Glossary

Archaic period Early Holocene period of often-complex hunter-gatherer cultures.

Diffusion The spread of archaeological cultures.

Formative period Period between about 5000 and 2000years ago when people first used cultivated plants as staple foods.

Hypoplasia A horizontal line of reduced enamel formation that forms in a child’s teeth when growth slows because of an illness or period of famine.

Interfluves Nonflooded land between the main rivers.

Manioc Tropical shrub of the Euphorbiaceae family whose fibrous, starchy roots are a staple food in Latin America and the Caribbean.

New Archaeology A period of theoretical and methodological innovation in American archaeology that emphasized the formation and testing of explicit hypotheses.

Oriente Eastern Ecuador, which lies in the Amazon basin.

Osteology The study of bone morphology.

Palaeoindian period New World cultural period of early hunting and gathering cultures dating to the later Pleistocene and Early Holocene.

Paradigm An overarching theoretical approach to scientific causality from which a group of related theories and hypotheses is derived.

Photogrammetry Three-dimensional mapping carried out by binocular resolution of dual, offset photographic images.

Phytolith A silica-rich, plant-cell wall structure that can be preserved in soil, recovered, and identified to species.

Pleistocene Geological period of the Ice Age between c. 2million and 10 000years ago.

Pressure-flaked a method of flaking stone to shape artifacts by pressing the rock surface.

Radiometric dating Dating methods that use the behavior of radioactive materials to measure the amount of time since a material was used or buried.

Stable isotope analysis Study of vegetation cover or diet by mass spectrometric analysis of nonradioactive isotopes extracted from plants, fauna, or soils.

Varzea Brazilian Portuguese term for alluvial floodplain land. Xanthosoma Tropical South American root crop of the Aroid family distantly related to Asian taro.