A Reassessment of Social Complexity in the Southwest of the Intermediate Area

This essay proposes a critical review of social complexity in pre-Hispanic times, taking as a specific area of study the Southwest of the Intermediate Area. This area, which bears its name because it is in the middle of Mesoamerica and the Andes, is appreciated as an intermediate point, in which the social complexity that occurred towards the North and South of it was not achieved. Despite this, it is possible to suggest that it had important political, economic and technological processes, perhaps ignored or little taken into account in the archaeological analyses and debates that are carried out in the studies of social complexity. This essay is an exploration of this topic, a partial attempt given its breadth, but we trust that it will help to outline elements for future and productive analyses on this subject.

Keywords: Intermediate Area, Social complexity, Tumaco- La Tolita.