South America (49,293 – 28,578 BCE): Upper Pleistocene I — Refugia, Shelves, and the Two Southern Worlds

Geographic & Environmental Context

Late-Pleistocene South America was not one world but two adjoining worlds that barely overlapped:

• South America Major—from the Northern Andes (Quito–Cuzco–Titicaca–Altiplano) across the Amazon–Orinoco trunks, the Guianas Shield, and the Atlantic Brazil shelf, down through Paraguay–Uruguay–northern Argentina to northern Chile—was a continent of depressed cloud belts, fragmented rainforests, and broadened coastal plains.

• South America Minor—Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, and the Magellan–Beagle archipelagos—was an ice-marginal realm of fjords, loess steppe, and shelf banks along two oceans, largely unpeopled at this time.

These natural subregions looked outward more than inward: South America Major was knit to the Pacific and Amazonian basins; South America Minor leaned into the Southern Ocean and subantarctic winds. Their contrasts anchor The Twelve Worlds claim that “region” is a loose envelope—the living units are the subregions.

Climate and Environmental Shifts

The interval spans the build-up to the Last Glacial Maximum:

• Andes & Altiplano: Temperatures were ~3–7 °C lower; glaciers expanded on high cordilleras; puna–páramo belts shifted downslope; springs and rock-shelter margins persisted.

• Amazon/Guianas: Rainforest contracted into riparian and montane refugia, separated by savanna corridors; evapotranspiration fell; seasonality sharpened.

• Atlantic Brazil shelf: Sea level ~100 m below modern exposed broad strand-plains; estuaries and deltas migrated seaward.

• Atacama & high basins: Hyper-arid, cold plateaus with oasis springs and small lagoons.

• Patagonia–Fuegia: Strong westerlies, permafrost or seasonal frost on the interior steppe; Cordilleran icefields calved into fjords; outer shelves widened on both coasts.

Heinrich/Dansgaard–Oeschger pulses toggled the continent between slightly wetter interstadials (refugia expand) and drier stadials (savannization and ice advance).

Lifeways and Settlement Patterns

Human presence before ~30 ka is debated. If present in this window, occupations were sparse and refugium-tethered; robust, widespread sites appear later, during deglaciation. The likely pattern:

• South America Major
  • Coasts (Pacific and Atlantic Brazil): Opportunistic foraging in upwelling coves and exposed strand-plains—shellfish, fish, seabirds—with short-stay dune or beach-ridge camps.
  • Riparian lowlands (Amazon–Orinoco): Small groups anchored to gallery forests and levees—fish, turtles, capybara, supplemented by deer/peccary and palm fruits.
  • Andean foothills & basins: Rock-shelter use near perennial springs; small-game, rodents, camelids at high elevations; wild tubers and chenopods along wet margins.
  • Atacama oases: Patchy use of springlines and saline lagoons where available.

• South America Minor
  • Likely unoccupied this early. Though kelp-forest corridors and rich fjord/shore ecologies existed (shellfish, pinnipeds, seabirds), sustained use is later (post-LGM, >14.5 ka north of the zone at Monte Verde).

Across the continent, potential foragers would have practiced short-radius mobility between water-secure nodes: coves ⇄ levees ⇄ springs ⇄ rock shelters.

Technology and Material Culture

Toolkits, where present, fit late Middle/early Upper Paleolithic expectations:

• Stone: expedient flake–blade industries in quartz/quartzite and local cherts; retouched scrapers, burins, backed pieces late.

• Organic: bone awls/points, digging sticks, nets/cordage (poorly preserved).

• Pigment & ornament: ochre for body/adhesive use; simple beads (shell/seed) in later parts of the span are plausible.

These reflect light, portable technologies optimized for riparian and springline mobility, not heavy residential investment.

Movement and Interaction Corridors

Even with low population density, the continent’s natural corridors were already set:

• Pacific littoral “kelp highway”: cove-to-cove reconnaissance along upwelling margins (Peru–N. Chile).

• Andean valley strings: spring/rock-shelter chains linking puna to foothills.

• Amazon–Orinoco trunks: Solimões–Madeira–Xingu–Tapajós–Negro and Orinoco–Casiquiare provided levee driftways and portage nodes.

• Atlantic strandlines: broad Brazilian shelf plains connected estuaries and lagoon belts.

