South America (Geographic Keyword)
1,251-1,275 (1,326 Records)
En nuestras recientes investigaciones de la cultura Paracas en la vertiente occidental de los Andes del sur del Perú hemos encontrado un nuevo patrón arquitectónico, cuyo elemento básico lo constituye una estructura en forma de D, que se encuentra combinada en número de dos, tres y más elementos. En el caso ideal se forma un círculo perfecto, generalmente sobre una colina artificialmente modificada, y alrededor de un patio hundido. En el sitio de Cutamalla se han identificado doce complejos...
UNA NUEVA VISIÓN DEL ROL DE KUÉLAP EN EL VALLE DEL ALTO UTCUBAMBA (2015)
Nuestros trabajos en Kuélap han permitido la excavación de un centenar de estructuras circulares, densos rellenos, estructuras ceremoniales y secciones de la muralla exterior y la muralla del Pueblo Alto. Estas excavaciones han afinado una secuencia estratigráfica apoyada en una veintena de fechados de radiocarbono y permitido el hallazgo de diversos contextos que sustentan una nueva hipótesis respecto del rol del monumento. Estos estudios han concluido en lo siguiente: a) el monumento comenzó...
Understanding an Alternative Pattern of Coalescence: A Study of Architecture and Organization at a Non-fortified, Pre-Inca Town in Highland Peru (2017)
This study presents an analysis of the architecture and spatial organization at Maukallaqta de Nuñoa, a prehispanic site within the highlands of Peru dating to the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000 – 1450). Within the northern Titicaca Basin where the site is located, hillforts dominate the archaeological landscape during this time as a result of increased political fragmentation and social discontinuity. While these hillforts often display very little architectural investment other than their...
Understanding heterarchy: Landscape and community in the northern Calchaquí Valley, Argentina (2016)
This presentation explores landscapes of heterarchy, investigating the ways that past peoples inhabited a south Andean landscape. In the northern Calchaquí Valley of Argentina, before the Inkas, power relations were predominantly decentralized and spatially extensive. As a consequence, lived experience, the built environment, and the wider landscape both constituted and reproduced a distinctive social order and cultural logic. Using data from regional survey, I argue first for a habitus that...
Understanding the ceja de selva in relationship to the Central Andean coast and highlands during the Early Horizon (2016)
Andean archaeologists have long debated the degree to which the ceja de selva or eastern Andean montane forest was involved within the larger historical processes that led to the development of sociopolitical complexity in Central Andean highlands and coast. For some scholars such as Julio C. Tello and Donald Lathrap, the apparent tropical forest influence in Chavín iconography as well as the similarity of eastern slope ceramics to contemporary highland and coastal assemblages suggested that the...
Understanding the dispersion of ceramic styles in the lower Amazon: what is Koriabo? (2017)
Archaeologists working in the lower Amazon have been identifying a particular ceramic style with a vast regional distribution, including the Caribbean, the Guyanas, the Amazon estuary and, more recently, the lower Amazon floodplain. This paper will discuss the distribution and varibility of this style in the lower Amazon, its correlation with Carib speaking groups, and the possible contexts, processes and practices that generated such dispersion.
Understanding the occupation history of oversized pit houses in the southern Brazilian highlands: Bayesian modelling and high resolution chronology of the Baggio 1 site (2016)
The function of the oversized pit houses constructed by southern proto-Je groups in the southern Brazilian highlands has been a matter of debate for decades. In this paper, we contribute to the debate by presenting a unique sequence from House 1 of the Baggio 1 site in Campo Belo do Sul, Santa Catarina state. For the first time, we obtained a large number of radiocarbon dates for twelve occupation floors in an oversized pit structure. We applied Bayesian modelling to develop a fine-grained...
Underwater archaeology in Lake Titicaca, Bolivia: Use of the littoral zone in the Tiwanaku period (AD 500-1150) (2017)
Since 2014, the project of underwater archaeology in Lake Titicaca (ULB), gives priority to the study of the Yampupata strait between the Island of the Sun and the Copacabana Peninsula. This research strategy was chosen because of different elements: First of all, the Island is a homogenous insular territory whose affordable dimensions (14,3 Km2) allow underwater activities. Secondly, one of the main characteristics of this territory is its dense, complex and continuous occupation which has been...
