For six months after returning to the United States, I dutifully continued to work on the report on the Mexican excavations. The Gulf Coast of North America and those of the Valdivia phase in Ecuador, the Momil phase in Colombia, the Ocos phase in Guatemala, and the Trapiche phase, Gulf.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE FORMATIVE CONCEPT
T he monumental Archeology of the Eastern United States (Griffin, ed., 1952) by Fay-Cooper Cole's students presents a similar picture. Willey concluded that contacts occurred from preceramic times to the date of the Spanish conquest.
SELECTION OF EVIDENCE
Obviously, then, the division of the Formative will be a statement of the writer's assumption about what happened in these critical centuries. Those seeking more extensive evidence are invited to follow the analysis with some of the features listed above.
SETTING THE STAGE FOR THE AMERICAN FORMATIVE
The first criterion is the quality of information for the time period we are interested in. Practically all the dates used here have been evaluated by archaeologists who are in the best position to make a judgment.
THE OHIO CHRONOLOGICAL COLUMN
As a result, the San Lorenzo-La Venta sequence shown in the Veracruz column of the twenty-two maps appears to be incorrect. Much doubt also clings to the exact dating of the succeeding phases in this section.
THE VALLEY OF MEXICO CHRONOLOGICAL COLUMN
After charts were completed, Berger, Graham and Heizer (1967) published retests of some of the same samples used in the earlier runs and some additional results from the University of California, Los Angeles Laboratory. T he current information is summarized by Berger, Graham and Heizer (1967) in a chronology chart reproduced here as figure 2.
THE TEHUACAN CHRONOLOGICAL COLUMN
THE CHIAPAS CHRONOLOGICAL COLUMN
Pottery from the early Ocos phase includes the flat pot and the neckless jar or tecomate. Coe created a Crucero and Marcos phase based on material from the upper levels of the site.
THE NORTH COAST OF COLOMBIA CHRONOLOGICAL COLUMN
T he items compared are at the right time level, they are complex, nothing similar is found in the intervening regions, and the traits are new in the areas to which they seem to have spread. At this time there are suggestions of contacts with Mesoamerica and the Andean region to the south.
THE COASTAL ECUADOR CHRONOLOGICAL COLUMN
Apparently a very short phase, it sees the continuation of incised curved Uinear decorations, and the introduction of mouth vessels and zoomorphic knots. Pottery and other features show strong relationships with the Barrancoid cultures of Venezuela and the Orinoco River Delta.
THE CENTRAL HIGHLAND PERU CHRONOLOGICAL COLUMN
THE NORTH AND CENTRAL COAST OF PERU CHRONOLOGICAL COLUMN
Dates rejected as inconsistent with chronology are given, as well as those used on Table L — Continued. Dates rejected as inconsistent with chronology are given, as well as those used on Table L.
SETTLEMENT PATTERN: VILLAGE PLAN AND CEREMONIAL CONSTRUCTIONS
The earliest artificial mounds on the coast of Ecuador appear to be associated with the Bahia phase of the regional development period (500). Tello (1960) makes it clear that the debris on the site indicates habitation up to the time of the Recuay phase (c. AD 1).
TOOLS
Nine reamers were found at the Poverty Point site in the Lower Mississippi Valley (Graph 3-9). Roughly cut stone axes are a fairly common feature of the Late Archaic period in the eastern United States (Graph 4-19). Stone beads are not found at the Formative sequence sites on the northern coast of Colombia.
Poverty Point-Hopewell Olmec - Tlatilco
O n made of a gray stone, its stem is perforated in the plane of the flattened body (fig. 4^). Although not identical, it is very reminiscent of the fourteen small jasper buttons from Poverty Point (fig. 5a-b). A fragment of a very realistic turtle carapace from the Poverty Point site is made of polished brown limonite (fig. 5e).
Jade Turtles / Verbal Description
Webb and the writer, while preparing a second article on specimens from the Poverty Point site in Louisiana, were surprised to see two small pieces of red jasper measuring about 1 cm. Drucker (1952, p. 163) describes, but does not illustrate, what appears to be two turtle effigies from La Venta: 'At each end of a string of beads found in 1943 were two small rectangular jade pendants with rounded corners, flat on one side, and a very low edge along the axis on the other side. A weak channel marking the border on the ribbed side enhances the appearance of a tortoise shell.
Two additional clam shells made of jade come from the presentation at Cerro de las Mesas (Drucker, 1955, pp. Their shapes are more similar to symmetrical shells than to the clams found in local rivers. The edge of the broken part shows half of a conical drilled hole that passed through the carapace near one end.
The delicate jade rays of the Olmec region may be the earliest form of auricle in the Americas. Mirrors are no longer in use in the Peruvian sequences after the end of the Chavin phase around 400 BC. The circles inscribed on the undecorated faces are the boundaries of the mosaic area, as in the Mesoamerican examples.
