RESEARCH BASE
Search 3,721 documents across 34 fields — every claim tier-rated by evidence
3,633 are the core, quality-scored corpus (34 lettered sections — see How We Work); the remaining 88 are cross-corpus synthesis documents (68 InterDocs, 12 Connections, 8 Theories) also indexed here.
182 results for "South America" — page 2 of 10
ZG_1_14 — Mesoamerican Writing Systems: Zapotec, Mixtec, and Aztec Codices
Beyond the celebrated Maya script (the only fully developed logosyllabic writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas), Mesoamerica produced a remarkable diversity of writing and recording systems that ranged from the ea
J_5_16 — Mesoamerican Engineering: Hydraulics, Roads, and Urban Planning
Mesoamerican civilizations — Maya, Aztec, Zapotec, and others — developed sophisticated engineering systems without draft animals, iron tools, or the functional wheel, relying on human labor, stone tools, lime-based hydr
D_2_19 — Bronze Age Southeast Asia: Ban Chiang, Dong Son & the Metal Age Transition
Southeast Asia developed a distinctive Bronze Age tradition beginning c. 2000 BCE that challenges diffusionist models of metallurgical transmission from the Near East. The Ban Chiang site in northeastern Thailand, excava
D_1_21 — Cahokia & Monks Mound: North America's Largest Pre-Columbian Settlement
Cahokia, located near present-day Collinsville, Illinois, was the largest and most complex pre-Columbian settlement north of Mexico, reaching its peak between approximately 1050 and 1200 CE during the Mississippian cultu
L_2_13 — Genetic History of Island Southeast Asia: Wallace Line and Beyond
Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) — the vast archipelagic region encompassing the Philippines, Indonesia, Timor, and the islands between mainland Asia and Australo-Papua — is one of the most genetically complex regions on Ear
F_1_22 — Peopling of the Americas: Routes & Chronology
The peopling of the Americas — when, how, and by whom the Western Hemisphere was first colonized by modern humans — is one of the most actively debated questions in archaeology, genetics, and paleoanthropology, with the
F_1_25 — Roman-Era Artifacts in the Americas
The claim that Roman-era artifacts have been found in the Americas — suggesting trans-Atlantic contact between the Roman world and pre-Columbian civilizations — is a recurring theme in diffusionist and alternative archae
F_1_08 — Trans-Pacific Contact — Pre-Columbian Connections
The Pacific Ocean — covering over 165 million km² — was long assumed to be an impenetrable barrier to pre-Columbian cultural exchange between Asia/Oceania and the Americas. However, a growing body of botanical, genetic,
F_1_11 — Sweet Potato Paradox — Pre-Columbian Trans-Pacific Contact Evidence
The sweet potato paradox — the presence of Ipomoea batatas (a plant of unambiguous South American origin) across Polynesia in pre-Columbian contexts — is the single most widely accepted piece of evidence for trans-Pacifi
F_1_24 — Phoenician Contact with the Americas
The hypothesis that Phoenician or Carthaginian sailors reached the Americas before Columbus is one of the most persistent and emotionally charged claims in the field of pre-Columbian transatlantic contact — a proposition
F_2_10 — Jade Trade Networks — Mesoamerica, China, and New Zealand
Jade — a term covering two distinct minerals, nephrite (calcium-magnesium silicate, $\text{Ca}_2(\text{Mg,Fe})_5\text{Si}_8\text{O}_{22}(\text{OH})_2$) and jadeite (sodium-aluminum silicate, $\text{NaAlSi}_2\text{O}_6$)
M_5_27 — Indonesian Archaeology: Sundaland, Flores, and Maritime Southeast Asia
Indonesia is one of the most archaeologically consequential regions on Earth — a vast maritime archipelago spanning 5,000 km that preserves evidence from Homo erectus (c. 1.5 Ma at Sangiran, Java) through the enigmatic H
W_4_10 — Pueblo, Hopi, and Navajo Civilizations of the American Southwest
The Pueblo, Hopi, and Navajo (Diné) peoples of the American Southwest represent some of the most culturally continuous civilizations in the Americas, with archaeological records extending over 2,000 years and oral tradit
W_5_05 — Southeast Asian Spirit Traditions (Thai, Burmese, Khmer)
Southeast Asia presents one of the world's most complex religious landscapes, where Theravada Buddhism has been practiced for over a millennium in deep synthesis with pre-Buddhist animistic traditions rather than displac
C_4_16 — Zulu and Southern African Cosmologies
Zulu and broader Southern African cosmologies constitute one of the richest and most dynamic indigenous religious systems on the African continent, rooted in Bantu-speaking peoples' migrations into the region over the pa
ZF_3_08 — Sunda Shelf and Southeast Asian Submerged Landscapes
The Sunda Shelf (or Sundaland) is one of Earth's largest continental shelves — an area of ~1.8 million km² (larger than the Indian subcontinent) that connects the islands of Borneo, Sumatra, Java, and Bali to peninsular
ZC_4_10 — Mesoamerican Social Organization: City-States, Lineages, and Cosmological Order
Mesoamerican social organization — spanning the Classic Maya (~250–900 CE), Aztec/Mexica (~1325–1521 CE), Zapotec, Mixtec, and other civilizations across central Mexico through Honduras — represents one of humanity's mos
L_1_15 — Out of Africa Alternatives: Multiregional, Assimilation, and Southern Dispersal Models
The origin and dispersal of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) remains one of the most actively debated topics in paleoanthropology. The dominant model — the Recent African Origin (RAO) or "Out of Africa" hypothes
L_2_06 — South Asian Genetics and Population History
South Asia harbors one of the most genetically diverse and internally structured population histories of any world region, reflecting deep settlement, repeated admixture, and long periods of extreme endogamy. The best-su
L_2_05 — Americas Peopling Genetics
The peopling of the Americas is one of the clearest cases where ancient DNA and archaeology have converged to overturn an older narrative. The core model now favored by genetics is that the main ancestry of Indigenous Am
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