Ryan P. Clasby

Situated between the highland Andes and the Amazonian lowlands, the upper Amazon (or eastern Andes montane forest) has often been viewed as a cultural buffer zone that impeded interaction during the Pre-Columbian era. However, scholars are increasingly recognizing that not only was the upper Amazon a nexus for highland-lowland exchange, thereby influencing culture change but that the region was also home to early in-situ complex cultural developments. This project, through a comprehensive examination of the archaeological literature will result in a monograph that creates a new synthesis for the archaeology of the upper Amazon, illustrating the region’s rich cultural history while also demonstrating its importance to the development of social complexity in western South America.