South American Indian

Table of Contents

Introduction
The people
The prehistoric period
- Early man
- The development of civilizations
- Traditional ways of life
  - Hunters and gatherers
  - Tropical-forest farming villages
  - Chiefdoms of the northern Andes and the circum-Caribbean
  - Central Andean irrigation civilizations
Evolution of contemporary cultures
- The European conquest
- Effects of colonialism
  - Peru
  - Chile
  - Panama

References & Edit History Related Topics

Images

distribution of aboriginal South American and circum-Caribbean cultural groups

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Peoples who led a nomadic hunting and gathering life inhabited the agriculturally marginal areas of South America and were peripheral to the centres of great cultural development. All of Argentina and the archipelagic zone of southern Chile were the habitat of such hunting and gathering peoples as the Chono, Alacaluf, and Yámana of Chile, the Ona of the island of Tierra del Fuego, and the Tehuelche, Puelche (Guennakin), Charrúa, and Querandí of mainland Argentina. The Gran Chaco region supported the Guaycuruan-speaking Indians, the Abipón, Wichí, Vilela, and others, all migratory peoples who roamed the grassy plains of their small territories ...(100 of 4313 words)

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