The Archaeology of the La Plata basin and neighborhood regions

BONOMO MARIANO; MILHEIRA, RAFAEL

Oxford Handbook of South American Archaeology

Oxford University Press

Lugar: New York; Año: 2019;

The Plata basin is the second largest river system of South America, with an area of 3,100,000 km2. The Paraná, Paraguay and Uruguay are the main rivers which run north-south, crossing forests, deserts, savannas, and grasslands and function as active biodiversity corridors between tropical and temperate regions. The Pilcomayo, Bermejo and Salado are other main rivers which cross the basin in a predominantly west-east direction and connect the eastern slope of the Andean highlands with the lowlands of the Pantanal wetland, the Chaco plain and the alluvial plain of the Paraná. Without major barriers through eastern South America, this huge basin was the natural scenario of a broad cultural diversity. Numerous shared cultural features denote a recurrent connection between different ethnolinguistic groups, a fluid transmission of knowledge, and continuous exchange of goods and large-scale population movements.