I have read Irving Rouse's recent article on the Southwestern co-tradition (“On the Use of the Concept of Area Co-Tradition,” American Antiquity, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 221-5, 1954) and I must say that it fills me with mild astonishment. I fear that Rouse's strictures may have generated confusion in the minds of some students and may have given rise to the suspicion that any general formulation of Southwestern culture history is invalid or at least premature. In order to dispel these doubts I wish to discuss our underlying philosophy in this matter.

My general reaction to Rouse's article is to ask whether Bennett really intended the co-tradition concept to apply only to Peru? Has Rouse correctly codified Bennett's idea of a co-tradition and is Rouse's strict interpretation a proper one? If an affirmative is the response to these queries, then I must admit that in the narrowest and most literal terms the area co-tradition cannot be applied to the Southwestern area of the United States. At best, it would apply only to a few spots in the world in which the highest cultures have developed.