Humans, Technology, and Environment in the Early Peopling of South America

ABSTRACT

This special issue includes papers about the early settlement of South America. New evidence based on taphonomy, technology, bioanthropology, environment, subsistence strategies, and settlement patterns are presented for several regions of the Andes and the Southern Cone. The editors hope this volume stimulates debate about early peopling as much as it updates the latest trends in this research.

KEYWORDS:

• Early settlement
• South America
• terminal Pleistocene
• early Holocene

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Rodolphe Hoguin is a CONICET researcher in the Instituto de Arqueología (UBA, FFyL), and is associated with the AnTET research team in the Université de Parix X, Nanterre. He is a permanent member of the UISPP commission of Peopling of America and is in charge of the Mission Archéologique Française en Argentine. His research focuses on lithic technology, as well as hunter-gatherer and initial herder occupations in Andean Highlands.

Nora V. Franco is an argentine researcher, working at CONICET and at the University of Buenos Aires. Her main interests are lithic technology and hunter-gatherer organization and mobility. She works in Patagonia since 1990 and has previously worked in the Pampas. Her research projects are centered at the Chico and Santa Cruz river basins (Patagonia), with a special focus on the early peopling of these environments, as well as in changes in the organization of hunter-gatherers through time.

Nora Flegenheimer is researcher at CONICET and works at the Arrea de Museos, Municipalidad de Necochea. Her main interests are lithic studies, the early peopling of the continent and public archaeology. Her research is centered in the Argentinian Pampas where she has published about the regional lithic resource base and archaeological localities Cerro La China and Cerro El Sombrero focusing on early social practices.