Perishable Technology and the Successful Peopling of South America

ABSTRACT Recent research demonstrates that perishable industries – specifically including the manufacture of textiles, basketry, cordage, and netting – were a well-established, integral component of the Upper Paleolithic milieu in many parts of the Old World. Moreover, extant data suggest that not only were these synergistic technologies part and parcel of the armamentarium of the first migrants to the New World, but, also, that these technologies played critical, and hitherto, largely unappreciated roles in the ecological success of late Pleistocene populations, notably including the first South Americans. This paper examines the evidence for, and varied roles of, early plant fiber technology in highland and lowland South America and also examines the adaptive qualities, potential impacts on social organization, and alteration of food procurement strategies implicit in this fundamentally crucial series of interrelated industries.