Republic of Ecuador (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
1,201-1,225 (2,078 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Coastal Environments in Archaeology: Ancient Life, Lore, and Landscapes" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeological investigation of gendered labor in traditional households in the Mariana Islands is still in a nascent stage of development. Archaeological field school excavations by the University of Guam Micronesian Area Research Center and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa yielded a rich assemblage of...
Monte Castelo Shellmound and Early Ceramic Technologies in Amazon: A Perspective on Long-Term Landscape Management and the Origins of Pottery in the Americas (2018)
Recent research has confirmed that the some of the oldest ceramics of the Americas are associated with Amazonian shellmounds. Excavations at Monte Castelo site produced a representative assemblage of these early technologies, and has also demonstrated a long history of ceramic production and use, with significant changes during the Middle Holocene that accompany the intensification of landscape management and the emergence of several other cultural innovations in that period. In this...
Monte Lima, a Tallán Community in Late Intermediate Period Chira Valley, Perú (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Monte Lima is one of five large Late Intermediate sites in the lower Chira Valley described by Richardson et al. (1990) as representing a surge in local complexity resulting from Sicán and Chimú expansion to the far north coast. In 2023, we conducted preliminary excavations across this multicomponent site to establish chronology, better understand...
Monumental Afterlives of Chavín Mountains at Chawin Punta and Kunturay in Pasco, Peru (2024)
This is an abstract from the "After the Feline Cult: Social Dynamics and Cultural Reinvention after Chavín" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The breakdown of Chavín interregional networks at the end of the Early Horizon had variable outcomes for high-altitude ceremonial centers in the Central Andes of Pasco, Peru. Within the Chaupihuaranga Canyon, neighboring mountaintop monuments have distinct sociohistorical trajectories that complicate temporal...
Monumental Architecture on the South Summit of Cerro Tajahuana, Ica Valley, Peru (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Proyecto de Investigación Arqueologica Tajahuana conducted excavations at two unique buildings located on the south summit of the Paracas site of Cerro Tajahuana in the Ica Valley, Peru. The larger of the structures, often referred to as a fortress, was built along the edge of a steep ravine above two large groups of figurative geoglyphs and isolated...
Monumental Manipulations: Varied Inka Colonial Tactics of Spiritual Embedment among Cara Ritual Centers of Northern Ecuador (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tawantinsuyu’s consolidation of northern Ecuador was characterized by unique moments of conquest, and reconquest, of the incredibly resistant Cara people. The principal Cara polities were the Cochasquí, Cayambe, Caranquí, Otavalo, and Quinche, each with monumental ritual...
Monumental Structure, Sacred Landscape, and Cosmology: The Late Formative Period Peruvian Site of Jequetepeque-Jatanca (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. How does architectural construction relate to the surrounding landscape and a broader cosmological framework? This paper discusses the relationships among architecture, geography, and cosmology at the site of Jatanca in the Jequetepeque Valley on the northern coast of Peru. This site was occupied mainly during the Late Formative Period (approximately 500 BCE...
Monumentality and Social Complexity in the Ecuadorian Upper Amazon: Mound Builders in the Upano Valley, Ecuador (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Upper amazon frequently was conceived as a transitional area where social development was limited for the scarce resources and the harsh environmental conditions. In the last decades studies in the ceja de selva, pie de monte and the upper amazon reveal that this region hosted an intense cultural development. Wide discussions in the academic forums...
Monumentality in Sites with Stone Spheres, Diquis Delta, Southern Central America (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. Several sites in the Diquis delta, an extensive alluvial plan in southeastern Costa Rica, present architectural ensembles consisting of artificial mounds up to 30 m diameter and a height between 1.1 and 1.4 m with cobblestone walls and ramp accesses, with stone spheres of...
More than Kindling: Algarrobo Posts and Social Memory on the Peruvian North Coast (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ancient Moche site of Huaca Colorada (AD 650-850) on the north coast of Peru was the center for elaborate feasting events and rituals of human sacrifice. This ceremonial center has been the focus of intensive archaeological study, yet the spatial distribution of wooden posts within the Moche architectural platforms remains under-analyzed, despite the...
More than pretty pictures: A decade of aerial imagery and photogrammetry in northern Ecuador (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Towards a Standardization of Photogrammetric Methods in Archaeology: A Conversation about 'Best Practices' in An Emerging Methodology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 2007 our team has been conducting low level aerial reconnaissance in the northern highlands of Ecuador, a challenging environment with low air pressure, frequent high winds, misting rain, and rapidly alternating intense sun and enveloping low lying...
Morro de Eten and the Social Interactions of the Middle and Late Formative Period in Northern Peru (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Cuando los senderos divergen: Reconsiderando las interacciones entre los Andes Septentrionales y los Andes Centrales durante el 1ro y 2do milenio AEC / When Paths Diverge: Reconsidering Interactions between the Northern and Central Andes, First–Second Millennium BCE" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Morro de Eten is located on the coast of the Lambayeque valley, and due to the characteristics of its cultural material,...
Mortuary analysis of juvenile burials in the sacristy of a Spanish colonial reducción in the southern highlands of Peru (2017)
Mortuary practices at Spanish colonial sites in Latin America varied in terms of burial location, style of burial, and associated grave goods. Understanding burial practices is one way to investigate shifting identities, conversion to Catholicism, and the degree of control over and involvement of priests in daily life at colonial sites. The mortuary practices at the reducción (planned colonial town) of Santa Cruz de Tuti (today known as Mawchu Llacta, Colca Valley, Peru) reveal nuanced insights...
