30 



Columbian civilizations in America, based on this indigenous 

 agriculture, were developed independently of Eurasian contacts. 

 It was only after the end of the fifteenth century that Europe 

 and Asia in any material way effected the development of civi- 

 lization in America. 



The rather large public that believes implicitly in Atlantis 

 and the similar group that support the idea of Mu — assumed 

 ancient continents or island groups in the Atlantic and Pacific 

 basins through which cultures were disseminated in both hemi- 

 spheres — as well as the extreme diffusionists among the anthro- 

 pologists who would derive all culture from a common center, 

 must continue to ignore the evidence supplied by the origin and 

 distribution of cultivated plants. Had there been any consider- 

 able contacts between America and Eurasia in pre-Columbian 

 times, man would have inevitably transmitted the basic food 

 plant from one hemisphere to the other. There is no evidence 

 that this interchange of cultivated plants commenced before 

 the period of European colonial expansion in the 16th century. 



New York Botanical Garden 

 New York, N. Y. 



