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Neo-environmental determinism and agrarian ‘collapse’ in Andean prehistory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Clark L. Erickson
Clark L. Erickson*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, 33rd and Spruce Street, Philadelphia PA 19104-6398, USA cerickso@sas.upenn.edu
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Extract

In early anthropology, environmental determinism was used to explain race, human demography, material culture, cultural variation and cultural change. As anthropological interpretation evolved, simplistic reductionist thinking was replaced with more complex socio-cultural explanations. Despite these theoretical advances,environmental determinism continues to be invoked to explain Andean prehistory.

Keywords

landscapesdroughtclimate changeSouth America
Type
Special section
Information
Antiquity , Volume 73 , Issue 281 , September 1999 , pp. 634 - 642
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1999

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