ABSTRACT
It had seemed obvious to American archaeologists that nations of the Eastern Woodlands and Southwest had contacts with those of Mexico. If nothing else, planting maize proved it: maize was domesticated in Mexico and the mutation that makes it profitable for farmers prevents it from reproducing in the wild. Early twentieth-century archaeologists accepted the concept of “Nuclear America,” a zone from Mexico south through Peru, where the major crops of maize, beans, and squashes were domesticated; pottery was invented; monumental architecture developed; and the most elaborate arts and political empires created. Outreach from these expanding populations fueled by agriculture would have affected hunter-gatherer nations, whether from pressuring them for land, seeking their products and resources in trade, or, eventually, seizing them for slaves. Hunter-gatherers, in response, would have added crops to their subsistence and imitated practices observed in the glamorous metropolises.
