Modeling Pan-Regional Interaction in Precolumbian Lowland Americas

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeologists have speculated for decades that interregional interaction occurred among precolumbian societies occupying the regions of Amazonia, the Caribbean, Mesoamerica, and the southeastern United States. Yet no formal investigation has been done into how these people and places were physically integrated across water. This paper seeks to explore interregional interaction among precolumbian societies occupying these regions and model the potential aquatic transportation routes that were used by inhabitants in the past to facilitate and enable social contact. Aquatic transportation routes will be modeled from known locations, as well as predictive landscape and waterscape features that influence navigation over water. This research will contribute to our understanding of human interregional interaction among lowland precolumbian societies who occupied coastal and riverine regions. By adopting a pan-regional perspective, I attempt to highlight the multiscalar nature of cultural interactions in the past and reveal how communities who are dissected by water and practice varying forms of sociopolitical organization maintain important relationships across long distances and over long periods of time. Additionally, this investigation will reveal the possible aquatic transportation routes used by precolumbian societies to facilitate interaction over centuries, demonstrating that pan-regional interaction was not only possible, but likely occurred in the past.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37631.0