IV. THE QUESTION OF CHRONOLOGY AND DATES 

 IN EARLY PERUVIAN ART 



As was said at the beginning of the paper, the writer, after 

 surveying the development of art in ancient Peru, wishes to 

 present a date-chronology of the various cultures. The dates 

 here to be presented are only approximate. In the nature of 

 things, we must be prepared to allow for an error of a century 

 or more in the remoter epochs. 



It is necessary that a word should be said as to the methods 

 employed in drawing up the chronology. In the total lack of 

 all written records of any sort we have to meet a great obstacle. 

 This is partly overcome by certain things which we will speak 

 of soon. Moreover, tradition, which sometimes does much to 

 aid in the establishment of an approximate chronology, is here 

 limited almost wholly to the Inca period. These are the chief 

 disadvantages to be met with. We will now examine the 

 conditions which are more favorable to our end. 



In trying. to construct a date-chronology for the various higher 

 cultures of the Andean region, one must bear in mind that it 

 is inherently improbable that the ^ cultures of South America 

 possess an antiquity greater than those of Middle America. The 

 researches of Dr. Hrdlicka have clearly shown this improbability. 

 He has shown four very important truths: (i) Man is zoolog- 

 ically a newcomer in this hemisphere; (2) Man, when he arrived 

 on this continent, was in a stage of culture "superior to that of 

 the late Pleistocene" ; (3) Man, since arriving in this hemisphere, 

 has inevitably undergone certain secondary modifications as to 

 physical type and culture; (4) There exists to-day in north- 

 eastern Asia a racial element that is descended from the same 

 ancestors as the American Indians.^ 



Since, from the point of view of the zoologist, Man is an Old 

 World animal- that reached America by way of Siberia and the 

 Aleutian Islands, it must be assumed that the northern parts of 

 the continent were peopled sooner than the southern parts. This 

 supposition applies to any tribes, no matter what their cultural 

 grade may be. Nor is mythology lacking in indications of the 



^ Cf. Hrdlicka, 1912, 1912b, 1912c, I9i2d. 



