CHAPTER VY. 
CONCLUSION. 
The civilization existing in the Southwest which is 
described in the preceding pages has resulted in part 
from slow internal growth and in part from borrowings 
and suggestions received from neighboring cultures. 
The earliest archaeological evidence shows us a people, 
the Basket Makers, already possessing agriculture in 
the matter of maize and squash, but they do not appear 
to have had beans or cotton. However, until we know 
whether this prehistoric people and their culture 
occupied the whole of the Southwest or only the Colo- 
rado-San Juan region, we are not justified in assuming 
that they are the beginning point of our Southwestern 
studies. If they are proved to underlie the whole of the 
Southwest we are dealing with a Great Basin, Cali- 
fornia-like culture. 
On the other hand, should they be found only in 
the north we must begin with the people whose culture 
is characterized by houses with low walls of upright 
slabs and a less permanent roof, a people who raised 
beans and cotton as wellas maize, and who knew the art 
of pottery-making. These and other traits would mark 
them as having a culture rather distinct from all their 
neighbors except those of the south. But whether we 
start with a culture like that of the Great Basin, or one 
that is independent, we must believe certain very im- 
portant elements such as agriculture, pottery, weaving 
on a proper loom, the wearing of sandals, and probably 
many phases of ceremonial and religious life came to 
them from the south since they are common posses- 
sions of the pre-Spanish peoples of Mexico, Central 
America, and western South America. The point at 
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