A Sequence of Cultural Development in Meso-America

Abstract

To understand better the nature of the American Indian civilizations they must be viewed as a whole. To do this it is necessary, as Dr. Steward indicated in his paper, to establish adequate bases for the comparison of general trends in cultural development, leaving out for the time being the frequently confusing individual traits and peculiarities of style. Such a point of departure requires a re-evaluation of our knowledge of the Meso-American cultural sequence, but to do this there is the obvious difficulty that the available information is as yet quite inadequate. From the beginning of the modern period of research in this area the efforts of most investigators were attracted almost exclusively to the ceremonial aspects of Meso-American civilization and their artistic expressions. Perhaps inevitable because of the dazzling splendor of the ruined buildings and ritualistic art, this resulted, nevertheless, in an overbalance of our knowledge in that direction.