Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 November 2021
In 1947, at a conference on Peruvian archaeology held in Viking Fund headquarters in New York City, Wendell C. Bennett proposed a concept of area co-tradition and used it as a means of expressing certain characteristics of Peruvian culture history. He first defined the concept in abstract terms, then described the Peruvian co-tradition, and finally suggested the possibility that other area co-traditions might exist in the Southwestern United States, Middle America, and Northwest Argentina (Bennett, 1948).
Acting on Bennett's suggestion, Martin and Rinaldo (1951) subsequently worked out a Southwestern area Co-tradition in some detail. In addition, Willey (1953, p. 374) has suggested the existence of an Arctic or Eskimo cotradition and of three co-traditions in the Eastern United States: Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippi.
In the present paper, I shall confine myself to the use of the concept in Peru and the Southwest, since these are the only places where it has yet been applied in any detail.