Looking at a map (Figures 1.1, 1.2, 2.1), South America hangs heavily from the narrow, funnel-like Isthmus of Panama, which thus serves to delimit the continent on the north. Indeed, it was through Panama’s densely vegetated tropical environment that the first settlers of the vacant (in human terms) continent had to pass, and adapt, more than ten thousand years ago (Ranere and Cooke 2003); maritime movement hugging the coastline was also a possibility (Fladmark 1979). Oceans border South America on all sides, further defining and, until the age of European exploration, largely isolating it from the rest of the world, save for intrepid indigenous navigators who trafficked luxury goods, including Spondylus shell, between Ecuador and the west coast of Mexico (Marcos 1977–78) and Panamanian chiefs who pursued esoteric knowledge in the more complex chiefdom societies of northern Colombia (Helms 1976). But this hyper-geographical continental essence—or South America as a natural unit—is belied by what may have been the world’s greatest linguistic, cultural, and botanical diversity. This extraordinary heterogeneity is the challenge that faced Julian H. Steward (Figure 1.3) in the early 1940s as he sought to devise a framework with which to organize the approximately two hundred chapters commissioned for the six-volume Handbook of South American Indians (HSAI; the seventh volume is the index) from an international cast of more than ninety leading ethnographers, archaeologists, physical anthropologists, ethnologists, linguists, cultural geographers and art historians.
In this introduction to the Handbook of South American Archaeology (HSAA), I consider Steward’s organization of the HSAI and some of the continental schemes that followed it. I do not discuss exclusively ethnographic volumes (e.g., Gross 1973; Lyons 1974). I conclude with comments on a new critical scholarship for supra-area archaeology.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Barreto, Christiana, 1998, Brazilian archaeology from a Brazilian perspective. Antiquity 72: 573–582.
Benavides, O. Hugo, 2004, Making Ecuadorian Histories. Four Centuries of Defining Power. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Bennett, Wendell C., 1946, The Andean highlands: an introduction. In Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. 2, The Andean Civilizations, edited by Julian H. Steward, pp. 1–60. Bulletin 143. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Bennett, Wendell C., (ed.), 1948, A Reappraisal of Peruvian Archaeology. Memoir 4. Society for American Archaeology, Menasha.
Bhabha, Homi K., 1994, The Location of Culture. Routledge, London and New York.
Bruhns, Karen Olsen, 1994, Ancient South America. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Castillo Butters, Luis Jaime and Elias Mujica Barreda, 1995, Peruvian archaeology: crisis or development? SAA Bulletin 13 (3): 18–20. Society for American Archaeology.
Cooper, John M., 1941, Temporal sequence and the marginal cultures. Anthropological Series, Number 10. The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.
Cooper, John M., 1942, Areal and temporal aspects of South American culture. Primitive Man 15 (1–2): 1–38. Catholic Anthropological Conference, Washington, D.C.
Dillehay, Tom D., 1977, Tawantinsuyu integration of the Chillon Valley, Peru: a case of Inca geo-political mastery. Journal of Field Archaeology 4 (4): 397–405.
Dillehay, Tom D., 1979, Pre-hispanic resource sharing in the Central Andes. Science 204: 24–31.
Dillehay, Tom D., 1989, Monte Verde. A Late Pleistocene Settlement in Chile. 2 volumes. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.
Dillehay, Tom D., 2001, Town and country in late Moche times: a view from two northern valleys. In Moche Art and Archaeology in Ancient Peru, edited by Joanne Pillsbury, pp. 259–283. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Dillehay, Tom D., 2004, Social landscape and ritual pause. Uncertainty and integration in Formative Peru. Journal of Social Archaeology 4 (2): 239–268.
Dillehay, Tom D., in press, Latin American archaeology in history and practice.
Dillehay, Tom D., et al., 1992, Earliest hunters and gatherers of South America. Journal of World Prehistory 6 (2): 145–204.
Fladmark, Knut, 1979, Routes: alternate migration corridors for Early Man in North America. American Antiquity 44: 55–69.
Ford Foundation, 1999, Crossing Borders. Revitalizing Area Studies. Ford Foundation. http://www.fordfound.org/publications/recent_articles/docs/crossingborders.pdf (accessed 7 April 7 2005)
Fried, Morton H., 1967, The Evolution of Political Society. Random House, New York.
