The Role of Lowland Tropics as Centers of Landscape Domestication during the Middle Holocene in South America

Summary

The archaeological record of the Middle Holocene is lacking in many areas of lowland South America. The reasons for such hiatuses are yet not clear, but there is an emerging pattern showing that the areas where one finds complete records of human occupation that span most of the Holocene are typically located on estuaries, extensive floodplains or other wetlands normally placed at ecotones. On the other hand, mounting paleoeocological data shows that the climatic conditions of the Middle Holocene where probably dryer than today. This paper argues that wetlands and ecotonal areas played a major role as places for landscape domestication and cultural innovation in the tropical lowlands during the Middle Holocene and that such innovations spread through other areas after the establishment of climatic conditions similar as of today starting ca. 3,000 years BP.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20786