Rethinking the AndesAmazonia Divide

Nowhere on Earth is there an ecological transformation so swift and soextreme as between the snow-line of the high Andes and the tropical rainforestof Amazonia. The different disciplines thatresearch the human past in South America have long tended to treat these twogreat subzones of the continent as self-contained enough to be takenindependently of each other. Objections have repeatedly been raised, however,to warn against imagining too sharp a divide between the people and societies ofthe Andes and Amazonia, when there are also clear indications of significantconnections and transitions between them.Rethinking the Andes-Amazonia Divide brings together archaeologists, linguists,geneticists, anthropologists, ethnohistorians and historians to explore both correlationsand contrasts in how the various disciplines see the relationship between theAndes and Amazonia, from deepest prehistory up to the European colonial period.The volume emerges from an innovative programme of conferences and symposiaconceived explicitly to foster awareness, discussion and co-operation acrossthe divides between disciplines. Underway since 2008, this programme hasalready yielded major publications on the Andean past, including History and Language in the Andes (2011)and Archaeology and Language in the Andes(2012).'Thisbook makes a major contribution to the study of the deep, interregional historyof humanity in South America. I am unaware of any other volume thatoccupies the place envisioned for this work, with the result that it willbecome a standard book to be read or consulted for some time to come. Overall, itis a professional contribution of real significance that will be widely used acrosshistory, genetics, linguistics, and archaeology, as discussion of the kinds ofissues treated by this study of Andean-Amazonian relations is badly needed.' -Terence N. D'Altroy, Columbia University