Funari, Pedro Paulo A., 1999, Brazilian archaeology: a reappraisal. In Archaeology in Latin America, edited by Gustavo G. Politis and Benjamin Alberti, pp. 17–37. Routledge, London and New York.
Funari, Pedro Paulo A., 2005, Reassessing archaeological significance. Heritage of value and archaeology of renown in Brazil. In Heritage of Value, Archaeology of Renown. Reshaping Archaeological Assessment and Significance, edited by Clay Mathers, Timothy Darvill, and Barbara J. Little, pp. 125–136. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
Gathercole, Peter, 1994, Introduction. In The Politics of the Past, edited by Peter Gathercole and David Lowenthal, pp. 1–6. Routledge, London and New York.
Gnecco, Cristóbal, 1999, Archaeology and historical multivocality. A reflection from the Colombian multicultural context. In Archaeology in Latin America, edited by Gustavo G. Politis and Benjamin Alberti, pp. 258–270. Routledge, London and New York.
Gnecco, Cristóbal, 2005, Announcement published in Archaeologies. Journal of the World Archaeological Congress 1 (1): 127–128.
Gross, Daniel (ed.), 1973, Peoples and Cultures of Native South America. Natural History Press, Garden City, NY.
Haas, Jonathan and Winifred Creamer, 2004, Cultural transformations in the Central Andean Late Archaic. In Andean Archaeology, edited by Helaine Silverman, pp. 35–50. Blackwell, Malden, MA.
Hamilakis, Yannis, 2005, Whose world and whose archaeology: the colonial present and the return of the political. Archaeologies. Journal of the World Archaeological Congress 1 (2): 94–101.
Helms, Mary W., 1976, Ancient Panama. Chiefs in Search of Power. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Hewett, Edgar Lee, 1939, Ancient Andean Life. Bobbs-Merrill, New York.
Heyerdahl, Thor, Daniel H. Sandweiss, and Alfredo Narvaez, 1995, Pyramids of Tucume. The Quest for Peru’s Forgotten City. Thames and Hudson, New York.
Isbell, William H. and Helaine Silverman, 2002a, Theorizing variations in Andean sociopolitical organization. In Andean Archaeology I: Variations in Sociopolitical Organization, edited by William H. Isbell and Helaine Silverman, pp. 3–11. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York.
Isbell, William H. and Helaine Silverman, 2002b, Writing the Andes with a capital ‘A’. In Andean Archaeology I: Variations in Sociopolitical Organization, edited by William H. Isbell and Helaine Silverman, pp. 371–380. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York.
Isbell, William H. and Helaine Silverman, 2006a, Regional patterns. In Andean Archaeology III: North and South, pp. 3–19. Springer, New York.
Isbell, William H. and Helaine Silverman, 2006b, Rethinking the Central Andean co-tradition. In Andean Archaeology III: North and South, pp. 497–518. Springer, New York.
Jennings, Jesse D., 1978, Ancient South Americans. W. H. Freeman, New York.
Jett, Stephen C., 1978, Precolumbian transoceanic contacts. In Ancient South Americans, edited by Jesse D. Jennings, pp. 337–393. W. H. Freeman, New York.
Johnson, Allen W. and Timothy Earle, 1987, The Evolution of Human Societies. From Foraging Group to Agrarian State. Stanford University Press, Stanford.
Joyce, Thomas A., 1912, South American Archaeology. An Introduction to the Archaeology of the South American Continent With Special Reference to the Early History of Peru. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York.
JPRI (Japan Policy Research Institute), 2005, About area studies and Japan. A dialogue between Chalmers Johnson and Hidenori Ijiri. JPRI Occasional Paper, No. 34 (August 2005). http://www.jpri.org/publications/occasionalpapers/op34.html (accessed 7 April 2005)
Kroeber, A. L., 1939, Cultural and Natural Area of Native North America. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 38.
Lathrap, Donald W., 1970, The Upper Amazon. Praeger, New York.
Lathrap, Donald W., 1973, The antiquity and importance of long-distance trade relationships in the moist tropics of pre-Columbian South America. World Archaeology 5 (2): 170–186.
