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SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 146 
There is an obvious imbalance between what is known of the coast in 
general and of the highlands. Large areas of the northern and central 
highlands are still virtually blanks, and the whole history of the do- 
mestication of the locally specialized highland crops is unknown. Pub- 
lished studies of settlement pattern (Kidder, 1956) have been almost 
entirely confined to the Viru Valley (Willey, 1953) on the north coast, 
and a few early horticultural sites (Bird, 1948; Engel, 1957a, 1957c, 
1958). We still know very little of the beginnings of Chavin, and we 
have only the haziest speculative notions of the full implications of 
Tiahuanaco influences over large areas. The question as to whether 
this spread of Tiahuanaco-derived styles on the coast and in the high- 
lands of central and northern Peru was militarily inspired conquest or 
the result of a decline of the earlier cultures, creating a vacuum into 
which these styles moved, is of great theoretical importance in setting 
up a developmental scheme for Peru for use in accurate comparative 
studies. 
In our view, a developmental sequence is a hypothesis in which the 
terminology used reflects the nature of progressively more complex 
and radically different conditions of culture and society — an outline 
of macro-evolution of supra-individual culture. Beyond this are the 
rise and fall of individual cultures and the larger cyclical patterns of 
Peruvian history. 
In order to achieve the best possible outline of this kind, we require 
much more information on the nature of society than we now possess 
for nearly all time periods. Having established a reasonably sound 
chronological framework, we now must not only fill regional and tem- 
poral gaps, but we must also expand our knowledge of whole sites 
and construct site ethnographies in order to progress beyond our 
present unbalanced dependence on pottery sequences. This is an ail- 
ment which still afflicts much of American archeology, by no means 
unique to Peru. 
With these shortcomings in mind we suggest the following overall 
developmental sequence, frankly representing only the core of our 
Peru Mesoamerica 
VI ... . New Kingdoms and Empire 1^ p^^^ Classic 
V . . . . City Builders / 
IV Regional States Florescent 
or Regional Integration Classic 
Regional States Formative or 1 
Regional Diversification > Formative 
III .... Cultist Temple Centers J 
II Horticultural Villages Archaic 
I . . . . Preagriculture Early Hunters 
