I. INTRODUCTION. 



It will be the writer's endeavor to present in this paper a brief 

 review of the various types of art to be found in pre-Columbian 

 Peru. The work is the fruit of some four years' study, two 

 years of that period having been devoted to a systematic collec- 

 tion of data in various places and under the direction of various 

 people. As the main purpose will be to establish a basis for 

 the classification of Peruvian art-objects, the study will be con- 

 fined to those regions where the form and stratigraphic relations 

 of the various art- types that make up the sequence of cultures 

 have been determined with a reasonable degree of precision. The 

 reader is urged carefully to bear in mind the fact that many of 

 the various types are to be found in regions far removed from 

 those here to be specified. But in those regions which are far 

 from the source of an art-type or culture new environmental 

 and psychological conditions almost inevitably exercise an influ- 

 ence which results in profound modifications of the original type. 

 The writer hopes that this paper will help to link certain of the 

 Peruvian arts or cultures with certain types of objects from 

 such regions as Ecuador, Eastern Bolivia, North-western Argen- 

 tina and Northern Chile. It may even be possible in time to 

 gather material evidence which will conclusively prove the basic 

 unity of all the more advanced types of art in aboriginal America. 



In the writer's opinion it is still too early to attempt, with 

 any likelihood of success, to read or interpret the inner signifi- 

 cance of the various designs that we shall study. Attempts of 

 this nature have been made by Berthon, (1911), Joyce, (1913b), 

 Posnansky, (1914), and others, but still it seems to be unavoid- 

 able under the present limitations of our information that all 

 speculations of this sort should lack an atmosphere of conclu- 

 siveness. In this day, with our present incomplete knowledge 

 of these ancient peoples, we should not attempt to read into their 

 exotic designs a set of significances expressed in terms of our 

 own experience. Rather, the investigator should seek painstak- 

 ingly to analyze the various component parts of each pre- 

 Columbian art or culture, as well in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, 

 Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, and Middle America as in Peru 



