Presented at the 2008 Berlin Conference on Global Sedentism Do not cite without permission of the author.

Prehispanic Sedentism(s) and Complexity in South America Tom D. Dillehay Introduction It is difficult to address the concept of sedentism and emergent social complexity in South America, since there are many trajectories and types of sedentisms across the continent, and they are rarely well defined and reasoned in the literature. In addition, there is a wide range of terminology of the study of sedentary societies that is often used ambiguously and inconsistently. The majority of studies presume sedentism if certain traits are present: for example, multiple burials, thick midden deposits, location in an area of abundant resources, traces of cultigens, the construction of dwellings with postholds, stone linings, interior hearths, and/or the use of increasing numbers of ground stone tools for processing plants. Despite this limitation, there are new discoveries and interpretations that are significant and can be synthesized and related to broader topics in the discipline. As with many topical areas of anthropology and archeology, studies of sedentism in South America have no single, coherent paradigm (other than the concept implies increased complexity and permanent residency) with which to explain behavioral variability among sedentary hunter-gatherers, horticulturalists, fishers, or pastoralists and to set common research goals. There are, instead, multiple sometimes partially overlapping approaches, ranging from strongly materialist to mildly postmodernist (c.f., Aldenderfer 2006; Feldman 1980; Moseley 1975; Zeidler 1998). As a consequence, the study of sedentism lacks coherence and consistency. There also is incoherence because of the strong particularism of much work in South America. This is not to deny the importance of particularistic studies; they are essential. However, the ultimate result of particularism in the absence of a consensual framing paradigm for sedentism is the accumulation of data often without a clear purpose. It is the absence of such a paradigm that makes assessment of the South American record more difficult. I will not offer a connecting paradigm for South America. Rather, I will summarize the major findings from each region and explain what we learn from them. I also will identify commonalties and differences between regions. In addition to widespread variability in the different developmental trajectories of sedentism in South America, there also are different functionally and spatially segmented components of sedentism, ranging from burial sedentism and ceremonial sedentism to domestic or occupational sedentism. That is, many sites may reflect sedentism in their burial and ceremonial patterning but not necessarily in their occupational patterning and vice versa. As discussed later, some sedentary communities were inclusive and incorporated all components, while others were exclusive and segmented them. It was not Vanderbilt University, USA

until all components were coordinated, coalesced, and co-dependent spatially and functionally into a fully sedentary community that higher levels of social and economic complexity were reached. Before discussing these issues, I provide a general understanding of the concept of sedentism and review its relevance to South America (and hopefully beyond). A Sense of Sedentism When scholars discuss sedentism, they almost always imply occupational sedentism, as opposed to burial and ceremonial sedentisms. Why is an understanding of sedentism important? Because we presume it not only represents the culmination of a long cultural process of foragers settling down in certain environments but triggers others toward the rise of civilization. In the past few decades, the archaeological study of sedentism has focused mainly on the economy and degree of permanent residency, emphasizing settlement patterns, catchment analysis, and exchange systems (e.g., Aldenderfer 2002; Bender 1978; Lima and Mazz 2000; Raymond 1998). Since the 1990s, there has been a return to the organizational aspects of sedentism and the integration of sedentary sites with their outlying territory (e.g., Hayden 1995; Kelley 1995; Richerson et al. 2001). These studies suggest that there has never been a clear distinction between the edge of sedentary sites and their exploited territories, and that sedentary sites are variably interdigitated socially and economically with their surrounding neighbors. Thus, the effective boundaries of sedentary sites may be quite different, depending on the criteria in use, with economic boundaries (e.g., territory representing the source of most exploited resources) differing from social boundaries (e.g., catchment area of individuals and outlying sites linked with the site). As revealed in ethnographic studies (Bettinger 1991; Kelly 1995; Lee and Richard 1999), the concept of a firm sedentary and non-sedentary divide, is problematic when the same individuals or groups may have moved back and forth from one setting to another. The threshold at which a community became sedentary is more difficult to determine than it might appear. To those studying past hunter-gatherers, the conferral of sedentary status upon a site establishes an implicit judgment of size, permanency, complexity, and importance in the landscape. Further, a quest to identify an exact catalyst for sedentism formation poses not only an intractable problem of firsts but also obscures the question of sustainability of sedentism. Thus, the question of how to define a sedentary site and how to determine its origins are strongly linked. In the ethnographic literature, no single factor of opportunity or compulsion appears to explain sedentism. A variety of push and pull factors seem to influence its emergence: the development of economies of scale, conflict, and the opportunity to use a site as a logistical base of transit to other resource zones or as a permanent burial or ceremonial place spatially separate from domestic places. All of these factors may be present in the initial development of a sedentary site, although the specific historical circumstances of a given locale may be a combination of political, economic, demographic, religious, social, and environmental factors that may not be replicated elsewhere (e.g., Fitzhugh 2003: cf., Rowley-Conwy 2001). Sedentary sites, as the focal point of concentrated populations seeking improved

opportunities for communication, social ties, and economic gain, appear instead to have been generated by a combination of uncertainty mingled with opportunity. Sedentary sites also may appear for a variety of reasons such as places of exchange, public ceremony, strategic location, and cemetery spaces. However, sedentism must be broken down into its consistent variables, so that different forms of its emergence can be distinguished, and different degrees and types of sedentism and complexity can be identified. In archeology, sedentism is often associated with complex foragers and horticulturalists or incipient agriculturalists (Arnold 1996; Bentley et al. 2003; Boehm 1999; Keeley 1995; Lansing 2003; Lee 1981; Price 1995). Mound-building by complex foragers also is seen as either egalitarian or non-egalitarian projects that integrated groups, enhanced corporate group identity, and served to ritually and spatially separate groups from the outside world (Scarre 2002; Sassaman et al. 2008; Milner 2004). Some scholars have argued that there is a congruence between early monuments and complex foraging groups who practiced agriculture (e.g., Sherratt 1990). That is, large scale architecture was essential for the creation of community among foragers who were beginning to incorporate crops and to need permanent central foci such as public monuments and places to integrate dispersed residential groupings. Studies also indicate that some complex foraging societies actively reproduced and transformed their own histories through daily and commemorative acts at monuments (Thomas 1991: Rowley-Conwy 2001). Such monuments may have served their communities for many generations as the burial places of founding ancestors, as communal ossuaries, and as a continuing focus for public ritual beyond the household and community levels. In short, these recent notions identify complex forager behaviors, either on the verge of living a sedentary life or already having one, as not simply responses to the natural environment but also as strategic choices among a variety of feasible options in which inter-societal relations are critical variables. It also has been suggested that groups relying on fishing or those with a strong emphasis on marine resources are more likely to be sedentary and to exhibit more indicators of complexity (Arnold 1996; Kelly 1995; c.f., Moseley 1975). Similar arguments can be made for sedentary herders (Nunez 2008). Unless dependent on a permanent source of maritime or aquatic food resources, most sedentary communities must have depended on food production to some degree, implying agricultural and/or pastoral practices, and resided permanently in one place. Given the lack of resources to compel residence in a place of concentrated population and the potential disadvantages of sedentism (e.g., increased exposure to diseases, potential social conflict), a key to the success of sedentism must lie in its social aspects and the way in which they were configured by different, often competing individuals or groups. Sedentism thus brings substantial changes to concentrated populations. In addition to increased site size, sedentary locales also were new physical configurations, such as the juxtaposition of public and private space, or the architectural identifiers of incipient social differentiation. Based on ethnographic studies (Lee and Richard 1999), we know that they also included fundamental transformations in human relations as kin-based social networks may have become more formalized and supplemented by other types of social networks, and the

