Historical Ecology and Landscape Archaeology in Lowland South America (eBook)

This edited volume scrutinizes how pre-Columbian human societies have shaped and transformed lowland South America - contributing to biological and landscape diversity. This geographic area has supported human populations since at least the transition from the Pleistocene to Holocene, but the nature and scale of these interactions are matters of debate and their legacy to modern lowland environments is not fully understood.

This book brings together works from distinct disciplines, including theoretical and methodological approaches on single case studies or broad regional syntheses, with no chronological constraint. The editors aim to generate a novel contribution reporting the most recent and ground-breaking research on human interactions with past environments and resources in lowland South America, from pre-Columbian to Colonial times. The volume also discusses the legacy of these past interactions and their potential contribution to informing current conservation and development agendas, providing examples of how archaeology and paleoecology can fill gaps in conservation and developmental policy. This volume will be of interest to students, archaeologists, and readers of Latin American studies.

André Carlo Colonese is a Director of Research in the Department of Prehistory and the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universidade Autonoma de Barcelona (Spain). He specializes in environmental and molecular archaeology, utilizing zooarchaeology, light stable isotopes and organic residue analysis to gain insight into human-environment interactions and economic practices of the past. He has led several multidisciplinary research projects to assess the long-term development of small-scale fisheries in Brazil and their impact on present-day marine ecosystems and food security in the region. His research interests also include the study of early food production in tropical coastal areas of South America, and the role that Mediterranean coastal environments played in supporting Pleistocene and Holocene foragers and early farming communities in southern Europe. 

Rafael Milheira is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the Federal University of Pelotas (Brazil). He is also the head of the Laboratory of Teaching and Research in Anthropology and Archaeology (LEPAARQ-UFPEL) and a researcher for the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq-Brazil). His research focuses on the archaeology and long-term indigenous history of Patos and Mirim Lagoons in southern Brazil.