Patrones de evolución en la América Antigua

Abstract

Traditionally the Anthropology divided in four principal categories the societies the Spaniars found in America at the beginning of the 16th. century: states, chiefdoms, tribes and bands. Each category was asociated to a certain economical and population development. It was considered that only in Nuclear Areas where “arcaic states” developed, the population attained a high demographic density and an efficient food poduction. This article criticizes this stance and proposes that supossedly almost uninhabited territories, were in fact densely populated and the people who ocuppied them developed very productive means of subsistence.