Unearthing the Deep Roots of the Long-term Human History and Environmental Interaction in the Atacama Desert (2017)
New archaeological evidence demonstrates that by 12,800 years ago, bands of hunter-gatherers effectively occupied the hyperarid basins of the Atacama Desert. The selection of the habitats they exploited and the location of their activity areas were constrained by specific environmental circumstances that coincide with positive moisture anomalies that provided abundant resources. The distributions and properties of which were likely managed by these people to create complex landscapes using...
Unexpected Social Complexity in the mid-Zaña Valley, North Coast, Peru (2016)
Based on recent fieldworks, this paper argues for a major rethinking of the Gallinazo-Mochica relationship. Investigations in the mid-Zaña Valley have revealed unexpected architectural and social complexity at the site of Songoy-Cojal. The predominantly residential Cojal shows an abundant co-presence of stylistically Gallinazo and Mochica remains. In addition to fineline decorated ceramics perhaps from farther south, there is a strong Gallinazo-like presence, which may be characteristic of in...
Unraveling the Relationship between Color and Meaning of Cords in Matching and Related Inka Khipu (2016)
Colors of cords in Inka khipu are of great interest because it has long been understood that they were meant to convey specific meanings, namely indicating the individual category being encoded in a particular position on a khipu. Colonial authors such as Calancha and Garcilaso de la Vega made claims regarding what certain colors symbolized, but studies of extant khipu have yet to definitively correlate colors with specific meanings. Before we can begin to understand the correlation between...
Untangling Wari Colonization, Trade, and Administration in Coastal Arequipa from the Site of Quilcapampa, Siguas Valley. (2017)
The seventh century AD marked a period of great social change in the coastal valleys of Arequipa, Perú. During this time, an increase in violence, population growth, and social complexity was met with foreign influences from the Wari state of the central highlands. While scholars have long asserted that Arequipa fell under Wari control at this time, the evidence for direct state control has never been demonstrated conclusively in the region. This presentation reports the results of our...
Upward Mobility Among Smallholders of the Desert North Coast of Peru (2016)
Mobility among smallholders or campesinos is a crucial element for understanding the development of both ancient and modern-day Peru. In the case of the ancient agricultural landscape of Mocán, the movement of people, products, and possibly plants, lead to increasing network complexity eventually culminating in the area’s incorporation into an important coastal polity. Archaeological evidence suggests changing approaches to landscape and water management over the 2,000 years of occupation in the...
Urban Planning, Neighborhoods, and the Organization of Residential Space at the Early Horizon Center of Caylán, Coastal Ancash, Peru (2015)
This paper examines and compares the spatial organization of residential compounds in order to reconstruct patterns of neighborhood and urban life at the Early Horizon of Caylán (800-1 BC), Nepeña Valley, north-central coast of Peru. Systematic surface mapping combined with limited horizontal excavations indicate that the urban core of the ancient city was composed of more than 40 residential complexes articulated through a series of streets and corridors. Detailed first-hand mapping of streets...
Use of Aquatic and Stone Tools at Three Colombian Caribbean Sites near Canal del Dique (2016)
This work derives from research in the ongoing research project "Evaluation of Zooarqueológica de Concheros cerca al Canal del Dique". We present the preliminary results of the archaeological research of three sites sampled near Canal del Dique: Monsú (5000 a.C.), Puerto Hormiga (4000 a. C), and Leticia (a shellmound from the 12th century A.D.). Samples of animals remains were recovered from 1/8 inch mesh screening. These samples were analyzed for taxonomic, taphonomic, and quantification...
USING BINFORD’S FRAMES OF REFERENCE TO MODEL HUNTER-GATHERER MOBILITY AND GROUP SIZE IN THE ANDEAN PUNA (2016)
Hunter-gatherer lifeways dominated the Salt Puna of South America for at least 5000 years before domesticated animals and plants appear in the archaeological record. The ruggedness of the landscape (with a baseline elevation of 3300 masl), the low ET and the distribution of resources dependent on a decreasing E-W rainfall gradient surely had an impact on prehistoric landscape use and mobility of ancient hunter-gatherers. In this poster we follow Binford (2001) in arguing there is a link between...
