South America (Geographic Keyword)
1,151-1,175 (1,326 Records)
Geoglyphs are large features frequently created by removing rocks and surface dirt in order to create a large scale designs. Although often studied in isolation, much can be learned from the position of geoglyphs relative to other features on the landscape. As part of the Quilcapampa Archaeological Project, a reconnaissance survey guided by remotely sensed imagery was performed in order to document and map geoglyph iconography found on the pampa of the Sihuas Valley, Peru. To date, over 100...
Spatial Analysis of Prehistoric Garden Features on Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) (2015)
Manavai are circular walled stone gardens used for cultivation by the prehistoric populations of Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile). Though not fully mapped, over 1000 manavai are known across the island in a distribution that reflects dispersed settlement patterns. Object-based image analysis of newly available high-resolution imagery of the island offers a mean of systematically identifying manavai features. Using the results of these analyses, we examine the spatial patterns of manavai and their...
A Spatial Analysis of Surface Artifact Distributions at the Inka Administrative Site of Turi, Northern Chile (2015)
While it is well established that mineral acquisition motivated Inka imperial expansion into the high-altitude Atacama Desert of northern Chile, finer points of the area’s political economy during the Late Horizon are the subject of ongoing research. The site of Turi in the Antofogasta region offers a unique opportunity to investigate this topic, as the site represents a preexisting local settlement coopted for use as a regional administrative center by imperial authorities. This study...
Spatial patterns of raised fields and linguistic diversity in Mojos, Beni, Bolivia (2015)
Throughout Amazonia, agricultural earthworks are found in diverse geographical settings, including Venezuela, Bolivia, and the Guianas. These earthworks can be seen throughout areas of diverse linguistic and ethnic backgrounds. This suggests that dynamic, multiethnic networks can be found in Amazonia, influencing the methods of landscape modification used by different groups. Being able to observe influences of diverse cultural interactions in the archaeological record could contribute to the...
Specific Skeletal Injuries as a Proxy for Domestic Violence (2016)
The prevalence of violence in past societies is generally assessed through observable skeletal trauma. Common contexts of violence vary from culture to culture, and differences in acceptable forms of violence can be evident after documenting the different shapes, locations, and stages of healing of injuries. Contemporary cross-cultural studies show the physical effects of household violence primarily display on the middle third of the face in female victims, can commonly cause concomitant...
Spinning in the Middle Horizon: Spindle Whorls from the Site of Uraca in the Majas Valley (2015)
Textiles were a major economic component in the prehistoric Andes. Mortuary evidence indicates an association between women and textile production. While spinning may have been an activity undertaken by both men and women, women dominated the produced domestic textiles and therefore were often buried with textile related tools. Spindle whorls from mortuary contexts can be used to determine the quality of the final cloth. Smaller spindle whorls produce a finer quality of yarn for elite products...
Spondylus and Ideology: 5000 Years of Interaction between Manabi, the Circum-Gulf of Guayaquil Region and Northern Peru (2015)
Interaction and cultural exchange between the coastal societies of northern Peru and the cultures of Manabí and Guayas are evident from the late Preceramic in Peru and early Valdivia in western Ecuador. While spondylus is the best-known material manifestation of this exchange, there is evidence of early cultural influences which predate the heavy movement of spondylus to the south and Lambayeque metalwork to the north. Other influences which can be called ideological are seen in the iconography...
Spondylus, Mounds and Pyramids: An Approach to Social Changes in the Northern Andes of Ecuador during the Late Period (2017)
During the Pre-Columbian period, the northern Andes hosted an intense cultural interaction that led to the emergence of chiefdoms with diverse forms of political administration, power strategies, and economic integration. For the northern Andes of Ecuador, the archaeological research typically assumes a gradual development of the Cara people during the Late Period between 600 and 1525 AD. New archaeological evidence of social and natural events suggests a transitional stage between 900 and 1200...
Stable Isotope Analysis (δ13C/δ15N) of Archaeological Feathers from Corral Redondo, Arequipa, Peru (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Feathercrafts were vital to prestige economies of the ancient Americas. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms and sources of feathered textile production can illuminate the nature of the trade networks that supported elite socioeconomic pursuits. In the 1940s, local farmers discovered an unprecedented cache of feathered textile panels wrapped in...
The standardization of prehistoric cranial vault modification practices in the Andes: a 3D geometric morphometric approach (2016)
Bioarchaeologists have long been interested in documenting the forms and techniques involved in cranial modification and exploring the larger social significance of such practices, particularly in the Andes. While such studies have enriched our understanding of head-shaping practices among pre-Hispanic populations, there has been a dearth of research that investigates the individuals who were responsible for carrying out these corporeal modifications on infants. Was the practice carried out by a...
Status and Identity at the Margins of Empire: Foodways in pre-Inka and Inka Cuzco (2017)
Diet and cuisine are key practices in the daily negotiation of status and identity, particularly when studied at the household level. In the Maras region of rural Cuzco, the developing Inka state and a rival polity known ethnohistorically as the Ayarmaka maintained autonomous economic, social, and political practices. While other groups in the Cuzco region exchanged goods and shared some cultural practices with the Inka, the Ayarmakas did not. In the 15th century, the Ayarmaka suddenly abandoned...
