NO. 1 CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN LATIN AMERICA 139 
there is the increasing probability — glossed over lightly by our Meso- 
americanist contributors (and ignored by other recent synthesizers 
such as Willey, 1961) — of transpacific introductions. After many 
years of attempting to argue similarities away on the basis of lack of 
coincidence in dating, apparent random distribution of the traits cited, 
or as a last resort, the width of the ocean to be crossed, we are being 
forced to confront the probability. Recent investigation has shown 
that many of the traits and complexes in question are not only earlier 
in Asia than in America, but have no apparent New World anteced- 
ents. Given the advanced cultural development in the eastern hemi- 
sphere before the first millennium B.C., the large ships engaged in long- 
range sea commerce, the typhoons of southeast Asia and the ocean 
currents that would carry a drifting craft to the coasts of Meso- 
america and Ecuador, it stretches the imagination more to believe that 
accidental contacts did not occur than to suppose that they did. If we 
are objective, we must recognize that evidence of contact exists in 
the form of numerous detailed and complicated resemblances in re- 
ligious concepts, architectural elements, art motifs, and other aspects 
of culture in no way explainable as independent solutions to similar 
problems. If we grant these connections, we must recognize that 
duplicate constellations of traits on the Formative level also imply 
transpacific introductions, as for example the already mentioned case 
of Valdivia on coastal Ecuador and possibly the zoned cordmarking 
of Ocos on coastal Guatemala (which is paralleled in Late Jomon 
pottery of Japan). Perhaps the significant step forward in recent 
years is our willingness to consider these as possibilities rather than 
dismiss them without investigation. 
If the preceding reconstruction of aboriginal cultural development 
is basically correct, two important theoretical problems are raised: 
(1) In view of the facility with which not only ideas but groups of 
people apparently moved over long distances, why did the centers of 
civilization appear in the Andean Area and Mesoamerica? and (2) Is 
the rise of civilization in the New World independent of that in the Old 
World, or was it stimulated by ideas introduced from abroad ? 
Fig. 19. — Relative antiquity of selected pottery traits suggesting direct contact 
by sea between central Mexico and Ecuador around 500 B.C. The traits in 
question appear together on coastal Ecuador at the beginning of the Regional 
Developmental Period, implying outside influence. Their earliest occurrence ac- 
cording to our present knowledge is in central Mesoamerica. Except in Ecuador, 
and to a lesser extent in Colombia, their random distribution through space and 
time is consistent with the conclusion that they were spread independently by 
diffusion. Data on which this chart is based are provided in Appendix Table 2. 
Lines above the a.d. 1500 marker indicate absence of the trait in the area indi- 
cated. 
