Betty J Meggers
Biographic Data
| ID | 76724 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Betty J Meggers |
| GIVEN NAMES | Betty J |
| FAMILY NAME | Meggers |
| SIGNATURE | MEGGERS B J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Smithsonian Institution |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 82 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 512 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 82 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1946 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Handbook of South American Archaeology
Suposiciones de grandes y densas poblaciones prehistóricas en la Amazonía, evaluadas a partir de las evidencias arqueológicas, etnográficas y ecológicas
Un creciente número de antropólogos ha apoyado la idea de la existencia de densas poblaciones sedentarias a través de la Amazonía, basada principalmente en la presencia de manchas de terra preta a lo largo de ríos principales que testifican la existencia de grandes asentamientos permanentes. Esta interpretación es puesta a prueba por los resultados del reconocimiento arqueológico a lo largo de los ríos Tocantins, Xingú, Jamarí y Essequibo. El uso…
Caral
Americanae nace como un proyecto conjunto que surge dentro de la Red Europea de Información y Documentación sobre América Latina (REDIAL), y que ha afrontado la Biblioteca de la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID). Esta nueva biblioteca virtual hace más accesibles los libros digitales de tema americanista a los investigadores y usuarios interesados de cualquier parte del mundo
Palaeoclimatic and archaeological evidence for a 200-yr recurrence of floods and droughts linking California, Mesoamerica and South America over the past 2000 years
Conspicuous grey, clay-rich flood deposits in the predominantly olive, varved sediment in the central Santa Barbara Basin, California, were dated via varve-counting to c. AD 212, 440, 603, 1029, 1418 and 1605. The ∼200-yr quasi-periodicity and the timing of individual floods match time periods of known supraregional climatic changes and the documented ∼200-yr periodicity in palaeoclimate records elsewhere. The floods of c. AD 440 and AD 1418 occu…
Fuentes naturales versus antropogénicas de la biodiversidad amazónica
Durante los dos primeros siglos después del descubrimiento de las Américas, miles de europeos perdieron sus fortunas, su salud, y hasta sus vidas buscando El Dorado, motivados por la codicia, entusiasmados por noticias de los indios, e inamovibles ante el fracaso de sus predecesores (Hemming 1978). Al final del siglo XVII, la búsqueda fue abandonada y el lago Parima fue borrado de los mapas. La autora sostiene en este artículo que, después de tre…
Consequences of Cultivar Diffusion
Consequences of Cultivar Diffusion. Leonard Plotnicov and Richard Scaglion. eds. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh, 1999. 151 pp
The Continuing Quest for El Dorado
An increasing number of publications supports the autonomous development of dense sedentary populations with advanced social organization throughout Amazonia in spite of abundant archaeological, ethnographic, physical, and biological evidence for environmental limitations to sustainable intensive exploitation of the varzea as well as the terra firme. Three articles in recent issues of Latin American Antiquity dispute the validity of the data coll…
In the Society of Nature
Pre-Columbian Contact With Americas Across the Oceans
The illusory paradise revisited
Este artigo é uma tradução do Epílogo da edição revista de Amazônia, originalmente publicado em 1971 e reeditado pela Editora do Smithsonian Institution em 1996. Ele sumaria os dados climatológicos, biológicos, etnográficos e arqueológicos acumulados desde 1971, que apoiam e ampliam as interpretações originais. Infelizmente, as propriedades únicas do ecossistema amazônico continuam a ser ignoradas pelos governos e corporações nacionais e estrange…
Archaeological evidence for transpacific voyages from Asia since 6000 BP
La identificación de similitudes genéticas entre las poblaciones indígenas del Japón y de los Andes hace necesario volver a examinar la evidencia cultural de contactos transpacíficos precolombinos. Este artículo describe cuatro casos bien documentados, dos en el Ecuador y dos en Mesoamérica, todos ellos desechados por la mayoría de los antropólogos por ser ejemplos de convergencia o invención independiente. El caso ecuatoriano más temprano, que a…
Archaeology in the Lowland American Tropics
Amazonian Indians from Prehistory to the Present