way in which the perception of improved opportunities must have drawn individuals and households into sedentary communities. Individuals and households could have increased their network of contacts through a variety of groups whose organizing principles were based on self-selection of members acting on shared criteria such as religion, occupation, and social affinities. Such associations probably allowed a restructuring or recreation of social relations within a site whether created as a cooperative, religious group, or other voluntary society. Lastly, sedentary sites did not necessarily require a formal authority of political organization, only some level of labor investment, and a sustainable social network afterward. This does not mean that leaders were absent from the process of site organization; rather leadership was probably composed of power relations between social and religious entities as well as other groups that also used the sedentary context to establish authority and compete for symbolic leadership through the administration of territory. At the inception of sites shamans and other ritual specialists may have provided a supernatural setting and sense of purpose to the site social and physical landscape. Incipient leaders were likely to associate themselves with religious activities and architecture, and the link between religion and authority was often subsequently taken over by leaders (see Moore 1996). A Vision of Sedentism(s) in South America Although there is no one definition of sedentism in South America, there is a minimal sense of what sedentism implies. As I see it, a definition that best fits this sense is drawn from literature outside of South America. That is, Sedentism implies an almost or an entirely year-round occupation of a locality in proximity to perennial water sources, often with a large variety of food resources [including cultigens in some regions] within a reasonable distance, with access to more remote resources (meaning established mutual relationships with neighboring groups). Sedentism often means the construction of permanent dwellings and storage facilities, although their mere presence is not necessarily an indication of permanent site occupation (Bar Yosef and Meadow 2005: 186). (This definition speaks only to occupational sedentism and not to burial or ceremonial places.) In expanding on this definition for parts of South America (e.g., Andes, parts of Amazonia), where sedentary groups were more complex and established the foundations of incipient civilization, sedentism implies more. For instance, both production and consumption patterns formed the basis of a sedentary economy; there was participation in public programs such as social gatherings which affirmed the effectiveness of an organizing capacity if not a temporary authority; and in some areas of the Andes, communal labor permitted the manifestation of a sedentary ethos as constructed through public monuments and practical infrastructures (e.g., roads, storage facilities). As the meeting place for larger, denser populations, sedentary sites also represented new social and economic orders, in which a larger group and more and different activities coexisted. That is, the resultant social networks, economic activities, and political opportunities were concentrated in a locus of relatively dense population, by hunter-gatherer standards, where the process of daily life took place as part of a physical landscape that formed and was formed by a negotiated consensus between households

and different local and perhaps distant groups. These negotiated relations must have lead to co-dependencies between different sites, different types of societies (e.g., foragers, fishers, farmers, hunters), and different institutions, which I see as an important criterion of more complex forms of sedentism in many parts of South America, particularly the central Andes. Other variables are important too. As in many other regions of the world, agriculture and, in parts of the central and south-central Andes, a maritime economy (Moseley 1975, 1992; Llagostera 1999) and pastoralism (Aldenderfer 1998; Yacobaccio 2008; Wheeler 1999) are hailed as the underlying economic foundations of complex societies. Understanding the forces and circumstances that led to the shift (transition) from food procurement to agriculture-, pastoral-, and/or agropastoral-based food production is important. Exchange networks also would have been extended between settled communities, drawing in desired resources from distance places. That is, a growing investment in sedentary life probably went hand in hand with the expansion of social networks between different settlements, and a broadened exploitation of plant and animal species within their surrounding habitats. It also appears that the capacities for human interaction in concentrated, settled locations, whether they be maritime, agricultural, or pastoral were exercised within a limited set of parameters. People apparently developed different kinds of sedentism in many parts of South America, independently, yet the resulting site forms often exhibit similarities in the organization of space (e.g., open plazas) and, where present, the placement of symbolic and monumental architecture in prominent locations. These physical similarities were likely a manifestation of underlying principles that proved fundamental to the organization of concentrated populations. These also include the stipulation of perceived short-term and long-term benefits, investment in the physical realms of portable objects and space to signify social action, and the use of networks to increase information transfer (Arnold 1996; Sherratt 1990). Based on these understandings, I now briefly review the patterns of sedentism at key site types for the major regions across South America, and then I try to place them the Andean past. Regional Sedentisms in South America Figure 1 depicts the major physiographic regions of South America. Figures 2 and 3 show the location of sites discussed. It is impossible in this brief essay to give adequate coverage to all regions. Thus, only major sites exemplary of major tendencies are presented. All radiocarbon dates are uncalibrated. I will not review the paleo-ecology of the Holocene period and all domesticated crops and animals in South America. Recent review summaries provide these findings (see Acha et al. 2004; Bush and Fenley 2007; Clapperton 1993; Seltzer et al. 2002 for climate and Hastorf 1999; Pearsall 2003; Piperno 1998 for plant domestication), although I will occasionally specify certain species when relevant to the presentation.

The most prominent physiographic features in South America are the Andean mountains running the full-length of the western side of the continent. Interspersed among mountain ranges are temperate valleys and, in the higher and more southern latitudes, are the puna and altiplano grasslands where camelid herding predominates. In the eastern side of the continent are the Brazilian highlands. There also is the vast tropical forest that spans the Amazon basin and most of the eastern lowlands from the Caribbean to northern Argentina and southern Bolivia. Father south are the grassland steppes of the Argentine Pampa and Patagonian plains in Argentina and Chile. The entire coastline of South America provides a wealth of marine resources, especially along the coasts of Peru and Chile. The Northwest Mountains and Tropics Evidence suggests that a settled lifeway began early in the tropical lowlands of the northwest, compared to most other areas of the Americas. In northern Colombia and western Ecuador semi-sedentary to sedentary sites were developed between 6,000 and 5,000 B.P. Along the Pacific coast of Panama a settled lifeway emerged slightly later around 5,000 to 4,500 B.P. Although the ecological settings differ among these regions, they are located in tropical settings close to maritime and estuary resources. Specifically, the shell midden site of Cerro Mangote, located on the Pacific coast of Panama and dated ~6,000 B.P., suggests a sedentary lifeway based primarily on a fishing economy (McGimsey 1956). Maize, manioc (Manihot esculenta), arrowroot (Maranta arundinacea L.), and yams (Dioscorea sp.) have been identified as cultigens dating to the same time period at other sites in Panama (Piperno and Jones 2003; Piperno and Pearsall 1998), suggesting semi-sedentism to sedentism. In Colombia, most known sedentary sites are near the Caribbean coast in estuarine environments indicative of a fishing economy. A classic example is the shell midden site of Puerto Hormiga that dates ~5,100 B.P. Research in the lower Magdalena Valley of Colombia reveals several sites associated with early pottery, a trait though to be indicative of sedentism. One of the earliest is San Jacinto l, dated to ~4000 B.P. and located on a small tributary of the Magdalena River (Figure 4). This site has been interpreted as a special-purpose campsite that was inhabited seasonally to harvest annual plants that grew in the floodplain (Oyuela-Caycedo and Bonzani 2005). The complex technologies evidenced at this site suggest it was part of a wider, perhaps more sedentary lifeway. In the highlands of Colombia, permanent settlements as evidenced by thicker midden deposits, a wide array of artifacts, formal activity areas and house structures, and some cultigens, are thought to be appear later between ~3,000 and 2,000 B.P. (Bruhns 2003; Correal Urrego 2000; Lippi 2003; Raymond 1998). No formal public spaces or monuments have been recorded at any early sites in Panama and Colombia. Along the Caribbean coast of Venezuela, several sites of the middle Holocene Saladoid period (~2,650 B.P.) may have had a semi-sedentary lifeway based on marine and estuary resources (Rostain and Versteeg 2004). Farther inland along the middle Orinoco River, there is some evidence of seasonal semisedentism associated with riverine hunting and gathering and perhaps manioc production (Vargas 1981). By 1600 B.P., agricultural villages and residential mounds were present and associated with maize and cotton production (Roosevelt 1980). Similar patterns

