Before the Western Civilizations reached there, the slash-and-burn agriculture had distributed over tropical South America, especially in the tropical rain forest area and it's marginals. This agiculture is well adapted to the natural conditions of this area.
(1) the technological adaptation of agriculture
The aboriginal peasants who practice the slash-and-burn agriculture mostly belong to the Arawak, Carib and Tupi=Guarani tribes. They cultivate the manioc as main crop besides maize, beans and sweet potatoes etc. In this area the bitter manioc plays the important part in the crop complex. The manioc are not necessarily harvested in the usual sense. They may be left in the ground and used as needed. So, the agricultural activities go on throughout the year for the peasants who depend on the maniocs. Then, in tropical South America, there are no sanctioned ceremonies.
The forest clearings and rough cultivations are done by men with digging sticks and stone axes, but rest of agricultural works are done by women. These cultivated lands usually are scattered in a numbers of isolated plots in the jungle which surrounds a village, but after 3 or 5 years cultivations, the soil are exhausted and the new plots then must be cleared.
(2) the social adaptation of agriculture
The basic socio-political unit of the forest people is extended family, living in a large communal house. Economically also it forms the basic unit, that is, the fundamental production and consumption unit of the tribes. The agricultural clearings are farmed jointly by the extended family members and the produces are jointly distributed. This joint labour system, for example among the Tupi=Guaravi people it was called pusirão, was found in almost all the native agricultural tribes. But their agricultural implements are inferior to the hoes of the West African tribes (Yorubas, Ibo and Haussa etc). Their cultivations, therefore, are not so intensive as African tribes are.
The typical communities of the native tribes in South America are generally consit of 150-500 persons, while there are many towns in native tropical Africa. The small size of communities might be caused by this poor intensity of the agriculture.
(3) the acculturation process.
After the white Civilizations reached there, the native agriculture has changed rapidly. The new crops and metal implements were introduced. The sedentalism, commercialism and the more intensity of cultivation come to their agriculture. With the changes of means of agriculture, among these many tribes, the extended families had been changed in it's functions and at last they disappeared.

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Intending to research the regional structure of japanese mining settlements and the changes of these structure in the modern age, I have inquired into mining settlement named Fukiya of the Yoshioka copper-mine, which had been exploited from Edo era to 1890.
In this article, the following points are to be stressed.
(1) The economic basis of Fukiya region before 1890
(2) The regional divisions of Fukiya region by the economic functions before 1890, and the relation between these divisions and the personal land possession in 1955
(3) The modernization of the technic of ore dressing and refining in the age of Industrial Revolution.
(4) The characteristic of Benigara (red ocher) business in Fukiya, and it's internal markets since the 18th century.

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(1) The rocky coasts of this peninsula has been famous Ama fishing place, and the center is in Wagu. The Amas, in Japan the sea divers are so called, are women, who are to collect the ear-shell and the weath-shell which lives on rocks. This Ama fishing is well adapted to the natural conditions of this area.
(2) They were mainly living on this fishing before the nineteenth century. They formed a communal organization in the village society and had the communal fishing places. Too much conflicts between villages, which go on, had happend from 1603 to 1883 to secure the fishing rights.
(3) Although each villages have been amalgamated in Shima-cho adminstratively, the boundaries of fishing places remain unchanged. Recently, pearl cultivation has been established and has employed most of those Amas. Then, how the Ama fishing will be changed would be the interesting problem in our future studies.

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