Recent arguments stating that marine resources were relatively unimportant in cultural developments on the coast of Peru during the Preceramic Period are incorrect on several counts. It is shown that the economics and technology of maritime subsistence of coastal Peru are more complex than previously thought, that the nutritional values of terrestrial versus maritime foods are debatable, that the dynamics of El Niño events are complex, and that maritime resources must still be seen as important for Preceramic Period economies. [Central Andes, coastal adaptations, ecological anthropology, origins of complex societies]

An ecological approach to religion is utilized to examine crocodilians represented in highland and lowland Mesoamerican art from the Early Formative to European contact. It is suggested for certain Formative New World religions, the Olmec in particular, that the crocodilian may have attained religious importance because it served as a major food source, is a predator of humans, and is an anomalous and striking animal. It is further proposed that crocodilian products (meat, skins, etc.) may have been lowland items used in an exchange network with highland groups, that the crocodilian motif and crocodilian products became elements of elite status regalia, and that Olmec ideology thereby gained a foothold in central Mexico. Subsequently, a decline in the supply of crocodilians due to overhunting or other causes may have undermined one basis of Olmec strength and hastened their downfall in the Middle Formative. Crocodilians remain in the art up to European contact, but their role seems to change as they transcend the secular-mundane, as the elite establish other status regalia, and as a greater variety of religious expressions develops.

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We evaluated Carneiro's 'environmental circumscription' theory and completely rejected it. It was an insidious ethnocentric prima facie construct. Attempting to develop a viable alternative to early state formation, we focused on food procurement, production and storage. Obviously, large population aggregates (characterizing a state by archaeologists) was only possible because they were in areas of unique abundant wild/renewable food resources, supplemented with agriculture in varying degrees of development. All earliest states followed a pattern of being located near a river mouth entering a sea or ocean. Thus, we propose that such areas produced large amounts of aquatic fauna (mainly fish) and sometimes flora, and these renewable resources helped support sizeable human populations. We label our theory: Unique Resource Constellation Theory (URCT).