Olmec and Chavin: Rejoinder to Lanning

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Abstract
The maize design on a bottle from Kotosh is unusual for its time and place in its choice of subject matter and mode of depiction, and a previous statement that the motif might be of Olmec origin is defended. Lanning's attack on past arguments for early diffusion from Mesoamerica to Peru is countered by questioning (a) the role of the Intermediate area and lowland South America as alternative sources for the observed similarities, (b) the nature of unpublished data, (c) the age of the architectural complex at Las Haldas, (d) the likelihood of establishing final “proofs” or full chronological contexts, and (e) the reasoning of the “wait-until-all-the-facts-are-in” school. It is proposed that hypotheses are not assumptions but concepts subject to change which are ever attempting to explain large bodies of data. Such a hypothesis is that which originates New World civilization on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, and a revision of this hypothesis is made which accounts for the Chavin civilization as the result of a fusion of intrusive Olmec art and religion with an older, native-Peruvian tradition based on fabric construction and the worship of the condor and serpent.

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