Republic of Ecuador (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
1-25 (2,078 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Politics of Heritage Values: How Archaeologists Deal with Place, Social Memories, Identities, and Socioeconomics" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the year 2014 as part of the Qhapaq Ñan project, a long-term intervention at the site of El Guarco in the coastal town of Cerro Azul was started. The project was thought from the beginning within the framework of collaborative archaeology and the relation with local...
12,500 Years of Altitude (2018)
The earliest occupations in the Salt Puna —a high elevation desert in the Andes Mountains — date to the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary and are relevant to the discussion of the timing of the first exploration and colonization of South American elevations above 3500m, as well as the relationship between mountain environments and other ecological areas. The wooden shafts used in the extractive technologies of the earliest hunter-gatherers originated outside the Puna, in the eastern lowlands....
The 1973 Seminar on The Lacustrine Kingdoms in the Titicaca Basin (2018)
Co-organized by John V. Murra and Luis G. Lumbreras, this seminar was planned as an international and interdisciplinary study on the Lacustrine Kingdoms around the Titicaca basin (Lupaqa and Paqajes), and their interaction towards the western lowlands. Murra and Lumbreras were able to gather a group of leading Andeanists and students from Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Canada, and the U.S. who worked in the field for almost three months in Southern Peru, Northern Chile, and Bolivia. The Seminar,...
The 2017 Excavations at Pan de Azúcar de Nivín: Insight into the Middle Horizon Occupation of the Middle Casma Valley, Peru (2018)
Pan de Azúcar de Nivín is located 23km east to the city of Casma, in the small town of Nivín, at the right margin of the Casma River Valley in the Department of Ancash, Peru. In June and July 2017, a team of archaeologists from Louisiana State University carried out mapping and excavation operations at this important archaeological complex. Through limited excavations, architectural mapping, surface collection and the analysis of associated materials, the Proyecto de Investigación Arqueológico...
The 2023 Excavations at the Cosma Archaeological Complex, Ancash – Peru: A Journey Down the Rabbit Hole into the Andean Late Preceramic (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Excavations at the Cosma Archaeological Complex, located in north-central Peru, have revealed a potential missing link, both temporally and geographically, in understanding the origins of corporate labor and the construction of public monuments associated with the Late Preceramic period. A suite of radiometric dates at two temple mounds with Kotosh-Mito...
3D Archaeology at MAE/USP (Brazil): Practices and Perspectives (2017)
The use of digital photogrammetry and 3D scanning as tools for archaeological heritage record, analysis and dissemination has increased markedly in recent years. Using these technologies a post-doctoral project is currently in progress at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (MAE) of São Paulo University, Brazil with the scope to document, record and analyse the animal stone figurines collection at the Museum. The objects are threefold: 1) to use photogrammetry and 3D scanner technologies to...
3D Imaging in Remote Areas, Rainforests, and Other Hostile Environments: Investigating Identity and Interaction in Eastern Honduras (2018)
Ancient eastern Honduran populations utilized foreign symbols in limited elite contexts, such as site planning and architecture, but most elements of material culture reflect clear connections to Lower Central America. Iconography seen in petroglyphs appears significantly different from that seen in other media, and may yield additional information and insights into identity formation and interactions within the region. For many reasons, these petroglyphs have not been extensively studied. While...
4,000 years of animal translocations: Mocha Island and its zooarchaeological record (2017)
Islands are territories that allow us to assess phenomena and processes in a way that is impossible to do in the mainland. One of these concerns the human interaction with animals that are usually considered as wild. The case of Mocha Island (Chile; South Pacific, 38,36°S) is remarkable because of its small size (50 km2), proximity to the mainland (30 km), three different and independent human occupation events, and an endemic terrestrial fauna constituted only by small reptiles, amphibians,...
611th Air Support Group Resources
Project metadata for resources within the 611th Air Support Group cultural heritage resources collection.
Abandonment Processes in Manabi, Ecuador: Ethnoarchaeological Interpretations from the Cloud Forest (2018)
The purpose of this research is to determine the manner in which site abandoned occurred in Manabí, Ecuador. The Manteño were one of many pre-Hispanic cultures exchanging local resources, engineering new technologies, and mass-producing goods along the coast of Ecuador. Successful in their chiefdom and independent from the expanding Inca Empire, the Manteño remained culturally uninterrupted for more than 800 years. The focus of this research is to understand the interruption and thus...
Abbreviated Imagery on Cajamarca Cursive Ceramics (2018)
Paintings on fineware ceramic vessels and spoons by the pre-Hispanic Cajamarca culture of the north highlands of present-day Peru emphasize an abstracted and expressionistic aesthetic unlike their north coast neighbors, the Transitional Moche culture, and their contemporaries, the Wari state. During the Middle Horizon (c. 600 - 1000 CE), the Cajamarca culture's paintings developed a greater emphasis on human and animal imagery while maintaining an abstraction of forms. The figures are reduced to...
The Absolute Chronology of Castillo de Huarmey (2023)
This is an abstract from the "A Decade of Multidisciplinary Research at Castillo de Huarmey, Peru" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Castillo de Huarmey, located on the North Coast of Peru and dated to the Middle Horizon period (ca. 650–1050 CE), was one of the most important provincial centers of the Wari Empire. Presenting the results of an extensive radiocarbon dating program, the present paper focuses on the chronological aspects of this unique...
Accelerating History and Bayesian Models: The Rapid Emergence of Agropastoralism and the Tiwanaku State in the Lake Titicaca Basin, South America (2017)
Long-term cultural change can be non-linear and punctuated by brief episodes of accelerating history. Such episodes, or emergent phenomena, have been described by a diverse set of theoretical approaches such as complexity theory, complex adaptive systems, panarchy, resilience theory, "eventful" sociology and archaeology, and the Annales School of History. These episodes can result in profound, lasting changes for large groups of people, but can happen too fast to be clearly documented without...
