Advances and New Perspectives in the Isthmo-Colombian Area

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Advances and New Perspectives in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The modern territories of eastern Honduras, eastern Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia are included within the concept of the Isthmo-Colombian area. For a long time, its prehistory was relegated to a marginal status as an “Intermediate Area” or as a “Periphery of Mesoamerica,” which led to a relative inattention to archaeological research and exploration of theoretical and methodological issues in the area. These initial concepts failed to capture the diverse array of cultural expressions that dotted the Isthmian landscape. New and exciting research in the area currently demonstrates how the region has potential to explore major issues such as the development of complexity, the emergence of pottery and agriculture, the cultural contexts for the development of lapidary work and metalworking, paleoenvironmental reconstruction and human ecology, human responses to natural disasters, and the dynamics of interaction and migration. This session brings together contributions from the recent research by archaeologists from Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, the United States, and Europe, whose investigations include novel methodologies and theoretical frames to explore new and ongoing anthropological questions.