CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN LOWER 
CENTRAL AMERICA 
By CLAUDE F. BAUDEZ 
Musee de I'Homme, Paris, France 
A survey of present archeological knowledge reveals that more 
than half of lower Central America is still terra incognita. The three 
countries, Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, have basically the 
same topography — a rather narrow plain along the Pacific coast, a 
central plateau often extending into cordilleras, and a wide, low, and 
humid Atlantic watershed. We know something of the first, a little 
of the second, and almost nothing of the third. ^ 
If we consider each country separately, we see that in Nicaragua, 
only the Isthmus of Rivas has been excavated scientifically (fig. 2). 
More is known about Costa Rica; excavations have recently been 
made in the northwestern and southwestern parts of the country, but 
Hartman's work of 50 years ago is still the only source available for 
the central region. Panama has received most attention. A number of 
sites have been dug in the Parita Bay region, and the sequence, in 
spite of some gaps, is one of the longest in Latin America. Knowl- 
edge of the Chiriqui and Canal regions has much increased in recent 
years. On the other hand, only a little has been done on Darien since 
Linne's work (1929), and Veraguas has not yet received the atten- 
tion it deserves. 
The paucity of data makes it necessary to emphasize the pro- 
visional character of the outline that follows. The three modern politi- 
cal units seem homogeneous enough to be treated as an archeological 
area, but in the future it may be convenient to subdivide or combine 
them with other areas. 
The data will be presented in the framework of an areal sequence 
divided into six periods (fig. 6). Each period, except the first, in- 
cludes phases from several regions. Thanks to the few carbon-14 dates 
available, each period can be approximately dated. Finally, we hope to 
show that each period possesses a certain unity and forms a stage in 
an evolutionary sequence. The chronological position of specialized 
^ I wish to express my gratitude to Charles R. McGimsey III for reading and 
commenting on this paper. 
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