NO. 1 CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN LATIN AMERICA 141 
The answer to the first question is to be sought at least partly in 
the environment. Where intensive and extensive agricultural produc- 
tion is prohibited or rendered difficult by features of the climate, soil, 
or terrain, a foundation cannot be laid that will support a highly 
elaborated culture, just as a skyscraper cannot be built in a swamp. 
Much of lowland South America and lower Central America has 
limited agricultural potential, and fails to be economically productive 
even today with the application of the most advanced scientific tech- 
niques. Leaving these areas aside, there remain in addition to the cen- 
ters of high civilization in Central Mexico, Ecuador, and the Central 
Andes, portions of the intervening area included in highland Guate- 
mala and Costa Rica, Colombia, and the Greater Antilles. All have 
rich soils capable of intensive agricultural exploitation and most sup- 
port large populations today. If these additional areas have the poten- 
tial for intensive exploitation, why was it not realized in aboriginal 
times ? 
A great deal more work must be done before we can provide a 
complete answer, but one important factor should be considered as 
we interpret the evidence. It must be recognized that our evaluation 
of the level of civilization attained by the Inca, the Maya, and the Az- 
tec depends to a large extent on special archeological and historical 
circumstances. We would know much less about the sociopolitical 
organization, religious pantheon, militarism, systems of tribute, and 
the other multiple but intangible details were it not for descriptions 
recorded at the time of the European conquest. Secondly, particularly 
on coastal Peru, but also in the cenotes of Yucatan and the caves of 
Mexico, conditions favor the preservation of wood, bone, cloth, bas- 
ketry, and vegetal remains, even a small sample of which adds infi- 
nitely to the cultural reconstruction. Thirdly, the people of Meso- 
america and Peru chose to build in stone, leaving monuments that 
impress us as feats of engineering skill. 
Fig. 20. — Relative antiquity of selected traits suggesting maintenance of di- 
rect contact between Mesoamerica and northwestern South America after the 
beginning of the Christian era. In South America, their greatest antiquity 
(with the possible exception of the shaft tomb) is in Ecuador, which can be seen 
as a center of diffusion to other parts of that continent. In Mesoamerica, their 
earhest occurrence is in the central portion of the area, from which they appear 
to have spread north and south. The fact that the South American center of dis- 
persal provides the earliest occurrence of all the traits, together with the fact 
that their appearance in Mesoamerica is sequential rather than simultaneous, leads 
to the inference of long-term direct contact by sea between the two centers. 
During this contact, other traits also moved from north to south. Data on which 
the chart is based are provided in Appendix Table 2. Lines above the a.d. 
1500 marker reflect absence of the trait. 
