South American Indian

South American Indian, member of any of the aboriginal peoples inhabiting the continent of South America.

The customs and social systems of South American peoples are closely and naturally related to the environments in which they live. These environmental relationships are mediated by the systems of technology that the people use to exploit their resources.

Four basic types of social and cultural organization of South American peoples emerge from the archaeological and historical records: (1) central Andean irrigation civilizations, (2) chiefdoms of the northern Andes and the circum-Caribbean, (3) tropical-forest farming villages, and (4) nomadic hunters and gatherers. Each type developed in its own fashion during thousands of years, and since the 16th century each has made a distinctive adjustment to the impact of European civilization.

Early peoples, hunters and gatherers with no knowledge of agriculture, gradually worked their way across the Bering Strait in pursuit of food and meandered over North and South America in small, migratory bands for thousands of years. They reached Tierra del Fuego in approximately 6000 bc, after passing through the bottleneck of Central America, dispersing in the rugged terrain of the northern Andes, following the resource-laden Caribbean coastline eastward, and filtering southward through the tropical lowlands now making up part of Venezuela, the Guianas, and Brazil. They also hunted game through the highland basins of the central Andes and hunted and fished along the west coast of South America until they reached land’s end.