South America (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only D. Marie Weide. Maria C. Bruno. Christine A. Hastorf. Sherilyn Fritz.

As the greater project of this symposium attests, we want to become more aware of the constraints of our historical training and try to not separate culture from nature, or politics from the environment in our study of the past. Towards that end, the authors have been working on understanding water and lake level regimes of the southern Titicaca Basin, to better understand the history of this shallow lake and the people that lived around it from the Formative through the Late Horizon. ...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Zeidler.

This paper explores the notions of ‘material memory’ and human agency in deep time as expressed in the repetitive reconstruction of earthen platform mounds over some three millennia in the Jama Valley of coastal Manabí Province, Ecuador. Empirical evidence of repetitive mound-building is presented over a long stratigraphic record extending from approximately 2030 BCE to about 1260 CE, and special emphasis is given to the site of San Isidro, a major civic-ceremonial site and ‘persistent place’...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scotti Norman.

Investigations into Early Colonial Period status and identity of New World indigenous people have focused on assemblages of Spanish and indigenous goods in domestic and public contexts (Deagan 2003, Rice 2012). These studies have investigated how access to new goods and foodways may have reflected status among indigenous people, or how use of these imports in specific contexts were markers of changing identities. This paper presents excavation results at Iglesiachayoq (Ayacucho, Peru), an Inka...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Camille Weinberg. Benjamin Nigra. Maria Cecilia Lozada. Charles Stanish. Henry Tantaleán.

Ethnohistorical and archaeological sources establish that the Chincha Valley on Peru’s south coast hosted a populous and economically complex polity during the Late Intermediate Period (1200-1470 CE). A 2013 survey of the middle valley revealed more than 40 cemeteries containing over five hundred highly visible, above-ground collective tombs resembling highland chullpas. To establish a baseline demographic profile for this mortuary tradition, we conducted an osteological analysis of one looted...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tom Dillehay.

The influence that Dennis Stanford has had on archaeologists (and others) working in Latin America on the topic of early peopling is discussed, with specific reference to lithic technology, migratory models, and logistical/academic support.

DOCUMENT Citation Only S. Maezumi. Jose Iriarte.

Amazonia is a major reservoir of biodiversity that has been influenced by anthropogenic activities for millennia. However, the temporal and spatial scale of pre-Columbian land use and its modern legacy on Amazonian landscapes are among the most debated topics in New World archaeology, paleoecology and conservation. This research investigates pre-Columbian (3000-1492 AD) land-use on Amazonian landscapes near the confluence of the Tapajós and Amazon rivers, a region once occupied by the capital of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Reginald Auger. Adelphine Bonneau. Zocha Houle-Wierzbicki. Geneviève Treyvaud.

Our paper discusses the approach used to determine the location of burials in an equatorial environment where organic preservation is nil. Before using the space of the plantation cemetery to preserve the memory of the enslaved who lived at the plantation we had to demonstrate the extant of the cemetery using soil analyses. Memory of that period is a fleeting souvenir among local residents and we want to use archaeology to address issues with which they are confronted in order for them to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Piscitelli.

During the Late Archaic Period, dramatic cultural transformations took place along the north central coast of Peru in a region known as the Norte Chico. These changes included a transition from hunting-gathering-fishing to farming, more intense social interaction, new kinds of power relationships between leaders and respondent populations, and the construction of monumental ceremonial architecture—all hallmarks of emergent social complexity. This paper moves beyond questions of why people built...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hans Barnard. Ran Boytner.

Textiles have always had great social significance in the Andes. They were used to expressed identity and power as well as position and function within society. Intensive investment in textile technologies yielded some of the best such artifacts of the ancient world. While spinning and weaving produced fine garments, it was colors—achieved primarily through the use of brilliant organic dyes—that constituted the major visual qualities of Andean textiles. A limited number of studies exist that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Véronique Bélisle.

The Andean and Amazonian regions are home to numerous plants that can be prepared to induce altered states of consciousness. During the pre-Inka period in the Cusco area, evidence from the village of Ak'awillay indicates the consumption of alcohol, coca, and hallucinogens in public ceremonies. Some of the rituals involving entheogens could have corresponded to healing sessions, but the paraphernalia uncovered at the site suggests that most hallucinogens were consumed to communicate with the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Crandall.

The Chachapoya have come to be seen as a peripheral cultural entity in relation to the broader pre-Columbian Andes, yet little work has addressed how these ‘peripheral’ communities developed in relation to each other. While it is clear that the material culture that is manifestly associated with the Chachapoya developed prior to AD 1000, it is unclear how uniform this process was on a regional level. In the pre-Columbian Andes the development of centralized and partitioned monumental...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sara Becker.

The city of Tiwanaku (AD 500-1100) in the Bolivian altiplano was comprised of multiethnic neighborhoods, with some of these barrios being home to "guild-like" specialists laboring at differing jobs. Ch’iji Jawira, one site within this community, is often described in the archaeological record as containing both a manufacturing center for pottery and a residential area home to these ceramic manufacturers. Prior bioarchaeological research has also shown that the people who were buried at the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sophia Haller Von Hallerstein. Dorothée Drucker. Katerina Harvati. Kurt Rademaker.

