Republic of Colombia (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
651-675 (1,955 Records)
This is an abstract from the "From Materials to Materiality: Analysis and Interpretation of Archaeological and Historical Artifacts Using Non-destructive and Micro/Nano-sampling Scientific Methods" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Field Museum’s collection holds the only known Colonial era tiana, or carved wooden stool, from Peru. This important object was among the inaugural collections at the Museum, entering the collection at its founding in...
Figuring Things Out: 3D Models of Valdivia Figurines for Research and Outreach (2018)
During excavations at the Valdivia site of Buen Suceso, Ecuador, in 2017 we recovered a number of figurines. Using in-field photogrammetry and post-field processing, we have created digital 3D models of these figurines. For us, the purpose of photogrammetric models is: 1) to facilitate comparisons across assemblages by a variety of scholars, and 2) for use in public education and outreach. While the creation of 3D images via photogrammetry is becoming more common in archaeological practice, the...
Finding a “Living Archaeology” among Tropical Trees: The Potential of Multidisciplinary Dendroarchaeology (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Entangled Legacies: Human, Forest, and Tree Dynamics" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tropical forests have often been synonymous with 'wilderness' in popular discourse. However, the last couple of decades of research in archaeological, palaeoecological and historical ecology have revealed that these ecosystems have actually been intensively managed by our species from at least 45,000 years ago. This necessitates...
Finding Sites in the Amazon Forest: AI-Based Deep Learning Analysis of Satellite Imagery from the Upper Xingu Basin, Brazil (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology in the Xingu River Basin: Long-Term Histories, Current Threats, and Future Perspectives" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper summarizes preliminary results of an AI-based analysis that identifies potential precolumbian Amazonian archaeological site locations based on the presence of clusters of a specific species of palm tree. The study uses Landsat-8, Sentinel-2, and Planet satellite imagery as...
Finding Terraces in the Lake Titicaca Basin Peru (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Finding Fields: Locating and Interpreting Ancient Agricultural Landscapes" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Driving through the Lake Titicaca basin of southern Peru travelers are often struck by terrace covered hillsides rising from the plain. Nearly every hillside encountered has been transformed from steep faced rocky hillsides into arable land. These ancient fields were constructed and farmed millennia ago to help...
Finding Value: Integrating Multiple Datasets to Clarify the Nuances of Past Food Choices (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Thinking about Eating: Theorizing Foodways in Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological studies of ancient foodways focus on understanding subsistence practices in terms of the movement of species over space and time, human/plant/animal strategies, ecological transformations, periods of abundance/famine, economics, and politics. The values that foods are imbued with, the meaning and significance they...
Fire and Death: Cremation as a Ritualised Funerary Practice in the Southern Brazilian Highlands (2017)
Archaeological evidence from southern Jê mound and enclosure complexes in the southern Brazilian highlands points to the development of a complex funerary ritual focused on the practice of cremation from 1000 BP onwards. Drawing upon bioarchaeological, ethnographic and ethnohistorical analysis, this paper discusses the role of cremation as a ritualised practice aimed at transforming the dead, their body and their relations with society. Patterns of similarities and differences in such practice...
Fire and feasting. The role of plants in Brazilian shellmounds funerary rituals. (2017)
Shellmounds occurring along most of the Brazilian coast, locally named "sambaquis", testify of an occupation dated from at least 8000 to c. 1000 years BP. Although traditionally considered as waste deposits, they are now largely recognized as funerary sites constructed by sedentary fishers. The development of archaeobotanical studies in the Southern/Southeastern Brazilian coast is demonstrating the consumption of a wide variety of wild and domesticated plants, pointing to a system of mixed...
First Human Occupations of the Southern Atacama Desert (24.5° S): Settlement Dynamics and Environmental Context (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The early peopling of the Atacama Desert coincided with the Central Andean Pluvial Event II (CAPE II), an extensive pluvial event during the Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene (13,800–8500 cal yr BP). A large number of early human archaeological sites from this period have been found along the borders of the Imilac and Punta Negra (24.5° S) high altitude basins...
First Insights into the Life of Menocucho: Results of the Archaeological Excavations at Huaca Menocucho, Peru (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, the authors will present the results of their first excavation season at Huaca Menocucho, in the Moche Valley on the north coast of Peru, exposing the political, religious, and economic activities carried out by the people who lived at the site. This excavation revealed the site was first occupied during the Initial period (1800–500 BC),...
Fishing with Dogs: Canine Contributions to Andean Maritime Communities (2023)
This is an abstract from the "If Animals Could Speak: Negotiating Relational Dynamics between Humans and Animals" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dogs played many roles within prehispanic Andean societies, including companions, hunting and herding partners, guardians, sacrifices, and mortuary offerings. Their role within maritime communities however remains surprisingly understudied, particularly considering the importance of maritime adaptations...
Fishing, Shellfish Collecting, Hunting and Planting from Late Preceramic to Initial Period: A Case Study from Huaca Nagea, Viru, North Coast of Peru (2018)
By studying fauna and botanic remains unearthed from Huaca Negra Archaeological Project, this presentation seeks to understand subsistence system and daily life in Late Preceramic Period, and how it might have changed in later Initial Period. Huaca Negra is a fishing village located in the northwest of the Virú Valley and is 1.2 kilometers from the current shoreline. The site was occupied between 5,000-3,200 CalBP, from Late Preceramic Period to Initial Period, which witnessed the transitions...