developed in the Venezulea Andes, Llanos, and other regions, varying in emphasis on hunting-gathering, fishing, and cultivation (Navarrete 2008). One of the best documented cases for incipient sedentism is located in the coastal region of southwestern Ecuador along the alluvial plains of the Guayaquil Basin. The region is characterized by a dry tropical littoral environment. The earliest evidence comes from the Santa Elena Peninsula where house structures and a mixed economy of hunting, foraging, fishing, and plant cultivation (e.g., bottle gourd, Lagenaria siceraria) have been documented at sites of the Las Vegas culture, dated between ~10,500 and 6,600 B.P. Plant and animal resources at Las Vegas sites indicate the exploitation of a broad range of terrestrial and maritime foods (Stothert 1985; Piperno and Stothert 2003). The major site is interpreted as a logistical base camp, from which groups of foragers traveled to outlying locations to procure resources for transport back to the camp. Las Vegas also was a burial site, where at least 192 individuals dating from the early to middle Holocene period were recovered (Ubelaker 1988). The placement of so many dead at this occupational site suggests semi-sedentism to sedentism, identity with the local landscape, and a strong linkage between the living and their ancestors. Around 5,500 B.P., the early Valdivia culture developed in the low hills near the floodplains of Santa Elena. Village sites were in an oval or horseshoe shape, with houses built on low mounds around an empty central plaza (Fig. 5). Large quantities of pottery are found at these sites, as well as deep cultural deposits and a wide array of artifactual materials indicative of lengthy habitation. The type site is Real Alto, which revealed ~ 50 to 100 oval houses representing ~1500 to 3000 people living in a planned settlement (Lathrap 1975). Also present at the site are what are believed to be public structures in the form of a Fiesta house that served as a place for feasting and a Charnel house that used to prepare corpses for secondary burial. Valdivia village sites clearly present a sense of planned burial and occupational sedentism. Although hunting and fishing were part of the main economic activities at these sites, plant cultivation apparently was a mainstay as well, as suggested by the presence of maize, squash, and other crops. Stone and clay figurines of females and other items suggest household level ritual activities. In sum, the Valdivia settlements exhibit lengthy occupations, as evidenced by thick and varied midden deposits, large and planned villages, and a wide array of domestic and ritual artifacts. Desert Coastal Plains of Peru and Chile Several middle to late Preceramic sites on the central and south desert coasts of Peru, including Los Gavilanes, Paloma, Chilca and other sites dated between at least 6,500 and 5,000 years ago, suggest semi-sedentary to sedentary residential patterns (Bonavia 1982; Quilter 1989, 1991; Engel 1957; Sandweiss et al. 1989). Paloma was first used as a seasonal campsite exploiting lush lomas (seasonally vegetated foothills) and the nearby Pacific coastline. People later became sedentary and built small circular, stone-lined, dome-shaped, shallow pit houses. Although the Paloma people focused their diet on a wide variety of maritime and terrestrial resources, the food remains are dominated by anchovies, sardines, and other small fish bones. Some evidence of plant cultivation is

shown by the presence of squash, beans, and gourds. Similar but less documented sites have been recorded at other middle to late Preceramic sites, including Chilca I, Huaca Prieta, Ancon, and other locales along the Peruvian coast. Although hard evidence for sedentism such as faunal and floral species indicative of year-round exploitation has not yet been established at these sites, domestic architecture, a wide variety of maritime and terrestrial resources, and hundreds of burials at Paloma are indicative of some degree of residential permanency. The desert coasts of south Peru and north Chile were the scenarios of the development of a long and well-adapted Chinchorro culture best known by the treatment of its dead. Sedentism and social complexity at Chinchorro sites are inferred from permanent burial places separate from occupational sites, elaborate mummification practices (Fig. 6), a technology and economy highly adapted to a rich maritime environment, and the long sustainability of this culture from ~7,200 to 3,500 B.P. (Arriaza 1995; Santoro et al. 2004: 253). A domestic sedentary lifeway is indicated by only thick midden deposits at several but not all coastal domestic sites. The earliest mummies were found at Camarones 14, dated between ~7,500 and 7,000 B.P. (Schiappacasse and Niemeyer 1984; Standen 2004). Around 4,000 B.P. exotic prestige goods (e.g., wood and bird feathers) from the Amazon basin appeared in Chinchorro burial sites. Initially, funerary areas were isolated locales placed outside of occupational sites but around 6,500 to 6,000 B.P., they were incorporated within formal burial spaces within them (Standen et al. 2004). In some domestic sites, bodies were placed under house floors, representing a different contextualization of the dead and domestic space. Some evidence also suggests bodies were occasionally exhumed, possibly used in public rituals, and reburied. In short, Chinchorro body preservation suggests a complex ideological and social system in which the dead were linked with the living, suggesting the perpetuation of a persons presence and identity even after death. The early pattern of establishing permanent and isolated cemeteries suggests a form of public burial sedentism and a sense of territoriality and public and private spatial divisions. To explain, the largest concentrations of Chinchorro evidence is defined by the lateral spreading of cultural material along a horizontal axis at domestic sites, rather than the vertical residential and ceremonial mounds of early coastal sites in Peru (see below). We might therefore consider whether the more permanent aspect of the Chinchorro sites lay not so much on the surface of domestic settlements, but below the ground in the form of cemeteries. That is, in attaching growing numbers of people to particular burial places, and in reproducing those attachments over generations, the burial sedentism of the dead may have been more important than the sedentism of the living to the Chinchorro people, and the density of social memory more vital than the massing of permanent domestic dwellings. Equally, the movement and expansion of influence among the living appears to have flowed, perhaps not so much from the control over maritime economic resources, but from the control exercised over new forms of ritual commerce with the dead. As sites of ritual performance, consumers of material wealth, and loci of social memory, Chinchorro cemeteries must have exerted a strong influence over the conduct of the living.