Amazonia has long been a focus of debate about the impact of the tropical rain forest environment on indigenous cultural development. This edited volume draws on the subdisciplines of anthropology to present an integrated perspective of Amazonian studies. The contributors address transformations of native societies as a result of their interaction with Western civilization from initial contact to the present day, demonstrating that the pre- and p…
Moundbuilders of the Amazon
Advances in Brazilian Archeology, 1935-1985
Although Brazil occupies almost half the continent of South America, its archeology attracted little interest until recently from either nationals or foreigners. This is attributable to the characteristics of the remains. There are no buildings of stone, tools and ornaments of metal, or elaborate artifacts of cloth, wood, and bone. Except along the Amazon, pottery is not noted for its aesthetic qualities; even there, complete vessels with well pr…
Resource optimization and environmental limitation in lowland South America
Hames, Raymond B.,.and William T. Vickers, eds. Adaptive Responses of Native Amazonians. New York: Academic Press, 1983. xv + 516 pp. including photographs, maps, references, and index. $49.00 cloth
Las antiguas civilizaciones de América
Review of the book "Las antiguas civilizaciones de América," by Warwick Bray
Chan Chan
Aplicación del modelo biológico de diversificación a las distribuciones culturales en las tierras tropicales Bajas de Sudamérica
Evidências de diversas áreas sugerem que a Amazônia não esteve isenta das drásticas flutuações climáticas experimentadas nas regiões temperadas e montanhosas do hemisfério ocidental durante o Pleistoceno e épocas recentes. Zoólogos e botânicos empregaram um modelo de ciclos climáticos e vegetativos, no qual a floresta tropical de terras baixas é periodicamente reduzida a enclaves isolados por savanas ou cerrados, para explicar a abundância de esp…
Reconstrucción De La Prehistoria Amazónico
Este artículo tiene por objeto, en un contexto geográfico más amplio, comentar alguna de las evidencias lingüísticas y arqueológicas y discutir ciertas consideraciones culturales y ambientales, que deben ser consideradas en cualquier esfuerzo para la reconstrucción del pasado del hombre en la Amazonía. Como los datos en todos los campos son aún mínimos, las reconstrucciones que siguen serán reconocidas como hipotéticas. Representan esfuerzos para…
Developing the Amazon
Prehistoric Hunters of the High Andes
The Amerindians in Guyana, 1803-1873
These selected documents reveal the reaction and responses of the Amerindians to European values
Beyond the Andes
Pre-Columbian Man in Costa Rica
Environmental Limitation on the Development of Culture1
Anthropological Archaeology in the Americas
The Continuing Quest for El Dorado
An increasing number of publications supports the autonomous development of dense sedentary populations with advanced social organization throughout Amazonia in spite of abundant archaeological, ethnographic, physical, and biological evidence for environmental limitations to sustainable intensive exploitation of the varzea as well as the terra firme. Three articles in recent issues of Latin American Antiquity dispute the validity of the data coll…
Climatic Oscillation as a Factor in the Prehistory of Amazonia
The existence of climatic oscillations during the Quaternary in the Neotropics was inferred from the distributions and diversities of the modern flora and fauna. Recent data on soils, geomorphology, palynology, and paleoclimatology confirm the existence of periods of aridity and permit more accurate definition of their durations and impacts. A review of linguistic and archaeological evidence reveals patterns similar to those exhibited by a wide r…
Moundbuilders of the Amazon
Functional and Evolutionary Implications of Community Patterning
The classification of cultures into a workable number of types for descriptive or interpretative ends has occupied anthropologists since the science was born. Many kinds of data have been selected. Within the last decade Coon's (1948) subdivision of human societies into six levels on the basis of complexity of institutions, and the attempts by Strong (1948), Armillas (1948), Steward (1949), Willey and Phillips (1955) to distinguish developmental …
Archaeology in the Lowland American Tropics
Vegetational fluctuation and prehistoric cultural adaptation in Amazonia
Biogeographical studies have generated the hypothesis that the remarkably large number of plant and animal species inhabiting Amazonia are a consequence of several episodes of forest fragmentation and coalescence, in which periods of isolation that permitted biological differentiation alternated with periods of renewed interaction. Geological and palynological evidence support this reconstruction, but data are insufficient to permit definition of…
Use of Organic Temper for Carbon 14 Dating in Lowland South America
