NEW WORLD PREHISTORY — ^WILLEY 567 



life already existed. This is indicated in figure 2 by the entry "Vil- 

 lage Farming — Manioc" in the columns headed "Venezuela" and "Am- 

 azon." Sedentary village life based upon root-crop farming is esti- 

 mated to be as old as 2500 B.C. This is a guess, and, if it is correct, 

 these villages are older than the Nuclear American village sustained 

 by maize. Perhaps tlie estimated date is too early ; however, at 2000 

 and 1000 B.C., respectively (see fig. 2), we have the villages of Momil 

 I and Saladero, which, apparently, were supported by root-crop culti- 

 vation. It is of mterest to note that ]\Iomil I, near the mouth of the 

 Sinu River in Colombia, lies wdthin the axis of Nuclear America; yet 

 it differs from the succeeding Momil II phase at the same site in bemg 

 oriented toward manioc rather than maize. This suggests that, in the 

 Intermediate area at least, tropical-forest farming patterns may have 

 preceded farming patterns for maize in Nuclear America. 



Relationships between village farming in Nuclear America and in 

 eastern North America are also complicated. It is unlikely that the 

 local incipient-cultivation tradition in eastern North America ever 

 matured into a subsistence pattern that could have supported fully 

 sedentary village life. J. R. Caldwell [63] has argued that, in its 

 place, a steadily increasing efficiency in forest collecting and hunting 

 climaxed at about 2000 B.C. in a level of "Primary Forest Efficiency" 

 (see fig. 3) . Such a level, he concludes, offered the same opportunities 

 for population stability and cultural creativity in the eastern wood- 

 lands as were offered by village farming. While agreeing with Cald- 

 well that the efflorescence of Aden a-Hope well (about 800 B.C. to 

 A.D. 200) [64] (pi. 5) is the brilliant end product of a mounting cul- 

 tural intensity in eastern North America that originated in the food- 

 collecting or Archaic societies, I am not yet convinced that plant cul- 

 tivation did not play an important role in this terminal development. 

 And by plant cultivation I am referring to maize, brought or diffused 

 from Nuclear America. There is, as yet, no good direct evidence of 

 maize associated with either the Adena [42] or the contemporary 

 Poverty Point [65] culture. Maize is, however, found with Ilope- 

 wellian cultures [63], although it has been assumed that it was of 

 relatively little importance as subsistence at this time. I w^ould argue 

 that the riverine locations of Adena and Hopewell sites, together with 

 the great size and plan of the ceremonial eartlnvorks that mark many 

 of them, make it dillicult to infer an adequate subsistence if maize 

 agriculture is niled out. 



To smn up brieflj^ the amazing cultural florescence of tlie Eastern 

 Woodlands in the 1st millennium B.C. has not yet been satisfactorily 

 explained. This florescence rests upon a chronologically deep series 

 of Archaic food-collex;tiTig cultures w^liich were at least seraisedentary, 

 and it contains elements, such as pottery, wdiich are probably of 



579421— Rl 42 



