It is often sub-divided, for example into "Early", "Middle" and "Late", or alternatively "Lower" and "Upper", stages.
The dates, and the characteristics of the period called "Archaic" vary between different parts of the Americas.
[1] The typical broad use of the terms is as follows: Cultures of the Archaic Stage are at some point in the development of the technologies of pottery, weaving, and developed food production; normally they are becoming reliant on agriculture, unless reliant on seafood.
[4] By the end of the Archaic, in parts of South America, there is "a stable agricultural system utilized by people living in permanent villages with ceremonial architecture".
[5] The Archaic is the second of five stages defined by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips in their 1958 book Method and Theory in American Archaeology.