ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the more general concern of relating subsistence productivity in the different environmental zones to the different levels of sociopolitical integration found in those zones. Similar zones are grouped together along a continuum consisting of four types of subsistence productivity: low, moderately low, moderately high, and high. The chapter discusses the close correspondence between the productivity of the faunal and floral subsistence resources and the societal level(s) found within the zone. It presents an overview of the cultivated plants of the Andes and adjacent western littoral, dealing with a selected group of the important cultivars found in this huge geographic area that stretches from Venezuela in the far north to central Chile in the south. The chapter describes the principal hallucinogenic plants used by indigenous peoples in both the Amazon and the Andes and their general role in ritual and religious activities.
