The Formative Stage or "Neo-Indian period" is an archaeological term describing a particular developmental level. This stage from 1000 BCE to 500 CE is the third of five stages defined by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips' 1958 book Method and Theory in American Archaeology.
Cultures of the Formative Stage are supposed to possess the technologies of pottery, weaving, and developed food production. Social organization is supposed to involve permanent towns and villages, as well as the first ceremonial centers. Ideologically, an early priestly class or theocracy is often present or in development.
Examples of cultures considered to be Formative include the Adena, Olmec, Old Copper, Oasisamerica, Woodland, and Mississippian cultures.
Sometimes also referred to as the "Pre-Classic stage". It followed the Archaic stage and was superseded by the Classic stage.
- The Lithic stage
- The Archaic stage
- The Formative stage
- The Classic stage
- The Post-Classic stage
Famous quotes containing the words formative and/or stage:
“The social forces that operate on a family during the daughter’s formative years continue to shape her experience. Thus the families, schools, and jobs that involve poor women are likely to be very hierarchically arranged, demanding conformity, passivity, and obedience—all unsupportive of continued intellectual growth.”
—Mary Field Belenky (20th century)
“The slightest living thing answers a deeper need than all the works of man because it is transitory. It has an evanescence of life, or growth, or change: it passes, as we do, from one stage to the another, from darkness to darkness, into a distance where we, too, vanish out of sight. A work of art is static; and its value and its weakness lie in being so: but the tuft of grass and the clouds above it belong to our own travelling brotherhood.”
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