Indian corn, Zea mays, was an important crop in Mesoamerica and popular theories of its appearance in South America all rest on its having been brought there (by means unknown) at an extremely early date. Recent analyses, however, show fundamental differences in the two groups of maize, suggesting that maize spread south well before it had become domesticated in Mesoamerica.

Does the South American continent have a future? Between gross exploitation by European and Asian countries, corrupt and incompetent local governments, many in thrall to foreign interests, environmental degradation, overpopulation and weak economies plus widespread looting of archaeological sites to supply European and North American museums, the future does not seem very bright.

South America was cut off from Eurasia for some 15,000 years and is generally ignored by North Americans and Europeans in any manner but superficial tourism. Yet the separate development of such features of civilization as agriculture, monumental architecture, conquest states and elite art allow us to test our own, Eurasian centric views, of what is a civilization and how do they arise.

Metal working in South America has at least two independent foci: the Altiplano of Peru/Bolivia and the closely related coastal technologies, with an emphasis upon hammered and joined sheet metal ornaments and the very different, casting oriented, traditions of the northern Andes. These latter features gold and gold alloys whereas the Peruvian traditions also used different kinds of bronze.

Intercontinental contact in Pre-Columbian times consisted of movement up and down the Central America corridor—to some extent. In later prehistory canoe travel along the eastern coast of Central America was extremely important, whereas the hypothesis of Mexico-South American contact via rafts on the west is a sentimental fallacy.

Because no ancient South American society had writing, all histories must be dated by archaeological mean, including radiocarbon dating. Before this was available various schemes of relative dating were proposed, most concocted on a lack of data and ethnocentric principles.

The geography of South America is extremely varied with a long range of high mountains, the Andes, along the west coast and the eastern and northern parts of the continent in various tropical forests with enormous river systems, semi-arid deserts, and the cold plains of the Pampas and Patagonia. These fostered the development of a series of extremely distinctive societies, from giant multiethnic conquest states to simple hunters and gatherers.

The northern and eastern lowlands of the South America continent are marked by extreme regional diversity of landforms coupled with the ease of communication (by canoe) over immense distances. In the Amazon proper numbers of autochthonous kingdoms have been delineated where as in the Orinoco plains and those of the Llanos de Mojos in Bolivia cultures features built up residential (islands) connected by long causeways and drain field systems prevailed.

Ceramics manufacture and use followed a very different trajectory in South American than in the rest of the world. The first ceramics in Peru were late and the earliest complex societies were completely aceramic while in the northern Andes extremely early ceramic traditions flourished and multiplied.

Beginning ca. 3800BC large circular temples with associated platforms and structures began to appear along the Peru coast, especially in the Norte Chico. Hypotheses concerning this sudden and completely preceramic development include the intensification of irrigation agriculture, a dependance upon maritime resources, and possible climatic changes.

The last centuries before the European invasions were marked by the rise of an immense conquest state in the Andes, that of the Inca and a smaller series of warring kingdoms, the Muisca, on the Sabana de Bogotá and the large and equally warring kingdoms or chiefdoms of the Tupinamba in eastern Brazil. The range of difference between these kingdoms (and empire) is significant but all were marked by a bellicose orientation and, in the case of the Tupinamba, by ritual cannibalism.

Iconographic studies of pictorial art are important clues to belief systems in non-literate societies. In South America intensive study of the pictorial Moche style has led to a new understanding of its religious practices, while in the north studies of a number of metallurgical styles have shown belief systems concerning shamanism and the importance of carnivores in mythology.