Brothers of Invention: Comparing Trends in Innovation in the New World Formative

Summary

Competition between Andean Formative centers seems to have stimulated rapid rates of innovation in technology, architecture, art, and behaviors such as ritual. This in turn seems to reflect a significant change of the role and nature of religion as a force promoting or resisting change, introducing a motivation for radical transformation within a background of conservative, heavily tradition-based practices. These processes are particularly evident in recent investigations in Chavin de Huantar, and may well be evident in the record of other Central Andean formative sites. This raises the question of whether belief-driven transformations of the New World formative in general reflect a process of competitive stimulation in which 'convincing systems', to be successful, needed to create unique and differentiated material and experiential repertoire to aid in attracting cult membership. This paper raises the question of whether Andean and Mesoamerican formative societies show parallels in the role of innovation and competition, further complicated by issues of emulation and imitation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Olmec, Chavin, and Things in Between: A Comparative Approach to Emergent Complex Societies

Keywords

Spatial Coverage