Lathrap, Donald W., 1974, The moist tropics, the arid lands, and the appearance of great art styles in the New World. In Art and Environment in Native America, edited by Mary Elizabeth King and Idris B. Traylor, pp. 115–158. Special Publications, No. 7. Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock.
Lathrap, Donald W., 1985, Jaws: the control of power in the early Nuclear American ceremonial center. In Early Ceremonial Architecture in the Andes, edited by Christopher B. Donnan, pp. 241–267. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C.
Lekson, Stephen H. and Peter N. Peregrine, 2004, A continental perspective for North American archaeology. The SAA Archaeological Record 4 (1): 15–19. Society for American Archaeology.
López Mazz, José M., 1999, Some aspects of the French influence upon Uruguayan and Brazilian archaeology. In Archaeology in Latin America, edited by Gustavo G. Politis and Benjamin Alberti, pp. 38–58. Routledge, London and New York.
Lowenthal, David, 1994, Conclusion: archaeologists and others. In The Politics of the Past, edited by Peter Gathercole and David Lowenthal, pp. 302–314. Routledge, London and New York.
Lowie, Robert H., 1948, The tropical forests: an introduction. In Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. III, The Tropical Forest Tribes, edited by Julian H. Steward, pp. 1–56. Bulletin 143. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Ludden, David, 1999, Why area studies? http://www.sas.upenn.edu/wdludden/whyarea.htm (accessed 7 April 2005)
Ludden, David, 2001, Area studies in the age of globalization. http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~dludden/GlobalizationAndAreaStudies.htm (accessed 7 April 2005)
Lumbreras, Luis G., 1981, Arqueologia de la América Andina. Editorial Milla Batres, Lima.
Lyon, Patricia (ed.), 1974, Native South Americans: Ethnology of the Least-Known Continent. Little, Brown, Boston.
Mamani Condori, Carlos, 1989, History and prehistory in Bolivia: what about the Indians? In Conflict in the Archaeology of Living Traditions, edited by Robert Layton, pp. 46–59. Routledge, London and New York.
Marcos, Jorge, 1977–78, Cruising to Acapulco and back with the Thorny Oyster set: a model for lineal exchange systems. Journal of the Steward Anthropological Society 9 (1–2): 99–132.
Meggers, Betty, 1992, Prehistoria Sudamericana. Nuevas Perspectivas. Taraxacum, Washington, D.C.
Orlove, Benjamin, 2002, Editorial. Spatial and temporal scales and cultural processes in area studies. Current Anthropology 43 (2): 349–350.
Patterson, Thomas C., 1986a, The last sixty years: towards a social history of Americanist archaeology in the United States. American Anthropologist 88 (1): 7–26.
Patterson, Thomas C., 1986b, Some postwar theoretical trends in U.S. archaeology. Culture 6 (1): 43–54.
Patterson, Thomas C., 1989, Political economy and a discourse called ‘Peruvian archaeology’. Culture and History 4: 35–64.
Patterson, Thomas C., 1995, Archaeology, history, indigenismo, and the state in Peru and Mexico. In Making Alternative Histories. The Practice of Archaeology and History in Non-Western Settings, edited by Peter R. Schmidt and Thomas C. Patterson, pp. 69–85. School of American Research, Santa Fe.
Patterson, Thomas C., 1996, Conceptual differences between Mexican and Peruvian archaeology. American Anthropologist 98 (3): 499–505.
Politis, Gustavo G., 1999, Introduction: Latin American archaeology: an inside view. In Archaeology in Latin America, edited by Gustavo G. Politis and Benjamin Alberti, pp. 1–13. Routledge, London and New York.
Politis, Gustavo G., 2003, The theoretical landscape and the methodological development of archaeology in Latin America. American Antiquity 68 (2): 245–272.
Radin, Paul, 1942, Indians of South America. Doubleday, Doran, New York.
Ranere, Anthony J. and Richard G. Cooke, 2003, Late Glacial and Early Holocene occupation of Central American tropical forests. In Under the Canopy. The Archaeology of Tropical Rain Forests, edited by Julio Mercader, pp. 219–248. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick.
Ribeiro, Darcy, 1968, The Civilizational Process. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.
Ribeiro, Darcy, 1970, The civilizational process and the culture-historical configurations of the American peoples. Current Anthropology 11 (3/4): 403–434.
Ribeiro, Darcy, 1972, The Americas and Civilization. E. P. Dutton, New York.