In South America Minor, the Magellan–Beagle coasts and wide shelf banks were ecological scaffolding for the later maritime florescence.

Cultural and Symbolic Expressions

If present in this span, symbolic behaviors would mirror the global Upper Paleolithic repertoire at low intensity: ochre use, hearth structuring, simple ornament caches in shelters. The richest, unequivocal material appears after the interval, as deglaciation improves site survivorship and territory size.

Environmental Adaptation and Resilience

The operating logic of the age was refugium tethering:

• Water-secure nodes—gallery forests, springlines, upwelling coves—anchored seasonal rounds.

• Broad portfolios—aquatic + terrestrial—buffered aridity and cold snaps.

• Topographic stacking (coast ↔ foothill ↔ puna; levee ↔ terra firme) created short-range substitutes when one niche failed.

In South America Minor, kelp forests, guanaco steppe, and shelf banks formed the “later-use” safety net awaiting Holocene colonists.

Transition Toward Deglaciation

By 28,578 BCE, Andean ice began its slow retreat, rainforest corridors poised to reconnect, and coastal/riverine pathways to improve:

• South America Major was primed for the unequivocal Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene occupations—shell-midden coasts, levee hamlets, puna caravan trails—that will define its next chapter.

• South America Minor held its ecological stage set—fjords, archipelagos, and kelp lanes—for the post-LGM maritime foragers who would turn the far south into a canoe world.

In short, the continent already displayed the dual structure central to The Twelve Worlds: a peopled northern–central theater of refugia and corridors beside an unpeopled southern theater of ready-made ecologies—two neighboring worlds whose destinies would diverge as the ice let go.

South America Major (49,293–28,578 BCE)

South America Major includes Colombia (except Darién), Venezuela, the Guianas, Brazil, Ecuador (excluding the Capelands), Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, northern Argentina, northern Chile.

Anchors: Northern Andes (Quito–Cuzco–Titicaca–Altiplano), Amazon Basin (Solimões–Madeira–Xingu–Tapajós–Marajó), Orinoco–Llanos, Atlantic Brazil coastal shelf, Guianas shield, Atacama oases.

Geographic & Environmental Context

• Andes: extensive glaciation on high cordilleras; puna and páramo belts depressed downslope.

• Amazon/Guianas: rainforest contracted into riparian and montane refugia, with intervening savanna corridors.

• Atlantic shelf: sea level ~100 m lower exposed broad coastal plains; estuaries migrated seaward.

• Atacama/Altiplano: cold, hyper-arid plateaus; oasis springs persistent.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

• Last Glacial Maximum (LGM): cooler (~3–7 °C lower), drier interiors; stronger seasonality; widespread glaciation in the Central Andes; reduced Amazonian evapotranspiration.

• Heinrich/D-O oscillations toggled between slightly wetter interstadials (refugia expand) and drier stadials (savannization).

Subsistence & Settlement

• Human presence before ~30 ka is debated (claims in eastern Brazil and Andean foothills exist but are contested). If present, foragers would have favored riparian refugia, coastal upwelling zones, and montane spring belts.

• Likeliest robust occupations in the later part of this window: coastal foraging (shellfish, fish, seabirds), riparian hunting (deer, peccary, capybara), and puna/basin small-game procurement.

Technology & Material Culture

• Late Middle/early Upper Paleolithic flake–blade industries; expedient quartz/quartzite; bone awls/points; ochre pigments.

• Portable organic technologies (nets, digging sticks) likely but poorly preserved.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Pacific littoral (upwelling coves, dune-sheltered landings), Andean valley strings (springs/rock shelters), Amazonian trunk rivers (Solimões–Madeira–Xingu–Tapajós), Orinoco–Casiquiare links to the Negro–Amazon.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• If present, ochre and bead use, hearth structuring, and rock-shelter ritual spaces would mirror broader Upper Paleolithic patterns.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• Refugium strategy: tethering to evergreen gallery forests, springlines, and productive coasts; broad-spectrum aquatic + terrestrial foraging buffered aridity.

Transition

• As deglaciation accelerates, rainforest corridors re-connect, Andean ice withdraws, and coastal/riverine pathways improve — enabling the unequivocal Late Pleistocene–Early Holocene occupations that follow.