Accessing the Inaccessible: Late Intermediate Period Chachapoya Collective Mortuary Practices at Diablo Wasi, Peru (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond the Ancestors: New Approaches to Andean "Open Sepulchers"" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The complexity in mortuary traditions across the Chachapoyas region ranges from single individual interments to large, commingled mortuary caves, as well as including constructed sarcophagi and shared open chambers high on cliff faces. Variation within sites and across funerary complexes demonstrates individuality in...
"Across the Agua to Managua" and Beyond: Getting Past Migration in Nicaraguan Prehistory (2018)
Despite being the largest country in Central America, Nicaragua’s archaeological record remains the least explored and most ignored. One consequence of this is that reconstructions of Nicaragua’s prehistory have tended to rely overmuch on rather sparse (and not necessarily reliable) ethnohistoric accounts in which migration from Mesoamerican homelands is heavily emphasized, generally to the detriment of other kinds of cultural phenomena, including indigenous developments that are not explicitly...
Across the Lake: Interregional Connections with the Tiwanaku Occupation of Copacabana (2018)
Tiwanaku, the first expansive state in the southern Andes, established colonies in many parts of the Andes (Moquegua, the Atacama Desert, Cochabamba) and exerted influence over the southern Titicaca basin. Archaeologists have recreated daily life for people living in these places, producing many insightful studies of Tiwanaku diet, cultural bodily modifications, disease, and occasional incidents of trauma. Many colonists living far from the Tiwanaku heartland developed hybrid lifestyles,...
The Active Materiality of Obsidian (2019)
This is an abstract from the "2019 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of M. Steven Shackley" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. When Steve Shackley informed me that over 90% of obsidian samples from Puerto Escondido, Honduras, that he had analyzed came from an unidentified source, presumably nearby, he started a process of re-education that led me to a place where he may not be comfortable, but that I deeply appreciate. This involves a...
Adolf Bandelier’s 1892-1894 Expedition to the Central Coast of Peru (2017)
Adolf Francis Alphonse Bandelier (1840-1914) was an ethnologist and archaeologist best known for his work in the American Southwest. What is less well-known is Bandelier’s later years studying the ancient Andes, such as his 1892-1894 expedition on the central coast of Peru. Due to an unstable political environment, he moved his expedition to the Bolivian highlands and instead wrote about highland myths. Shortly thereafter, he passed away while pursuing historical sources in Seville, Spain to...
Adolph Bandelier’s Legacy in the Lake Titicaca Basin: Tiwanaku and Qeya Ceramic Style (2018)
While Swiss-born anthropologist Adolph Bandelier is perhaps best known for his research in the U.S. southwest, for which the Bandelier National Forest bears his name, his research in the Bolivian Lake Titicaca region during the late nineteenth century has left an indelible legacy. Based on a brief visit of scarcely three weeks to the site of Tiahuanaco in 1894, he produced an informative document that remains vital to understanding its monuments to this day. In this paper we focus on his...
Advances in Mineral Characterization of the Late Horizon Pottery from Incahuasi, Cañete (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Alfareros deste Inga: Pottery Production, Distribution and Exchange in the Tawantinsuyu" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper I will present preliminary results from the materials excavated of the Incahuasi site located at the middle Cañete valley. Research suggests that this portion of the valley, an area stretching from Caltopa at the low-mid valley to Pacaran at the upper-mid valley, was an Inca province...
Advances in Technological Studies of Northern Chile Ceramics: Petrography and Geochemistry of Fabrics and Paintings (Iluga Túmulos, Tarapacá) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Andean and Amazonian Ceramics: Advances in Technological Studies" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the last decades, ceramic research in the region of Tarapacá has nourished our comprehension on past societies. First, pottery has played a key-role in defining chrono-cultural periods of the south-central Andes. Second, archaeometric studies have allowed to discuss these social, cultural, political, and economic...
Aeolian Geoforming at a Preceramic Mound in Coastal Peru (2017)
Los Morteros is a preceramic mound located on the North Coast of Peru composed of anthropogenic structures interlayered with aeolian deposits. A study combing multidisciplinary approaches and methodologies was used to evaluate the hypothesis of mound construction through intentional aeolian sand deposition via manipulation of strong winds across the desert environment. Wind velocities were measured across the site and in the surrounding valley. A complex wind model was created utilizing these...
Aerial Drone Photogrammetry of Aboveground Mortuary Architecture in the Amazonian Andes (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Adventures in Spatial Archaeometry: A Survey of Recent High-Resolution Survey and Measurement Applications" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For centuries, Indigenous Andean communities known as the Chachapoya placed their ancestral dead in aboveground architecture across the landscape of the Amazonian Andes, in what is now northeastern Peru. The study of Chachapoya ancestral sites presents a series of ethical and...
The Aesthetics and Poetics of Infrastructures in Ancient Andean Urbanism (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Ancient Mesoamerican and Andean Cities: Old Debates, New Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Social scientists have stressed the invisibility of modern infrastructures, whether roads, irrigation systems, or hidden electrical wires and plumbing. They have argued in turn that as a system of interconnected substrates, infrastructures recede to the background and become the subject of conscious reckoning...
African Archaeology and the Ancestral Maya World (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Essential Contributions from African to Global Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lidar mapping has revealed extensive ancestral settlement patterns signifying a low-density urban system. Maya archaeologists are tasked with interpreting how the ancestral Maya interacted and kept this system working for over 1,000 years (ca. 100 BCE–900 CE) in the southern Maya lowlands of Central America. It was a complex...