Cooke 2005

Journal of Archaeological Research, Vol. 13, No. 2, June 2005 ( C 2005) DOI: 10.1007/s10804-005-2486-4

Prehistory of Native Americans on the Central American Land Bridge: Colonization, Dispersal, and Divergence
Richard Cooke1

The Central American land bridge has served as a passageway for animals and humans moving between North and South America. Nevertheless, after the first waves of humanimmigration at the end of the Pleistocene, contact between the native peoples who remained on this isthmus and other peoples living in continental areas where civilization ultimately developed, is characterized, according to the field record, by the transfer of crops, technologies, and goods, until ca.1400 BP when speakers of Mesoamerican languages occupied the northwestern edge (Gran Nicoya). Theancestors of modern-day speakers of Chibchan and Chocoan languages underwent social and cultural diversification mostly within the confines of the land bridge. Some Precolumbian residents altered vegetation immediately after first arrival at least 11,000 years ago, and began to add domesticated crops to their subsistence inventory between 9000 and 7000 BP. Maize and manioc (or cassava), domesticatedoutside the land bridge, were introduced in Preceramic times, early in the period between 7000 and 4500 BP, and gradually dominated regional agriculture as they became more productive, and as human populations increased and spread into virgin areas. Diversity in material culture is visible ca. 6000 BP, and becomes more apparent after the introduction of pottery ca. 4500 BP. By 2000 BP cultureareas with distinctive artifact inventories are discernible. Between 2500 and 1300 BP hierarchies among regions, sites, social groups, and individuals point to the establishment of chiefdoms whose elite members came to demand large numbers of costume and sumptuary goods. A few special centers with stone sculptures and low-scale architecture served a social universe larger than the chiefdom, such asclusters of recently fissioned social groups with memories of a common heritage. Social interactions on the land bridge, endowed with

1 Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Unit 0948, APO AA 34002, Panama; e-mail: cooker@naos.

si.edu, cominata@hotmail.com. 129
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productive bottomlands, highlandvalleys, and coastal habitats, appear always to have been strongest among neighboring groups.
KEY WORDS: Central American land bridge; continuity; Precolumbian agriculture; exchange; chiefdom.

INTRODUCTION The Central American land bridge (between southernmost Nicaragua and the Atrato-San Juan axis in northernmost Colombia [Fig. 1]) united North and South America between 3.2 and 3.7 million yearsago. It became an obstacle to marine organisms and a passageway for terrestrial ones including humans and their dogs during the Late Glacial Stage (LGS [14,000–10,000 B.P.]) and, subsequently, their crops (Bermingham and Lessios, 1993; Coates and Obando, 1996; Jackson and D’Croz, 1997; Piperno and Pearsall, 1998, pp. 209–226, 286–296; Ranere and Cooke, 2003; Webb, 1997). Less well advertised isthe fact that the land bridge’s position vis-` -vis tropical atmospheric circulation, and an orography influenced a by the proximity of multiple plate junctions, have created a multitude of isthmian and insular landscapes, which have favored endemism and diversity—not only of terrestrial plants and animals but also of human societies (Anderson and Handley, 2002; Barrantes et al., 1990; Constenla,1991; Cropp and Boinski, 2000; Herlihy, 1997).

Fig. 1. The Central American land bridge, showing location of Paleoindian and Early Holocene preceramic sites.

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The Spanish who settled the land bridge after A.D. 1502 observed many kinds of settlements ranging from small villages with houses scattered on hill tops amid...