Why Humans Became Food Producers 239(^18) Weatherford, J. (1988). Indian givers: How the Indians of the Americas
transformed the world (pp. 71, 115). New York: Fawcett Col umbine.
(^19) Ibid., p. 95.
American Indians living north of Mexico developed some
of their own indigenous domesticates. These included lo-
cal varieties of squash and sunflower.
Ultimately, American Indians domesticated over 300
food crops, including two of the four most important ones
in the world today: potatoes and maize (the other two are
wheat and rice). In fact, America’s indigenous peoples first
cultivated over 60 percent of the crops grown in the world
today. They remain not only the developers of the world’s
largest array of nutritious foods but also the primary con-
tributors to the world’s varied cuisines.^18 After all, where
would Italian cuisine be without tomatoes? Thai cooking
without peanuts? Northern European cooking without po-
tatoes? Small wonder American Indians have been called
the world’s greatest farmers.^19
As plant species became domesticated, horticultural
societies came into being. These are small communities
of gardeners working with simple hand tools and using
neither irrigation nor the plow. Horticulturists typically
cultivate a variety of crops in small gardens they have
10,000 years ago in the coastal forests of Ecuador; at the
same time another species was being grown in an arid re-
gion of highland Mexico.^17 Evidently, these developments
were independent of each other. The ecological diversity
of the highland valleys of Mexico, like the hill country
of Southwest Asia, provided an excellent environment
for domestication (Figure 10.5). Movement of people
through a variety of ecological zones as they changed alti-
tude brought plant and animal species into new habitats,
providing opportunities for “colonizing” to domesticated
species and humans alike.
Domestication in the Andean highlands of Peru, an-
other highly diverse region, emphasized root crops, the
best known being potatoes (of which about 3,000 varieties
were grown, versus the mere 250 grown today in North
America). South Americans also domesticated guinea
pigs, llamas, alpacas, and ducks, whereas people in the
Mexican highlands never did much with domestic live-
stock. They limited themselves to dogs, turkeys, and bees.
Figure 10.5 Subsistence trends in Mexico’s Tehuacan Valley
show that here, as elsewhere, dependence of horticulture came
about gradually, over a prolonged period of time.
In coastal Peru, the earliest domesticates were the inedible bottle
gourd (like the one shown here) and cotton. They were used to make
nets and floats to catch fish, which was an important source of food.
© Harvey Finkle
3,000
3,500
4,000
4,500
5,000
5,500
6,000
6,500
7,000
7,500
8,000
8,500
54% 40%
34% 52%
25% 50%
29% 31%
PERCENTAGE
CULTIGENS
Years
Hunting ago
Horti-
culture
Wild
plant
use
Squash
Chili
Amaranth
Avocado
Cotton
Maize
Beans
Gourd
Sapote
Squash
Chili
Amaranth
Avocado
Maize
Beans
Gourd
Sapote
Squash
Chili
Amaranth
Avocado
Squash
Chili
Amaranth
Avocado
Maize
Beans
Gourd
Sapote
© Harve
y Finkl
e
(^17) Ibid., p. 1447.
horticulture Cultivation of crops carried out with simple
hand tools such as digging sticks or hoes.