We present the results of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses made on well-preserved collagen of four Early and one Middle Holocene adult humans together with coeval faunal remains of Cuncaicha rockshelter in the Peruvian puna to determine paleodiet. In addition, we reconstruct important aspects of the ecology of the Pucuncho Basin, in which Cuncaicha is located, using new as well as already available and secured values for stable carbon and nitrogen of archaeological and modern fauna...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Francisca Santana Sagredo. Julia Lee-Thorp. Rick Schulting. Mauricio Uribe.

The Pica-Tarapacá and the Atacama cultures appeared in northern Chile during the Late Intermediate Period, after the decline of the Tiwanaku state. Archaeological data suggests that both groups practiced maize agriculture and pastoralism to variable degrees, but their trade and exchange links differed significantly. Interaction with coastal groups, in the form of fish and other marine resources is common in the Pica-Tarapacá sites. The Atacama groups, who occupied the Atacama oases and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Beth K. Scaffidi. Natasha P. Vang. Tiffiny A. Tung.

Excavations at Uraca, a cemetery in the Majes Valley, Arequipa, Peru, uncovered incomplete human skeletons (MNI = 157) and associated grave goods dating to the Early Intermediate Period and the early Middle Horizon. Interpersonal violence was omnipresent at Uraca: 67 of 100 adults suffered cranial wounds (7 were insults received around the time of death), and 20 individuals were violently decapitated and/or defleshed after death. AMS dates show the individuals buried at Uraca lived from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Kennedy. Parker VanValkenburgh. Katherine L. Chiou.

Late 16th century Peru was a dynamic period associated with emerging Spanish colonial polices - forced resettlement and tribute extraction – coupled with general demographic decline. Spanish officials and indigenous communities alike had to make difficult choices on how they provided for their households and put food on the table. We examine the effects of this tumultuous period on Spanish and indigenous foodways at the reducción site of Carrizales, located in the lower Zaña Valley on the North...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Camila Figueiredo.

The goal of this presentation is to contribute to the ongoing debate in Amazonian studies to which human societies impacted and reshaped the landscapes. Landscapes are the results of a human action and environmental changes over time, providing a fundamental dataset for understanding social practices in a historically particular manner (Ingold 1993). Ultimately, this presentation sheds light on the formation and significance of settlement patterns within sites located in the Flona-Tapajós and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fernando Astudillo. Paúl Rosero.

This is an abstract from the "Unsettling Infrastructure: Theorizing Infrastructure and Bio-Political Ecologies in a More-Than-Human World" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Islands have been used by societies around the world to abandon, exile, or relocate those deemed unworthy. Repressive institutions, as a form of state infrastructure, have been created on the islands during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to detain political prisoners,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Manuel Perales.

Recent studies have shown the importance of commensal politics in the consolidation of Inca power and ideology, highlighting the leading role played by the pots as political tools. Following this perspective, this paper proposes a reassessment of the nature of the activities carried out at the Inca site of Hatun Xauxa in the central highlands of Peru, based on functional and distributional analysis of the state and local pottery recovered during excavations made in 2014 by the Proyecto Qhapaq...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rafael Segura Llanos.

Cajamarquilla es uno de los centros urbanos preincas más grandes de la costa peruana (160 ha). Localizado en el valle del Rímac, el sitio fue uno de los centros dominantes de la cultura Lima entre los siglos VII y IX d.C. Si bien otros grandes centros Lima coexistieron durante esta época, solo Cajamarquilla se localiza tierra adentro y en un entorno geológico altamente inestable al pie de la cordillera andina. Ya que este fue un periodo caracterizado por notables alteraciones medioambientales,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Diana Diaz. Danielle Kurin.

Archaeological scholarship in the Andahuaylas region of south-central highland Peru has documented the presence of three critical cultural occupations: Wari, Chanka, and Inka (ca. AD 700-1400). Previous investigations claim that environmental change may have influenced collapse and played a decisive role in resettlement patterns. Using spatial data from 86 surveyed sites, this study investigates how state collapse, reorganization, and environmental transformations influenced settlement patterns...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Diana Ochoa. Danielle Kurin.

In the Andahuaylas region located in the southern central highlands of Peru, archaeologists have documented the presence of three critical cultural occupations: Wari, Chanka, and Inka (ca. AD 700-1400). Previous investigations claim that environmental change may have influenced collapse and played a decisive role in resettlement patterns. Using spatial data from 86 surveyed sites, this study investigates how state collapse, reorganization, and environmental transformations influenced settlement...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Peter E. Siegel. Emlen Meyers. John G. Jones.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Southeastern Bolivia is one of the least-understood regions in South American archaeology. However, it is of pivotal significance in regard to Indigenous cultural history and the dynamics of cultural interactions, especially given its location at the interface between the Andes and Amazonia. Ethnohistorically and ethnographically a large number of ethnic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nora Flegenheimer. Roxana Cattaneo.

The early peopling of South America is related to great environmental and material variability. Discussions must deal with early archaeological records including a variety of lithic assemblages in tropical lands, the Pacific coast, the Andes and the extensive southern plains and plateaus. In this context, fishtails are the most widespread point type exhibiting a dispersed pattern throughout most of South America during terminal Pleistocene times. They are therefore useful to think about with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shaina Molano. Kimberly Munro.

This study is part of a larger research project, which looks at displays of social identity and the effects of influence from outside contemporaneous groups in pre-Columbian Peru. In studying past communities, we look beyond our own interpretations of "who" we perceived people to be and begin asking questions that reveal who they thought they were and how they chose to advertise that to those deemed "other." The nature of this research requires working closely with contemporary local...