ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Mesoamerica, American Southwest, and eastern North America. Archaeologists in eastern North America have struggled to explain the early and pervasive appearance of earthen mounds long before the appearance of large villages. Regional variation in the impact of maize agriculture in the American Southwest continued into the Formative period. Renee Barlow has analyzed the yield of maize agriculture practiced by modern Guatemalans using traditional methods and has come to the conclusion that intensive agriculture produces little food in return for the energy expended in growing, collecting, and processing the plants. In eastern North America, hunter-gatherer groups had domesticated a number of plant species long before the introduction of maize agriculture.
