This book focuses on South American archaeology and its contributions to the broader global archaeological discussion in theory, methods and new interpretations of the archaeological record. These include discussions on human peopling and colonization of the continent, domestication of plants and emergence of complex societies. This volume covers a wide variety of sub-disciplines in archaeology, including archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, molecular archaeology, bioarchaeology, geoarchaeology.

The chapters span from the pre-Columbian to contemporaneous indigenous societies for all the main geographical and ecological zones of South America. The book discusses how particular cases of South American archaeology have contributed to the understanding of a global and basic issue: human relations with their environments and landscapes during the past. The authors focus on the latest results produced by multidisciplinary studies carried out at archaeological sites in several areas of South America ranging from studies of early hunter-gatherers through the historic period. This work would be of interest to researchers in archaeology and Latin American studies.

Discusses how particular cases of South American archaeology have contributed to the understanding of a global and basic issue: human relations with their environments and landscapes during the past Throughout multidisciplinary approaches, South American archaeologists study complex issues such as site formation and taphonomy processes and chronological sequences at archaeological deposits, past human-use of animal, plant and mineral resources, influence of palaeoclimatic changes on human settlement patterns, and population dynamics Includes latest results produced by multidisciplinary studies carried out at archaeological sites in several areas of South America ranging from studies of early hunter-gatherers through the historic period

Autorentext
Editor Mariano Bonomo is currently a researcher of the National Council of Scientific and Technological Investigations (CONICET), Deputy Chief of the Archaeology Division of La Plata Museum at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Museum of La Plata (FCNyM), and Professor at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNLP), Argentina. His major research interests are the past human occupations of aquatic environments in the Paraná River and the Pampean Atlantic coast and the spread of agriculture and Arawak and Tupi-Guarani peoples through Lowland South America. He received both his undergraduate degree (Anthropology) and his doctorate (Natural Sciences) at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina.

Editor Sonia Archila is currently an Associate Professor and the Director of the Department of Anthropology, University of Los Andes, Colombia. She teaches courses in Archaeology, Environmental Archaeology, and Archaeological Method and Theory. She is also the coordinator of the Archaeobotany Laboratory. Her major interests are the study of human-environmental interactions through time and social memory construction, particularly in relation to traditional knowledge of natural resource uses and archaeological heritage. She obtained a Master of Science in Environmental Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London and her PhD in Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University of London.

Inhalt
Part I: Hunter and gatherer societies in South America.- Chapter 1. Landscape creation, biota and mineral resources in the Altiplano Cundiboyacense (Colombia).- Chapter 2. Peopling of Peru and Chile.- Chapter 3. Hunter-gatherers and emergent settlement hierarchy on the Andean Altiplano.- Chapter 4. Social trajectories of hunter- gatherer societies in Central Argentina: exploration and colonization of a desert landscape, La Pampa province, Argentina.- Chapter 5. The long-term relation between human beings and shellfish resources in the semiarid coast of Chile.- Chapter 6. Off site regional archaeology in Southern Patagonia (Argentina): the Coyle River Basin case study.- Chapter 7. Ultima Esperanza, Chile: Archaeological Gaps and the Supraregional Record.- Part II: Past humans as agents of landscape formation and transformation.- Chapter 8. Possible effects of niche construction processes in the historical ecology of the Orinoco river basin.- Chapter 9. Past human occupation in the Colombian Caribbean wetlands of La Mojana: modification and anthropic landscapes.- Chapter 10. A difficult environment with extraordinary advantages: strategies for survival on the floodplain of the river Cauca during the Holocene.- Chapter 11. Deploying the past to safeguard the future: hydraulic archaeology and innovation in climate change adaptation.- Chapter 12. As seen through the trees, a lens into Amazonian mobility and its lasting landscape.- Chapter 13. Zooarchaeology and sambaquis: a prolific relationship.- Chapter 14. Micromorphology of shell matrix-sites: insights from South American contexts.- Chapter 15. Subsistence Strategies of Prehistoric Ceramic Groups in the Araguaia River Valley, State of Goiás, Brazil: adaptation and management.- Chapter 16. From Mounds to Monumental Villages: Environment Transformation and Landscape Domestication in the Lowlands of Uruguay.- Part III: Multiple ways to study interaction between the social and natural world.- Chapter 17. Sedentism, Production, and Early Interregional Interaction in the Northern Sierra of Ecuador.- Chapter 18. Bioarchaeology of Andean South America: past contributions and current research.- Chapter 19. The Cosmopolitan Misfits of Mainstream Amazonia.- Chapter 20. Pastoralist settlements patterns in the Central Altiplano of Bolivia.- Chapter 21. Highland-Lowland forms of interaction in the South-Central Andes: Tiwanaku and the Inkas.- Chapter 22. Humanized nature: symbolic representation of fauna in pottery from the Middle and Lower Paraná River (Argentina).