Refining the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization</Emphasis>: How Plant Fiber Technology Drove Social Complexity During the Preceramic Period

Moseley’s (1975) Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization hypothesis challenges, in one of humanity’s few pristine hearths of civilization, the axiom that agriculture is necessary for the rise of complex societies. We revisit that hypothesis by setting new findings from La Yerba II (7571–6674 Cal bp) and III (6485–5893 Cal bp), Río Ica estuary, alongside the wider archaeological record for the end of the Middle Preceramic Period on the Peruvian coast. The La Yerba record evinces increasing population, sedentism, and “Broad Spectrum Revolution” features, including early horticulture of Phaseolus and Canavalia beans. Yet unlike further north, these changes failed to presage the florescence of monumental civilization during the subsequent Late Preceramic Period. Instead, the south coast saw a profound “archaeological silence.” These contrasting trajectories had little to do with any relative differences in marine resources, but rather to restrictions on the terrestrial resources that determined a society’s capacity to intensify exploitation of those marine resources. We explain this apparent miscarriage of the Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization (MFAC) hypothesis on the south coast of Peru by proposing more explicit links than hitherto, between the detailed technological aspects of marine exploitation using plant fibers to make fishing nets and the emergence of social complexity on the coast of Peru. Rather than because of any significant advantages in quality, it was the potential for increased quantities of production, inherent in the shift from gathered wild Asclepias bast fibers to cultivated cotton, that inadvertently precipitated revolutionary social change. Thereby refined, the MFAC hypothesis duly emerges more persuasive than ever.     

Reviews

THE EVOLUTION OP AUSTRALIAN FOREIGN POLICY 1938–1965. Alan Watt. London, Cambridge University Press, 1967. Pp. x + 387. 60/‐ stg.

FATE AND WILL IN FOREIGN POLICY. James Eayrs. Toronto, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1967. Pp. 87. ?1.25 (Canadian).

THE COMMONWEALTH AND THE UNITED NATIONS. T. B. Millar. Sydney, Sydney University Press, 1967. Pp. 237. $5.50.

SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL AND THE COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS. J. D. B. Miller. Brisbane, University of Queensland Press, 1967. Pp. 27. $0.75c.

RACE RELATIONS IN THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH AND THE UNITED NATIONS. Lord Caradon. London, Cambridge University Press. Pp. 25. $0.65c.

THE ROLE OF THE CHINESE ARMY. John Gittings. Issued under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Oxford University Press, London, 1967. Pp. xx + 331. $7.80.

BASIC TACTICS. Mao Tse‐tung. Translated and with an introduction by Stuart R. Schram. New York, Praeger, 1966. Pp. v + 149. $5.80.

PEKING AND PEOPLE'S WARS. Samuel B. Griffith. New York, Praeger, 1966. Pp. 142. $5.80.

A STUDY OP THE CHINESE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT 1927–34. Shanti Swamp. Oxford, 1966. Pp. viii + 289‐ $5.80.

THE JAPANESE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT 1920–1966. Robert A. Scalapino. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967. Pp. 412. $6.50 (US).

THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT IN IRAN. Sepehr Zabir. University of California Press, 1967. Pp. xiv + 279. 48/‐ (stg.).

PROBLEMS OF SMALLER TERRITORIES. Burton Benedict (ed.). University of London, The Athlone Press, 1967. Pp. 153.

ASIA'S POPULATION PROBLEMS: WITH A DISCUSSION OF POPULATION AND IMMIGRATION IN AUSTRALIA. S. Chandrasekhar (ed.). Allen and Unwin, London, 1967. Pp. 311. $7.00.

AUSTRALIAN IMMIGRATION: A BIBLIOGRAPHY AND DIGEST. Charles A. Price (ed.). Australian National University, 1966.

THE LAW OF THE SEA AND AUSTRALIAN OFF‐SHORE AREAS. R. D. Lumb. St. Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1966. Pp. 86. $2.85.

RELIGION, POLITICS AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOUR IN JAVA: THE KUDUS CIGARETTE INDUSTRY. Lance Castles. Yale Southeast Asia Studies, Cultural Report Series no. 15, 1967. Pp. vii + 158.

IDEOLOGY IN INDONESIA: SUKARNO'S INDONESIAN REVOLUTION. Donald E. Weatherbee. Monograph Series No. 8, Southeast Asia Studies, Yale University, 1966. Pp. x + 135.     

Data Generation Processes for Spatial Series: The Example of Ephemeral Channel Form

Recently developed techniques for time series analysis are applied to channel width and slope series collected in small ephemeral channels in Southern Italy. Tests for the difference between trend and difference stationarity, although developed in the field of econometrics, are found to be more suitable for data generation processes in geomorphology, where physical causes of deterministic trends are evident. These tests are important because the modeling of causal flows and development of dynamic predictive models depends on the type of data generation process that is identified. The ephemeral channel data exhibit trend stationarity and the results of spectral analysis and vector autoregression analysis of detrended channel width and slope data are described.