Rouse, Irving, 1948, The Arawak. In Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. IV, The Circum-Caribbean Tribes, edited by Julian H. Steward, pp. 507–546. Bulletin 143. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Rouse, Irving, 1948, The Carib. In Handbook of South American Indians, Volume IV, The Circum-Caribbean Tribes, edited by Julian H. Steward, pp. 547–565. Bulletin 143. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Salazar, Ernesto, 1995, Between crisis and hope: archaeology in Ecuador. SAA Bulletin 13 (4): 34–37. Society for American Archaeology.
Salomon, Frank and Stuart B. Schwartz (eds.), 1999, Introduction. The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas. Volume III, Part 1: South America, edited by Frank Salomon and Stuart B. Schwartz, pp. 1–18. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Sandweiss, Daniel H., 1992, The Archaeology of Chincha Fishermen: Specialization and Status in Inka Peru. Bulletin of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, No. 29. Pittsburgh.
Sandweiss, Daniel H., 1996, The development of fishing specialization on the Central Andean coast. In Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherer Fishing Strategies, edited by Mark G. Plew, pp. 41–63. Department of Anthropology, Boise State University, Boise.
Sandweiss, Daniel H., et al., 1998, Quebrada Jaguay: early South American maritime adaptations. Science 281: 1830–1832.
Scarre, Chris, 1994, The western world view in archaeological atlases. In The Politics of the Past, edited by P. Gathercole and D. Lowenthal, pp. 11–18. Routledge, London and New York.
Service, Elman R., 1962, Primitive Social Organization. Random House, New York.
Shady, Ruth, 2006, America’s first city? The case of Late Archaic Caral. In Andean Archaeology III: North and South, edited by William H. Isbell and Helaine Silverman, pp. 28–66. Blackwell, Malden, MA.
Slocum, Karla and Deborah A. Thomas, 2003, Rethinking global and area studies: insights from Caribbeanist anthropology. American Anthropologist 105 (3): 553–565.
Smith, Claire, 2005, The World Archaeological Congress: extending the vision. Archaeologies. Journal of the World Archaeological Congress 1 (1): 130–138.
Steward, Julian H., 1938, Basin-Plateau Aboriginal Sociopolitical Groups. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 120. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Steward, Julian H., 1942, The direct historical approach to archaeology. American Antiquity 7 (4): 337–343.
Steward, Julian H., (ed.), 1946a, Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. I, The Marginal Tribes. Bulletin 143. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Steward, Julian H., (ed.), 1946b, Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. II, The Andean Civilizations. Bulletin 143. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Steward, Julian H., (ed.), 1948a, Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. III, The Tropical Forest Tribes, Bulletin 143. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Steward, Julian H., (ed.), 1948b, Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. IV, The Circum-Caribbean Tribes. Bulletin 143. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Steward, Julian H., 1948c, The Circum-Caribbean tribes: An Introduction. In Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. IV, The Circum-Caribbean Tribes, edited by Julian H. Steward, pp. 1–41. Bulletin 143. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Steward, Julian H., 1948d, A functional-developmental classification of American high cultures. In A Reappraisal of Peruvian Archaeology, edited by Wendell C. Bennett, pp. 103–104. Memoir 4. Society for American Archaeology, Menasha.
Steward, Julian H., 1949a, South American cultures: an interpretative summary. In Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. V, The Comparative Anthropology of South American Indians, edited by Julian H. Steward, pp. 669–772. Bulletin 143. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Steward, Julian H., 1949b, Development of complex societies: cultural causality and law: a trial formulation of the development of early civilizations. American Anthropologist 51 (1): 1–27. (reprinted in 1955 in Theory of Culture Change. The Methodology of Multilinear Evolution by Julian H. Steward, pp. 178–209. University of Illinois Press, Urbana) [Steward 1955a]
Steward, Julian H., 1950, Area Research. Social Science Research Council, New York.
