New World Prehistory' 



By Gordon R. Willey 



Bowditch Professor of Mexican and Central American Archaeology and Ethnology 



Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology 



Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 



[With 7 plates] 



The prehistory of the New World is so multifaceted and complex 

 that syntliesis demands not only compression but rigorous selection. 

 What strands of human activity can be followed most easily through 

 the maze of the past? Which elements are the significant ones? 

 These are always troublesome questions for the archeologist, and in 

 the present case they are made more so by the tremendous range of 

 space and time and by the quantity and quality of the data with which 

 we are dealing. It is difficult to fix consistently upon criteria of com- 

 parison. The best we can do is to adhere to those universal themes 

 of man's existence that leave their mark in or upon the earth: tech- 

 nology, environmental adaptation, subsistence, and settlement. These 

 were not necessarily detenninative of the form and elaboration of 

 other aspects of man's life, but they provide a background and a 

 base which is necessary to the understanding of societies and cultures 

 in pre-Columbian America. 



MAJOR PROBLEMS IN NEW WORLD ARCHEOLOGY 



Before beginning this account of New World prehistory it will be 

 well to review some of the major problems confronting the American 

 archeologist, for it will be evident that the tentative conclusions which 

 I have reached about these problems give the outline and structure 

 to the present article. They are problems not unlike those of Old 

 World prehistory [1, 2] ^ in that they are concerned with the great 

 changes in man's adaptations to his natural and social environments. 



Most briefly, and m approximate chronological order, these prob- 

 lems are as follows : 



1 Reprinted by permlsalon from Science, vol. 131, No. .3393, Jan. 8, 1960. 

 » Numbers In brackets refer to references and notes at end of article. 



579421—61 41 



551 



