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Concept
Archaeology of the Americas
Summary
The archaeology of the Americas is the study of the archaeology of the Western Hemisphere, including North America (Mesoamerica), Central America, South America and the Caribbean. This includes the study of pre-historic/Pre-Columbian and historic indigenous American peoples, as well as historical archaeology of more recent eras, including the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and European colonization.
The Pre-Columbian era is the term generally used to encompass all time period subdivisions in the history of the Americas spanning the time from the original settlement of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic until the European colonization of the Americas during the early modern period. While technically referring to the era before the voyages of Christopher Columbus from AD 1492 to 1504, in practice the term usually includes the history of American indigenous cultures until the 18th or 19th century. In more recent decades, archaeological scholarship has extended to include enslaved Africans and European and Asian migrant populations.
The pre-Columbian archaeological record in the Americas has conventionally been divided into five phases based on an enduring system established by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips's 1958 book Method and Theory in American Archaeology. Their chronology differs from old world prehistory from Europe and Asia which uses the three-age system, with the Stone Age divided into Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Chalcolithic, followed by the Bronze Age and Iron Age, remain in general use.
Numerous regional and sub-regional divisions have since been defined to distinguish various cultures through time and space, as later archaeologists recognized that these generalised stages did not adequately correspond to the cultural variation that existed in different locations in the Americas.
Lithic stage
Defined by the ostensible prevalence of big-game hunting. In most places, this can be dated to before 8000 BCE, starting most probably around 16,500 BCE (see Paleo-Indians).
Official source
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