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

ARTICLE 2 OF 10 in the thread

So what exactly are the diffusionists saying about these matters?

First of all, this is not the question of a single event when Asian
or Polynesian influence came into S. and C. America. In fact, the
diffusionists are saying that this is the matter of a _continuous
influence_ that came over a long period of time.

Plenty of these theories were around even _before_ the discovery in
Ecuador, in 1960, at a site known as Valdivia, of a large find of
pottery very similar to the Japanese Jomon ware. Also, many
figurines were found there. Here's Campbell, THE MYTHIC IMAGE, 1974:

      [Since then] ... A likely pattern of diffusion has been
      charted from this coastal site, both southward to Peru
      and northward to the Caribbean, whence the culture seems
      to have been carried (perhaps following the Gulf Stream)
      to the mouth of the Savannah River in Georgia
      ("Stallings Island" ware, ca. 2400 b.c.) (p. 130)
      [reference is given here to James Ford, A COMPARISON OF
      FORMATIVE CULTURES IN THE AMERICAS, 1969, p. 183-185]

Most of the following is based on the work of Robert Heine-Geldern,
and of Ford (just cited) as summarised by Joseph Campbell.
Apparently these scholars identified no less than nine (!) different
stages of influence, divided into 3 major phases. I quote from THE
MYTHIC IMAGE, 1974, pp. 130 ff.:

1. Colonial Formative Phase.

      =     Ca. 3000 b.c.: Valdivia Culture, Coastal Ecuador.
      Middle Jomon ware from Kyushu, Japan; ceramic and stone
      figurines.
      =     Ca. 2000 b.c.: Machalilla Culture, Coastal
      Ecuador. A second colonising venture from some unknown
      part of Asia. Another pottery style.
      =     Ca. 1500 b.c.: Horinouchi Type Ceramic, West Coast
      Guatemala. New Japanese influences.

2. Theocratic Formative Phase.

      =     Ca. 1200-500 b.c.: Olmec Culture, Tabasco and
      Veracruz. See Ford, p 188.
      =     Ca. 800-200 b.c.: Chavin Culture, Coastal and
      Highland Peru. Influence from Olmecs going to the Chavin
      area.
      =     Ca. 800-333 b.c.: Chinese Influences Evident.
      Middle and Late Chou Dynasty contributions. Metal work
      and weaving first appear in S. America.
      =     Ca. 333 b.c. - a.d. 50: Dong-son Influences. When
      the coastal state of Yueh lost its independence in 333
      b.c., the trans-Pacific voyages were taken up by their
      neighbours in northeastern Indochina, the Dong-son.
      =     Ca. a.d. 50-220: Han Chinese Influences. The Dong-
      son voyages may have come to an end with the final
      conquest of Tonkin and North Annam by China. Pottery
      types of Guatemala, in particular, closely resemble
      those of Han. The dissolution of the Han empire seems to
      have terminated China's trans-Pacific role.

3. Classic and Postclassic Mesoamerica (Maya, Toltec, Aztec, etc.)

      =     Ca. a.d. 220-1219: Southeast Asian, Hindu-Buddhist
      Influences. Influences seem to have been particularly
      strong from Cambodia to the Maya and Olmec areas between
      the 7th and 10th centuries. A number of statues of
      Buddha were found.

Joseph Needham doesn't believe that there were any relations as such
between Asia and the Americas.

      But although we believe that people from East and South-
      east Asia did reach the American continent on various
      occasions through the ages, we are not inclined to
      believe that any of them ever got home. (op. cit. p. 6)

Some other diffusionists differ on this.

Well, this is enough work for Yuri for today...

All the best,

Yuri.

The world is governed more by appearance than by realities, so
that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as it
is to know it                ====               Daniel Webster