Luis Miguel Soto Rodriguez

Luis Miguel is interested in investigating the emergence of the chiefdom communities that inhabited the North Coast of the Colombian Caribbean, specifically those denominated as Tairona. Since 2017 he has been investigating the social and economic organization of the pre-Hispanic communities that inhabited the mountainous foothills of the western slope of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, such as the El Congo microbasin, through quantitative and qualitative analysis of databases in statistical programming language R and settlement patterns in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). He has participated in archaeological research projects in the Bogotá Savannah, the Pacific Coast of Colombia, the Basin of Mexico and the Mixtec Region, Oaxaca. Since 2019 he has worked as a project professional in Cultural Resource Management in the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, the Caribbean and Pacific Coast of Colombia and also in the Orinoco lowlands.

Publications

Soto Rodríguez, L. M. (2020). Organización de la producción cerámica prehispánica en la microcuenca El Congo, municipio de Ciénaga, Santa Marta [Unpublished undergraduate honors thesis]. Universidad Externado de Colombia, Bogotá D.C.

Vargas, J. C., Díaz, W. L., & Soto Rodríguez, L. M. (2022). Arqueología de la microcuenca El Congo, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Editorial Universidad del Magdalena.

Vargas, J. C., Patiño, I. R., Soto Rodríguez, L. M., & Cruz, R. G. (2023). Patrones de asentamiento prehispánicos y uso de modelos de idoneidad en la evaluación de la guerra en la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. En J. C. Vargas Ruiz, P. M. Argüello García, & C. H. Langebaek Rueda (Eds.), Cacicazgos en las Américas: Estudios en homenaje a Robert D. Drennan (pp. 77–108). Editorial Universidad del Magdalena.

Soto Rodríguez, L. M., & Vargas, J. C. (2025). Network analysis in Tairona chiefdoms of the Río Frío basin, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia. Journal of Archaeological Science, 179.

Soto Rodríguez, L. M., & Vargas, J. C. (2025). Conflict and social centralization in Tairona chiefdom communities in the Río Frío basin, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia. Journal of Field Archaeology, 1–21.