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If these three sources of information were not available to us, how 
much could we infer from the remainder of the archeological record? 
Would the pattern look very different from what we find on the coast 
of Ecuador or the highland valleys of Colombia or Costa Rica? Is 
there a possibility that in asking why high civilization was not present 
in the intervening area between the two major centers we are posing a 
false problem, misled by lack of uniformity in the data available to us ? 
Our improving techniques for making inferences from the archeo- 
logical record, and systematic analysis of the nonperishable village 
refuse associated with the late cultures in Peru and Mexico should 
give us the means of answering this question. Perhaps the outcome 
will lay the foundation for better understanding of why civilization 
developed where, when, and as it did. 
Turning to the question of the independence of New World cul- 
tural evolution brings us face to face with one of the most significant 
theoretical problems in anthropology. It has been argued by some that 
the parallel course from savagery to civilization in the eastern and 
western hemispheres is evidence that cultural development is deter- 
mined by laws of cause and effect. To others, these achievements ar- 
rived at independently prove that ingenuity and inventiveness are not 
limited to one branch of the human race, but universally prevalent. 
Now that we are confronted with evidence of transpacific introduc- 
tions beginning with the early Formative, we need to assess the effect 
on New World cultural development. Are they merely embroidery, or 
did they play a determining role ? The answer to this question presup- 
poses the ability to separate primary or determining elements from 
secondary or embroidering ones. As if this were not difficult enough, 
we must then decide whether the primary elements have been in- 
vented more than once in human history. 
It is readily evident that the bulk of the elements attributed to 
transpacific origin fall into the category of embroidery. Symbols of 
status like the litter, art motifs like the lotus and the tree of life, items 
of religious belief and forms of worship, games like patolli, and even 
intellectual achievements like the much admired concept of the zero 
or architectural elements like the corbelled arch, are like frosting on 
the cake. They make it more exciting, alter its appearance in a variety 
of ways, appeal to the esthetic sense and provide psychological satis- 
faction, but exist only because the foundation is firm and sound. 
There is no doubt that New World civilization would have had a dif- 
ferent appearance without such elements, but their existence depends 
on subsistence sufficiency and sociopolitical complexity, in other 
words, on a productive and stable form of agriculture. 
