Andean civilizations to the south and the lowlands of Central
America.
SOUTH AMERICA
In South America a great variety of natural environments
imposed their particular demands on the Chavín and Moche
cultures that preceded the Incan empire. On the arid Pacifi c
coast, settlement was concentrated in a series of valleys that
run down to the sea from the steep Andes highlands. Th e
mountains themselves are further divided into high plateaus
known as the Altiplano and the Puna, a grassland region
stretching from southern Peru into Bolivia and northern Ar-
gentina.
In these highlands little rain fell, soil was thin, and
temperatures were low, and the oft en steep Andean slopes
prevented the use of much land for planting. As a result,
settlement was scattered over a large area and economic life
tended to be isolated. Farming and herding went together;
family groups oft en undertook both vocations in places where
pasturage and fertile land lay close together. Some clans held
land in diff erent locations and at diff erent elevations to ex-
ploit a greater variety of resources. Th ey migrated from one
holding to the next to cultivate and harvest crops with diff er-
ent growing seasons. Andean farmers also made widespread
use of terraces, which extended the cultivable land and made
more effi cient use of the available water.
In the Andes storage was vital, and crops oft en failed
altogether through lack of rainfall, hailstorms, and frost.
Crops also had to be rotated each year to avoid depleting the
less-fertile soil. Alpaca and llama provided all-purpose work
animals, transporting goods on the mountain trails and pro-
viding wool for clothing and blankets and meat for storage
and use in the years of crop failure. In the high Puna region,
above the zone where farming is possible, these animals were
essential to survival. While both men and women worked the
fi elds, children were given the task of herding and watching
the animals.
Because their agriculture was undependable, the moun-
tain settlers acquired beans, maize, cocoa, cotton, salt, and
fi sh by trading along the valleys leading to the seacoast.
In coastal regions, people and entire communities tended
to specialize in a single type of productive activity, such as
fi shing, farming, or herding. Some fi shing communities
specialized in a certain kind of marine life. Farming along
the coast was made diffi cult by sparse rainfall; crop fi elds
demanded complicated irrigation systems using streams
fl owing down from the Andean highlands. Irrigation canals
demanded large and centralized labor forces. Th e system gave
rise to seasonal work periods; farmers worked at maintaining
the irrigation works when their fi elds were lying fallow and
unused.
See also adornment; agriculture; architecture; art;
ceramics and pottery; cities; climate and geography;
clothing and footwear; crafts; crime and punish-
ment; education; empires and dynasties; employment
and labor; family; festivals; food and diet; foreign-
ers and barbarians; government organization; hunt-
ing, fishing, and gathering; gender structures and
roles; labor and employment; language; laws and
legal codes; literature; metallurgy; military; min-
ing, quarrying, and salt making; money and coinage;
natural disasters; occupations; religion and cosmol-
ogy; roads and bridges; seafaring and navigation; set-
tlement patterns; slaves and slavery; social collapse
and abandonment; social organization; storage and
preservation; textiles and needlework; towns and
villages; trade and exchange; transportation; war
and conquest; weaponry and armor; weights and
measures; writing.FURTHER READING
M. M. Austin and Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Economic and Social His-
tory of Ancient Greece: An Introduction (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1977).
Michael S. Bisson, S. Terry Childs, Philip de Barros, and Augustin F.
C. Holl, Ancient African Metallurgy: Th e Socio-Cultural Con-
text (Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press, 2000).
Moses I. Finley, Th e Ancient Economy, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1985).
Kevin Greene, Th e Archaeology of the Roman Economy (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1986).
Edward Lipinski, ed., State and Temple Economy in the Ancient
Near East, 2 vols. (Leuven, Belgium: Departement Oriental-
istiek, 1979).
J.N. Postgage, Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn
of History (London: Routledge, 1992).
Walter Scheidel and Sitta von Reden, eds., Th e Ancient Economy
(Edinburgh, U.K.: Edinburgh University Press, 2002).
David Warburton, State and Economy in Ancient Egypt: Fiscal Vo-
cabulary of the New Kingdom (Göttingen, Germany: Vanden-
hoeck and Ruprecht, 1997).▶ education
introduction
Th e need for the adult community to educate its youth runs
deep into history. In preliterate cultures, the elders of a com-
munity educated young people in the skills they needed to
survive and to be contributing members of their society. Gen-
erally, this type of education was gender specifi c. Boys were
taught to hunt, build fi res, tend fi elds and livestock, fi ght with
weapons, and so on, and they oft en learned a trade or craft
from their fathers. Girls were taught to cook, sew, take care of
children, and other domestic chores. All were taught the his-
tory and values of their community through songs, legends,
and stories, and all were schooled in the arts of cooperation
with others, necessary for survival under usually harsh con-
ditions. Knowledge about the world was hard won, and it waseducation: introduction 375