Podrían ser gigantes: una etnografía arqueológica sobre los procesos históricos de racionalización de las megafaunas, los mastodontes y las primeras interacciones humanas en Ecuador.

Abstract

This study deals with the historical processes of rationalizing human-mastodon interactions in Ecuador, the principal focus being the mastodon of Alangasí. This research also examines early Spanish colonial documentation of Indigenous oral beliefs of giants in the Andes and coast, which often have direct links to actual sites with remains of mastodons and megafauna. Such an approach connects modern research with the archaeological and paleontological past. An ethnohistoric interlude examines the Colonial European and Indigenous semiotics of megafauna through the development of archaeological and paleontological hermeneutics. This is a study of both the perception and the progress of the rationalization of the prehistoric past.