Who, when, how and where: studying the american peopling. The state of the debate viewed from latin america.

LAURA MIOTTI; FLEGENHEIMER, NORA

Florianópolis

Congreso; International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences; 2011

IUPPS y Sociedad de Arqueología Brasileña (SAB)

This presentation delves on the production, justification and legitimization of the study of the American peopling, through the analysis of five recent international symposia on “Early Man in America”. Four of these meetings took place in Mexico and the last one at the Museum of La Plata University. The central proposal is the deconstruction of the dichotomy center- borderline between the academic environment of the central countries and those of Latin America. This would contribute both to produce a more horizontal scenario in the international community and to broaden and enrich the interpretation of the archaeological record of the first settlers of the New World. In this presentation we address the evolution of the issues discussed at each meeting (archaeology, genetics, cranial morphology, paleoenvironments, history etc.) under this perspective. This analysis reveals that there are several reasons why South America is an excellent setting to construct knowledge about the first Americans. Yet, meetings dealing with this specific subject are poorly promoted in South America and Mexico and instead are strongly sustained/ in North America. We propose that the current effort should be continued through time and that it is crucial to think about/reflect on/consider the general frameworks we are applying, as well as what knowledge has been produced in the different countries from one event to the next. The challenge is to avoid that the basic information remains trapped in the countries which produce it and to advance its presentation in the arena of international theoretical discussion.