The Coastal Archaeology of South America

Abstract

Abstract Indigenous coastal communities in the Pacific, Caribbean, Atlantic, and Patagonian regions of South America sustainably fished, harvested shellfish and other marine species, and hunted sea lions for millennia. Considerable variation exists in the types of coastal archaeological sites found in these regions, ranging from small to large shell middens and shell rings to sedentary maritime villages to massive sambaqui (mortuary mounds). The authors summarize the environmental setting, chronology, and type of coastal and inland sites, and their function and meaning, extending from the western Pacific coast of Colombia to the Caribbean shores and the eastern Atlantic areas of Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina, as well as the southwest Pacific coastlines of Tierra del Fuego and Chile. They present information that early peoples exploited several of these areas by at least 8000 years ago after sea levels and shorelines stabilized, with complex social and economic institutions appearing after about 5000–4000 years ago. In late Holocene and colonial times, several of these areas were inhabited by sedentary peoples moving around seasonally and using an array of littoral and inland habitats.