ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the great diversity of environmental zones found across the continent and discusses how, in view of the potentials and limitations of these zones, we can lay the groundwork for understanding the different kinds of indigenous subsistence adaptations found in each of them. It provides a general description of each of the eight main environmental zones found across the South American continent. These zones are described in an order that proceeds in counterclockwise direction from south to north. They comprise Patagonia, the Pampas, the Gran Chaco, the Brazilian Highlands, the Amazon Basin, the Orinoco Basin, the Caribbean littoral, and the Andes. Patagonia includes within it the southernmost land anywhere in the world to which human populations were able to adapt until recent historic times. It is thus reasonable to lump the entire southern tip of the continent into one environmental zone called Patagonia, a geographic term that comes from the Spanish and means "land of big feet".