Mortuary Feasting at Sitio Drago, Panama and Elsewhere in Lower Central America (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeological materials recovered from a central burial mound at Sitio Drago, Panama are diverse and include many well-preserved vertebrate and invertebrate faunal remains. I examine these materials in context with the artifacts recovered in direct association with four coral slab tombs located at the heart of the site and then compare the observed...
Mounds and Monoliths in Isthmo-Colombian Archaeology (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. The Isthmo-Colombian Area entails an archaeology of landscape engagement. Well-attested are the material traces of shifting networks of human ideas that, through communities of practice, led to the creation of monumental landscapes and, with regional specificity, shared...
Mountaintops of Chilla, El Oro (Ecuador) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Living Landscapes: Disaster, Memory, and Change in Dynamic Environments " session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The oral tradition of the Chilla landscape distinguishes two main stories: the first one portrays the apparition of the Virgin Mary, and the second one narrates the Mayan origins of its inhabitants. However, Chilla is in El Oro province, where a monumental pyramid and other neighboring sites correspond to the...
Movement and Vision: Reconstruction and Analysis of a Multi-Occupation Fortified Site Complex in the Moche Valley (2017)
This poster reports the results of non-invasive field prospection using aerial drone photogrammetry to map and reconstruct surface architecture at two multi-occupation archaeological sites in the Moche Valley of Peru. Sites MV-42 and MV-49 (Puente Serrano) make up a fortified and possibly ceremonial center complex located in the middle valley. The sites were occupied contiguously during the Salinar, Gallinazo, and Early Moche phases (EIP; 400 B.C.-A.D. 400), with a later re-occupation by the...
Movement in Moquegua: Detecting Differential Activity Types via the Knee in a Tiwanaku Subgroup (2018)
Previous studies regarding femoral fossa morphology center on risk levels and variables associated with non-contact anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. Increased risk of ACL injury is associated with smaller femoral fossa size. While fossa size is influenced by many variables, biologically "plastic" responses to early life experiences, such as traversing local topography or cultural factors, are appearing to emerge as perhaps the most impactful. Due to the crucial nature of the knee, it is...
Movement, Inka Ceques and the Sajama Lines of Bolivia (2018)
When the Inkas encountered them, the Carangas ethnic group in western Bolivia were highly mobile through lifestyles that relied on camelid pastoralism, caravanning, and ritual movement. Examples of Inka sites are known in the region, but it is not fully understood how they impacted movement through the Sajama lines--a network of ritual pathways that stretches over 16,000 kilometers. This poster compares new data from 2017 to previous work in the Sajama region to examine how movement along the...
Movement, the Sacred, and Appropriations: Inka-Carangas Interactions in Sajama, Bolivia (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Navigating Imperialism: Negotiated Communities and Landscapes of the Inka Provinces" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. When the Inka arrived to the Sajama region, they encountered the Carangas, a pastoralist group, living in pukaras along a corridor between the coast and the highlands. Based on limited ethnohistoric sources, the Carangas allied with the Inka against the neighboring Pacajes and, in exchange, allowed the...
Moving Beyond: Using Methods of Assessing Holocene Environmental Change in Northwestern Guyana (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology on the Edge(s): Transitions, Boundaries, Changes, and Causes" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. To assess Holocene dietary changes we conducted isotopic analysis of human and faunal remains from seven shell mounds in Northwestern Guyana. We used stable carbon 13C and oxygen 18O isotope compositions data to assess the degree of dietary constancy as a proxy for determining the likelihood of there being any...
Moving within the ‘A‘ā: The Influence of Liminality in the Hinterlands of Manukā, Ka‘ū, Hawai‘i Island (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Rethinking Hinterlands in Polynesia" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Situated at the transition between windward and leeward sides of the island of Hawai‘i, Manukā is a tapestry of environmental and sociopolitical gradients perpetually reconfigured by the lava flows from Mauna Loa. As a geographically liminal region, place-names describe it as where "the trade winds of Ka‘ū give way to the gentle breezes of Kona." The...
Multi-crafting in Coexisting Gallinazo-Moche Contexts at Songoy-Cojal, North Coast, Peru (2017)
Over the past few decades, it has been recognized that craft studies often overlook the social significance of crafts practiced concurrently. How does the selection of certain types of materials inform on the relationship between manufacturers and consumers? Does multi-crafting imply broader social relations? Or does multi-crafting imply locally meaningful social relationships through the various types of crafts produced? This paper explores the multi-craft traditions practiced in coexisting...
Multi-isotopic Paleo-diet Reconstruction in a High Altitude Rockshelter of Southern Peru (2018)
Expanding on a previous report, we expand the results of the analysis of stable carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur isotope analyses from collagen of three Early and two Late-Middle Holocene adult human burials with coeval fauna remains of Cuncaicha rock shelter in the Peruvian Puna. We also reconstruct important aspects of the ecology of the Pucuncho Basin, in which Cuncaicha is located, using new and published isotopic values of archaeological and modern fauna and plants. Sulfur isotope values...
A Multi-proxy Investigation of Settlement on Pingelap Atoll, Pohnpei State, Federated States of Micronesia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pacific atolls are generally regarded as challenging places to live. In addition to being far from other land masses, most have low biodiversity, limited access to freshwater, and are susceptible to extreme weather. However, settlers established residence on atolls in the Micronesian region as early as 2,000 years ago. This paper presents the first major...