoric times in Peru. Archeologists have (thus far) dated the oldest specimens to about 7,600 years before the present.Cultivation spread as far as Mesoamerica where the Spanish conquistadors found the tlalcacahuatl (Nahuatl = "cacao", whence Mexican Spanish, cacahuate and French, cacahuète) being offered for sale in the marketplace of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City). The plant was later spread worldwide by European traders.
The legume gained Western popularity when it came to the United States from Africa. It had become popular in Africa after being brought there from Brazil by the Portuguese around 1800.