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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Cultural Foundations of Early South American Societies

The Cultural Foundations of Early South American Societies

Dillehay, Tom D.
Neves, Eduardo G.

Hardcover

Series: Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Symposia and Colloquia

Native American HistoryAnthropologySouth American History

ISBN10: 0884025349
ISBN13: 9780884025344
Publisher: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collection
Published: Jul 14 2026
Pages: 378
Weight: 3.15
Height: 1.09 Width: 8.86 Depth: 11.16
Language: English

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.

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