Subject:      trans-Pacific contacts 
From:         yuku@io.org (Yuri Kuchinsky)
Date:         1996/08/07
Newsgroups:   alt.mythology,alt.archaeology,sci.archaeology

ARTICLE 3 OF 49 in the thread

This article is a reply to a number of posters who have expressed a
lot of doubt about the possibility of transpacific influences on the
development of early S. and C. American civilizations.

I have cited previously a couple of works that deal with this issue.
Yet I have not gone into the details of the matter, and have not
provided precise references. This is meant to remedy that.

A work that is very widely available and contains much information
is HISTORICAL ATLAS OF WORLD MYTHOLOGY, by Joseph Campbell (this is
where I first learned about these theories). The critics please note
that Campbell is a _highly respected scholar_. He's no kook. (This
is not to say that a number of kooks have not ventured into this
rather obscure area of study. See e.g. remarks about "the lunatic
fringe" of diffusionist anthropology in J. Needham, TRANS-PACIFIC
ECHOES..., p. 2 n. 4.)

Nobody has ever managed to document any significant errors (going
beyond nit-picks) in the writings and research of Ol' Joe. Not that
people haven't tried! Sure as the day is bright that he has plenty
of often bitter critics. (Why he has so many critics is a different
matter that we don't need to go into here.)

THE ATLAS is a large work with plenty of beautiful (and helpful)
illustrations. References to diffusion of Asian influence in the
Americas are scattered throughout the work. But for a good overview,
I refer the reader to v. 2, p. 12-33. Also, please note that this
work has plenty of notes with _references_ for further reading.

Another helpful source is THE MYTHIC IMAGE, by Campbell, 1974. The
stuff about diffusion is especially on pp. 104-162.

Sure, as many already remarked, Campbell is _not_ an archaeologist.
(I hope this needs not imply that he is _forbidden_ to write about
archaeology...) Yet, in his books, he is using and summarising the
work of some _very reputable_ archaeologists and anthropologists.
Here are his main sources:

First of all, he is strongly influenced by the work of Robert Heine-
Geldern, of Vienna. He's not well known in the US, but some of his
work has appeared in English. In particular, THE PROBLEM OF
TRANSPACIFIC INFLUENCES IN MESOAMERICA, in HANDBOOK..., ed.
Wauchope, v. IV, 277-295, where, also, an ample bibliography on the
subject will be found.

Also, by Heine-Geldern, AMERICAN METALLURGY AND THE OLD WORLD, in
EARLY CHINESE ART AND ITS POSSIBLE INFLUENCE IN THE PACIFIC BASIC,
ed. N. Barnard, 1974, p. 787.

Among the work of archaeologists, one can look up:

Betty Meggers, Clifford Evans, and Emilio Estrada, EARLY FORMATIVE
PERIOD OF COASTAL ECUADOR: THE VALDIVIA AND MACHILILLA PHASES
(Smithsonian I., 1969)

James Alfred Ford, A COMPARISON OF FORMATIVE CULTURES IN THE
AMERICAS (Smithsonian I. Press, 1969).

By the way, Joseph Needham's book, TRANS-PACIFIC ECHOES..., that I
cited earlier in these newsgroups, includes 20 (twenty) pages of
useful bibliography. But this book is not so widely available...

I hope this satisfies my critics as far as references are concerned.

All the best,

Yuri.