This thesis modifies and enlarges on a theory that a separate center of plant domestication existed in the Lower Ohio Valley prior to the introduction of the Mesoamerican maize, beans, and squash complex. A shift from food-collecting to cultivation occurred around seasonally sedentary foci located along the region's waterways. A model for the development of a pre-maize cultigen-based subsistence system is suggested.This subsistence system provided the basis for the development and evolution of the Scioto Tradition within the Ohio Valley. The thesis questions the applicability of the mud-flat hypothesis to the region under consideration.