Using LiDAR and Environmental Suitability Models to Predict Probable Locations of Ancient Settlements in Manabí, 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 recent years, LIDAR has gained popularity among archaeological researchers for its capability to reveal ancient settlement features hidden beneath dense vegetation coverage in heavily forested areas. More often, these studies have revealed undocumented monumental architecture and in some cases modified landscapes such as agricultural terraces, canals, and...
Using LiDAR to Reconstruct 19th-c. Plantation Landscapes in French Guiana (2022)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Plantation landscapes in French Guiana are almost entirely obscured by the dense rainforest vegetation that overtook the region in the decades following emancipation in 1848 when the search for gold and other economic initiatives gradually replaced plantation agriculture. While remote sensing has revolutionized archaeological...
Using Traditional and Nontraditional Isotopic Tracers of Diet and Mobility of Brazilian Shell Mound Populations (ca. 8000–1000 years BP) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of shell mounds can shed light on human occupation and adaptations at coastal environments worldwide. In South America, human groups occupied the territory close to the Atlantic Ocean for millennium (ca. 8000 to ⁓1000 years BP), building hundreds of shell mounds, some with impressive dimensions. After 2000 BP, it is assumed that these populations...
Uso de un Espacio Sagrado: Excavaciones de la Sacristía de una Reducción Colonial en la Sierra sur del Perú (2017)
Los espacios rituales han sido desde siempre lugares importantes dentro de las comunidades humanas pues son la expresión material de sus creencias y su fe. En el caso del Virreinato del Perú, la invasión española del siglo XVI significó un cambio radical en la concepción y materialización de la religiosidad practicada, donde la construcción de edificios de carácter religioso encarnó el cambio de vida y costumbres de los pueblos conquistados. Esta ponencia explora el espacio arquitectónico de la...
The Valle de Mairana, Bolivia (c. 1000-1532 CE): Elucidating the Everyday (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Sometime during the Late Intermediate Period or the Late Horizon, the Valle de Mairana, Bolivia became part of the farthest reaches of the Inka empire, which at its height spanned the Andean mountain range from Colombia to Argentina. However, relatively little is currently known about the people who lived in this valley during these centuries. How did the...
Valley of No Masters: Exchanging Experiences at the Valley of the Masters, Northeastern Brazil (2018)
Field schools, and Methods and techniques in Archaeology classes are mandatory steps to achieve Master’s or a PhD degree in most graduate programs in Brazil. We, as instructors noticed a certain mismatch in students’ behavior in regard to decision-making in both situations: reticence during field activities, boldness during class discussions and debates. This dichotomy seemed to be related to field experiences in which the students had fewer opportunities to engage with other "more...
Variability in northern and southern Preceramic lomas sites of coastal Peru (2015)
Lomas formations in coastal Peru form when moisture off the Pacific Ocean condenses on hill slopes that rise between approximately 400-800 masl. These formations are distributed over broad regions in the southern part of Peru, but become more dispersed as one moves north. Depending on their extent, lomas formations can support a broad range of plant and animal life. As a major resource zone prior to the advent of agriculture, lomas were exploited by hunters and gatherers throughout this period...
Variations in Cranial Vault Modification at Uraca, Majes Valley, Peru (2015)
Cranial vault modification was a prevalent type of body modification practiced throughout the ancient Andes. It was achieved by binding the head during childhood, which left the crania permanently altered into adulthood. Different methods of binding led to visually different forms of modification, which likely marked membership in different ethnic groups. Researchers have documented three major modification styles in the Andes: tabular oblique, tabular erect, and circumferential. Recent...
Variations in Initial Period Ceremonial Architecture at the Caballo Muerto Complex (2016)
The Caballo Muerto Complex is well known for the presence of numerous Initial Period platform mounds thought to have functioned as temples. What is less known, is that some of the mounds, including Huaca Herederos Grande and Huaca Cortada were associated with smaller-scale buildings that also seem to have functioned as religious structures. In this paper, I discuss investigations of a square abode building found at the base of Huaca Cortada. Excavation of the structure demonstrated that the...