Diffusion vs. Independent Invention
We hope you have not been skipping the choice thoughts that we have placed at the beginning of chapters. Some of them are merely amusing, but certain ones make an important point. Such is the above remark from Hooton. It calls our attention to an unscientific emotionalism which often lies behind one of the dogmas of American archaeology.
This dogma is called the autochthonous origin of Indian cultures. It asserts that practically all the traits, discoveries, and inventions which Columbus, Cortes, and Pizarro found in the New World were homegrown products—importations barred. The question at issue between the friends and the opponents of this dogma is commonly expressed as Independent Invention versus Diffusion. But the phrasing is not quite accurate: it needs a little amplification. Anything invented by man is in a sense an independent invention. In the present case we are talking of an invention made in one center, the New World, independent of a similar invention in another center, the Old. We are concerned, not with independent invention, but with parallel independent invention. “Diffusion” is still more inaccurate. Normally it means the gradual transfer of some trait or technique from one people to another, often through the intervention of a third or of a third and a fourth people. In the present discussion it is more a matter of a people’s carrying the trait or the technique to a new home. The question is not merely, “Did the Indian invent pottery?” or “Did the American Australoid invent the bull-roarer?” It is rather, “Did he invent it in the New World or the Old?” or “Did he invent it in the Old World and carry it to the New?” or “Did he invent it in the New World while another fellow invented it in the Old?”
This problem of parallel independent invention versus diffusion is important to any discussion of early man, because it can also be phrased: “Did he or did he not bring traits from the Old World that may indicate his racial ancestry?”
FROM BURMA TO MELANESIA TO AMERICA?
Among the most curious resemblances between traits in the New World and in the Old are those of Panpipes. Certain pipes from the Solomon Islands have been found to have the same scale and the same absolute pitch as specimens from western Brazil. Double rows of pipes come from the hinterland of Burma, from the Solomon Islands, and from Panama and the Andean highlands, and in all these areas the two rows are tuned in the same relation to each other. The two sets may be lashed together, like these from the Solomon Islands, left, and from Bolivia, right, or they may be merely connected by a cord and blown by two men or, alternately, by one. (Left, after von Hornbostel, 1912; right, after Nordenskiöld, 1924.)
The material used in these fishhooks—pearl shell in Tahiti; abalone shell on San Nicolas Island, off southern California—dictated the slight difference in shape. Objects like these are found only in these general areas. (Courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.)
Both the theory of diffusion and the theory of parallel, independent invention arise from the same scientific fact. This fact is that different primitive peoples often make similar tools, build similar buildings, enjoy similar institutions, live by similar customs, or believe similar myths. And they do this although the tribes may be widely separated from one another. To pin the matter down to our own present concern, certain objects found in the New World and dated before Columbus are almost exactly like objects in the Old World. For instance, a spear-thrower from western Texas not only employs the same principle as one from Australia, but has practically the same physical shape. Curved throwing-sticks and bull-roarers come from both these localities (see illustration, [page 226]). Star-shaped mace heads of Melanesian type turn up in Peru. Looms that have the same eleven working parts are found in areas of the New World as well as the Old. Easter Island has polygonal stonework with locked joints which matches a form of masonry in Andean Peru, and a certain people of Easter Island stretched their ear lobes in the same fashion as the Incas. Panpipes of the Old World type appear in South America, Panama, and California; some from western Brazil are identical in tonal scale and absolute pitch with some from the Solomon Islands (see illustration, [page 235]). In Hawaii and in Peru, as in Egypt and ancient Japan, brothers married to sisters were of superior status. The digging stick of certain Polynesians has a step like that of the Indians of Peru. The quipu, or knotted-string record, spread from Polynesia to Peru, and the decimal system was found in both areas, though farther north, in Middle America, men employed the vigesimal system based on progression by twenties. The Hindu game of pachisi resembles the Mexican game of patolli. Lists have been published of as many as fifty such similarities between Oceania and the Americas.[1]
DIFFUSION OR INDEPENDENT INVENTION?
Striking resemblances exist between Old World and New World artifacts. The stone clubs are about 14 inches long. (Upper left, after Gladwin, 1937; the Chinese bell, after Gladwin, 1937, the Arizona bell, after Elmore, 1945; upper right, the New Zealand club, after Wickersham, 1895, the California and Peruvian clubs, after Imbelloni, 1930. The mace heads, after Gladwin, 1937.)
Effigy Flints Russia Illinois Bronze and Copper Bells China Arizona Two-Edged Stone Clubs New Zealand California Peru Star-Shaped Mace Head Melanesia Peru