Farther south in southern Patagonia ubiquitous and abundant marine resources along both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts would have allowed occupational sedentism, but no cases have yet been documented. Central and South-Central Andean Highlands Early camelid domestication may be documented in the highland puna and altiplano sites of the Andes situated between 3,500 and 4,900 masl. Some specialists believe that the predictable territorial and social behavior of wild camelids was an important factor in establishing early semi-sedentism to sedentism living at high elevations in Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile, as evidenced by the gradual replacement of deer remains by camelid bones in a few archeological sites (Lavallee 1987; Wheeler 1999). Before ~7,500 B.P., camelid/deer bone ratios were roughly equal at these sites. Around 6,000 B.P. in the Junin puna of central Peru, for instance, there is evidence at Telarmachay of the possible control of llamas and alpacas, followed by a predominately herding economy a few centuries later. This interpretation is based on the gradual increase of camelid over deer bones, as well as dental evidence, and an increase in fetal and neonatal camelids at the site. The young animals are thought to have died from diseases while corralled in unhealthy pens (Wheeler 1999). Initial social complexity and possibly semi-sedentism also is suggested at the highland site of Asana (~5800-5000 B.P.), where changes in ritual practice are evidenced by the shift of an open ceremonial structure to one closed by stone walls, which is perceived as an attempt to control ritual behavior and to establish a leadership position (Aldenderfer 2004: 22-23). Later, around 3,500 B.P., semi-sedentism to sedentism, public ceremonialism, and social complexity are suggested at Tulan-54 and Caserones-1 in the dry puna (grassland) highlands of Atacama in north Chile (Nunez 2008). Low mounded architecture associated with burial rituals and probably feasting occupy public spaces beyond the boundaries of domestic sites that were economically supported primarily by camelid herding (llama, alpaca, vicuna) and hunting (wild guanaco), although some wild and domesticated plants are present in later sequences (e.g., fruits, Opuntia; reeds, Scirpus; tubers, Schoenoplectus; bottle gourd, Lagenaria; chili pepper, Capsicum); quinoa, Chenopodium; maiz, Zea Mays; algarrobo, Prosopis juliflora). In this regard, the ritual and ceremonial components are spatially isolated from domestic areas, suggesting a form of ceremonial sedentism. Sedentism is not yet demonstrated at the domestic components of Tulan-54 and Caserones-1, although it likely existed there as well. Similar forms of social complexity and semi-sedentism are argued for the altiplano and puna areas of northwest Argentina where hunters-gatherers specialized in hunting wild camelids and later diversified to include domesticated plants and animals, as well as longdistance exchange networks (Yacobaccio 2008). These shifting economic and social strategies are thought to represent more complex forms of social and settlement organization. Perhaps some of the best evidence for early sedentism and the adoption of food and industrial crops comes from the vertically stacked multiple resource zones of the western slopes of the Andes in northern Peru. The early El Palto Phase (~11,500-10,000 B.P.)

resulted in a pattern of scheduled, possibly seasonal movements between coastal and upland locations, where various plants, animals, and seafood were available during all or at different times of the year (Dillehay et al. 2003, 2007). Regional and local variation in diagnostic stone tools, dated between 10,500 and 9,000 B.P., and the use of stone-lined domestic structures and local raw lithic material suggest constriction of local territories during this period. These patterns are indicative of localized or territorial foraging and possibly even semi-sedentism. Possible domesticated squash (Cucurbita sp.) was adopted by late Paijan foragers. The constriction of territory, reduced mobility, and localization of population continued and accelerated past ~9,000 years ago into the Nanchoc Tradition (e.g., Las Pircas and Tierra Blanca phases). In some areas, this pattern of resource exploitation began to change rapidly between ~8,000 and 6,000 years ago. Between ~900 and 2000 m above sea level, Las Pircas hunters and gatherers began a local permanent or semi-sedentary life (~8,000-7,000 B.P.) with small organized settlements, burial of the dead, domestic circular houses, and subtle social differences. The technology was dominated by unifacial tools, a varied ground stone technology, simple food storage, and a food economy based on the exploitation of a wide variety of plants and animals. Las Pircas sites also yielded wild and possibly cultivated squash, chenopodium (c.f., quinoa), peanut, yucca, manioc, and several unidentified wild fruits. Low frequencies of exotic materials (e.g., marine shell, carved stingray spines, quartz crystals, and raw stone material) suggest minor contact with distant coastal and highland areas. The following Tierra Blanca Phase (~7,000-4,500 B.P.) was marked by changes in settlement pattern with people aggregating closer to the valley floor and its fertile soils, house style (from small circular to larger, multiple room rectangular), the addition of cotton, beans, and coca, and the construction of an artificial agricultural system associated with irrigation canals. Although exotics disappeared, the separation of public and private space was pronounced as evidenced by dual, stone-lined, multi-tiered earthen mounds at the Nanchoc Mound site (CA-09-04; Fig. 7) where lime was produced in a controlled, presumed ritual context for probable use with coca leaves and/or as a food supplement. Complementary and spatially separated occupational and ritual forms of sedentism are represented at these sites. On the other hand, for reasons not understood occupational sedentism did not occur everywhere in this area, and some groups continued practicing a mobile foraging lifeway well after cultigens were introduced into the area. Between ~6,000 and 4,000 B.P., farmers and foragers co-existed and co-depended upon one another. The development of more permanent and extensive forms of sedentism and complex societies on the Peruvian coast and in the highlands dates to the Late Preceramic period (~4500-3500 B.P.). During this period, maritime and agricultural villages along the coast increased in size, and the first large-scale monumental non-domestic architecture appeared in the form of stone platform mounds (Fig. 8). Examples are Huaca Prieta, Alto Salaverry, Aspero, Huaynuna, Caral, among others (c.f., Bird et al. 1985; Bueno and Grieder 1980; Burger 1992; Cardenas 1999; Feldman 1980; Kaulicke 1997; Patterson 1999; Quilter et. Al. 1991; Shady and Leyva 2002). All of these sites are interpreted as ceremonial centers perhaps without large resident populations, though some coastal sites such as Caral and others in the Norte Chico area likely had large permanent populations. The widespread appearance of monuments along the coast and in the nearby highlands suggests the development of ideological concepts, nucleated populations, and corporate

