Of Lost Civilizations and Primitive Tribes, Amazonia: Reply to Meggers

Abstract

Meggers's critique of views presented by DeBoer et al. (1996), Wüst and Barreto (1999), and Heckenberger et al. (1999) in Latin American Antiquity misrepresents these authors and others. Her criticisms, largely directed at the present authors, obfuscate fundamental points raised regarding the nature and variability of cultural formations and economic patterns in Amazonia. By conflating indigenous resource management systems, which we discuss, with mechanized development strategies of the modern world, she creates an unnecessarily polemical atmosphere for debate.