Steward, Julian H., 1951, Levels of sociocultural integration: an operational concept. Southwest Journal of Anthropology 7: 374–390. (reprinted in 1955 in Theory of Culture Change. The Methodology of Multilinear Evolution by Julian H. Steward, pp. 43–63. University of Illinois Press, Urbana) [Steward 1955b]
Steward, Julian H., 1953, Multilinear evolution: evolution and process. In Anthropology Today: An Encyclopedic Inventory, edited by A. L. Kroeber, pp. 313–326. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. (reprinted in 1955 in Theory of Culture Change. The Methodology of Multilinear Evolution by Julian H. Steward, pp. 11–29. University of Illinois Press, Urbana) [Steward 1955c]
Steward, Julian H., 1955d, Culture area and cultural type in aboriginal America: methodological considerations. In Theory of Culture Change. The Methodology of Multilinear Evolution, by Julian H. Steward, pp. 78–97. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
Steward, Julian H., 1955e, Analysis of complex contemporary societies: culture patterns of Puerto Rico. In Theory of Culture Change. The Methodology of Multilinear Evolution, by Julian H. Steward, pp. 210–222. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
Steward, Julian H., 1956, Cultural evolution. Scientific American 194: 69–80.
Steward, Julian H., 1960a, Introduction. In The Irrigation Civilizations: A Symposium on Method and Result in Cross-Cultural Regularities, by Julian H. Steward et al., pp. 1–5. Pan American Union, Washington, D.C.
Steward, Julian H., 1960b, Some implications of the symposium. In The Irrigation Civilizations: A Symposium on Method and Result in Cross-Cultural Regularities, by Julian H. Steward et al., pp. 58–78. Pan American Union, Washington, D.C.
Steward, Julian H., 1960c, Evolutionary principles and social types. In Evolution After Darwin, Volume 2, edited by Sol Tax. pp. 169–186. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Steward, Julian H., 1970, Cultural evolution in South America. In The Social Anthropology of Latin America: Essays in Honor of Ralph L. Beals, edited by Walter Goldschmidt and Harry Hoijer, pp. 199–223. University of California Press, Berkeley.
Steward, Julian H., 1972, The concept and method of cultural ecology. In Theory of Culture Change. The Methodology of Multilinear Evolution, by Julian H. Steward, pp. 30–42. University of Illinois Press, Urbana. [originally 1968]
Steward, Julian H., and Louis C. Faron, 1959, Native Peoples of South America. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Steward, Julian H., and Frank M. Setzler, 1938, Function and configuration in archaeology. American Antiquity 4 (1): 4–10.
Thomas, Brian W., 2001, African-American tradition and community in the Antebellum South. In The Archaeology of Tradition. Agency and History Before and After Columbus, edited by Timothy R. Pauketat, pp. 16–33. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
Uceda, Santiago and Elías Mujica (eds.), 1994, Moche. Propuestas y Perspectivas. Universidad Nacional de La Libertad, Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos, Asociación Peruana para el Fomento de las Ciencias Sociales, Trujillo and Lima.
Uceda, Santiago and Elías Mujica (eds.), 2003, Moche Hacia el Final del Milenio, 2 volumes. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and Universidad Nacional de Trujillo, Lima and Trujillo.
Vargas Arena, Iraida and Mario Sanoja, 1999, Archaeology as a social science. Its expression in Latin America. In Archaeology in Latin America, edited by Gustavo G. Politis and Benjamin Alberti, pp. 59–75. Routledge, London and New York.
Webbink, Paul, 1950, Foreword. In Area Research by Julian Steward, pp. vii–ix. Social Science Research Council, New York.
Willey, Gordon R., 1953, Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Virú Valley, Peru. Bulletin 155. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Willey, Gordon R., 1971, An Introduction to American Archaeology, Vol. 2, South America. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Williams, Denis, 1996, Archaeology in the Guianas. SAA Bulletin 14 (1): 10–12. Society for American Archaeology.
Wilson, David J., 1999, Indigenous South Americans of the Past and Present. An Ecological Perspective. Westview, Boulder.
Wissler, Clark, 1917, The American Indian: An Introduction to the Anthropology of the New World. D. C. McMurtrie, New York.
Wissler, Clark, 1938, The American Indian. Third edition. Oxford University Press, New York.
Yacobaccio, Hugo Daniel, 1994, Argentinian archaeology: the last 20 years. SAA Bulletin 12 (4): 10–11.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Silverman, H. (2008). Continental Introduction. In: Silverman, H., Isbell, W.H. (eds) The Handbook of South American Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-74907-5_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-74907-5_1
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-74906-8
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-74907-5
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)