labor. Agriculture and, in some areas, pastoralism (i.e., llamas and alpacas) economically supported the highland populations. Maize, tubers, other cultigens, guinea pigs, and nondomesticated plants and animals were of particular importance in the highland diet. Examples are La Galgada, Huaricoto, and Kotosh. Coastal economies during this period thrived either on maritime or agricultural resources or combinations of both. The degree to which semi-permanent or permanent residential populations existed alongside these centers is not well understood in the Andes. Also not well understood is whether marked social differentiation existed during this period and whether political leadership was group-oriented (see Feldman 1989) or based on individual personal prestige. Collectively, the Late Preceramic Period supports distinctive coastal and highland ideologies and ceremonial practices focused on public activities. Amazon Basin Given the stratigraphic disturbance that plague many of the Amazons open-air sites and the logistical difficulties of fieldwork in the forests, useful data remain confined to few areas in the tropical lowlands (Mora 2003; Mora et al. 1991; Neves and Petersen 2006). In the rainforests of the Amazon basin, the presence of pottery and ground stone tools at sites dating ~5,000 B.P. or earlier is generally taken to denote the onset of foodproduction and semi-sedentism, but direct evidence of this is scarce. One of the earliest sites is Pena Roja, a site located in the eastern tropical lowlands of Colombia (Mora et al. 1991) and dated between ~9,250 and 8,090 B.P. A large amount of well preserved palm seeds and fruits and flaked and ground stone implements were recovered from the deeper levels at the site. At least one root crop and two technological crops also are present. At Pena Roja, there also is evidence of hunting and foraging in addition to incipient gardening. At the Taperinha site near Santarem, Brazil, Roosevelt et al. (1991, 1996) found evidence of an early economy (~7,000-7,500 B.P.) based on the intensive exploitation of riverine fish resources, which also is suggestive of a semi-sedentary lifeway. Small ceramic vessels and shallow bowls are thought to be related to the preparation, cooking, and storage of plant foods. Evidence for a semi-sedentary fishing and collecting lifeway also is suggested at numerous sites closer to the delta of the Amazon (Brocado 1984). Archaeologists refer to the period between 4,500 and 2,000 B.P. in Amazonia as the Formative, when sedentary village farmers and incipient complex polities developed (Lathrap 1975; Roosevelt 1999:319-24; Lippi 2003: c.f., Heckenberger et. al. 1999). There is a marked increase in the number and size of known Formative sites dating after about 4,000 B.P. Although these sites reveal large quantities of broken sherds from vessels used for food preparation and/or clay griddles, food presentation, consumption and storage, as well as specialized vessels for funerary offerings, the hard evidence for sedentism is lacking. In the Amazon basin several farming cultures built raised agricultural fields during later periods (Denevan 1966; Bracco et al. 2005; Erickson and Balee 2006), particularly in the coastal zones of the Llanos de Mojos of Bolivia, Marajo Island in the delta of the Amazon, in the Pantanal of Brazil, the Llanos de Venezuela, Mompos basin of Colombia, Sangay in the Upano Valley of Ecuador, and the coastal

plains of Guyana, Brazil, Uruguay, and Ecuador. These extensive public works indicate emergent forms of communal, if not corporate, labor and probably a sedentary lifeway. Tropical and Temperate Atlantic Coastal and Inland Areas The Atlantic shoreline of Brazil and Argentina boasts numerous shell middens accompanied by evidence of fishing, mollusk collecting, seal hunting, and consuming beached whales (Lima and Lopez 2000). The middens date between ~6,000 and 4,000 B.P., when rainfall was higher than todays combined with a marine transgression that produced extensive lagoon and estuary environments. Large sambaqui shell mounds are widely distributed along the shorelines of Brazil and typically occur in highly productive bay and lagoon ecotones where brackish waters support mangrove vegetation and abundant shellfish, fish, and aquatic birds (Fig. 9). Although the mounds are believed to be residential in nature, recognizable dwellings and features and distributions of artifacts indicative of sustained domestic activity have not been well documented. The earliest dates of 9,200 B.P. for sambaquis are inland where small mounds of edible land snails (Megalobulimus sp.), rather than bivalves, occur. Because shells of edible species, fish bones, and other faunal remains are abundant, sambaquis are associated with hunting and gathering economies dependent primarily on mollusk collection and fishing. Ceramics appear in the later levels of some sites but horticulture is not considered a primary activity. Since sambaquis (e.g., Barreto 1988; Gaspar 2000) are visible features on the landscape, it is thought that they are status markers, and that they are monuments imbued with symbolic meaning involving mortuary rituals and a cult of ancestors (Fish et al. 2000; Gaspar 2000) and reflect social inequality and territorial configurations and a different ideological system (DeBlasi et al. 1998). If this is the case, they represent a form of combined burial and ceremonial sedentism in the absence of domestic sedentism. As yet, the domestic component of the sambaqui mounds is not well understood, and until it is, it is difficult to postulate the degree to which occupational sedentism occurred at these sites. It is possible that some of the larger and later sambaqui represent a commitment to permanent places where burial, ceremonial, and occupational sedentism occurred together. Farther south, in the eastern wetlands of Uruguay and southern Brazil, the middle Holocene is characterized by hunters-gatherers-fishers who built mounds and specialized in the exploitation of the fruit of the batik palm (Butid capitata). The first evidence of earthen mounds and possibly sedentism are recorded in the eastern sector of the campos, mostly in the Laguna Merin basin on the border between Brazil and Uruguay. The mounds are circular or elliptical earth structures of ~20 to 40 m in diameter and up to 10 m high, and date between ~5,000 and 1,000 B.P. (Fig. 10) The pre-mound levels of the Holocene (ca. ~8,000 to 5,000 B.P.) are represented by hunter-gatherers. During the latter part of this period pottery came into use (~3,000 B.P.), as well as secondary horticultural practices including the consumption of squash, maize, and beans (Lopez 2001; Iriarte et al. 2001), suggesting a semi-sedentary to sedentary lifeway. What were the lasting results of sedentism(s) in South America? One of the principal features that emerges is that sedentary forms in South America were more diverse,

distinctive and robust than previously thought, and exerted a lasting influence upon the social and cultural development of the regions discussed above. There is a temporal continuity, an inertia, between sedentary modes of engagement with the social and material worlds in the eastern tropical lowlands and parts of the northern and southcentral Andes where sedentism eventually led to more advanced chiefdom-level societies, many of them surviving into the early Spanish Colonial period. Such continuities, persisting within change, are not adequately accounted for either by evolutionary models which stress progressive growth of technological and organizational complexity, or by evoking the internal structural and symbolic coherence of high cultures and great traditions. In the Peruvian Andes and in a few areas of southern Ecuador and northern Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile, sedentism developed into paramount chiefdoms and polities, often with monumental architecture, and later in Peru into towns and states. Before leaving the discussion of regional cultures, two brief comments are in order. First, as part of the reduction in mobility across many areas of the continent, pottery was innovated and shared across a broad expanse of Amazonian and northwest South America by as early as 6,000 years ago. However, the precise role of pottery production in the establishment of sedentism is not well understood and requires further study. Rock art, in which Brazil, Argentina, and north Chile are spectacularly rich, also may have played a part in structuring relations between more settled populations, and in northern Chile, the Chinchorro people (and those building the sambaqui) may have asserted claims to land resource ownership through the deliberate burial of their dead in well-defined and permanent cemeteries. And second, although it has long been presumed that the presence of thick and continuous midden deposits associated with permanent architecture and/or cultigens indicate semi-sedentism to sedentism, this has not yet fully demonstrated in most areas of the continent. Undoubtedly, many sites such as Real Alto and other Valdivia locales, some Tierra Blanca houses in northern Peru, later Paloma and Chilca houses in central Peru, and a few others along the coast of Peru and north Chile (c.f., Munoz et al. 1993) reflect a sedentary lifeway, but detailed discussions of the archeological data of many other sites and regions in terms of seasonal versus annual occupation, of the intensity and dure of site occupation, and the implied social complexity are lacking. Sedentism and Food Production The middle Holocene is a period of great interest in South American archeology as it saw various systems of food procurement, food production, and social complexity take hold and expand in much of the continent (e.g., Stothert and Quilter 1992). A general theme that emerges for this period in many regions is that of intensification, with areas as diverse as the northern tropical highlands of Colombia to the tropical coasts of Brazil, pointing to greater commitments to semi-sedentism to sedentism and to the exploitation of r-selected resources, often incorporating the use of ceramics, cultigens, or in the Andes, domesticated animals. Maritime economies expanded along the Caribbean, Pacific, and Atlantic coastlines; pastoralism (and later mixed farming and herding) spread

