A reassessment of the Ecuadorian Formative

Abstract:

“Formative” has come into use to denote what in the Old World would be called early or initial Neolithic. Neolithic would be a perfectly good name, but Americanists have been very reluctant to commit themselves to any terminology that would seem to imply Old World relationships. Willey and Phillips (1958, p. 144) have defined the Formative stage “by p the presence of maize and/or manioc agriculture and by the successful socioeconomic integration of such agriculture into a well-established sedentary village life.” This is a parallel to Childe's definition for the beginning of the Old World Neolithic as a point in which man be-came a food producer rather than a predator.(1969: 4-5) But in the" nuclear area" of ancient America sedentism, agriculture, polished stone tools, and ceramics did not simultaneously occur as expected.“Both in the Mexican highlands and the Peruvian coast, agriculture was practiced many cen-turies before such commonly accepted Formative traits as ceramics and polished stone tools came on the scene”(Ford 1969: 5). Ford also pointed out that al-though small New World Formative settlements seem to have been sedentary, they might not have represented “well-established village life," meaning that “the population explosion had not started.” Besides, it was assumed by Ford and oth-ers that New World early ceramics were not being made by agricultural people at all but were manufactured and spread by coastal groups who subsisted mainly

Año de publicación:

2003

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