DISTINCTIVE ARTIFACTS
The fourth form of the early stone vessels of the Tehuacan sequence is the simple bowl. The beginning of the use of lip flanges seems to be around 400 BC) in the Tumbes region of northern Peru. Simple bowls also seem to be missing from the earlier phases of the Cupica Burial Mound on the Pacific coast of Colombia.
Bottles are not found in the Ocos phase on the Pacific coast of Guatemala. Spouted vessels of the Mesoamerican variety both with and without bridges are found in the Peruvian.
SUMMARY OF TRAIT DISTRIBUTIONS
In the colonized areas, two things can be expected to happen to the ceramic tradition. First, isolation and lack of stimulation can result in a gradual decline in the quality of the product. T he oval or boat-shaped vessels with modeled adornos at the ends that are a minor feature of Puerto Hormiga (fig. 8b) are not present in the Valdivia complex.
Puerto Hormiga Valdivia
Quite sophisticated patterned and incised adornos, apparently the heads of reptiles or rodents, are a feature of Puerto Hormiga pottery (fig. 9a). This deep bowl is also the predominant form of Puerto Hormiga (fig. 10/), and is known in Valdivia pottery, as noted above. Incised lines, removal of triangular areas where the lines meet, and red pigment rubbed into depressed areas are present at Puerto Hormiga (fig. 1 Id) and frequent at Valdivia.
Machalilla
Again the elements, but not the precise division of the zones, are available in the earlier Valdivia ceramics. SimUar punctures, zoned by incised lines, occur in the Barlovento phase of northern Colombia, where they date from about 1900-1000 BC.
Valdivia
Barlovento
In this type of crest appliqués were connected with dots, teardrops and short cuts made with a pointed tool (fig. I3b). Similarities between Negritos and Valdivia include finger-pressed appliqué fillets, sometimes with straight cuts on the surface of the surrounding vessels (fig. 15 a, e). Pierced knots or finger-driven ridges from the interior of the vessel in a row around the base of the vessel's neck occur in one piece (fig. 15^).
Valdivia - Machalilla
Lanning (1963b, fig. 21a, k-m) illustrates examples of Paita B phase broad-line notches (Fig. 15^-^) that resemble Valdivian broad-line notches (Fig. One red-stained sherd from the Paita series is line-zoned (Fig. 17 ^), a rare treatment in the MachalUla phase (Meggers, Evans and Estrada, 1965, pi. Botdi with long slender necks and stirrup spouts first appear in the Kotosh Kotosh phase (fig. \8c-d) ).
Tehuacan
The presence of the tecomat and the flat-bottomed pan (in the smaller diameter Andean version) in the earliest Kotosh ceramics (fig. I8a-b), argues for the presence of Mesoamerican influence at this early date, 1800 B.C. - line incision and general effect, this resembles the concentric rectangles in Valdivia Incised. The history of the crescent knife, the pan flute, metallurgy, and a number of other features of the Andes also require investigation in light of this possibility.
Puerto Hormiga
Stallings Island Valdivia
The incisions are wider in Valdivia, and a single line around the edge is common (Fig. 22h) rather than the multiple lines found in BUbo. A pen-sized tool, usually round but sometimes rectangular, was held at an angle and as the line plowed along the surface of the vessel the tool was pricked to form the characteristic dot lines (Fig. 22d). Some StaUings motifs are zigzag lines (fig. 23a), which do not occur in the similar pointed Valdivia type, but are common in the contemporary Valdivia Broad-line Incised (fig.
Stallings Island Valdivia-Machalilla
This form of pan, which is missing from the early South American format, is characteristic of the first ceramics known in Central America (fig. 25/). Several pointed tools were used in some four- to six-line band decorations (Fig. 26c). The latter unusual treatment is the only arrangement that appears to be used at Machalilla and Orange (Fig. 28d,h-i).
Veracruz
There are a few plain fiber-tempered sherds in the Bayou La Batre level, but most of the pottery compares to Stallings Island and Orange pottery only in that all three are somewhat coarser in manufacture than later Southeastern pottery. In the sloping sides and small base, it bears a general resemblance to the Woodland amphora made in the Great Lakes area at this time, but cord marks and other Woodland pottery features do not reach the Gulf Coast for nearly a millennium. C in the early Cupica phase on the northern Pacific coast of Colombia (Reichel-Dolmatoff, G. and A., 1962).
Momfl
Fortunately, the stratigraphy of Trickey and Holmes is somewhat clearer than that of the University of Alabama excavations and allows for a clearer definition of the La Batre complex. C there is no known pottery in the south with which the shape of the convex-sided beaker can be compared (Fig. 31a-^). Four legs on small vessels with a spherical body are characteristic of Valdivia (fig. 31/) and both Momila periods (700-1 BC
Ocos
The pottery was clearly produced by coiling, a somewhat dubious point for the other two early complexes. It is weathered with moderate amounts of coarse sand and fine gravel, is harder than other products of the Southeast FormaUs, and ranges in color from pale to dull orange. There are also what Wimberly calls "pseudo-annular bases," which are flat rather than concave on the outside.
Bayou La Batre Trapiche