Archaeolinguistics of the languages of the Andes

Urban, Matthias;Barbieri, Chiara

Writing - Original Draft Preparation

;Rademaker, Kurt

2025-01-01

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Abstract

This chapter discusses aspects of the prehistoric language dynamics of the Andes of South America. Featuring more than one hundred languages that belong to more than thirty distinct lineages, including a high number of isolates, the linguistic landscape of the Andes is fractal and complex, and diversity was likely even higher in pre-Columbian times. Our approach departs from observations on the language geography of the Andes on the regional level. We believe that patterns at this scale reflect qualitatively similar linguistic and demographic processes which also had occurred earlier in prehistory, often repeatedly. The language geography and language dynamics of the Andes articulate with research in archaeology and molecular anthropology that in many cases attest to similar processes, allowing us to conceive of the interface between linguistics, archaeology, and molecular anthropology in new ways beyond language expansion and its non-linguistic correlates.