across many areas of the south-central Andes and some areas farther north; and agriculture took root in the Andes and parts of the eastern tropical lowlands. For hunters and gatherers, the expansion of these economies did not necessarily spell disaster, because this life style continued in many areas and proliferated in others (e.g., southern cone and parts of the Amazon basin and fringe areas). Numerous opportunities for exchange presented themselves with fishers, farmers, and herders. Although poorly understood, there is some evidence that, in parts of South America, farming and sedentism spread through the demographic expansion of agricultural populations perhaps as much as by independent domestication or adoption of cultigens on the part of local foragers (c.f., Hastorf 1999; Pearsall 1992; Piperno and Pearsall 1998; Lathrap 1984). This issue is, of course, linked to the distribution of potentially domesticable plants, and it is worth emphasizing here the very narrow developmental pathways through which plant domestication and adoption probably traveled. The situation thus seems to have been one in which, for most of South America, opportunities for developing food-production were constrained environmentally due to the high altitudes of the Andes and high latitudes of Patagonia, or particular pressures may have been required to encourage cultivation rather than continued dependence on a broad range of abundant wild species (e.g., marine and riverine resources). Further, key domesticated resources (e.g., squash, maize, manioc) in many areas of the central and south-central Andes were probably imported from tropical areas beyond the equator or even farther north. This consideration feeds into others, notably the likelihood that managing the risks of resource failure may have been a key concern in adopting food-production in parts of South America. In areas of low rainfall such as the coastal deserts of Peru and Chile, the grasslands of Patagonia, and in selected savannas and parklands in Amazonia, gathering a diversity of wild plants, hunting game, and fishing may initially have been more compatible with limited cultivation potential. Hunting and herding camelids in the high Andes also could have extended the security of hunters-gatherers by providing a dependable, moveable source of fat and protein. In this sense, early pastoralist economies in the central and south-central Andes may have expanded first, with crop cultivation developing later in some regions. Forest biomes of the eastern slopes of the Andes and the tropical eastern lowlands may have had ecological ceilings on the degree to which socio-economic intensification could have taken place. The same point can be made for the Peruvian and Chilean coasts where mid-Holocene aridity may have influenced the delayed-returns economic pattern of fishers and more so hunter-gatherers. In other contexts, managing manioc or palm nuts in tropical forest areas (e.g, lowlands of Colombia and Venezuela, Amazon basin) may have enhanced access to desired resources without significantly altering the subsistence economy as a whole. Ecological determinism is scarcely the whole story here and social relations are also critical in explaining sedentism and agricultural and pastoral origins and diffusion. Nonetheless, it can be suggested that some Andean records show, for the most part, relatively limited processes of transformation that did not perhaps could not transcend critical thresholds of social or economic intensification without the introduction of plant

and animal (i.e., camelid) resources from outside, which is suggested at the Nanchoc sites in north Peru and possibly the early Valdivia sites in southwest Ecuador. Greater dietary breadth seems to have been infrequently linked with the emergence of hunter-gatherer societies characterized by permanent inequality or significant, transformative technological innovation, with the possible exception of areas like Nanchoc where irrigation technology and food crops were developed by at least 5,000 B.P. Like the Old World, societies geared to hunting and gathering continued to flourish in many parts of South America for much of the middle to late Holocene, often engaging in exchange relations with food-producers or benefiting from mobile, extensive pastoralist lifeways that offered them only minimal competition (Aldenderfer 2002; Bonavia 2009). The two broad areas in which these limits to growth were exceeded were, I suspect, the Andean highlands (with the hunting, domestication, and herding of camelids) and one or more areas of the low montane coastal valleys of Peru and northern Chile (where plant cultivation was combined with hunting-gathering, maritime foraging, and/or pastoralism). It was these two processes that, working over several millennia, eventually resulted in many Andean peoples ceasing to be hunter-gatherers and becoming farmers and/or pastoralists by ~4,500 to 3,500 B.P. It must be remembered, however, that expanding pastoralists did not necessarily neglect or avoid hunting wild camelids (guanaco) and other animals and gathering wild plants. In a pattern common across the high Andes, communities more-or-less heavily committed to food-production also used, and continued to use, wild resources. The pastoralist occupations at Telarmachay and other sites in highland Peru and in northern Chile and northwest Argentina are a good example of this and show camelid-keeping to have been part of a broad-spectrum economy involving a secondary diet based on tubers, grains, and legumes (Nunez 2008; Yacobaccio 2008). Fuelling complexity and possibly sedentism in these areas of the Andes was the synergy created by combining camelid hunting/herding with cultivated crops. Further, climatic constraints during the middle Holocene may have curtailed the spread of some crops introduced between ~5,000 and 4,000 B.P. in these areas. A critical development also may have been a shift in the balance of risk management as pastoralists developed and spread into previously unoccupied, more ever increasingly southerly zones of the Andes (i.e., the altiplanos of Chile, Argentina, Bolivia) by at least 6,000 to 5,000 years ago and as climate deteriorated or recovered from mid-Holocene aridity. Though domesticated crops are attested over a wide zone of the Andes before 4,000 B.P., the adoption of cultivation was very patchy and spasmodic and likely not as well established as much as archeologists would like to believe. Many areas throughout South America probably practiced low-level food production (sensu Smith ) during most of the middle Holocene period. Here, too, there is evidence for the long-term persistence of foraging alongside the use of domesticates in several areas, including the highland puna regions of southern Peru, most of Bolivia and northwest Argentina and northern Chile, and there seems little reason to suppose that in all areas of the central Andes hunting and gathering had almost completely given way to agricultural systems by ~3,500 to 3,000 B.P. The data reviewed here also suggest that, at varying times and in different places, some people were able to make a living in smaller territories and from increasingly local

