Intermediate Area

The Intermediate Area is an archaeological geographical area of the Americas that was defined in its clearest form by Gordon R. Willey in his 1971 book An Introduction to American Archaeology, Vol. 2: South America (Prentice Hall: Englewood Cliffs, NJ). It comprises the geographical region between Mesoamerica to the north and the Central Andes to the south, including portions of Honduras and most of the territory of the republics of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador. As an archaeological concept, the Intermediate Area has always been somewhat poorly defined.