local differences.[1] Three formative culture centers may be recognized: Nasca, Trujillo and Tiahuanaco. These individualities, according to Uhle,[2] seem to have grown up from a more homogeneous state which formed the framework of Peruvian culture. Yet, in spite of all the investigations that have been made, it cannot be clearly perceived which of these three centers is the oldest, in fact, the data are more consistent with the view that they were in the main contemporaneous and mutually reactive.
When the Inca come into control of the whole area, certain tendencies to uniformity in art and technology are apparent, no doubt due to the shifting of population, the improved means of communication, and the direct legislation of the Inca government.
22. Chile. This region is frequently included in that of Peru, but the older underlying culture seems to have differed from that of the Inca period. There are solid historical grounds for considering the southern extension of Inca culture to be recent and so overlying the native cultures. In fact, the shell mounds of the long coast line indicate three periods of occupation. In the first of these, there were long-headed people with a rude culture, though they made some pottery. Later came a round-headed people of much higher culture, somewhat like the older Peruvians. Later still, the Inca overran this area as far south as the Maule River. The pottery of the earlier periods is for the most part undecorated, metal work is not frequent, but usually of Inca patterns. On the whole, the interior elevated portions of Chile seem to have sheltered a higher culture than the coast.
In the north, it will be noted that the area reaches out through Bolivia into Argentina, where centers the unique Calchaqui, or Diaguite culture.[3] Aside from its own peculiar problems, this culture is interesting in that it, like the Pueblo culture of the United States, is an extreme outpost of the New World highland culture. There are even some curious correspondences between the two, the significance of which is not clear.
