Exploriaciones Arquelogicas en San Agustin

510 pages with plates, foldout site maps, figures, and illustrations. Quarto (10 1/4" x 8") bound in original publisher's pictorial wrappers. Revista Colombiana de Antropologia, Suplemento number 1 for 1964. First edition.

The San Agustín culture is one of the ancient Pre-Columbian cultures of Colombia. Its beginnings go back at least to the fourth millennium B.C. Several hundred large monolithic sculptures have been found here. A radiocarbon date of 3300±120 B.C. has been obtained for the Lavapatas site. The chronology of the culture is divided into the following periods: the Archaic, the Formative, the Regional Classic Period (1-900 A.D.), and the Recent Period. The beginning of the Formative Period was during 1000-600 BC. At that time, there was widespread sedentary occupation near the fertile agricultural lands. Ceramics were already being produced. Corn, beans, quinua, manioc and yam were being planted. The dead were buried in shaft tombs located near their houses. During the Regional Classic Period (1-900 AD), great earth mounds were built. They covered funerary dolmens that used large slabs. These were marked by stone statues of mythological beings. Nevertheless, these tombs had rather few offerings. The Recent Period was during 900-1350 A.D. The population increased yet further. The systems of drainage channels and earthworks indicate that agriculture was actually intensified at this time. The ancient inhabitants who built the stone monuments abandoned the area by the 14th and 15th centuries AD. The reasons for this are unclear.

Condition:

Book plate on inside front wrapper, edge extremities with small chips and rubbed, spine ends rubbed else about a very good.