Comparison of Formative Cultures in the Americas: Diffusion or the Psychic Unity of Man

Abstract

I have had an interest in the American Formative culture for some years and have searched for it with limited or no success in Colombia, Peru, Mexico, and the eastern United States. However, I stumbled into the present study entirely by accident. Meggers, Evans, and Estrada&amp;apos;s <I>Early Formative Period of Coastal Ecuador</I> was published while Matthew Wallrath, Alfonso Medellín Z., and I were finishing the classification of several hundred thousand sherds from our excavations in Pre-Classic sites on the coast of Veracruz, Mexico. Wallrath was immediately impressed by the close resemblance of engraved wares from the Machalilla Phase to those we were working with from the site of Chalahuites. Upon careful reading of this well-illustrated tome, a number of unexplained resemblances between ceramics and other features of early North, Central, and South American cultures began to crystallize into patterns.<br/>For six months after returning to the United States, I dutifully continued to work on the report of the Mexican excavations. The problem of Formative relationships, however, occupied more and more of my attention, and by the spring of 1966 the Veracruz paper had practically been shelved.<br/>Correspondence with other archeologists working on the Formative led to plans to hold a week of discussion on this problem at the Florida State Museum in Gainesville. A grant toward the expenses of travel was made by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research of New York, and the conference took place 17-22 October 1966. Participants were the collaborators listed on p. v, with the exception of Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, who was unable to attend the session, but has actively collaborated in providing criticism and data. Those who came in the capacity of observers were James B. Griffin, University of Michigan; Otto Schöndube of the Museo de Arqueología, Mexico City; Takeshi Ueno, University of Tokyo; and Adelaide Bullen of the Florida State Museum. An agenda had been prepared in the form of preliminary versions of most of the charts included in this volume, and discussions of their shortcomings and implications were spirited and lengthy.<br/>The archeologists listed as collaborators have given generously of their time, information, and opinions as this monograph developed. When each section was completed in tentative form, it was mimeographed and mailed to them for criticism and comment. In most instances I have incorporated the changes suggested, for each consultant has a unique knowledge of the prehistory of the regions where he has worked. Still, I cannot say that all collaborators are happy with the present form of this paper. A principal disquiet arises from the fact that I have glossed over details of chronological and areal information in some cases where these are well known. For example, Sears points to the fact that the east and west coasts of the northern part of the Florida Peninsula have distinct chronologies. So have southern and central Veracruz. Coastal Ecuador should be represented by at least five regional columns, and to attempt to reflect the complex prehistory of Peru in two columns is absurd. Then too, some perfectly good chronologies have been left off the charts. An example is the sequence in the Huasteca region of Mexico developed by Ekholm (1944) and MacNeish (1947). This criticism is just; I admit to some rather heavy-handed simplification.<br/>It has become the admirable pattern in archeological reports to segregate carefully and label the sections reporting factual data, comparisons, conclusions, and speculations. This pattern cannot be followed here, for the obvious reason that the entire paper consists of comparisons, conclusions, and speculations. The comparisons are frequently illustrated by selected specimens, but I wish it understood that these are merely samples. The serious reader is advised to make extensive use of the field reports to which reference is made, and to judge for himself the degrees of resemblance. I do not think that very often I have left myself open to the criticism of having chosen unique or divergent specimens for comparison in an attempt to force conclusions.<br/>Many of the comparisons would be more effective if we had knowledge of the relative popularity of the various features in all areas. We do have this information for ceramics in a number of chronologies, including the north coast of Peru (Virú), coastal Ecuador, Soconusco, Tehuacán, and the Lower Mississippi Valley. Where available, this information has been used.<br/>The collaborators also are not to be accused of agreeing with all the implications and conclusions. MacNeish, for example, suggests that a long evolutionary development of ceramics in northern South America waits to be discovered, of which the Puerto Hormiga culture of Colombia may be a part. Alicia and Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff also suspect that this may be true.<br/>In addition to the collaborators to whom my debt is obvious, I wish to acknowledge indebtedness to a number of others. First, to the Florida State Museum and its Director, J. C. Dickinson, Jr., who has tolerated my rather single-minded preoccupation with this problem. Also, I appreciate the generous forebearance of the National Science Foundation and its Program Director for Anthropology, Richard Lieban. At the time of applying for Grant GS-1002, I fully intended to produce reports on excavations in Veracruz, Marksville, and Poverty Point, Louisiana. Instead, the funds have been diverted into the preparation of this paper.<br/>For several years, Clarence Webb and I have been working on a report on additional specimens from the Poverty Point site in the Lower Mississippi Valley. I am greatly indebted to Webb both for his patience at the delay of the second Poverty Point paper, and for permission to make advance use of some of the data.<br/>Stephen Williams of Peabody Museum, Harvard, made available the papers of Antonio J. Waring on the archeology of the Georgia coast in page proof, permitting me to cite valuable data contained therein.<br/>Robert Heizer of the University of California, Berkeley, has provided information on his and Philip Drucker&amp;apos;s recent work at La Venta.<br/>To William G. Haag of Louisiana State University, I owe thanks for his interest in the Formative problem, and for unpublished information on the Stallings Island culture.<br/>Bruce Trickey and Nicholas H. Holmes, Jr., have generously provided data on the Bayou La Batre Phase of coastal Alabama.<br/>Gregory Perino has loaned unpublished manuscripts reporting on his extensive work on Illinois Hopewell.<br/>Sherwood Gagliano, Raymond Baby, and Junius Bird provided valuable information and answered a variety of questions.<br/>Joan Booth, research assistant, typist, and language critic has worked conscientiously, and most intelligently on the preparation of this paper. Timothy Anderson, Paul Frazier, Kathy Notestein, and Bob Nininger have drawn the illustrations.<br/>Anders Richter, Director, and Stephen Kraft, Managing Designer, of the Smithsonian Institution Press were most generous with advice on format, particularly in regard to the presentation of the large chronological charts for publication. Final editing and preparation of the manuscript for the U.S. Government Printing Office was by Joan Horn.<br/>James A. Ford<br/><I>Florida State Museum</I><br/><I>Gainesville, Florida</I><br/>February 1968