Research Items

Abstract

CULTURE OF ANCIENT PERU.—One difficulty in the sequence-dating of the textiles of ancient Peru, which, with the pottery, are the best evidence of the pre-Spanish culture, is that Peruvian looms are very scarce in museums, and, when found, are usually incomplete, and almost invariably undatable, even in accordance with the sequence-dating at present accepted. In Man for December last, Mr. T. A. joice reports that a vase presented to the British Museum in 1913 by Sir Herbert Gibson shows a definite and indisputable correlation between a certain type of loom and a certain type of pottery. This vase, which definitely belongs to the Proto-Chimu period, that is to say, the earliest period of any sort of developed culture on the northern Peruvian coast, presents a scene showing the weaving of tapestry on a loom without a treadle, and associated with pottery also belonging to the same early period. It does not prove, but it suggests, that the principle of the treadle was unknown to the Proto-Chimu weaver; if so, then the treadle belongs to a comparatively late period of South American culture. Much further inquiry is needed before the significance of this discovery can be used as a proof of sequence-dating.