ABSTRACT
Throughout the tropics and subtropics it is wood – not bone or shell, or bark, leaf fibre or clay pottery – that is the dominant resource of material culture. This also applies in some northern temperate regions today (see Box 2.1) and in pre-industrial societies of Europe and North America during the past. Bowls, milk pails, spoons, sticks, stools and headrests, grain-stamping pestles and mortars, snuff containers and other ritual objects are all made of wood. Even entire houses, as well as doors, storage houses and their support pillars, are (or were) intricately carved (see Figure 2.1).
