Abstract
This chapter discusses the cultural development in Amazonia. The first large body of data about aboriginal cultural development in South America was provided by the publication of the six-volume handbook of South American Indians under the editorship of Julian Steward. Julian Steward recognized that the contrast in political development between the lowlands and highlands in Amazonia was accompanied by contrasts in social, demographic, and subsistence patterns. The highland state supported its large dense population with animal husbandry and highly intensive cultivation of root and seed crops in desert and mountain valleys. Occupation or hereditary class determined the status of people. The small lowland villages had their support in swidden cultivation of root crops in forests and hunting and fishing of wild faunas. For the villagers, status and occupation were determined by distinctions of age and sex. Steward suggested that the contrasts in demographic, economic, and sociopolitical patterns were related to ecological adaptation to contrasting environments.
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