South America (28,577 – 7,822 BCE): Upper Pleistocene II → Early Holocene — Deglaciation, Reconnected Refugia, and Littoral Gateways

Geographic & Environmental Context

From the Quito–Cuzco–Titicaca–Altiplano to the Orinoco–Llanos, across the Amazon (Solimões–Madeira–Xingu–Tapajós–Marajó) and the Guianas Shield, and along the still-broadened Atlantic Brazil shelf and the upwelling coasts of Peru–northern Chile, South America entered the Early Holocene as a continent of rising mountains and rising seas.
In the south, South America Minor—Patagonia south of the Río Negro/Río Grande, the Strait of Magellan–Beagle Channel, Tierra del Fuego, and the Falkland/Malvinas–Juan Fernández outliers—saw Cordilleran icewithdraw into high cirques, carving fjord labyrinths west of the Andes and leaving proglacial lakes and steppe plateaus to the east.

Postglacial sea-level rise, still ~60–80 m below modern early in the period, flooded coastal benches into ria-like embayments and back-reef lagoons, particularly along Atlantic Brazil and the Caribbean margins, even as the Humboldt upwelling sustained kelp and shell-rich coves on the Pacific side.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

• Bølling–Allerød (c. 14.7–12.9 ka): Warmer, wetter pulses reforested Amazonian and Orinocan refugia, stitched by major river corridors; Andean hydroclimates stabilized as puna and páramo belts crept upslope. Along the Pacific rim, upwelling cells fueled rich nearshore webs; on the Atlantic side, a still-broad shelf supported expansive strandplains and lagoons.

• Younger Dryas (c. 12.9–11.7 ka): A cool/dry setback narrowed forest corridors, invigorated steppe in leeward interiors, and heightened reliance on littoral and riverine proteins.

• Early Holocene (post-11.7 ka): Monsoons strengthened; Amazonian gallery forests re-expanded and linked; Andean snowlines retreated; estuaries and lagoons from Marajó to Santa Catarina and along Peru–Atacamastabilized as sea level rose toward modern positions.

Subsistence & Settlement

By ~13–12 ka, humans were widely established from Pacific Peru to the Andean forelands and major lowland trunks; settlement was semi-recurrent and water-anchored, with strong coastal–river–valley coupling:

• Pacific littoral (Peru–N. Chile): Coves within the Humboldt Current hosted intensive harvest of shellfish, rockfish, anchoveta, sea lions, seabirds, and seaweeds, likely via raft/dugout logistics along a proto “kelp highway.” Shell scatters and strandline hearths signal repeated use of the same landings.

• Andean valleys & puna: Rock-shelter and terrace hamlets targeted deer, vicuña/guanaco, vizcacha and caviomorph rodents, and wild tubers; riparian stands (e.g., chenopods, amaranths) were increasingly curated and processed on grindstones. Seasonal rounds linked high-puna hunts to valley springs and alluvial plots.

• Amazon–Orinoco lowlands & Guianas: Wet-season camps on natural levees exploited fish, turtles, caimans, capybara, and abundant palm fruits; varzea/igapó mosaics encouraged orchard-garden tending around hamlets. On the Guianas Shield, foragers navigated inselberg–savanna–gallery forest patchworks with broad-spectrum diets.

• Atlantic Brazil strandplains: A still-wide coastal plain nurtured early shell-midden nuclei at estuary mouths and dune-lagoon fringes, where bivalves, crustaceans, finfish, and marine mammal remains attest to repeated feasting and aggregation.

• South America Minor (Patagonia–Fuegia): Along the fjord and channel coasts, foragers exploited kelp-forest seams (mollusks, fish, sea mammals) and likely staged short canoe/raft crossings; east of the Andes, steppe camps organized around guanaco drives, rhea hunts, and lake-margin waterfowl.

Across the continent, communities tethered to refugial nodes—springs, levees, coves, and rock shelters—while maintaining seasonal mobility across adjacent ecozones.

Technology & Material Culture

Toolkits balanced expedient mobility with targeted specialization:

• Lithics: pervasive microlithic flake–blade industries; backed bladelets, scrapers, burins; regional obsidian/siliceous networks in Andean forelands and Patagonian steppes.

• Aquatic gear: bone gorges and harpoons, composite points, net floats/sinkers; stake-weirs and basket traps emergent on salmon-bearing and whitefish rivers by late in the period.

• Processing tools: grindstones/querns in Andean and lowland contexts for seeds, tubers, and pigment; shell adzes in littoral zones.

