46 MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 
Invention of Agriculture. Before examining in 
greater detail the art of the Archaic Horizon let us stop 
and consider its real significance. It is generally 
admitted that America was originally populated from 
Asia, but on a culture level no higher than the Neolithic. 
The simple arts of stone 
chipping, basketry, fire- 
making, etc., were prob- 
ably brought over by the 
earliest immigrants but 
there is abundant evidence 
that pottery-making, 
weaving, and agriculture 
were independently in- 
vented long after the ori- 
ginal settlement. The cul- 
tivated plants in the New 
World are different from 
those of the Old World 
and there is a vast area in 
Fig. 12. Teocentli or Mexi- northwestern America 
can Fodder Grass. and northeastern Asia, up- 
on the only open line of 
communication, where agriculture and the higher arts 
have never been practised. 
Now the invention of agriculture is an antecedent 
necessity for all the high cultures of the New World. It 
is equally clear that this invention must have taken 
place in a locality where some important food plant 
grew in a wild state. By far the most important food 
plant of the New World is maize. While this plant has 
changed greatly under domestication, botanists are in- 
clined to find its nearest relative and possible progenitor 
in a wild grass growing on the highlands of Mexico and 
known by the Aztecan name fteocentli, which means 
