STAIRCASE FARMS OF THE ANCIENTS 



503 



first. They could not have been occupied 

 in any desultory way by colonists or 

 settlers acting separately as individuals. 

 This is plain from the natural conditions 

 and from the nature of the work that had 

 to be done before the crops could be 

 grown to support the colonists. 



In many places the aqueducts afford 

 the only permanent supplies of water for 

 human uses as well as for the irrigation 

 of crops. Deliberate planning is also 

 shown in the placing of the aqueducts 

 and terraces, and in the regular way in 

 which the lands of the ancient reclama- 

 tion enterprises were laid out. Large 

 areas appear to have been developed as 

 units, on the basis of carefully considered 

 undertakings. If the valleys had been 

 settled first by" unorganized individuals, 

 at liberty to take lands where they liked, 

 the most favorable places, where the 

 lands were nearly level, would have been 

 occupied first. The tendency would have 

 been to pile up the stones around the 

 boundaries of the fields, which would 

 take the form of irregular circles or fans, 

 like those that occur in some. localities. 



An excellent example of the results 

 that naturally would follow from a des- 

 ultory occupation was observed in the 

 Urubamba Valley, near Galea, in a dis- 

 trict where crops can be grown without 

 irrigation. The contrasting conditions 

 are represented by the district around 

 Ollantaytambo, where evidences of reg- 

 ular planning are encountered on every 

 hand. The regular planning of the an- 

 cient Peruvian cities has been remarked 

 by Wiener, who gives the plan of Ollan- 

 taytambo as an example ; but the regu- 

 larity in the laying out of the lands and 

 irrigation works affords still better evi- 

 dence that the plan was made before 

 the district was occupied. A town site 

 might be "changed or reorganized by a 

 powerful chief, but it would be more 

 difficult to believe that all of the agricul- 

 tural lands would have been readjusted 

 if they had been occupied at first in a 

 desultory manner. In the Peruvian sys- 

 tem the agricultural structures are more 

 permanent than the 'dwellings. 



In relation to agriculture the results of 

 archeological research in the two hemi- 

 spheres present a striking contrast. In 



the Eastern Hemisphere the general re- 

 sult is to show that the civilizations sup- 

 posed to be the most ancient are not really 

 primitive or aboriginal. They did not 

 have their beginnings and early develop- 

 ment in Egypt or Mesopotamia, but were 

 brought from elsewhere. The early dy- 

 nastic Egyptians came into the Nile Val- 

 ley from the East and the early Baby- 

 lonians into the valley of the Euphrates 

 from the South. Nor does it appear that 

 either of these alluvial valleys afforded 

 natural conditions that were really favor- 

 able to the practice of agriculture by a 

 very primitive people, nor types of plants 

 suited to domestication. 



A MOST INTERESTING COMPARISON 



The crop plants as well as the ancient 

 agriculturists came into the valleys as a 

 result of colonization. In other words, 

 the valleys were developed as reclamation 

 projects by peoples already skilled in 

 agricultural arts and with an established 

 social organization. 



Where these civilized colonists came 

 from is still a question. They are sup- 

 posed to have come into Egypt and Mes- 

 opotamia from southern Arabia and to 

 have been a maritime people, as well as 

 agricultural ; but they have not been 

 traced back to their original home or to 

 the place where their agriculture and 

 other arts were developed. 



The study of agriculture in America 

 has led to directly opposite results. The 

 older idea that the primitive civilizations 

 of Mexico and Peru were originated by 

 colonists from China, the Malay region, 

 or the East Indies has gradually given 

 way to a belief among archaeologists and 

 ethnologists that the primitive civiliza- 

 tions of America were developed entirely 

 on the American continent. Certainly 

 this appears to be true of the art of agri- 

 culture. All of the economic plants on 

 which the ancient American agriculture 

 was based are now believed to be of 

 American origin, and a very large pro- 

 portion of them appear to have come 

 from South America, and especially from 

 the region of Peru. 



Of course, it would not follow that 

 agriculture might not have originated in 

 other places as well as in Peru. All that 



