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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



lands of Mexico and Central America. 

 The nearest wild relative of maize so 

 far discovered is a grass called in the 

 Aztec tongue teocentU (sacred maize). 

 When we consider the geographical and 

 climatic range of maize, we must admit 

 that the Mexican plateau is an inter- 

 mediate and very likely home for the 

 wild ancestor of this great food plant. 

 On the north its cultivation had been 

 extended in pre-Columbian times to the 

 mouth of the St. Lawrence, and on the 

 south to the mouth of the Rio de la 

 Plata. It had been modified by care- 

 ful breeding to meet extreme condi- 

 tions of heat and cold, drovight and 

 moisture. 



In restoring tlie early history of 

 agriculture the most important source 

 of information is archaeological rather 

 than botanical. There are manufac- 

 tured objects, such as pottery vessels, 

 associated with agriculture or depen- 

 dent in a general way upon it, and 

 some of these are practically indestruc- 

 tible ; whereas plants and seeds survive 

 only under the most exceptional condi- 

 tions. Earthen l)owls are both heavy 

 and fragile and consequently of little 

 use to wandering peoples. Stationary 

 peoples alone develop pottery, and such 

 peoples are usually on the agricultural 

 plane of life. In America we find that 

 the boundaries of pottery distribution 

 closely parallel the boundaries of 

 agriculture distribution, extending in 

 some regions slightly beyond them. 

 Pottery is made with an infinite varia- 

 tion in form and ornament and has 

 almost the historical value of a written 

 document. Like agriculture, pottery 

 making was independently invented in 

 the New World, along with loom weav- 

 ing and other high arts, and probably 

 spread outward from a single point of 

 origin. 



In the valley of Mexico jDottery re- 



mains of sharply differing styles have 

 been found in layers one above the 

 other, and it is clear that the lowest 

 la3'er is historically the earliest. The 

 pottery of this lowest layer shows pecu- 

 liar features in construction and orna- 

 ment, and it has been possible to prove 

 by these special features that ceramic 

 art spread from Central America across 

 northern South x\merica to the mouth 

 of the Amazon, and over the mountains 

 of Colombia and Ecuador to the coast 

 of Peru. All the higher civilizations in 

 the New World seem to have risen 

 from the general level of what has been 

 called the "archaic horizon." The trail 

 of pottery of the ancient type marks 

 the first distribution of agriculture. 



When we examine the exact distri- 

 bution of this most ancient of all pot- 

 ter}', we find that it is abundant in 

 open, arid country, and rare or want- 

 ing in humid, forested country. Theo- 

 retically, agriculture would be more 

 likely to originate under conditions 

 that were hard rather than under those 

 that were easy. Necessity, the}' say, is 

 the mother of invention. 



Irrigation is often looked upon as a 

 remarkable sequel to the introduction 

 of agriculture into an arid country. 

 But from the best historical evidence 

 at our command, we should rather re- 

 gard it as an invention which accounts 

 for the very origin of agriculture itself. 

 Tlie earliest records of cultivated plants 

 are found in Mesopotamia, Egypt, 

 ]\Iexico, and Peru, where irrigation 

 was practised, and in each region are 

 likewise found the earliest develop- 

 ments of the characteristic arts of sed- 

 entary peoples — namely, pottery and 

 weaving, and the elaborate social and 

 religious structures that result from 

 a sure food supply and a reasonable 

 amount of leisure. 



Quite aside from these known facts 



