I've seen extensive maps of mesoamerica and australia detailing the location of tribes/nations prior to european contact.
this map, for example
i haven't been able to find the same for south america though. do we just not know enough about pre-colombian tribes in south america to have a detailed map of them or have i just been looking in the wrong places? i ask this because i find the political arrangements of mesoamerica fascinating, yet lack the same kind of visual reference for south america.
I'd love to help, but do you have any particular time period you're interested in first? The political arrangements for 1400 AD will look drastically different than that of 400 AD, which will be different from 400 BC.
The Smithsonian published the Handbook of South American Indians, but the information is extremely outdated and the cultural regions are broad and sweeping: Marginal Tribes, Andean Civilizations, Tropical Forest Tribes, and Circum-Caribbean Tribes.
The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian has updated its cultural regions of South America. Here's their cultural thesuarus (Warning: it takes FOREVER to load).
There still a lot of missing information about precontact Amazonian tribes. The Mapuche have held territory in northern Argentina since precontact times.
