Republic of Ecuador (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
1,851-1,875 (2,078 Records)
This is an abstract from the "The Global “Impact” of Projectile Technologies: Updating Methods and Regional Overviews of the Invention and Transmission of the Spear-Thrower and the Bow and Arrow" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The plains of Uruguay are an appropriate place to investigate different aspects of lithic projectile technology used with spear-thrower and bow and arrow. During the initial settlement, we have recorded an interesting...
The Tension between Standardization and Regionalism in Cord-Keeping in Tawantinsuyu (2018)
Studies of the extant corpus of some 1,000 khipus from different regions around the former territory of the Inka Empire – Tawantinsuyu – show evidence of contradictory forces at work in terms of the forms and degree of standardization of recording structures and techniques. While, on one hand, there are marked differences in certain features of khipus from one region to the next throughout the empire, there are, on the other hand, notable similarities in other features. This paper examines the...
Tent City and Midden Islands: Spatial Organization and Domestic Architecture at the Eleventh-Century Los Batanes (Southern 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 the wake of Tiwanaku state collapse (eleventh century CE), the hyperarid coast of southern Peru became a refugium for diasporic groups who abandoned their homes in the south-central Andean highlands and middle valleys. The reorganization of post-Tiwanaku society in the region manifests in shifting settlement patterns and subsistence strategies, and new...
A Tenuous Prize: Archaeology of the Inka Conquest of Northern Highland 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. The numerous Inka forts in northern highland Ecuador, more than reported from most other imperial provinces, suggest preoccupations with the region and its inhabitants. The Barbacoan-speaking locals were indeed powerful and a potentially difficult conquest, as attested to by...
Terrace Construction and Use across Five Centuries at Ollantaytambo, Peru (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Geoarchaeology and Environmental Archaeology Perspectives on Earthen-Built Constructions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists are increasingly examining remains from the past, including durable landscape features such as terraces, earthen mounds, and seemingly “abandoned” sites, in terms that query not just their initial construction, but also ongoing use and reoccupation. In this paper, I...
The Terraced City (2019)
This is an abstract from the "How Did the Inca Construct Cuzco?" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Standing architecture is an important and impressive part of Inca Cusco, but comprises only a portion of the pre-Columbian built environment. Developing a sense of the grand plan of Cusco involves forgetting our fascination with the standing architecture and concentrating on recreating the three-dimensional form of the terraces that formed the surface...
Textile Coca Containers from Chiribaya Alta, Peru (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While the bioarchaeology of Chiribaya Alta is well documented, there is little available data from the textiles at the site. This poster presents data from three types of textile coca containers recovered from the mortuary contexts at Chiribaya Alta. These are chuspas, or coca bags, which are brightly colored and often decorated with three stripes of...
There Are No Chiefs Here: Contrasting Questions of "Marginality" in Kaupō, Maui, and the Mauna Kea Adze Quarry, 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 core-periphery studies have long been employed to highlight distinctions between areas within a shared sociopolitical sphere, less articulated is what it means to actually be "peripheral." Or, for that matter, "liminal," "a hinterland," or "marginal," among others. This paper uses examples from two regions, the district of Kaupo, Maui, and the...
Thermal Processes on Tropical Archaeological Shell: An Experimental Study (2018)
Tropical archaeological shell middens throughout Australasia provide valuable information about subsistence practices, environmental changes, and human occupation. One of the major anthropic processes that can occur in any midden site is burning or heating of the shell, either from cooking or heat-treating shell for working. Thermal influences on marine shell are poorly understood across all disciplines, including archaeology. Burning or heating may not always show any visual signs and rather...
Thin Section Petrography of Inka Pottery from Pachacamac, Peru (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study investigates the organization of production for Inka pottery at Pachacamac from several contexts throughout the site’s ceremonial core and elite residential sector. Pachacamac was a major Ychsma center on Peru’s central coast that was transformed into a major Inka provincial center around 1470 C.E. The Inka constructed a number of buildings and...
Thinking about Ecotopes: Two Thousand Years of Landscape’s Continuities and Discontinuities in the North Coast of the Central Andes (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This work seeks to analyze the continuities and discontinuities on the landscapes occupied by ancient Moche (an archaeological culture which flourished on the north coast of the central Andes between the first and eighth centuries) and contemporary populations. We intend to refine the discussion about the effectiveness and limitations of the ecotopes concept –...
Thinking outside the map: Alternative approaches to data visualization (2017)
One of the more promising applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in archaeology is the potential to incorporate aspects of human perception and experience of the landscape. Visibility analysis has been applied extensively to archaeological contexts, and models of movement, acoustics and other sensory experiences have recently received greater consideration. But despite the promise of moving beyond measurements of geographic space, most applications of experiential modeling continue...
Thinking Transition: The Processes of Ethnogenesis (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Peering into the Night: Transition, Sociopolitical Organization, and Economic Dynamics after the Dusk of Chavín in the North Central Andes" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of Andean prehistory divides broader cultural eras or horizons which have their own distinct and well-discernible characteristics; political and social structures and material and symbolic traditions. Between these eras of (relative)...
The Thorny Problem of Spondylus Sourcing in the Ancient Andes (2018)
Archaeologists have long been fascinated with the exploitation and exchange of Spondylus spp. across the ancient world. This is especially true for the Andes, where the "thorny oyster" has been found far afield from its tropical breeding sites along the coasts of Ecuador and northern Peru. However, factors such as the uneven development of archaeology between Peru and Ecuador and the persistence of certain myths about Andean Spondylus have led to a "black-boxing" effect where exchange from...
