Tidemarks, Waterlines and Shifting Sands: Perspectives on Aquatic Landscapes in the Plata Basin

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Characterized by hydrological variation and shifting shorelines, rivers, wetlands and coastal areas of the Plata Basin have historically formed interactive cultural landscapes, dynamic resource and communications geographies and globally vital ecosystems. Using fluctuating contact zones with water as a theoretical and methodological point of departure, the paper outlines considerations for multidisciplinary approaches to their reconstruction. This is anchored in a diachronic discussion on circulation, exchange and praxis of waterside communities, centering on the Goya-Malabrigo Archaeological Entity and the Guaraní, the “Phoenicians of the Pre-Columbian world” (Métraux 1928: 207), also with reference to their maritime extension. Due to the dynamic interplay of natural and anthropic factors, the archaeological record of the islands, beaches and promontories that formed loci of aquatic lifeways is often fragmentary. In terms of landscape reconstruction, this accentuates the importance of further research on periodically and partially submerged zones, past and present; infrastructures and implements related to aquatic resource exploitation; navigation adapted to specific conditions; and the analysis of bioindicators from aquatic and shoreline environments. Together, these inform questions of scale in historical ecology and the regional archaeology of waterways, also indicating avenues for the study and mitigation of climate change effects.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41638.0