The Invention and Spread of Agriculture 



in America' 



Ba- H E K B E K T .1 . S P I N D E N 



OX tlie foreland of ancient 

 American history the inven- 

 tion of agriculture is the one 

 outstanding fact. For without a sure 

 and abundant food supply, to be se- 

 cured only by domesticating plants, the 

 American Indians could never have 

 risen above the status of hunters, herd- 

 ers, or lowly fishermen. Agriculture 

 was indeed the indispensable inven- 

 tion that made possible all the higher 

 arts, both in the Old World and the 

 New. 



Yet agriculture began independently 

 in the two hemispheres. The plants 

 found under domestication among the 

 American Indians are distinct as a 

 group from those known in Europe, 

 Africa, Asia, and the Pacific islands, 

 before the discovery of America. "We 

 have, then, in the New World and the 

 Old two unrelated families of civiliza- 

 tion, each dependent upon agriculture, 

 but with unrelated groups of plants as 

 the bases. In each area, the increase in 

 population and the accumulation of 

 wealth that resulted from this conquest 

 of the vegetable kingdom made pos- 

 sible intellectual and artistic expres- 

 sion upon a grand scale. 



The idea of agriculture may have 

 had several points of origin in Amer- 

 ica, but this does not seem likely, since 

 maize, beans, and squashes were com- 

 mon products wherever agriculture 

 was practised. Other plants, fitted for 

 special environments, had a more lim- 

 ited distribution, examples being tlie 

 manioc of the humid lowlands of the 



Anuizon basin and of the West Indies, 

 and the common potato that was cul- 

 tivated most extensively in the rather 

 arid highlands of Peru. Wild stocks 

 for some of the aboriginal food plants 

 of America are often difficult to ob- 

 tain, but botanical knowledge is far 

 from complete for the more significant 

 regions. 



The cradle of New World agricul- 

 ture appears to have been the high- 



Pottery reproductions of maize, cast in molds 

 tliat were made over actual ears of maize, liave 

 much scientific value. These reproductions were 

 sometimes used as details on great ceremonial 

 urns in southern Mexico 



' The substance of this ai'ticle was presented at the Second Pau-Anicviciui Cou^ro 

 Washington, D. C., December, 1910. 



181 



