ABSTRACT
Three distinct types of habitats occupy major portions of North and South America. Although the Forests, the Deserts, and the Plains differ in specific resources, they all provide a considerable variety of wild plant and animal foods and are suitable for intensive agriculture. Large and small mammals inhabit the forests and edible wild plants provide a bountiful harvest in certain places and seasons. The subsistence base of communities bordering the Amazon flood-plain can be reconstructed from early European descriptions. The pottery from these early sites consists of simple utilitarian bowls and jars with plain surfaces, except in the far south where fingernail marking, pinching, punctation, incision, and other plastic techniques of decoration were popular. In North America, where a similar juxtaposition of Desert and Plains environments occurs, there is also little evidence of effective communication, implying a kind of cultural incompatibility resulting from adaptation to totally different types of natural resources.