Experimental work has demonstrated the practicality of extracting sufficient organic carbon for Carbon 14 dating from sherds tempered with crushed charcoal sponge spicules (cauixi), and siliceous bark (cariapé). The sherds were from ceramic complexes on the Napo, Orinoco, and Amazon Rivers that had been stratigraphically excavated and could be cross-checked
Part II, An Archaeological Evaluation of the Method
Dating archaeological sites, cultures or phases by the obsidian method is still experimental, but shows promise provided the archaeologists understand the present limitations. Two categories of factors cause possible dating errors: the technical or geological aspect discussed by Friedman and Smith, and the archaeological context. For the establishment of valid rates of hydration and for the archaeological evaluation of the method, preferred sampl…
The Machalilla Culture
Excavations at the site of G-110: La Cabuya provide significant new data on the content and chronological position of the Machalilla culture. Trade pottery establishes its contemporaneity with the late period of the Valdivia culture, estimated at between 1800 and 1500 B.C. While seafood appears to have provided the main subsistence in both cultures, the ceramics and other artifacts are distinct. Machalilla pottery is well made, with thin walls an…
A Complex of Traits of Probable Transpacific Origin on the Coast of Ecuador1
Formative Period Cultures in the Guayas Basin, Coastal Ecuador
Growing knowledge of cultural sequences in Mesoamerica and in Peru has caused archaeologists interested in correlating these areas and explaining the derivation of various traits to look longingly at the little-known intermediate region occupied by Ecuador and Colombia. In the fall of 1954 an invitation by Emilio Estrada, Director of the Museo Arqueologico 'Victor Emilio Estrada' in Guayaquil, Ecuador, gave us the opportunity to make a brief surv…
Preliminary Results of Archaeological Investigations at the Mouth of the Amazon
Recent years have seen increasing archaeological research in South America, but little of it has been undertaken in the tropical forest regions. In an attempt to fill a portion of this gap we spent the period from July, 1948 to July, 1949 in archaeological survey and excavations on the Islands of Marajó, Mexiana, and Caviana in the mouth of the Amazon and in the Territory of Amapá, (Brazilian Guiana). At the close of the field work the material w…
The Transpacific Origin of Mesoamerican Civilization
Anthropologists generally assume that civilization developed independently in the eastern and western hemispheres. Review of the features that distinguish the Olmec culture of Mesoamerica from preceding village farming groups shows, however, that many are present in the earlier Shang civilization of China. If Olmec civilization originated from a transpacific stimulus, this has important implications both for reconstruction of New World cultural d…
Recent Trends in American Ethnology
Peer Reviewed
In the Society of Nature
Palaeoclimatic and archaeological evidence for a 200-yr recurrence of floods and droughts linking California, Mesoamerica and South America over the past 2000 years
Conspicuous grey, clay-rich flood deposits in the predominantly olive, varved sediment in the central Santa Barbara Basin, California, were dated via varve-counting to c. AD 212, 440, 603, 1029, 1418 and 1605. The ∼200-yr quasi-periodicity and the timing of individual floods match time periods of known supraregional climatic changes and the documented ∼200-yr periodicity in palaeoclimate records elsewhere. The floods of c. AD 440 and AD 1418 occu…
Advances in Brazilian Archeology, 1935-1985
Although Brazil occupies almost half the continent of South America, its archeology attracted little interest until recently from either nationals or foreigners. This is attributable to the characteristics of the remains. There are no buildings of stone, tools and ornaments of metal, or elaborate artifacts of cloth, wood, and bone. Except along the Amazon, pottery is not noted for its aesthetic qualities; even there, complete vessels with well pr…
Welcome of Tears
United States 'Imperialism' and Latin American Archaeology
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Resource optimization and environmental limitation in lowland South America
Hames, Raymond B.,.and William T. Vickers, eds. Adaptive Responses of Native Amazonians. New York: Academic Press, 1983. xv + 516 pp. including photographs, maps, references, and index. $49.00 cloth
Human Ecology in the Tropics
British Guiana Archaeology
The reinterpretation of the Mabaruma phase, British Guiana, by Lathrap does not introduce new evidence that requires abandonment of the original estimate of about A.D. 500 for its introduction from the Orinoco delta
Handbook of South American Archaeology