• Containers & clothing: organic carriers (gourds, bark, skin), early netting and twined bags; tailored hides; ochre for body/ritual use; shell/seed/teeth ornaments in burials and feast contexts.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

Deglaciation and rising seas reconfigured, but did not diminish, connectivity:

• Pacific kelp-forest corridor: cove-to-cove and island-to-island movements along Peru–N. Chile’s productive littoral.

• Andean valley strings: rock-shelter nodes at springs and passes (Cochabamba, Puna de Atacama, Cuzco–Titicaca arc) linked high–mid–low altitude resource zones.

• Amazon–Orinoco trunks: Solimões–Madeira–Xingu–Tapajós–Negro–Orinoco served as driftways and portage chains, coupling previously isolated forest refugia.

• Atlantic strandlines: broad Brazilian shore supported early along-shore movement between lagoon fisheries and stone/palm resources inland.

These braided pathways moved dried fish and meats, palm starch/oils, lithics, pigments, and stories, re-knitting the continent after the LGM.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

Water and stone framed early ritual landscapes:

• Rock shelters in Andean and foreland belts preserved hearths, pigment floors, and engraved/painted panels, marking places of teaching, exchange, and ceremony.

• Shell-mounds on Pacific and Atlantic coasts functioned as feast and ancestor markers, accumulating over generations at favored landings.

• Ochred burials and personal adornments (shell/seed/teeth beads) bespeak lineage memory and emerging territoriality, often at river mouths, levees, and springs.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

Resilience rested on refugia-tethered, multi-sited portfolios:

• Refugium anchoring (lagoons, levees, springs) ensured dependable access to water and food as climate oscillated.

• Broad-spectrum diets—littoral proteins paired with riparian and forest fare—buffered interannual variability, especially through the Younger Dryas cool/dry interval.

• Seasonal scheduling across coast–valley–puna and river–terra firme–floodplain gradients spread risk; early orchard/patch management around camps enhanced reliability.

• Storage of smoked fish and meat, roasted seeds/tubers, and rendered oils sustained longer stays and supported semisedentism.

Long-Term Significance

By 7,822 BCE, deglaciated Andean valleys, re-connected Amazon–Orinoco forests, and stabilizing littorals sustained semi-recurrent camp landscapes and nascent shell-midden nodes.
In the south-cone, dual kelp-edge and steppe economies were firmly in place, poised for the canoe-borne traditions of the Fuegian channels.
Across South America, the operating code of the coming Holocene was already legible: water-anchored, broad-spectrum subsistence; mobility braided to refugial anchoring; early plant tending; food storage; and ritualized claims to the enduring places that made life secure.

South America Major (28,577–7,822 BCE) | Upper Pleistocene II: Deglaciation, Refugia Reconnection, and Littoral Gateways

South America Major includes all regions north of the Río Negro: Colombia (except Darién), Venezuela, the Guianas, Brazil, Ecuador (excluding the Ecuadorian Capelands, which belong to Isthmian America), Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, northern Argentina, and northern Chile.

Anchors: the Northern Andes (Quito–Cuzco–Titicaca–Altiplano), Amazon Basin (Solimões–Madeira–Xingu–Tapajós–Marajó), Orinoco–Llanos, the Atlantic Brazil shelf/coast (including sambaqui coasts), the Guianas Shield, and Atacama oases and salars (northern Chile).

• Andean glaciers receded from late LGM maxima; puna and páramo belts rose upslope.

• Amazon/Guianas: fragmented rainforest refugia reconnected along major trunks (Solimões, Madeira, Xingu, Tapajós).

• Pacific littoral (Peru/ N. Chile): upwelling zones built shell- and kelp-rich coves; Atlantic Brazil shelf still broader than today.

• Orinoco–Llanos: wetlands and gallery forests expanded in interstadials.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

• Bølling–Allerød (14.7–12.9 ka): warmer/ wetter pulses reforested lowlands and stabilized Andean valley hydrology.

• Younger Dryas (12.9–11.7 ka): cool/dry reversal; forest corridors pinched; littoral protein became critical.

• Early Holocene (after 11.7 ka): warmth returned; rainfall increased, rivers bloomed.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Secure, widespread human presence by ~13–12 ka across Pacific Peru, Andean foothills, and riverine lowlands:

  • Pacific coves (Peru/N. Chile): intensive shellfish, fish, seabirds; strandings; sea-plant harvesting (kelp, algae).

