Republic of Ecuador (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
1,301-1,325 (2,078 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Paisajes Arqueológicos de Pañamarca: Findings from the 2018–2023 Field Seasons" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Durante las excavaciones realizadas en los años 2022 y 2023 en la Sala Hipóstila, ahora llamada Sala del Imaginario Moche, ubicada en la parte oeste de Pañamarca, se identificaron seis pilares, cinco de ellos, por lo menos, conteniendo representaciones de personajes humanos, animales y mitológicos, los cuales...
Nutritional Stress and the Maternal-Infant Nexus: Insights from Isotopes and Paleopathology in the Ancient Chilean Atacama (ca 9000–1500 BP) (2018)
The Atacama Desert is a remarkably marginal environment. Children are vulnerable individuals and the perinatal and weaning periods are high-risk even under ideal conditions. Investigation of stress during early life is therefore vital to the characterisation of human adaptation in this region. We compared isotopic evidence for infant diet and stress with paleopathological data to assess potential changes in maternal and infant health between the pre-agricultural Archaic Period (9000 – 3500 BP)...
Nā Wahine o nā ʻĀina Kuleana: Assessing the Impact of Colonization on Gender Experience in North Kohala, Hawaiʻi Island (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Rethinking Hinterlands in Polynesia" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While pre-contact gender in Hawaiʻi has primarily been interpreted in terms of the kapu and its regulation on food, close analysis of multiple ethnographic sources reveal that gender was more complicated than originally realized. Therefore, examination of gender experience in Hawaiʻi needs to be location specific. My research highlights the value of...
Objects Conservation and Materials Analysis at Pañamarca (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Paisajes Arqueológicos de Pañamarca: Findings from the 2018–2023 Field Seasons" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In addition to the painted architectural surfaces recently unearthed at Pañamarca, a wide array of objects have been found in recent excavations. The objects found at Pañamarca demonstrate that the site has an excellent preservation environment. This paper will present conservation approaches to some of the...
Objects of Power and Power of Objects: Tiahuanaco Burial Assemblages in Cundisa (Copacabana, Bolivia) (2018)
This paper explores roles played by objects in forging and cementing local and state identities at a Tiahuanaco cemetery at Cundisa in Copacabana, Bolivia. The cemetery consists of 98 Tiahuanaco burials excavated by the Yaya-Mama Archaeological Project. The majority of tombs contain a single individual. Most of the complete objects associated with these burials belong to classic Tiahuanaco style of decorated pottery, but there is also another peculiar pattern of unfired clay miniatures and large...
Obsidian in the Wari Empire: sourcing material from the capital using pXRF (2017)
This paper examines the procurement and consumption of obsidian within the Wari capital (AD 600 – 1000) in the Ayacucho highlands of Peru. During the Middle Horizon, the Wari Empire expanded and controlled much of the Peruvian Andes, largely through the import, export and regulation of critical resources extracted from subject territories and populations. This project hypothesizes that obsidian may have operated as one such critical resource for imperial control and seeks to examine this...
The Obsidian of Postclassic Rio Amarillo: A Shift in Population or Technology? (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Pre-Columbian Cultures of Honduras after AD 900" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The rather diminutive site of Rio Amarillo, located to the north of the Copan city center, is well known as a subsidiary site that was somehow involved in the movement of goods between the Motagua and Copan Valleys. After the collapse of the Copan Dynasty, large civic-ceremonial structures were abandoned and the people that remained,...
Obsidian Procurement and Exchange in Peru: A Social Network Analysis (SNA) (2018)
Wider accessibility to analytical instruments has resulted in the rapid expansion of geochemical datasets useful to trace archaeological materials such as obsidian to their geologic source. While these findings are useful on a site-to-site basis, this paper utilizes Social Network Analysis (SNA) as an exploratory tool to investigate broad-scale patterns of obsidian procurement and exchange in prehistoric Peru. Alongside visualizations of this large dataset, centrality measurements allow us to...
Obsidian: Status Marker or Household Item? The Use of Obsidian throughout Time in Manabi, Ecuador (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The use of obsidian in the Andes is widespread and constant starting during the Formative period. Through the morphological analysis of lithic artifacts recovered during excavations in northern Manabi, Ecuador, this poster reveals the importance of obsidian in the area and how it changed throughout time. The Matapalo site, the focus of this research, shows...
OCA—Culture, Origins, and Environment: Archaeological Collaborative Research in the Lower Xingu (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. The project investigates the historical ecology of a poorly studied area: the confluence of the Xingu and Amazon Rivers, in the lower Amazon region. By investigating distinct lines of archaeological evidence on a regional scale, it addresses, as an underlying research theme, the...
Of Islands and Dogs: Ethnohistoric and Isotopic Pathways toward Understanding Past Dog Diet in Tropical Oceania (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Dogs in the Archaeological Record" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ethnohistoric accounts suggest people treated dogs differently across Oceania at the time of European contact. European accounts often state that the dogs of Oceania were fed plant foods such as breadfruit, coconut, yams, and taro. Some sources also reference dogs eating fish or taking on the roles of scavengers and hunters. Collectively these accounts...
Of Mummies and Guinea Pigs: An Analysis of Burial Contexts at Chiribaya Alta (2017)
In the Pre-Incan site of Chiribaya Alta, animals were often included in the graves of the deceased. Cuy, or Guinea pig, are amongst the most common type of animal found in these contexts, signaling the significance of these animals for the Chiribaya peoples in life and in death. Among traditional peoples in the Andes documented ethnohistorically and ethnographically, guinea pigs are consumed as food and are also used for divination and other religious practices. At Chiribaya Alta, a site in...