Flood Regimes, Earthworks, and Water Management in the Domesticated Landscapes of The Bolivian Amazon (2018)
Exploitation and control of wetland resources was a major strategy of early sedentary peoples in many areas of the world. In some cases, indigenous knowledge about flood pluses and water dynamics and anthropogenic transformation of waterscapes increased to the point where some wetlands were transformed into domesticated landscapes. Analysis and interpretations of relevant radar (TerraSAR-X, ALOS SAR-X, Sentinel-1), multispectral (Landsat ETM and ETM+, ASTER), DEMs (SRTM, ASTER) satellite and...
Flowers and Sherds: The Practice of Collecting Artifacts in Brazilian Amazon (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this presentation we discuss the practice of collecting artifacts, considering the perspectives of the collectors and of the State in Brazil. We assume that collecting is an act that should be understood from a phenomenological approach. Our reflections take into account the affective relationships between the collectors and the artifacts, and also the...
Fluid Stone: Geological Materials in Process (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Problem of the Monument: Widening Perspectives on Monumentality in the Archaeology of the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Geological materials that constitute features in archaeological sites in Central America range from unfired clay and unmodified cobbles, to cut stone, and plasters produced by heating limestone. What these materials have in common is that from an archaeological...
Focusing Efforts to Impact the Precolumbian Antiquities Trade (2017)
How can we as archaeologists best focus our efforts to have a positive impact upon the Precolumbian antiquities market? We will discuss some of the most important restrictions upon law enforcement investigations into antiquities smuggling, by drawing upon case experience. We will discuss how both foreign and American government departments may overestimate law enforcement’s ability to pursue legal action based on a flawed understanding of constitutional law; how antiquities smuggling is of low...
Follow the Llamero: the Movement of Plant Foodstuffs in the Andes (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Fryxell Symposium in Honor of Dolores Piperno" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The exchange of goods and movement among different ecozones is a hallmark of Andean society. Key to this system of mobility were camelid caravans, which are possibly best known for the Wari or Tiwanaku cultures but are today dwindling in frequency or have disappeared in the Andes. These caravans were established in the much earlier Formative...
Following in El Maestro’s Footsteps: Historical Ecology and Panamanian Capacity Building in Darién (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Unraveling the Mysteries of the Isthmo-Colombian Area’s Past: A Symposium in Honor of Archaeologist Richard Cooke and His Contributions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2012, Richard Cooke described the study of so-called Gran Darién as one of the most urgent concerns in Panamanian archaeology. Years later, that mandate resonated with us, and in 2019 we joined efforts beginning to fill in one of the greatest gaps in...
Foodways and Urban Living: A Macrobotanical Analysis of Huari Homes (2018)
Knowledge of Wari plant use has progressed significantly with analyses from sites such as Conchopata and Cerro Baul, but there has yet to be any investigation into Wari plant foodways at the capital city of Huari. This paper will investigate the botanical remains from flotation samples recovered throughout the 2017 excavations of Patipampa, a domestic sector of the site occupied during the Middle Horizon (AD 500-1000). For years, it has been assumed that the emergence of the Wari state in...
Forager Adaptations to Andean Cloud Forest, Peru (2024)
This is an abstract from the "American Foragers: Human-Environmental Interactions across the Continents" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cloud forests are montane tropical rainforests typically characterized by persistent fog, diverse microclimates, and rich biodiversity. Although some regions have long histories of development of technological and sociopolitical complexity in cloud forests (e.g., the Mayan highlands), in the central Andes cloud...
The Force Awakens: The Nature and Chronology of Wari Presence in the Huarmey Valley (2018)
Since the fundamental work of Dorothy Menzel, it has been suggested that a new center of power and prestige arose on the North-Central Coast of Peru during the late Middle Horizon, and that its focal point was probably located in the Huarmey Valley. Unfortunately, this hypothesis has not been empirically confirmed for more than 40 years, due to the lack of strong evidence based on systematic archaeological research. Since 2010 an international team of scholars performs multidisciplinary research...
Foreign Travel and the Development of Inca Archaeology in Cuzco, Peru (2018)
The roots of Inca archaeology lie in reports and memoirs of 19th century travel, which culminated in Hiram Bingham’s 1911 Yale Peruvian Expedition. These accounts traced routes that brought international attention to architectural remains of Inca royal estates and religious monuments, providing an early "guide" to would-be travelers and framing the formative years of Inca archaeology. As research proliferated in the past 50 years, some archaeologists have promoted the remains of royal estates as...
The Forest Foods of Ancient Arenal, Costa Rica (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond Maize and Cacao: Reflections on Visual and Textual Representation and Archaeological Evidence of Other Plants in Precolumbian Mesoamerica" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Paleoethnobotanical investigations at two different domestic structures in Arenal, Costa Rica, reveal the plant resources utilized by past peoples living in this volcanically active setting from 1500 BCE to 600 CE. Over 100 different genera of...
Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form: Reimagining the Pyramids at Cochasquí, Ecuador (2017)
The archaeological site of Cochasquí, located north of Quito in the Ecuadorean highlands, has long been defined by its massive quadrangular pyramids with extended entry ramps. When Max Uhle arrived on site in 1932 he focused his excavations on the largest of the fifteen known pyramids. Uhle’s work laid the foundations for the interpretations and the chronology of the site, which are still applied today. Archaeologist Udo Oberem conducted the most extensive excavations on site between 1964 and...
Formation and Context of Sitio Chivacabe, Western Highland Guatemala (2018)
Located in the Highlands of western Guatemala, Chivacabe is a Pleistocene-age bone bed and Archaic-age archaeological site. In 2009 the site was subjected to intensive geoarchaeological investigation with the goals of identifying the relationship between the faunal and archaeological remains through developing an understanding of their context. Three allostratigraphic units were identified: The oldest unit, which contains the bone bed, consists of colluvially reworked tephra bracketed by...