NO. 1 CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN LATIN AMERICA 143 
Once the idea of plant domestication has taken root, we can ac- 
count for most of the general pattern of New World cultural evolu- 
tion as an indigenous development. After the basic staples — maize 
and manioc — became established and began to diffuse, differential re- 
gional histories can be largely understood as the product of traits 
spread by diffusion and local environmental situations, as the partici- 
pants of this symposium have attempted to show. We know that in- 
tensification of agricultural production permits population concentra- 
tion, which in turn makes possible increasing division of labor, social 
stratification, elaboration of religious belief and paraphernalia, in- 
cluding architectural forms for its observance. When a certain level 
of competence in subsistence control is reached, the foundation will 
support a great deal of embroidery. This undoubtedly accounts for 
the blossoming of evidence of transpacific contact around the begin- 
ning of the Christian era. Prior to this time, when the Formative was 
still in progress, the foundation was not yet firm enough for the em- 
broidery to remain in place if it was made available. 
What about the origin of agriculture? Suggestion of transpacific 
influence comes from the appearance of cotton and bottle gourds on 
coastal Peru around 3000 B.C. However, at this time, agricultural be- 
ginnings in Mesoamerica were already 2000 or more years in the past. 
Evidence has not yet come to light to indicate that here at least the do- 
mestication of plants is anything but an independent invention, al- 
though the possibility exists that in the future some may be found. 
These Mesoamerican gropings toward plant domestication are so early 
that the cultivation of all other New World plants, including manioc, 
can be explained as the effects of diffusion either of the idea of im- 
proving on nature or of one of the early domesticates such as beans 
or squash from this center. 
Surprisingly, in view of its much greater durability, we know less 
about the origin of pottery than of plant domestication in the New 
World. Disconcertingly, the farther back we trace its history, the bet- 
ter in quality it generally becomes. There seems to be a sudden jump 
from the preceramic to well-made and simply but tastefully decorated 
pottery, to the eye of the archeologist at least, less comparable to what 
might be expected of the first potters than the wares of some later 
and presumably more knowledgeable groups. On the west coast of 
South America, it appears on the basis of present evidence that the first 
pottery was brought to shellfish-gathering and possibly preagricul- 
tural groups from across the Pacific some 3000 years before Christ. 
The effect is difficult to assess, but no alteration in the preexisting 
way of life seems to have resulted. The new invention may have 
