Abstract

RAMOS ROCA, Elizabeth  and  CORONA-M, Eduardo. The Importance of Varied, Complementary and Comparative Approaches to the Investigation of the Interactions between Humans and Fauna in Latin America. Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol. [online]. 2017, n.28, pp.13-29. ISSN 1900-5407.  https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda28.2017.01.

Latin America covers one of the regions with the greatest biodiversity in the world, where, for millennia and up to the present time, human societies have developed a complex and close biological and cultural relationship with animals. While this relationship has been studied from the particular standpoint of different disciplines and with different focuses within the natural and social sciences, studies aimed at the search for comparative patterns among regions which are different at a synchronic and/or diachronic level have not been common. In that regard, this article presents some reflections on the importance of conjugating different fields, like Ethnobiology, Zooarchaeology, Anthropology and Conservation biology, among others. It stresses that this perspective is not only desirable but also indispensable for exploring the complexities found in the relations between humans and animals from a multi-disciplinary and integrating standpoint. As examples of the strengths of this approach, it cites recent studies in some Latin American countries.

Keywords : Anthropology; human-faunal relationships; ethnozoology; Zooarchaeology; multidisciplinary research.

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