ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the interface between economics and several other disciplines – notably anthropology, archaeology, history, philosophy, psychology, and sociology – the sort of intellectual cross-fertilization that was once fairly common but in the era of academic specialization is now comparatively infrequent. The history of economic thought is a sub-discipline of intellectual history, broadly defined as the story of ideas and the people who create them. The material conditions in pre-contact America in terms of land and labor can be characterized as relatively plentiful, but compared to European norms, American aboriginals had limited stocks of capital. American aboriginals compensated for their dearth of capital with a level of technical know-how that allowed them to exploit their respective environments with minimal effort that yielded surprisingly fruitful results. Despite the absence of a written legacy, we can still infer the economic mind of American aboriginals from the way that they grappled with the ordinary business of life.