Those Flowering Waters: Reconstructing 1,200 Years of Human Adaptation to Hydroclimatic Changes in Central Nicaragua (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Underwater and Coastal Archaeology in Latin America" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Central Nicaragua is highly susceptible to hydroclimatic variations, which are affecting the subsistence economies of local populations. To what extent hydroclimatic changes impact prehispanic adaptation strategies in the Mayales River Valley (MRV)? This presentation will show the final result of the Interdisciplinary Archaeological...
A Thousand Years of Wetland Management at Hacienda Zuleta in the Ecuadorian Andes (2023)
This is an abstract from the "2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Nestled within a deeply incised valley in the eastern cordillera of the Andes, the archaeological site of Zuleta is an immensely humanized hydrologic landscape. A complex network of perennially and seasonally wet streams and canals crisscross the pastures along the valley floor carrying water from the paramo to the...
Three Case Studies of Andean Metalworking (2018)
The history of South American metalworking still presents a number of unresolved questions, despite decades of archaeological and historical research. This is especially true for the Andean region, where in prehistoric times alloys of copper as well as precious metals were crafted into intricate objects. Here, analytical metallographic techniques such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and infra-red (IR) spectroscopy are used to investigate different aspects of...
Three-Dimensional Photogrammetric Modeling of Ceramic Whole Vessels from Pachacamac, Peru: Challenges, Considerations, and Applications (2018)
In recent years, photogrammetry has emerged as a low-cost solution for the digital preservation of archaeological sites and artifacts. Beyond preservation, the creation of three-dimensional models allows archaeologists and researchers to ask questions of objects or sites remotely and at more refined scales. It also allows sites or active excavations and objects not on display to be accessible to the public. Whole ceramic vessels from Max Uhle’s 1897 excavations at Pachacamac, curated at the Penn...
Three-Dimensional Spatial Evidence of the Development of Agriculture in the Sigatoka River System, Viti Levu, Fiji (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Geospatial Studies in the Archaeology of Oceania" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The transition from coastal foraging to inland/upland horticulture in Viti Levu, Fiji appears to be marked by the early incorporation (~3000 BP) of fruit arboriculture in the primary tributaries of the Sigatoka River, with later (~2500 BP) evidence for the development of more intensive agriculture involving root and tuber farming and pond...
Through the Forest: North-South Interregional and Intraregional Interaction along the Eastern Edge of the Andes during the Early Intermediate Period (2018)
This paper will examine the intensification of long distance intraregional interaction networks among eastern slope (also known as ceja de selva) populations during the late Early Horizon and Early Intermediate Period. The centuries following the decline of the Chavín and Chorrera cultures are thought to represent a period of balkanization and (eventual) regionalization throughout much of the Central and Northern Andean coastal and highland valleys as previously established interregional...
The Ties That Bind (and Break): Persistence and Upheaval in the Post-Chavín Landscapes of the Carabamba Plateau and Moche/Virú Chaupiyungas (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. Following the dusk of Chavín, the traditional narrative for the Virú and Moche Valleys—as well as many parts of the Northern Andes—has been one of conflict and upheaval. Though the late Early Horizon (~500–200 BCE) and Early Intermediate period (~200 BCE–600 CE) landscapes in these areas surely saw an explosion...
Time May Change Heritage, but We Can Trace Time: Changes in the Archaeological Heritage of the Cañete Valley (Peru) between the1960s and Today (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cultural heritage worldwide is at immediate risk, ranging from minor damage to the complete disappearance of archaeological sites. The causal factors underlying risk increase include human environmental impacts, such as urban expansion and agricultural growth. This problem is critical in Peru, where the Ministry of Culture has identified the existence of...
The Timespace of the Pre-Hispanic City of Cerro de Oro (2018)
This work uses the concept of timespace (Schatzki 2010) to follow the construction and habitation of the prehispanic city of Cerro de Oro within the lower Cañete valley between ca. 500-900 AD. The concept of timespace assumes that the temporality and spatiality of the social are considered as intertwined elements that form the dynamic infrastructure where social phenomena such as power, social organization or coordinated action are constituted. ...
Tiwanaku colonization and the great reach west: Preliminary results of the Locumba Archaeological Survey 2015-2016 (2017)
Locumba represents a key intermediate location for consideration of the timing and affiliation of Tiwanaku colonization of the Moquegua, Sama, Caplina and Azapa valleys. Models of Tiwanaku state colonization, diasporic enclaves, and a "daisy chain" of secondary and tertiary colonization from initial provinces in Moquegua are considered. Ongoing systematic regional survey in the 2015 and 2016 seasons of the Locumba Archaeological Project has defined 74 site sectors, including 16 sectors of...
Tiwanaku Pastoralism, Highland Bofedales, and Grasslands in Far Southern Peru: Creating a Strontium Baseline and Isoscape to Understand Cultural Connections (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Exploring Culture Contact and Diversity in Southern Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Camelid pastoralism was an economic mainstay of the Tiwanaku Empire (~AD 600-1000). Communities of colonists in Moquegua, Peru were connected to their Tiwanaku capital near Lake Titicaca through an informal trade route traversing the altiplano. One component of Tiwanaku hegemony involved the movement of goods via llama caravans...