An Interdisciplinary Approach to Investigate Early Andean Settlement Dynamics and Adaptation

Summary

The Andean cordillera was one of the world’s last mountain regions to be colonized by hunter-gatherers. To date, the empirical evidence indicates an initial appearance of humans in the high Andes (up to 4500 m above sea level) in the Terminal Pleistocene, about 12,500 years ago. Early forager sites of the Andes exhibit a spectrum of settlement and mobility configurations, which constitute responses to the structure of resources in their specific habitats. Intriguingly, some of the earliest and highest sites indicate thorough familiarity with highland resources, implying either considerable pre-existing cultural knowledge about mountains or very rapid landscape learning. Current debates center on the identification of explorations vs more permanent settlements, functional configurations of early highland sites with those in lower ecological zones, and the role of physiologic and genetic adaptations in the settlement process. Approaches relying solely on assemblages of artifacts and subsistence remains may be inadequate to resolve these issues. Bioarchaeological study of early Andean skeletons, situated within a well-established context of site- and region-scale archaeological settlement data, can provide key information on diet, provenance, mobility patterns, inter-zonal social connections, and the appearance of novel morphologic and genetic features.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22149