ABSTRACT
Cultural exchange between Mesoamerica and the Andes during the Formative has been amply documented, and throughout the prehistoric period influences from the Nuclear Areas remained a primary stimulus for cultural advance in other parts of the Americas. Toward the end of the prehistoric period, conquest became a more effective method than diffusion for expanding the geographical distribution of more highly developed configurations into regions where the indigenous culture remained too primitive to accept piecemeal advanced types of traits. Level of development is a significant factor in determining the amount of influence that one culture has upon another. Culture has multiplied the means by which the requirements can be satisfied, but increasingly sophisticated subsistence activities are often more rather than less vulnerable to natural hazards. A culture is a balanced system, in which all parts preserve enough flexibility to permit their constant accommodation to alterations of cultural or environmental derivation.