  • Andean valleys: deer, camelids (vicuña/guanaco in high puna), rodents, wild tubers; riparian plants.

  • Amazon/Orinoco: fish, turtles, capybara; palm fruits; small-game; wet-season camps on natural levees.

• Guianas Shield: mixed forest-savanna foraging on inselbergs and gallery forests.

Technology & Material Culture

• Microlithic flake–blade industries; bone gorges/harpoons; shell adzes in littoral zones; grindstones in Andean/lowland seed processing.

• Ochre for body/ritual use; shell/seed ornaments.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Pacific coastal “kelp highway”: cove-to-cove canoe/raft mobility;

• Andean valley strings: springs/rock-shelter chains;

• Amazon–Orinoco trunks + levee ridges: seasonal canoe drift and portage;

• Atlantic Brazil strandlines: early shell-midden nuclei.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Early rock-shelter ritual spaces in Andean/foothill belts; structured hearths; ochred burials.

• Coastal shell-mounds served as feast/ancestor markers.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• Refugium tethering (riverine, littoral, and valley springs) + broad-spectrum diets reduced risk; seasonal scheduling across ecozones buffered the Younger Dryas.

Transition

By 7,822 BCE, deglaciated valleys, reconnected forests, and productive coasts supported semi-recurrent landscapes of camps and shell-midden nodes, setting the stage for semi-sedentary Holocene economies.

The early Neolithic human occupation of Mesopotamia is, like the previous Epipaleolithic period, confined to the foothill zones of the Taurus and Zagros Mountains and the upper reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys.

The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) period (10,000–8700 BCE) sees the introduction of agriculture.

The Natufian culture in Upper Mesopotamia, contemporaneous with the Zarzian in the Zagros, is attested over a much wider region and is characterized by open-air sites that are semi-permanently occupied.

In the Zagros, this period has been excavated at Zawi Chemi, Shanidar, and M'lefaat.

In the area of the Syrian Upper Euphrates, villages of Natufian hunter-gatherers that were occupied since the eleventh millennium BCE have been excavated at Abu Hureyra and Mureybet.

One such village, established about 9000 in southeastern Anatolia on the Turkish-Iranian border, consists of houses made from mud and reeds, with conical roofs and circular stone bases.

It is the first known example of a permanent settlement.

Copper was known to some of the oldest civilizations on record, and has a history of use that is at least 10,000 years old.

Some estimates of copper's discovery place this event around 9000 BCE in the Middle East.

A copper pendant found in what is now northern Iraq dates to 8700 BCE.

South America (7,821–6,094 BCE): Early Holocene — Rivers & Reefs, Highlands & Hunger-Gathering, Seeds of Tending

Geographic & Environmental Context

In the Early Holocene, South America cohered as two tightly linked arenas:

• South America Major (north of the Río Negro): the Amazon–Orinoco lowlands with vast levee lakes and flooded forests; the Northern Andes stepping coastward to Pacific coves and estuaries; the Guianas Shield; and the Atlantic Brazil shelf where sandy barriers enclosed lagoon chains.

• South America Minor (Patagonia–Tierra del Fuego–Falklands–Juan Fernández): the Strait of Magellan–Beagle archipelagos and fjord belts facing kelp-rich seas, mirrored inland by steppe basins and spring-fed oases.

Sea level rose toward near-modern outlines: Pacific embayments and Atlantic lagoons matured; Amazon–Orinoco distributaries broadened; Andean puna stayed cold but predictable; Atacama oases persisted around springs and salars.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

The Holocene Thermal Maximum brought warmer, wetter, and seasonally reliable regimes across most regions:

• Amazon/Guianas forests expanded; floods became predictable, renewing varzea soils.

• Pacific upwelling remained strong, powering rich littoral fisheries and seabird rookeries.

• Atlantic Brazil lagoons stabilized behind growing barrier systems; flood–drought amplitudes moderated.

• In the far south, westerlies delivered stormier winters but calmer summers—ideal for canoe rounds.

Subsistence & Settlement

A continent-spanning semi-sedentary, water-anchored mosaic took shape:

• Amazon–Orinoco: levee hamlets exploited fish weirs and seasonal turtle/manatee cycles, paired with palm and fruit intensification (peach palm, açaí, Brazil nut). Villages ringed by refuse and ash began to enrich soils near dwellings.

