On Proto-Languages and Archaeological Cultures: pre-history and material culture in the Tukanoan Family

Abstract

This work analyzes the cultural history of the Tukanoan family by attempting the reconstruction of 107 words related to the material culture shared by Amazonian peoples, especially in the Northwest Amazon. The analysis of the terminological system of words that can be reconstructed to Proto-Tukanoan, as well as words that can only be reconstructed to intermediate proto-languages or words that cannot be reconstructed at all allows for a set of cultural inferences regarding the historic evolution of Tukanoan family, which is accomplished along a dialogue with the ethnographic and archeological literature of the Northwest Amazon, as well as following in general terms the proposals for linking Historical Linguistics and Archaeology in different parts of the globe. It is concluded that there was a process of cultural differentiation between the two main branches of the Tukanoan family, as the reflex of distinct integration of each branch in different regional subsystems in the Northwest Amazon.