The settlement of South America

Danilo Antón

During the greater part of the Quaternary (that is, the last million years) the region of the plains and peneplains on both sides of the Rio de la Plata was

populated by a complex and largely autochthonous fauna that included a certain number of species of large mammals (mega-mammals) such as the glyptodont [1], the megaterio and the milodon [2], the mastodon [3] , the toxodon [4], several species of American horses, the rhea [5]. and many other vertebrate and invertebrate species, many of which survive in the current fauna. This fauna based its existence on the predominantly herbaceous vegetation with associated forests [6], characteristic of the temperate and semi-humid regions of South America. This ecological zone has traditionally received the name of the pampas.

In order to be precise, we must note that during the long million years of the South American Quaternary, the Pampas suffered periods of aridification and humidification, which changed both the composition and distribution of their flora and fauna.

A second dimension that must be pointed out is that although the Pampas form a relatively homogeneous region, there are certain differences between their different sub-zones due to geological, geomorphological, pedological, climatological, etc. variations. In that sense there is a flat pampa to the southwest of the Río de la Plata and a wavy pampa to the northeast of this body of water. The region currently between the Paraná and Uruguay rivers has intermediate features (slightly undulating). Similarly, the northeastern sub-areas (present Rio Grande do Sul) tend to receive more rainfall and therefore have a greater abundance of forest vegetation and the south-western areas are drier, with a less dense vegetation cover, Steppe

While developing and establishing the Pampas ecosystem in South America, in Africa and other continents of the planet had developed a group of primates that by the end of the Tertiary (Pliocene Era), 2-3 million years ago had given rise to a a certain group of bipedal species that would culminate in the genus Homo about 500,000-300,000 years ago [7] and in Homo sapiens (current women and men) about 100,000 years ago.

It should be noted that this Homo sapiens gradually occupied almost all regions of the planet, replaced the other Homos (such as the Homo neanderthalensis of the peri-Mediterranean region about 40,000 years ago) and soon after invaded other continents and uninhabited islands by the Homos [8], and in particular the American continent.

There are different theories about how humans came to America. The generally accepted hypothesis is that the first communities entered the continent through the Bering Strait, which at the time of the last ice age was an isthmus that connected Eurasia to America. This approach does not take into account one of the main characteristics of the human species, which is its development in contact with water, both rivers and oceanic coasts. Human beings learned to navigate from the beginning of the development of the species. In my opinion, the first human migrations were using boats, sailing to America from the continent that was already inhabited. This means that human beings would have arrived in America from Asia (not necessarily through the Bering isthmus), from Europe, probably via Iceland and Greenland, and even from Africa.

Be that as it may, these invading peoples who came to America and that we will provisionally call Paleo-Indians were gradually extending through the native American ecosystems (and obviously modifying them in the march) until arriving at the Pampas of the south about 12,500-15,000 years ago [9].

The Paleo-Indian peoples were mainly fishermen and to a lesser extent gatherers, hunters and planters. Due to the type of tools used, it is possible to deduce their possession of a complex and highly effective material culture for the complex of survival activities demanded by the American ecosystems. Unlike the mammals of the old world (Africa, Europe, Asia) that evolved together with the native African peoples (and therefore developed defenses against this dangerous primate), the South American animals were defenseless against the invader.

As a result of the above, over time many of these animals were extinct (eg the glyptodont, the mastodon, the toxodon, the megatherium, the milodon), allowing the expansion of species better adapted to defend themselves from the human invaders (eg the deer, the capybara, the rhea, etc). For the remains found in recent sedimentary formations, it seems that the extinctions occurred in the period that goes from 10,000 to 4,000 years before the present.

The Paleo-Indians had to adapt to faunal and ecosystemic modifications that they themselves provoked.

In general, it seems that its main adaptation was to emigrate to other areas of the continent, leaving the Pampas to other towns that with less population density were dedicated to exploiting the impoverished ecosystem. These new peoples apparently had a less varied material culture using hard stones with little artesian work. In general, these cultures are considered to have taken place about 6,000 or 5,000 years ago. In the last 4,000 to 5,000 years, there seems to have been a substantial change in the culture of the pampas and forests of South America, as can be seen in the archaeological record. This period was characterized by the establishment of a first generation of peoples based on fluvial and lacunar fishing, and to a lesser extent, harvesting, planting and hunting.

This first generation may be related to the peoples that linguistics determines as older, as the ancestors of the wichis, nivacles, makás and charrúas.

(to be continued)

    [1] Glyptodon sp. (Giant armadillo)

    [2] Megatherium sp. and Mylodon sp., types of giant sloths.

    [3] Mastodon sp., A type of elephant

    [4] Toxodon sp., An animal with some resemblance to the hippopotamus

    [5] American Rhea, American ostrich, called bera by the pampas peoples.

    [6] The characteristics of the Quaternary vegetation are known, above all due to the type of feeding of the species of herbivorous animals that inhabited the pampas during this geological period (for example, observing the type of teeth, the running habits that arise from the observation of the bones of the legs, etc), and by means of fossil analysis of the plants of the time that are conserved in the sediments.

    [7] Groups of African primates evolutionarily ancestor to the genus Homo belonged to a genus that paleo-anthropologists call Australopithecus, which gradually evolved to Homo erectus (also called Pithecanthropus erectus) and later to Homo habilis, culminating in Homo sapiens ago about 100,000 years This process probably occurred in Africa although it is not known in detail.

    [8] It is assumed that its entry into America either through the Bering isthmus or through another route was more or less simultaneous with its entry into Australia, some 30,000 years ago.

    [9] We do not know what the exact arrival date of these peoples is. There are dates in the archaeological sites of Touro Passo in Rio Grande that would place them at least 12,500 years ago. More data will be needed to ratify or rectify this age.