Abstract
Similar forms of subsistence and social organization have emerged in different parts of the world in response to similar ecological, technological, and demographic factors. For example, moldboard plow agriculture evolved in many places as the result of high population density, availability of large domesticable animals, presence of wet and heavy soils, and such staples as wheat, barley, rye, and buckwheat, which required extensive land preparation and “considerable surface area to produce the food calories necessary to feed a family” (Pryor 1985:732). Wolf long ago (1957) noted that the colonial experience had helped to promote the development of closed, corporate communities in rural societies of Mesoamerica and Indonesia.