Description

The Cultural Foundations of Early South American Societies examines the remarkable transformation of the Central Andes and the tropical Amazon beginning around 7000 BCE, when the Indigenous inhabitants began to develop food production, permanent settlements, monumental architecture, and complex social organizations. Moving beyond traditional chronological categories of "Archaic" and "Formative," the fourteen essays in this volume reveal how early South American societies followed diverse trajectories, especially in the development of agro-maritime lifestyles on the Pacific coast, animal domestication in the Andean highlands, and plant cultivation in the Amazonian lowlands.

Through regional case studies spanning from southern Ecuador to northern Argentina and the eastern tropical lowlands, the contributors--primarily archaeologists--trace early community formation, technological innovation, landscape transformation, and the emergence of elaborate symbolism and craft production; these analyses offer fresh perspectives on how such developments established the foundations for later state-level societies, providing essential insights into the deep cultural history and varied pathways to social complexity in the ancient Americas.