• Pacific littoral (Peru/N. Chile): shell-midden villages lived by year-round fishing, intertidal stone traps, and rookery harvests, bartering inland for pigments, stone, and valley starches.

• Andean highlands & valleys: puna hunts (camelids, rodents) alternated with valley collecting (chenopods, amaranths, tubers); cross-slope circuits stitched coast, valley, and high pasture.

• Atlantic Brazil: early proto-sambaqui localities coalesced in lagoons and estuaries, feasting on fish/shellfish and curating mortuary areas in growing shell mounds.

• Southern archipelagos & steppe (Minor): cove hamlets in kelp-edge bays (shellfish, fish, sea mammals; likely intertidal traps); steppe camps ran guanaco drives, rhea egging, waterfowl hunts, and geophyte digs, trading hides and meat coastward.

Technology & Material Culture

Toolkits optimized water, storage, and plant processing:

• Ground-stone mortars/querns for nuts, seeds, and tubers; baskets and racks for drying fish/fruits; nets, weirs, bone harpoons, barbed hooks, and shell tools.

• Dugout canoes proliferated on rivers, lagoons, and coves.

• Early pottery appeared patchily late in the window in some lowland/coastal settings (first for boiling/fermenting and storage).

• Ochre body paints, seed/shell ornaments, and decorated bone/stone affirmed group identity at feasts and burials.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

Water and altitude composed the continental logistics:

• Amazon–Orinoco canoe drifts moved people and goods levee-to-levee, with side channels linking oxbows and backwaters; Casiquiare–Negro connections bridged basins.

• Andean trans-valley paths relayed salt, pigments, fibers, dried fish, tubers, and skins among puna–valley–coast nodes.

• Atlantic Brazil lagoon chains tied shell villages into exchange circuits of shell beads, pigments, cured fish, and fine stone.

• In the south, short-haul canoeing/rafting among coves and passes to steppe springs integrated coast and interior.
  These braided lanes provided redundancy: when a run failed or a flood came late, another habitat or partner settlement buffered the shortfall.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

Communities inscribed ancestry and season into place:

• Levee cemeteries and sambaqui mortuary zones formalized ties to waterways; shell/feast layers became ancestral terraces.

• Petroglyphs at water-rocks and harbor boulders marked rights, routes, and mythic events; rock-shelter hearths in highlands punctuated caravan time.

• Feast cycles keyed to fish/turtle runs and rookery peaks renewed alliances and resource access rules from the forests to the fjords.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

Stability rested on storability + multi-ecozone scheduling + incipient niche engineering:

• Smoked/dried fish and meats, rendered oils, roasted seeds, and palm-fruit pastes bridged lean seasons.

• Portfolio rounds (river/coast ↔ valley/puna ↔ steppe/cove) hedged against local disturbance.

• Around Amazonian hamlets, middens, ash, and charcoal began to create anthrosol “islands”—early soil enhancement that prefigured terra preta.

• Intergroup exchange dispersed risk, while ritual tenure over mounds, landings, and passes limited conflict and over-take.

Long-Term Significance

By 6,094 BCE, South America had crystallized into semi-sedentary river–coast societies with highland hunting rounds and plant-tending seeds in place. Lowland village soils were already trending toward anthropic enrichment; proto-sambaqui polities anchored Atlantic lagoons; Andean verticality—coast–valley–puna—had a working rhythm; southern canoe–steppe exchange knit coves to springs.
These habits—storage, canoe logistics, niche engineering, and feast-based governance of access—formed the durable substrate for later terra preta landscapes, coastal monument traditions, and Andean statecraft that would emerge as Holocene societies intensified their agriculture and exchange.

South America Major (7,821–6,094 BCE) | Early Holocene: Semi-Sedentary Rivers & Coasts, Highland Hunts, and Plant Tending Seeds

South America Major includes all regions north of the Río Negro: Colombia (except Darién), Venezuela, the Guianas, Brazil, Ecuador (excluding the Ecuadorian Capelands, which belong to Isthmian America), Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, northern Argentina, and northern Chile.

Anchors: the Northern Andes (Quito–Cuzco–Titicaca–Altiplano), Amazon Basin (Solimões–Madeira–Xingu–Tapajós–Marajó), Orinoco–Llanos, the Atlantic Brazil shelf/coast (including sambaqui coasts), the Guianas Shield, and Atacama oases and salars (northern Chile).

