Dimensions of prehistoric human occupation in the southern Ecuadorian Oriente.
Item
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Title
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Dimensions of prehistoric human occupation in the southern Ecuadorian Oriente.
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Identifier
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AAI3159252
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identifier
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3159252
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Creator
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Rostoker, Arthur.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Warren R. DeBoer
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Date
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2005
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Anthropology, Archaeology
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Abstract
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Deforestation in southeastern Ecuador's Morona Santiago province has revealed numerous prehistoric sites, some with multiple earthworks. Many of these are located on the wide blufftops flanking the Rio Upano and its major tributaries, where sites encompassing groups of rectangular platforms have drawn the attention of the archaeological community since the late 1960's. Especially due to the valley's tropical pre-montane forest setting, there has been considerable speculation about the level of complexity achieved by the indigenous society or societies that produced them. Dating to the Regional Development Period (c. 500 BC--AD 500), such complexes apparently represent built environments of long-lasting regional significance, whether as the foci of enduring nucleated human settlement and/or as stages for activities connected with situational, episodic, or periodic aggregation. In either case, careful reading of the accumulated material evidence recovered during recent investigations focused on Yaunchu, Huapula, and other sites in the upper and middle Upano valley indicates that some almost surely functioned as central places of a type incommensurable with any model postulating universal environmentally determined limitations on what was accomplished by pre-contact peoples occupying the pre-montane equatorial forests of northern South America.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy Restricted.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.