The Offerings to the Ceremonial Center of Chavín de Huántar: New Perspectives from the Explanada Canals (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ceremonial center of Chavín de Huántar (1200–500 BCE) stands out for its extensive network of hydraulic canals. The excavations carried out by the Chavín de Huántar Archaeological and Conservation Research Program in the Explanada sector allowed these subterranean structures to...
Old Tomb, New Ancestors: Investigating the Role of a Preceramic Burial in Huarás Community Formation (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Cooperative Bodies: Bioarchaeology and Non-ranked Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The social and physical history of a place often plays a crucial role in people’s decisions regarding where to establish a community. In the ancient Andes, burial monuments offered powerful connections to landscape and shaped community identity by demonstrating claims to a shared ancestry and legitimizing access to ancestral...
On Taro, Tridacna, and Turtles: Using a Multiproxy Method to Explore Food, Fishing, and Agriculture on Pingelap, a Micronesian Atoll (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Food and Foodways: Emerging Trends and New Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pingelap Atoll, located in Pohnpei State, Federated States of Micronesia, has been home to humans for approximately 1,700 years. At 1.8 km2 and 70 km from its nearest island neighbor, food procurement has traditionally relied on marine fishing and hunting as well as intensive management of the coral island...
On the Frontiers of Empire: Inka Hegemony in Chachapoyas, Peru (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Previous studies on the Inka conquest of Chachapoyas (AD 1470) have largely focused on an epic conflict between the invading Inka empire and warlike Chachapoya natives. Little attention has been directed towards understanding the processes by which the region was incorporated into the empire – how the landscape became naturalized as Inka, and how its...
The Once and Future Sindaguas of Barbacoas: A Reflection (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. This paper revisits frontier wars in southwest Colombia in the first half of the seventeenth century. Some debate has arisen regarding a bellicose Barbacoan group known as Sindaguas. Were they a long-established people or "nation" as their Creole-Hispanic conquerors claimed,...
One Hundred Years of Research at Huaca del Loro, Nasca, Peru (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Almost 100 Years since Julio C. Tello: Research at Huaca del Loro, Nasca, Peru" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. It has been almost 100 years since Julio C. Tello, the father of Peruvian archaeology, and his team first investigated the site of Huaca del Loro in Nasca, Peru. During this time the site has been interpreted as a cemetery, a settlement with both elites and commoners, a possible highland Huarpa site, the...
One Settlement, Many Communities . . . (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Developments through Time on the South Coast of Peru: In Memory of Patrick Carmichael" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Research centered in the prehispanic urban settlement of Cerro de Oro, in the Peruvian South Coast, is showing a wide variety of cooking techniques, disposal arrangements, and even culinary preferences that seem to reflect possible different social groupings within the settlement. This paper will...
Online Cultural and Historical Research Environment: Flexibility versus Standardization (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 first season of excavations by the Corral Redondo project in southern Peru, a database was needed to capture excavation, conservation, and survey data in the field and later respond to the reporting standards set by the Peruvian government. The Online Cultural and Historical Research Environment (OCHRE) proved to be a powerful tool for this data...
Only Murders in the Cavespace? Considering Archaeological Assumptions about Human Interments (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Misinformation and Misrepresentation Part 1: Reconsidering “Human Sacrifice,” Religion, Slavery, Modernity, and Other European-Derived Concepts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As if by default, deposits of human remains in caves and cenotes in the southern Maya Lowlands dating to the Late and Terminal Classic periods have been interpreted by many archaeologists as sacrificial victims. The position seems predicated on...
Ontologies of water: intensities and magnitudes (2017)
Increasingly, the effects of global warming take the form of destructive movements of water, whether vanishing bodies of water that create desertification or floods that damage human habitations and take lives. The extensive archaeological record of the North Coast of Peru offers a place to study long-term human strategies for living with the dangerous and unpredictable movement of water. Despite frequent earthquakes, floods and torrential rains that re-shape land- and sea-scapes, humans...
Open Obsidian Geochemistry Visualization system for the Andes (2017)
Obsidian sourcing studies which provide valuable insights into archaeological mobility and interaction are enhanced by the availability of geochemical analyzers, and especially by the proliferation of portable X-ray fluorescence units. This year we are introducing an open source system for analysis of geochemical datasets available in web-based repository and based on R-Shiny, a browser based analysis and visualization system built on the R project. The Andean Geochemistry data archive, a new...
Open Obsidian Geochemistry Visualization with an example from the Andes (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. The open science movement is growing in archaeology, and raises fundamental questions about data and who it belongs to. In this talk, we outline a protocol for sharing data on obsidian sources to facilitate replicable research. While in obsidian sourcing a direct calibration is preferable (e.g., measuring source...
Open Space and Restricted Action: Analysis of Intra-site Networks of Movement at Wimba, in the Northeastern Peruvian Montane Forest (2017)
In an area that has been considered marginal both geographically and in the narrative of South American prehistory, new research shows extensive settlement, landscape modification, and interaction between inhabitants of the eastern slopes of the Andes and their neighbors. The site of Wimba, located in the Amazonas department, in the northeastern Peruvian montaña – the tropical montane forest between the highland Andes and lowland Amazonian rainforest – is one of the best known archaeological...