resources through the middle to late Holocene period. At least in some instances (e.g., sambaquis, Chinchorro coastal cultures), increased group-definition and assertion of claims to the landscape through dead ancestors seem reasonable. This was, of course, by no means a uniform process, as the evidence from northern Chile makes plain, nor was it unique to this period, but taking place primarily in Pacific coastal and estuary environments and perhaps secondarily along the middle Atlantic coast. Indeed, intensive use of fish and shellfish reaches back at least 10,000 years ago in more than one part of the continent (Dillehay et al. 2004). Nevertheless, these records allow us to identify a trajectory shared across many regions. This provided alternative social and economic pathways to increasing cultural complexity without requiring the domestication and cultivation of food crops as in many parts of the Andes (pastoralism) and probably Amazonia (riverine and lacustrine fishing). Another theme to reflect upon is the long-term persistence of hunting and gathering alongside and beyond areas inhabited by incipient farmers and pastoralists, especially in parts of the Amazon basin, the altiplano of the south-central Andes, and in the grasslands of the southern cone. Differences in the reliability of these different subsistence modes in varying habitats may explain much of this persistence. Along with the unevenness with which food-production itself spread and the opportunities for hunter-gatherers to strike a variety of exchange-based connections with food-producers (including agriculturalists and herders), within the area covered today by the southern grasslands of Argentina, southern Chile, hunting and gathering survived longest in the far Patagonia south and in parts of the Amazon basin. Lastly, there seems to be a pervasive assumption in South America and especially the Andes that sedentism entails economic and social self-sufficiency but it may be the reverse. For the first time, sedentary people were less mobile with less direct access to a wide range of resources and information, meaning they must have depended on others, especially mobile herders and traders, for access to certain distant goods and services, including the spread of some cultigens. This probably was more pronounced for agriculturalists tied to crops as opposed to people relying on maritime resources or on hunting and herding camelids. Situating Sedentism(s) and Co-Dependencies Surveying the record left by complex hunter-gatherers across South America, we have more than once noted evidence for the emergence of economies characterized by elements of delayed, rather than immediate, forms of labor investment. Intensive, often managed, exploitation of r-selected resources (e.g., seeds, tubers, palm nuts, fish, shellfish) that demanded specialized procurement, processing, and, in some cases, storage technologies was typical of such systems along the Pacific and Atlantic coastlines and in certain interior areas such as the lowland tropics and Andean highlands. By at least 4,500 B.P. in many areas of the Andes, they are also frequently associated with range reduction, increased sedentism, the creation of permanent cemeteries, enhanced intergroup exchange, and greater regionalization of material culture as a means of structuring social interactions and probably defining or contesting individual and group identities.

Significantly less equal forms of social relations may also have developed, with the institutionalization of formal and permanent leadership roles (Aldenderfer 2004; Hastorf 1993), although there is no hard evidence for the latter until perhaps 4,500-4,000 B.P. Privileged individuals may have emerged by settling disputes previously resolved by moving away, facilitating/controlling flows of information, regulating access to resources, or simply because (occupational) sedentism permitted minor accumulations of wealth and food that lent themselves to political manipulation and the lifting of previous constraints on self-aggrandizing behavior. If leadership took root on a more permanent basis, I venture that it was associated with periodic ceremonies at places like the Nanchoc mounds, the Asana site, Alto Salaverry, and other sites where public activities apparently were formalized architecturally and spatially. Sedentism must have provided the contexts for these transformations to occur. Population increase and/or increased settlement of previously marginal environments after ~4,500 B.P. were also probably common, especially in the eastern tropical lowlands of the continent, though disentangling cause and effect within the precise trajectories followed in individual regional cases is not easy. These trajectories also may be linked to the intensification of food production, with social and political factors, rather than ecological ones, given primacy, but there is good reason to believe that spatial and temporal fluctuations in resource availability also influenced the scale and timing of such developments. Examples of social and economic intensification in arid-Holocene times might include coastal Peru and north Chile and selected areas of higher elevated zones in the central and south-central Andes. As more detailed regional trajectories are developed, it will be easier to draw parallels and contrasts among such areas and those where intensification is less well marked or seems absent. As noted earlier in the case of Nanchoc, exchange and co-dependency between groups practicing different subsistence strategies is one factor to look out for in relating social and economic intensification to these developments. Another is whether access to variable lacustrine, riverine, and coastal resources were susceptible to long-term, sustained, bulk exploitation and thus sedentism in environments other than the Amazon River basin, coastal Peru and north Chile, and the mid-Atlantic coastline. We also need to ask whether particular forms of sedentism generate certain spatial patterns? That is, we need to consider the activities and settings of sedentism at the intersite level of socio-economic organization---co-dependent systems of activities that involved the regular use of settings inside and outside of occupational sedentary sites. Useful here is Rapoports (1990) conceptualization of space. Rather than seeing spaces as entities having one main purpose (for example, a logistical or residential site sensu Binford 1980), Rapoport sees spatial organization in terms of systems of activities that take place in systems of settings, which can be considered here as co-dependent systems (and settings). The system of activities for food procurement, for example, includes procuring the raw materials, transport, storage, different steps in the preparation of certain plant and animal foods. Each of these activities may occur in different places and may have been organized by different groups, so the systems of activities take place in systems of settings and simultaneously may involve horticulturalists, hunters-gatherers, and fishers. This is the vision I have for different types of sedentism(s) whereby burial sedentism may take place in a permanent cemetery or burial place spatially separated

from an occupational site. The same may be true of ceremonial places, which may operate independent of occupational sites, although the latter also may incorporate burial, ceremonial, and other components too. These different sedentary components, systems, and settings also may be linked to varying degrees socially and economically. These different systems are thus co-dependent, since the activities in one setting affect what happens in other settings (Rappoport 1990:18). Any changes in the activity system would have lead to changes in the settings; if, for example, mollusks were exchanged rather than collected directly for food and/or raw material for ornaments, we perhaps would not expect to see complete but fragmentary shells in sites where they were exchanged long distances. If public ceremonial centers were not inhabited on a permanent basis but used intermittently by outlying support populations, we would not expect to find dense and continuous midden deposits in them. Another way to view sedentism is in terms of oppositional co-dependency, making use of apparent disbalances between a sedentary site and its surrounding area. That is, when sedentism brings people together into a locus of dense habitation and specialized economy, the neighboring countryside also must experience a restructuring. That is, there must have been dependency relations between the sedentary agricultural, maritime, or pastoral communities in the Andes and their neighboring areas. This co-dependence was not unidirectional, since sedentary sites could also have been emulated by those farming, fishing, pastoral, and/or foraging populations in the countryside who may have desired to signal their ties through material goods, exchange activities, and participation in public events. Sedentary communities and their distant territorial relations thus present an important point of comparison. Unlike non-sedentary sites, whose territories were relatively unlimited in scope, sedentary sites may have had economic hinterlands as far away as the most distantly exploited and/or exchanged goods. This would have resulted in wide-reaching sedentary sites, with their economic ties and social ties. In this regard, these were sites that also were socially and economically constructed domains in which the inhabitants probably defined themselves through regionally oriented value systems and perhaps through possession of exotic goods. The use of exotic goods as possible social markers is evident in many South American sites, including the Las Pircas sites at Nanchoc, Peru, Valdivia sites in southwest Ecuador, and Tulan-54 in north Chile. Longdistance exchange relationships could also have been sustained through permanent enclaves of traders from distant locales. Within this framework, all of a sedentary communitys components may be interrelated and co-dependent; however, some components, such as the economy must have provided a accessible way to identify and monitor the type and scale of co-dependent relationships between sedentary sites and their outlying neighbors, which is important to areas like South America where complex sedentary societies developed early. Thus, a certain level of co-dependence between a variety of neighboring economic and social groups is evident as suggested in the sedentary Valdivia, Nanchoc, and Chinchorro sites along the coast of Ecuador, Peru, and Chile, respectively. At its most basic level, this included exchange of resources and mutual social relations operating within the economies evidenced in these regions. Exchange relations between these groups also

