1st Edition

The Archaeology of Ancient Colombia The Earliest South Americans

316 Pages 154 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

316 Pages 154 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

316 Pages 154 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This volume reveals the hidden archaeological history of Colombia’s first inhabitants from the Ice Age through the Middle Holocene. It documents their extraordinary achievements as they settled and adapted to diverse and challenging environments, highlighting key developments including landscape management, plant domestication, mortuary traditions and social ritual, ceramic production,... Read more

List of Figures; Preface; Acknowledgements; Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 A Brief Introduction to the World of the Early Americans; Chapter 3 Climatic Evolution In Northwestern South America between the Last Glacial Maximum and the Late Holocene (⁓25.000–4000 BP); Chapter 4 Archaeological Chronology of Colombia from the Late Pleistocene to the Late Holocene; Chapter 5 Life between the End of the Ice Age and the Onset of the Holocene; Chapter 6 Traveling through the Archaic World: From the Early to the Middle Holocene;  Chapter 7 The "Neolithicization" of Colombia; Chapter 8 Conclusions; Biblography; Index.

Biography

Francisco Javier Aceituno Bocanegra is Full Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Antioquia (Colombia). He trained as a prehistoric archaeologist at the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), where he earned his PhD in Prehistoric Archaeology with a dissertation on the early peopling of the Colombian sub-Andean forests. His research focuses on the early peopling of Colombia, Early Holocene archaeology, human adaptation to tropical environments, and the processes of plant domestication in northern South America. His work is providing key insights into how northern South America—including the Colombian Amazon—was first settled, as well as evidence supporting Colombia as an early center of plant domestication. He has participated in archaeological projects in the Andean region, the Caribbean, and the Colombian Amazon, the latter as part of the international project The Last Journey. He has also collaborated with research initiatives in Spain, Panama, Argentina, and Peru. Dr. Aceituno is the author of numerous articles and book chapters (⁓85), particularly on Colombian archaeology, and has served as a reviewer for leading scientific journals such as PNAS and PLoS One.