Introduction
With the advent of domestic horticulture among the human groups that occupied the deep nutrient-rich river basins of the Northern Andes, the process of Neolithization began in this area. From what we know at present, the Archaic began around 8000 years BP and continued until 5500 BP.
This process in the Northern Andes is relatively short, just about 2500 years. New data allow us to suggest that the Archaic did not end in the date that we have traditionally established, but that it continued in some parts while it had already disappeared in others. With this in mind, our research topic seeks to compare and contrast new and old data in order to revise issues that remain unsolved, as well as to think on what still remains to be done in this area and identify research problems. To reach this goal, we have divided the topic into two sub-topics.
Sub-Topics
Climatic and Environmental Conditions During the Archaic
The earliest sites known in the Northern Andes are located in different regions inhabited by hunter-gatherers that exploited different ecotones. However, the presence of modified seeds beginning in 8000 BP shows that those people had knowledge about the behavior of the climate and were already experimenting with wild plants.
The available data for reconstructing the paleoclimate and the paleoenvironment of those archaeological sites is still insufficient. The data we have is regional and covers the Early and Middle Holocene climate in the high Andes, which is similar in the entire area. However, the volcanic activity of the Northern Andes has not yet been considered, nor the impact of the ENSO phenomenon in the societies that lived in the interior parts of the coast and the highlands, the fluctuations of sea level, and the tectonic uplift that formed the system of deltas in different parts of the northern Andean coast. All of these must be considered for understanding the development of those human societies.
The Archaic in the Coast, the High Andes, the Western and Eastern Foothills, and the Upper Amazon
At present, the beginning of the Archaic has not been established, nor have we established different stages for the long period of time during which early peoples were living in the area. We do know that the Archaic in the northern coast ended around 5500 BP while it continued in the high Andes until about 3400 years BP.
New sites dating between 7000 BP in the coast and the western Andean foothills, and 5500 BP in the high Andes, generate questions such as when did the Archaic begin? and can we establish chronological stages?
If the Archaic in the Northern Andes is earlier on the coast, then those groups of people migrated to other regions and could be the colonizers of areas that were populated later. In order to approach this idea, there’s a number of questions that we would like to deal with in this meeting. For example:
• Were there material culture differences among Archaic groups?
• If they existed, did they derive from different adaptive processes?
• What are the indicators of change that we can use to differentiate those groups?
Because archaeological evidence shows that artifacts come from other regions, this indicates that human groups were on the move, something that can be supported by ancient DNA studies.
OpenEdition le sugiere que cite este post de la siguiente manera:
danielabalanzategui (16 de noviembre de 2021). From the Archaic to the Formative. Andes Septentrionales: arqueología e historia. Recuperado 15 de abril de 2026 de https://doi.org/10.58079/sdxl