• Rivers (Solimões–Madeira–Xingu–Tapajós; Orinoco) reached stable levels with extensive floodplains and levee lakes.

• Pacific coves/estuaries matured; Atlantic Brazil sandy barriers and lagoons formed.

• Andes: high puna cold but predictable; Atacama oases persisted around springs and salars.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

• Holocene Thermal Maximum: warm, wetter; predictable floods and upwelling regimes; forest expansion across Amazon/Guianas.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Semi-sedentary riverine and coastal villages:

  • Amazon/Orinoco: levee hamlets; fish weirs; turtle and manatee seasonality; palm/fruit intensification.

  • Pacific: shell-midden villages with year-round fishing; intertidal traps; seabird/turtle rookeries.

  • Andes: seasonal puna hunts (camelids/rodents); valley plant collecting (chenopods, amaranths, tubers).

  • Atlantic Brazil: early shell-midden (proto-sambaqui) localities coalesced in lagoons/estuaries.

Technology & Material Culture

• Ground-stone (mortars/querns), fish weirs, nets; baskets for drying fish/fruits; bone harpoons; shell tools.

• Early pottery appears patchily late in this window (especially at some lowland mouths and in adjacent regions).

• Body decoration with ochre, seed/shell ornaments.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Amazon–Orinoco canoe drift networks (levee-to-levee).

• Andean trans-valley corridors between puna and coast (Pacific).

• Atlantic Brazil lagoon chains linked shell villages; exchange in shell beads, pigments, fine stone.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Mortuary areas in shell-mounds and levee cemeteries; feast cycles around fish/turtle runs; ritual hearths in rock shelters; petroglyphs at water rocks.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• Storability (smoked fish, dried meat, palm fruit pastes) + multi-ecozone rounds stabilized settlement; communities could lean on rivers or coasts during shortfalls inland.

Transition

By 6,094 BCE, semi-sedentary river–coast lifeways and highland hunting rounds were entrenched; lowland plant tending and shell-midden communities foreshadowed later intensification.

The quarries for the statues used at the Göbekli Tepe temple complex are located on the plateau itself; some unfinished pillars have been found there in situ.

The biggest unfinished pillar is still six point nine meters long; a length of nine meters has been reconstructed.

This is much larger than any of the finished pillars found so far.

The stone was quarried with stone picks.

Bowl-like depressions in the limestone rocks may already have served as mortars or fire starting bowls in the Epipaleolithic.

There are some phalloi and geometric patterns cut into the rock as well; their dating is uncertain.

The site is deliberately backfilled sometime after 8000 BCE: the buildings are covered with settlement refuse that must have been brought from elsewhere.

These deposits include flint tools like scrapers and arrowheads and animal bones.

Byblos points and numerous Nemrik-points characterize the lithic inventory; there are also Helwan-points and Aswad-points.

The Jericho site originally occupied by the Natufian culture is greatly expanded during the eighth millennium BCE under a culture known to archaeologists as the Aceramic, or Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, who build a wall seventeen feet (five point two meters) high around the settlement.

They erect on the west side a round tower, twenty-three feet (seven meters) high, with an internal flight of steps.

The world's people are comparatively few, the technologies simple, and resources plentiful, but the community's indigenous inhabitants evidently require this kind of protection.

We can surmise that the people of ten thousand years ago differed little from us in being wary of strangers, covetous of resources, and inclined to violence.

The settlement ends around 7370 BCE.

The people of Lepenski Vir, an important Mesolithic archaeological site located on the banks of the Danube in eastern Serbia, within the Iron Gates gorge, near Donji Milanovac, probably represent the descendants of the early European population of the Brno-Predmost hunter-gatherer culture from the end of the last ice age.

Archaeological evidence of human habitation of the surrounding caves dates back to around 20,000 BCE.

The first settlement on the low plateau dates to 7000 BCE, a time when the climate becomes significantly warmer.

Seven successive settlements will be built on the site, providing a rare opportunity to observe the gradual transition from the hunter-gatherer way of life of early humans to the agricultural economy of the Neolithic.

The remains of one hundred and thirty-six residential and sacral buildings dating from 6500 BCE to 5500 BCE demonstrate the increasingly complex social structure that influences the development of planning and self-discipline necessary for agricultural production.