evidence now available may not prove early cultural con- 
tact across the Pacific, it is highly suggestive of such 
contacts. Our knowledge of cultivated plants and of the 
earlier cultures is not yet so perfect that we may wrap 
our minds in the comforting cloak of dogma (nor should 
it ever be thought so). The evidences should be consid- 
ered on their own merits; further unbiased studies along 
these lines cannot fail to be of great value, regardless of 
the light they may or may not throw on the question 
of early contacts between the New World and the Old. 
Whatever the relationship between these two areas, the 
agriculture of the Americas is, in its broad outlines, dis- 
tinct both in crops and in techniques from that of the 
Old World, and particularly so from that of temperate 
Eurasia. 
In conclusion, the geographic origins of most culti- 
vated plants can be stated only in regional terms and can 
never be very narrowly localized. Of the chronological 
origins, we can scarcely speak yet even in general terms. 
The cultivated plants are not easy subjects for compre- 
hensive study, and both botanists and anthropologists 
have too often neglected them. The outlook, however, 
is very good. With the use of newer tools (carbon 14 and 
cytogenetics, for example) and the careful reapplication 
of the older tools of the many phases of both anthropol- 
ogy and botany, there is every reason to believe that a 
good culture history can be developed for the most basic 
and important material culture traits of man, his culti- 
vated plants. 
SUMMARY 
The problems and importance of studying cultivated 
plants are considered, and the criteria used for determin- 
ing the center of origin of a cultivated plant are reviewed. 
The cultivated plants of pre-conquest Mexico are enu- 
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