FOOD PLANTS OF ANCIENT AMEEICA. 487 



ent localities, which means also that conditions favorable to the develop- 

 ment of agriculture were very general among the natives of America. 

 That most of these plants are not known in the wild state testiiies also 

 to the great antiquity of this agricultural tendency, while archaeology 

 shows the same antiquity and diversity of prehistoric civilizations in 

 America. From the mounds of Ohio to the equally remarkable ruins 

 of Patagonia, the American continents and islands are, as it were, 

 dotted with remains of rudimentary civilizations which nmst have 

 required centuries and millenniums to rise from surrounding savagery, 

 culminate, and perish. The constructive arts by which the existence 

 of these vanished peoples is made known took the most diverse forms; 

 some made mounds, some expended their energies upon huge carvings 

 on high, inaccessible rocks, some dug devious underground passages, 

 some set up monoliths and carved statues, and some built massive 

 platforms, terraces, pja-amids, temples, and tombs, while still others 

 are known only from their pottery or their metal work. In civiliza- 

 tion, as in agriculture, the tropics of America stand in striking con- 

 trast to those of the Old World. Here men of the same race showed 

 great diversity of plants and arts; there races are diverse, while arts 

 and staple food plants are relatively little varied. The early civiliza- 

 tions of the eastei'n world resembled some of the primitive cultui'es 

 of America more than these resembled each other. 



The American origin of agriculture is thus not doubtful, since not 

 merely one, but sevei'al, agricultures originated in America. The 

 same can not be claimed for Asia and Africa, where onlj^ root crops 

 shared with America attained a wide distribution, an indication that 

 they reached those continents before the uses of the similar indigenous 

 plants had been discovered. 



POISONOUS ROOT CROPS. 



The domestication of so many root crops in America indicates, as 

 has been intimated, a widespread use of food of this kind before agri- 

 culture began, and many savage tribes still have recourse to wild roots, 

 either as a staple article of diet, or in times of scarcity. It is evident, 

 however, that the culture of the principal root crops of America was 

 not begun as a simple and direct transition from the use of fruits, 

 which are commonly supposed to have been the food of primitive man. 

 The more ancient and more important of the Old World root crops, 

 the onions, leeks, garlics, carrots, and radishes are eaten, or are at 

 least edible, in the raw state, but in America there seems to be no indi- 

 cation that the natives used any root crop in this way. Some of them, 

 such as the sweet potato, the artichoke and the "sweet cassava," can 

 be eaten raw, but throughout the tropics of America the Indians,, like 

 the Chinese, prefer everything cooked. This habit must have been 

 SM 1903 32 