Stone Tools from the Buen Suceso Site, Santa Elena, Ecuador (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the summer of 2018, the lithic artifacts of two units of the Late Valdivia (2100 BC - 1800 BC) occupation of the Buen Suceso site were analyzed as an undergraduate research project. The Valdivia people were a settled agricultural society based on the utilization of marine, forest, and riverine resources. The people of Buen Suceso lived on the edge of the...
Storage and Labor Service: a Production and Management Design for the Andean Area. In: Chan Chan: Andean Desert City (1982)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
The Storage Systems in the South Coast Region: The Case of the Cañete Valley (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Political Economies on the Andean Coast" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Undoubtedly, storage systems played a key role in Inca political and economic organization in the Andes. The Inca state employed these goods stored for different purposes, such as supporting military campaigns, financing state works, and hosting ceremonial activities. However, most research on Inca storage has focused on the storage facilities...
Stress and daily life in an Andean reducción town: preliminary osteological analyses of juvenile burials in a church sacristy (2017)
Juvenile mortality and morbidity is a sensitive marker of overall group health, as juvenile individuals are more susceptible to circulating endemic diseases and nutritional stress. Thus, reconstructing relative frailty of the juvenile population at Mawchu Llacta provides important data about daily life at this colonial site, in a relatively understudied transitional period of Peruvian history. In this paper, we present the results of preliminary skeletal analyses of burials excavated from the...
String-Figures from the Patomana Indians of British Guiana (1912)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Stringing it Together: An Examination of Shell and Stone Beads at Panquilma (2016)
The presences of different type of artifacts, especially shell and stone beads, have often been used to discuss these inter-regional trade networks. In this paper I will discuss and try to identify some of these regional networks and the importance of exchange within these local networks. I examine whether elaborate grave goods are displays of wealth or whether they might represent ritual paraphernalia. I discuss the nature of incipient status inequality.
Studies of the Subaltern in Contemporary Archaeology: Prostitution in Saltpeter Boomtowns and Ports of Northern Chile (1880-1930) (2018)
Prostitution and prostitutes, despite their alleged ubiquity in time-space and exponential growth with industrialization, have rarely been the focus of historical inquiry, let alone of archaeology, with exceptional exceptions. With New Orleans’ red-light district Storyville as source of inspiration, this study seeks to archaeologically document prostitution in saltpeter boomtowns (salitreras) and ports of Northern Chile (1880-1930), aiming to identify and characterize the spaces of prostitution...
The Study of an Inca Huaca in a Modern Context (2015)
What happens when two imperial ideologies collide? How and why do indigenous objects of worship continue to be sacred 500 years after that collision? After defeating the Inca, the Spaniards during the late sixteenth and seventeenth century attempted to eradicate Inca religion and its influences from the indigenous memory during the famous extirpation of idolatry. While conversion to Christianity was largely successful, it also initiated a process of fusion as Andean elements subtly integrated...
Study of Archeobotanical Remains from El Campanario Site: A Preliminary Analysis of a Middle Horizon site in the North Coast of Peru, Huarmey Valley (2016)
During the Middle Horizon, the Andean area experienced significant cultural transformations in settlement patterns, architecture, ceramic style, and subsistence strategies, which are commonly associated with the Wari Empire. The region surrounding the Wari capital in Ayacucho was transformed to increase agricultural productivity in order to support the growing population. The increase of agricultural productivity can be also observed in the provinces in which the transformation of the land was...
A Study of Domestic Ceramics from Hualcayán, Ancash, Peru. (2015)
In the Peruvian Andes, archaeological analysis of prehistoric ceramics disproportionately focuses on materials recovered from ritual spaces compared to domestic areas. This bias limits our understanding of the role of ceramics in domestic contexts. To address the imbalance, this poster focuses on characteristics of ceramics in recovered from survey and excavations at a residential sector of the Hualcayán site. This sector, called Panchocuchu, contains most of the site’s domestic...
A Study of Fineline Iconographic Depictions at the Late Moche site of Huaca Colorada, in the Jequetepeque Valley, Peru (2015)
The Late Moche Period (AD 500-800) of the North Coast of Peru is marked by significant alterations to the iconography of elite fineline ceramics. In particular, the earlier imagery, depicting conventionalized narratives of ritual performances and exploits of male Moche divinites or their mortal avatars disappears in certain locales. In southern valleys, at sites such as Galindo, Late Moche elite ceramics largely depicted abstract geometrical imagery including the widespread step-and-mountain...
STUDY OF LEISHMANIASIS IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL MATERIAL OF HUMAN ORIGIN FROM SOUTH AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES (2015)
The identification of Leishmania parasites in archaeological material is performed by molecular and immunological diagnosis.The present study aimed to detect Leishmania sp. in samples from archaeological sites in South America.After the lack of inhibition observed in the samples we proceeded with PCR Leishmania spp.using a molecular target to Kinetoplast minicircule kDNA in samples from different individuals with datings from different periods from archaeological sites in South America(Brazil...
Study of the construction sequence of a Moche ceremonial mound in northern Peru: Huaca La Capilla - San José de Moro (2016)
For two decades, archaeological research in the Moche site of San José de Moro, located in the valley of Jequetepeque northern coast of Peru, have focused on exploring the ceremonial nature of the site from the study of funerary and feasts contexts. However, there are still many unresolved questions about the ritual practices, where they were made and what its frequency was. That is why, since 2012, new explorations started at a monumental construction, in order to understand the role and...
Study of the Neolithic Social Grouping: Examples from the New World (1958)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.