[Aztlan] "centralista" views Teo --> Queretaro

[ECOLING at aol.com]

There is still a third possibility which is not usually taken account of,
that a culture trait originated somewhere *other than* the "center"
from which it is mostly known, and that that "center" inherited it
equally with some other places, and then developed and spread it.

This third alternative will not seem probable if we have vastly more
examples of a style from the supposed "center".   But in some cases
it can nevertheless be true, despite that.   

Witness the discussions of supposedly "Olmec" iconographic traits
in a rather widespread area, and the possibility that at least some
aspects of such so-called "Olmec" style were pre-Olmec developments
over a much wider area.

Powerful "centers" always have this effect of tending to eclipse
areas which later had less political and/or economic importance,
because of the logic used in projecting into the past and because
of statistical accidents of discovery.

Once a style is named and extensively mentioned, 
it is very hard to get it re-named even if
evidence shows it was misleadingly named in the first place.
And we don't want to re-name with just one or two pieces of
counter-evidence.   We want more than that, to avoid chaos
in communication among both specialists and lay people.

Best wishes,
Lloyd

Lloyd Anderson
Ecological Linguistics
PO Box 15156
Washington DC 20003
ecoling at aol.com
202-547-7683



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