ABSTRACT
This book offers a new anthropological understanding of the socio-cosmological and ontological characteristics of the Isthmo–Colombian Area, beyond established theories for Amazonia, the Andes and Mesoamerica.
It focuses on a core region that has been largely neglected by comparative anthropology in recent decades. Centering on relations between Chibchan groups and their neighbors, the contributions consider prevailing socio-cosmological principles and their relationship to Amazonian animism and Mesoamerican and Andean analogism. Classical notions of area homogeneity are reconsidered and the book formulates an overarching proposal for how to make sense of the heterogeneity of the region’s indigenous groups. Drawing on original fieldwork and comparative analysis, the volume provides a valuable anthropological addition to archaeological and linguistic knowledge of the Isthmo・Colombian Area.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|33 pages
The Isthmo–Colombian Area in context
chapter 1|31 pages
Introduction
part II|144 pages
Conceptualizing the Isthmo–Colombian Area from a regional comparative perspective
chapter 3|27 pages
Languages of the Isthmo–Colombian Area and its southeastern borderland
chapter 5|35 pages
Between Mesoamerica, the Central Andes, and Amazonia
chapter 6|21 pages
The golden ones
part III|166 pages
Case studies