Recent Trends in American Ethnology
Peer Reviewed
Preliminary Results of Archaeological Investigations at the Mouth of the Amazon
Recent years have seen increasing archaeological research in South America, but little of it has been undertaken in the tropical forest regions. In an attempt to fill a portion of this gap we spent the period from July, 1948 to July, 1949 in archaeological survey and excavations on the Islands of Marajó, Mexiana, and Caviana in the mouth of the Amazon and in the Territory of Amapá, (Brazilian Guiana). At the close of the field work the material w…
The Pottery of Marajó Island, Brazil . H elen C. P almatary
Environmental Limitation on the Development of Culture1
Functional and Evolutionary Implications of Community Patterning
The classification of cultures into a workable number of types for descriptive or interpretative ends has occupied anthropologists since the science was born. Many kinds of data have been selected. Within the last decade Coon's (1948) subdivision of human societies into six levels on the basis of complexity of institutions, and the attempts by Strong (1948), Armillas (1948), Steward (1949), Willey and Phillips (1955) to distinguish developmental …
Program, of the History of America. Indigenous Period. (Coordinator
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Environmental Limitation on Maya Culture
General and Theoretical
Formative Period Cultures in the Guayas Basin, Coastal Ecuador
Growing knowledge of cultural sequences in Mesoamerica and in Peru has caused archaeologists interested in correlating these areas and explaining the derivation of various traits to look longingly at the little-known intermediate region occupied by Ecuador and Colombia. In the fall of 1954 an invitation by Emilio Estrada, Director of the Museo Arqueologico 'Victor Emilio Estrada' in Guayaquil, Ecuador, gave us the opportunity to make a brief surv…
Archeological Investigations at the Mouth of the Amazon
Die Söhne der Sonne. Auf den spuren vorzeitlicher Kultur in Amazonas
Indiansommar. 38 svartbilder och 15 färgbilder av författaren och Sven Nehlin
Archeology
An Archeological Chronology of Venezuela
Mundurucu Religion
This article examines the religious system of the Mundurucu, a Tupi-speaking group residing in the Brazilian Amazon. It analyzes the interplay between their social organization, particularly the dual division system, and their religious beliefs and practices. The authors argue that Mundurucu religion, characterized by ancestor worship and a focus on warfare and hunting, reflects and reinforces their social structure. They discuss the roles of sha…
Part II, An Archaeological Evaluation of the Method
Dating archaeological sites, cultures or phases by the obsidian method is still experimental, but shows promise provided the archaeologists understand the present limitations. Two categories of factors cause possible dating errors: the technical or geological aspect discussed by Friedman and Smith, and the archaeological context. For the establishment of valid rates of hydration and for the archaeological evaluation of the method, preferred sampl…
Archeology
Field Testing of Cultural Law
Archeology
A Complex of Traits of Probable Transpacific Origin on the Coast of Ecuador1
Use of Organic Temper for Carbon 14 Dating in Lowland South America
Experimental work has demonstrated the practicality of extracting sufficient organic carbon for Carbon 14 dating from sherds tempered with crushed charcoal sponge spicules (cauixi), and siliceous bark (cariapé). The sherds were from ceramic complexes on the Napo, Orinoco, and Amazon Rivers that had been stratigraphically excavated and could be cross-checked
The Machalilla Culture
Excavations at the site of G-110: La Cabuya provide significant new data on the content and chronological position of the Machalilla culture. Trade pottery establishes its contemporaneity with the late period of the Valdivia culture, estimated at between 1800 and 1500 B.C. While seafood appears to have provided the main subsistence in both cultures, the ceramics and other artifacts are distinct. Machalilla pottery is well made, with thin walls an…
Emilio Estrada 1916-1961
When Emilio Estrada first came to the United States National Museum on an autumn day in 1953 -a tall, serious young man slightly unsure of his receptionhis interest in archaeology had just begun. Yet by May of 1960, his contribution was of such significance that two of the speakers honoring the 25 th Anniversary
Archeology
The Technological Order
History (45 works) · Geography (44 works) · Archaeology (38 works) · Computer Science (29 works) · History (27 works) · Art (25 works) · Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory (22 works) · Library science (21 works) · Citation (19 works) · Sociology (18 works)