CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN VENEZUELA 
By MARIO SANOJA 
Universidad de los Andes, Merida, Venezuela 
Venezuela occupies the northernmost portion of the South Ameri- 
can continent. Her coast borders the Caribbean, providing the closest 
link to the chain of islands formed by the Lesser and Greater Antilles. 
Bounded on the west by Colombia, on the south by Colombia and 
Brazil, and on the east by Brazil and British Guiana, Venezuela must 
have served at various times in the past as a center of convergence 
for influences moving to and from these areas (fig. 7). The present 
political boundaries incorporate marked geographical variation, rang- 
ing from the high mountains of the Andean chain in the west, 
through the coastal valleys of the Lake Valencia area to the broad 
llanos or plains of the Orinoco and the tropical forests of the Guiana 
formation. 
The principal aboriginal centers of cultural development equate in 
a general way with the major geographical regions, the Orinoco 
drainage following a path distinct from that of the western or An- 
dean region. A third subarea can be distinguished around Lake Va- 
lencia on the central coast, where the two major traditions meet and 
intermix. Within each region, the sequence is divisible into Pre- 
ceramic and Ceramic Epochs, each of which can be in turn subdivided 
into periods on the basis of evidence from relative chronology and a 
series of carbon-14 dates. Thus, the Preceramic Epoch comprises 
two periods: Preceramic I, prior to 5050 B.C., and Preceramic II, 
5050-1050 B.C. The Ceramic Epoch contains four periods as follows : 
Ceramic I, 1050 b.c.-a.d. 350; Ceramic II, a.d. 350-1150; Ceramic 
III, A.D. 1150-1500; and Ceramic IV, a.d. 1500 onward (fig. 9). 
PRECERAMIC EPOCH 
Preceramic Period 1. — Initially, the human occupants of the region 
were probably hunters. Such groups are best represented on the north- 
western coast at the site of El Jobo, State of Falcon (fig. 7) . The char- 
acteristic artifacts are elongated, leaf-shaped or lanceolate points, 
some with serrated edges ; stemmed points, side scrapers, and knives, 
some showing evidence of retouch. In general, the lithic industry of 
El Jobo resembles typologically projectile points associated with the 
second mammoth found at Santa Isabel Iztapan, Agate Basin, Nebo 
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