Michael D. Coe

Smokescreens in the Provenance Investigation of Early Formative Mesoamerican Ceramics

We are glad that Sharer et al. (this issue) have dropped their original claim that the INAA data demonstrate multidirec tional movement of Early Formative pottery. Beyond this, however, they offer nothing that might enhance understanding of Early Formative ceramic circulation or inspire new insights into Early Formative cultural evolution in Mesoamerica. Instead, their response contains fresh distortions, replications of mistakes made in their PNAS articles, and lengthy pas sages that are irrelevant to the issues raised by Neff et al. (this issue). We correct and recorrect their latest distortions and misunderstandings here. Besides showing why their discussion of ceramic sourcing repeatedly misses the mark, we also correct a number of erroneous assertions about the archaeology of Olmec San Lorenzo. New evidence deepens understanding of Early Formative Mesoamerica but requires that some researchers discard cherished beliefs.

Social Typology and the Tropical Forest Civilizations 1

1. The Classic Khmer and the Classic Maya civilizations had cult centers but not true cities. They both arose in areas which were regionally undifferentiated.2. Easy transportation and heavy trade were lacking because of the areawide uniformity of crops and the difficult terrain. Consequently, urban centers were not and could not be supported.3. Both areas did produce a surplus and therefore could support civilized life. The social orders of each were so set up that through religious sanctions this surplus, which included labor, could be utilized for the creation and support of huge cult centers. Such a kind of organization might be considered as unilateral (mechanical) in the Durkheimian sense.4. In contrast, true cities arose in productive agricultural areas which were regionally specialized, with symbiotic interdependence of a Maussian nature. Trade and trade routes were highly developed so that commodity prices were sufficiently low to enable large groups of persons engaged in commerce to live together and yet make a profit on their activities. Internally specialized civilizations of this sort have been termed organic.5. It is suggested that among the organic civilizations, the state may have had its origin in the regulation of trade; among the unilateral civilizations, in the compulsion of tribute and corvee labor.

Oldest Writing in the New World

A block with a hitherto unknown system of writing has been found in the Olmec heartland of Veracruz, Mexico. Stylistic and other dating of the block places it in the early first millennium before the common era, the oldest writing in the New World, with features that firmly assign this pivotal development to the Olmec civilization of Mesoamerica.

Olmec civilization, veracruz, Mexico: dating of the san lorenzo phase.

Archeological excavations at San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan, Veracruz, show that the Olmec sculptures of this zone are associated with the San Lorenzo phase, which can be placed in the Early Formative period (1500-800 B.C.) on the basis of ceramic comparisons. Five of six radiocarbon dates for the San Lorenzo phase fall within the 1200-900 B.C. span. The San Lorenzo phase therefore marks the beginning of Olmec civilization, and the sites forming the San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan group represent the oldest civilized communities known in Mexico or Central America.

The Zoned Bichrome Period in Northwestern Costa Rica

In an attempt to establish an archaeological chronology for northwestern Costa Rica, excavations were carried out in 1959-60 in the coastal region and Tempisque River drainage of Guanacaste Province. Four periods have been defined: Zoned Bichrome, Early Polychrome, Middle Polychrome, and Late Polychrome. These are roughly equated in the Maya sequence with Late Formative, Early Classic through the beginning of Late Classic, the latter part of the Late Classic through the early Postclassic, and late Postclassic, respectively. The Zoned Bichrome period has been established on the basis of three geographically separate but coeval phases: Chombo on the Santa Elena Peninsula, Monte Fresco in the Tamarindo Bay zone, and Catalina on the middle Tempisque. All three phases are linked to each other through trade pottery; a radiocarbon date on Monte Fresco is within the first century of the Christian era. Outstanding characteristics of the period are bichrome zoning, dentate rocker-stamping, wavy black lines produced by a multiple brush, engraving, and incising. Considerable fishing and hunting was carried out, and intensive maize agriculture is inferred. These village materials indicate that lower Central America was participating in at least some of the trait diffusion which linked remote areas of Nuclear America in Formative

Pictures of the Past: Artifact Density and Computer Graphics

The excavation of the site of a colonial fort produced a large quantity of artifacts but little else. The only data acquired were about artifact type and location of find. A computer was used to draw maps of various combinations of artifact distributions. Methods were borrowed from the engineering discipline of Image Processing in order to facilitate site interpretation. The implications of this are discussed in detail and its use demonstrated by the display of computer-produced isometric plots of artifact density over the excavation area.

The Alleged Diffusion of Hindu Divine Symbols into Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica: A Critique [and Comments and Reply]

Parallels between certain religous symbols in Hindu and Mesoamerican cultures have been drawn by three modern writers and adduced as evidence suggestive of trans-Pacific diffusion of Hindu influences dating to about the mid-1st millennium A.D. and later. The symbols concerned are those of the deities of the lunar asterisms and the planets-the naksatra and navagrahah series, respectively-of the Hindus as compared with the structural features and symbolsof the 20-day period in the 260-day Tzolkin/Tonalpohualli sacred calendar of Mesoamerica, with a series of nine lunar hieroglyphs of the Maya, and with certain groups of deities of the Aztecs and the Zapotecs. These comparisons seem feeble not only because they are superficial and intrinsically contradictory, but also because they are opposed by a vast body of variations in Hindu religious symbolism. Furthermore, they are chronologically incompatible with historical events and, for these several reasons, are rejected. The arguments against these comparisons of imagined parallels have broader implications concerning the totally independent development of astronomical-astrological beliefs among pre-Columbian societies isolated from the Old World, and they illustrate the hazards of utilizing a veneer of religious data that would obscure this independence.