Way of life and social complexity among ancient coastal groups of South America

Abstract

The archaic groups on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts initially subsisted on marine resources. At the Central Andres they showed monumentality, territoriality and sedentism, early adopting agriculture, a development that culminated in complex systems of socio-political organization, states and empires. In contrast, the most conspicuous monumentality at the Atlantic coast are the sambaquis that (even with sedentism, elaborate funerary rituals and monumental structures) do not show evidences of complex socio-political structures comparable to those from the Central Andes, being substituted by farmers coming from the inland.Through the reconstruction of the way of life of various prehistoric groups that inhabited different coastal ecosystems in South America, this project will distill the factors responsible for the initially marine dependent archaic societies to maintain this way of life or to eventually turn into complex societies. We therefore will compare bioarchaeologic markers regarding paleopathology, paleodiet and paleogenetics. The integration of these findings with archaeological data from the different regions will allow us to describe the processes of social complexification of each of the groups, as well as better comprehend which factors lead to different degrees of social complexification in distinct ecosystems of South America. (AU)