Results of two archaeological surveys in southeastern Bolivia provide substantial information on migration patterns of precontact Guaraní groups into an understudied region of South America. Surveys were conducted within the rights-of-way of two pipelines across the Department of Santa Cruz, Bolivia. The pipeline corridors traversed 917 km of undeveloped areas of southeastern Bolivia, which are among the least understood in South American archaeology. In total, 71 archaeological sites were identified and tested resulting in more than 132,000 artifacts. Excavation results, radiocarbon dates, specialist analyses, and paleoenvironmental reconstruction fill a gap in our knowledge base for this crucial region of South America located at the interface between the Andes and Amazonia. Project results indicate early intrusions of small groups to the region by about 900 BC and increasingly more people by about AD 700. The Chiquitano Dry Forest was relatively densely occupied from about AD 1100 through AD 1600 compared to elsewhere in southeastern Bolivia. Our findings support and amplify other recent investigations of lowland South American precontact dispersal patterns.

The so-called Island Carib Problem remains topical, and discoveries in the last decade have sparked further discussion. This article addresses this issue from the Guianas, where recent excavations have demonstrated the presence of a material counterpart of the Lesser Antilles from the seventeenth century. When compared to the insular Cayo complex, the continental complex of Malmanoury in what is today French Guiana suggests a historical movement of the Galibi toward the Antilles, where they overcame the local population, as told in a Callinago myth. This movement was driven by turmoil throughout the Guianas, Trinidad, and the Antilles during the sixteenth century caused by Indigenous warfare and migration in this area and was possibly an amplification of the late prehistoric Koriabo expansion. The Caribs encountered by Columbus were not the same Caribs met by Europeans in the seventeenth century.

The Chicha Soras valley on the boundary of Ayacucho with Apurimac in south-central Peru sees the introduction of intensive irrigated terraced agriculture in the Middle Horizon. The control over the water sources and the terracing systems fell to corporate lineage groups laying claim to common ancestors, viewed as being the founders of the local irrigation systems. The control over these systems and the rights of the respective lineages to land and water was expressed in the placement of ancestral tomb locations across the local landscape. This article demonstrates that ancestor-based organization of water sources was long lived across the area and survived the large-scale demographic and sociopolitical disruptions resulting from the Spanish conquest and the imposition of Christian belief systems.

Whilst much attention has been paid to Sir John Soane’s public buildings, notably the Bank of England, the growing commercial and financial class in London also provided many opportunities for smaller-scale work in the private sphere. For example, his career mirrored the era of private banking in the metropolis, and his influence on the emergence of an architectural style appropriate for the London private banking house deserves greater attention. Drawing on new evidence from Soane’s office, this paper explores the ways Soane engaged with his private bank clients in the following ways: first, remodelling, where Ransom & Co. of Pall Mall and Down, Thornton & Free of Bartholomew Lane employed Soane to adapt their existing sites to meet changing requirements; second, rebuilding, where he worked for Prescott, Grote & Co. in Threadneedle Street to reconstruct their principal banking house and associated partners houses into a private bank compound around a small City court; third, reimagining, where Soane designed a new building for Praed & Co. in Fleet Street, unconstrained by pre-existing structures. In all these ways, Soane refined and refocused the Georgian town house model, integrating the banks’ public image with their distinctive requirements for business space and domestic residence.