The Southern Cone

POLITIS, G. Y P. MADRID

Encyclopedia of Archaeology

Elsevier Ltd

Lugar: Oxford, Inglaterra; Año: 2007; p. 417 - 428

This article is a synthesis the cultural development American Southern Cone (territories of Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Southern Brazil) from the early peopling until the European conquest in the XVI century by 12,500 years BP. Late Pleistocene foraging societies evolved through the Holocene in different ways, producing distinct historical trajectories in through an extended region with a great variety of environments (e.g. highlands, semi-desert coasts, lowlands with rainforests etc) Although foraging was the main subsistence strategy until the arrival of Europeans in Patagonia, the pampas,and in most parts of the campos and Chaco, during the Middle Holocene there are some evidence which suggest the use of domesticatted plants squash, maize, bean). Roughly at the same time camelids (llama and alpaca)were domesticated in in the South and Central Andes. These processes produced important changes in demography, settlement patterns, technology, and social organisation. Early villages were integrated in more complex systems linking settlement with different functions. This new organisation is known as the Formative Period and is characterised by a high degree of sedentarism and intensive pottery production. Little is known about the causes which produced the emergence of pottery in the Southern Andes. At 3,000-1,000 years BP, there is a diversification of pottery shapes and styles on both sides of the Andes. Subsequently, some of these societies reached a chiefdom level of socio-political organisation, and in the 15th century became part of the Inca Empire. During the next century, these populations were decimated by the Spanish Conquest and many were incorporated into a form of slavery. Episodes of intense resistance from local groups occurred in the early years of Conquest resulting in brutal repression from the Spaniards.