ABSTRACT
General Parameters Ancient Mesoamerican economic organizations were integrally related to the regions subsistence, transporta tion, and tool technologies. The earliest inhabitants depended exclusively on wild plant and animal resources. These peoples were largely mobile and lived at relatively sparse population densities. Sometime between 3000 and 3300 B.C., key agricultural food crops, such as maize, were domesticated and then rapidly disseminated across the cultural region. Yet it was not until sometime after 2000 B.C. that much of Mesoamerica s population began to reside in relatively sedentary villages. During the last three millennia before Spanish conquest (c. 1500 B.C.— A.D . 1519), most of them relied heavily on some combi nation of the indigenous domesticates: maize, beans, squash, and amaranth. A wide range of other domesti cated and wild foods, which varied according to local environmental conditions, always supplemented these crops. Significantly, few animals (hairless dog, turkey, and honeybee) were domesticated in Mesoamerica. The com parative dearth of domesticated fauna not only had impli cations for diet and household economies but also placed
E constraints on long-distance, land-based transport, since no Mesoamerican domesticated species could serve as a beast of burden.
