Amazonian Indians from prehistory to the present: anthropological perspectives

Abstract

This five-part, 17-chapter edited volume addresses the changes that have occurred in native Amazonian societies as a result of their interaction with Western civilisation. The study is based on ten years of research and explores newly-recognised differences in and between pre- and postcontact characteristics of native Amazonian societies. Specific attention is placed upon the level of complexity now attributed to Amazonian flood-plain societies, the development and structure of which were formerly attributed to limiting environmental factors. Chapters deal with the ethnology of specific tribal groupings, or of Amazonia as a whole; and the archaeology, ethnohistory, biological anthropology and linguistics of the region. Issues covered include the transformation of precontact societies and the ultimate extinction of some, following the first interactions with Europeans; the health and demography of native Amazonians and a study of contemporary adaptation by the Tukanoan people of south eastern Colombia. -Author