probably consisted of exchanging goods for status rather than strict goods-for-goods exchange. More complex relationships of co-dependency could also evolve, as when coastal sites such as Huaca Prieta, Aspero, Chuquitanta, and Las Haldas and inland-based settlements such as Caral and other early large settlements exchanged maritime and agricultural produce, respectively, to each other in transactions that depended on mutual exploitation of cycles of social and probably ceremonial debts. Co-dependency relations also could have taken place on a very local scale, especially when sedentary and nonsedentary folks lived in close proximity in the same region, which appeared to be the case in the Nanchoc Valley. Mutual dependence also may have been an expedient strategy for both short-term and long-term gains, but the proliferation of resource managers and perceptions of disadvantage could also have provoked discord between social groups in the close quarters of some areas. This also may have led to conflict as perhaps evidenced by the mutilated human remains in some Nanchoc sites dated between 7,500 and 5,000 B.P. On the other hand, during times of conflict people could have left an area to avoid conflict. This may have been the strategy when populations did not have particular incentives to stay beyond the incentives of food provisioning and disadvantages of staying, and may explain why some areas such as the Amazon basin never developed more complex social schemes. The activities of site-dwellers in the conscious creation and development of domestic sedentary communities was not limited to the consumption of portable objects, but also involved the consumption and reordering of site space and inter-site relations within a territory. Indeed, the consumption of space and of objects was closely intertwined. Thus, sedentary organization was not just a simple arrangement of spatial forms, but rather these forms were the expression of the process of collective treatment of the daily consumption patterns of households. Permanent places also fostered increased contact between inhabitants in part because of the diminished physical space between larger numbers of individuals. There are two ways for inhabitants to manage this space: through the development of ever-larger spaces such as public subunits within domestic sites, such as the Fiesta and Charnel houses at Real Alto, the open spaces between residential mounds in Uruguay and south Brazil, and through the development of supra-local focal points that cultivated a sense of community identity, such as the public mound constructions at the Nanchoc mounds, the Asana site, and Alto Salaverry in Peru and the Tulan-54 and Caserones-1 sites in Chile. Space within some early sedentary communities ranged from private to public in design and use and was configured by inhabitants at numerous levels. Public social space was shaped in a variety of ways, often connected with the symbolic management or access by people participating in communal events. This space was often constrained through the use of partitions and inner courtyards that directed the flow of traffic within and between buildings, especially in the larger platform mounds and buildings of the Late Preceramic period in Peru (see Moore 1996). Space also was constrained vertically as well as horizontally, for instance by the sizes of platform mounds and pyramids set in central areas, as evidenced at Huaca Prieta, Aspero, Chuquitanta, Caral, and others. Private and semi-public space was shaped by regular social, economic, and ceremonial transactions.

Further, the examination of early sedentary sites in Nanchoc and later along the coast and adjacent interior of Peru suggests that the creation of social networks may not have been merely a by-product of sedentism, but probably a fundamental reason for the displacement of people into sedentary environments. Sites in a landscape of dispersed populations under conditions of increasing socio-political complexity represent exactly this kind of network, in which any initial impetus for the creation of a population center (ceremonial, defensive, or economic) was sustained by social interaction under conditions where the greater ease of information exchange was probably deemed valuable. Information was manifested into physical surroundings, in which material goods and space were probably used by interlocutors to project social identity and reaffirm status. Especially in the network concentrated by sedentism, consumption activities resulting in the acquisition and display of goods also were effective means of interaction sustained by individuals and households. Composed of concentrated populations, diverse economies, and specialized social and ritual events, different types of inclusive and exclusive sedentary sites were a dynamic and evolving fixture across many areas in South America. Changes in built sedentary environments and the inclusive to exclusive components they brought together surely reinforced the diversification of social roles, so that individuals used different private and public spaces as both the mirror and arbiter of actions. The transformations of increased sharing, perhaps incipient leadership, and economic activity were all interdependent in the sedentary environment, where the close proximity of individuals, households, and groups meant that changes occurred at a number of levels simultaneously. In view of the complexities of these actions, a model of individual aggrandizement for sedentary organization and growth (sensu Hayden 1995) is inadequate for South America: it is reasonable to assume that individual actions and decisions could have affected, but not fundamentally caused, social transformations without the active participation of the majority of site dwellers, especially at the larger and later town sites along the coast of Peru. In fact, there is little if any convincing tomb and skeletal evidence in the Andes of widespread and consistent forms of individual aggrandizement and this does not occur until the late Formative to Early Intermediate Period. In summary, there is a great deal of material and inferred behavioral variability in the early sedentary societies of South America. These societies differed considerably in the composition of their social, technological, economic, and ideological developments. Each probably was a product of differentially developed household and suprahousehold institutions. Specialized institutions such as ritual practices at ceremonial places like the Nanchoc mounds, Asana, Tulan- 54, and the later pyramid sites of Caral, Huaricoto, and others in the central Andes were associated with special public places and structures for their activities. A wide variety of factors contributed to each societys unique mix of co-dependent developments. Different burial, ceremonial, social, and economic components in different contexts developed differently, depending on local and external factors. In the central Andes, for example, the religious and ceremonial sectors developed strongly between 4,500 and 3,000 B.P., focusing public activities at special centralized ceremonial settings and places. Equivalent growth, at least materially, is not evidenced in the domestic and mortuary components of these sites. The reverse is true for Chinchorro

sites where the mortuary practices seemingly over-developed in comparison to the domestic component. When all of these components began to coalesce at the same place, more complex social and economic forms developed, and this took place primarily in the central Andes. Conclusions In the future the various refinements and challenges to documenting the variability in the development of South American sedentism and complexity and their broader implications will surely lead to a clearer understanding of the early social and economic history of the continent. I think that we should question the kinds of sedentism represented at sites and whether an inclusive sedentism existed or just exclusive components of it existed, as I believe at many early sites in the central Andes, or alternatively represent sedentary components of the wider society. At present, there seems to be a blanket coverage of sedentism in many areas, which roughly applies evenly developed stages of development and complexity, which may not necessarily be the case. The widest discrepancy may be in the central Andes where there was surely ceremonial and probably burial sedentism represented by monumental sites in Norte Chico and in the highlands of Peru, but whether the outlying support population was fully sedentary has yet to be proven.

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Figure Captions 1. Major physiographic zones in South America (after Dillehay 2000). 2. Location of major archeological sites discussed in the text (modified from Lavallee 2000). 3. Location of major archeological sites in the Central Andes (modified from Lavallee 2000). 4. Multiple cooking ovens excavated at the San Jacinto 1 site in Colombia (Courtesy of A. Oyuela-Caycedo). 5. Layout of oval houses at the Real Alto site in Ecuador. Specific plan of oval house at Real Alto (Lathrap 1975). 6. Mud-covered, mummified body of the Chinchorro culture of Chile. 7. Dual stone-lined mounds at the CA-09-04 site in north Peru. 8. Huaca Prieta mound on the coast of north Peru. 9. Sambaqui mound along the coast of central Brazil. Arrows point to mounded shell middens located inland at a time when the coastline was located much farther inland (Courtesy of Gerson Levy). 10. Preceramic earthen residential mound in north Uruguay.