Examples of diffusion include the spread of the war chariot and iron smelting in ancient times, and the use of automobiles and Western business suits in the 20th century.
Also of interest is the work of American historian and critic Daniel J. Boorstin in his book The Discoverers, in which he provides a historical perspective on the role of explorers in the diffusion of innovations between civilizations.
The first scientific defence of humanity originating in South America came from the Argentine paleontologist Florentino Ameghino in 1880, who published his research in La antigüedad del hombre en el Plata.
[6] The work of Grafton Elliot Smith fomented a revival of hyperdiffusionism in 1911; he asserted that copper–producing knowledge spread from Egypt to the rest of the world along with megalithic culture.
[11][12][13] However, historian Peter Frankopan argues that influences, particularly trade, through the Middle East and Central Asia to China through the silk roads have been overlooked in traditional histories of the "rise of the West".
But the constant warfare and rivalry in Europe meant there was extreme evolutionary pressure for developing these ideas for military and economic advantage, and a desperate need to use them in expansion.
An example of such disputes is the proposal by Thor Heyerdahl that similarities between the culture of Polynesia and the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Andes are due to diffusion from the latter to the former—a theory that currently has few supporters among professional anthropologists.