South America (Geographic Keyword)
326-350 (1,291 Records)
During the last ca. 3000 years BP, there was a change in socioeconomic organization of hunter-gatherers in Southern Mendoza, north Patagonia, Argentina. New technologies, like pottery, bow and arrow, was incorporated allowed the exploitation and occupation of marginal areas, such as highlands and arid environments. Technological strategies, mobility and use of space are linked in this research by a distributional analysis of archaeological ceramics from southern Mendoza archaeological sites....
Distributional studies in the Diamante Valley, Mendoza, Argentina: a methodological approach. (2016)
We present a random sampling design for the Diamante Valley, Mendoza, Argentina. We selected 3 areas located in the highlands, the piedmont and the lowlands. The aim is to test differences and variability in the use of the space. Each of the areas is constituted by 100 Km2 and was divided by GIS in 10000 sampling units of 10000 m2. 122 units have been selected randomly in each of the areas. From data available of neighboring areas we generated expectations of material densities and...
Diversidad y Complementariedad en los Desarrollos Sociales Precolombinos de las Cuencas Upano y Palora, Morona Santiago, Ecuador (2016)
En Pablo Sexto, Amazonía Sur del Ecuador, se ha descubierto una variabilidad, en cuanto a modos de vida de sus pobladores, a través de los años (2.000 a.C. – 1.700 d.C.). El estudio llevado a cabo en esta zona, fue financiado por SENESCYT e INPC, para la obtención de datos paleobotánicos. Dentro de este contexto, la posición teórica adoptada fue la Ecología Histórica, entendiendo a la cultura material: cerámica, lítica y suelos, como productos tecnológicos, culturales, económicos y políticos,...
DIY Digital Archaeoacoustics: Sensory-Spatial Mapping (2015)
An experiential link to past life, sound is a medium for engaging questions of ancient emplacement and human activity. Spatial sonics can be linked to a dynamic sensory map of one's surroundings; beyond conveying information about structural boundaries and environmental events, architectural and landform acoustics can help or hinder communication. Although acoustics and audio digital signal processing are specialist disciplines, consumer audio technologies can enable the extraction of sonic...
Diáspora y Etnogénesis durante el Tiwanaku Terminal en el la región de Cohoni, La Paz, Bolivia (2015)
Esta ponencia se centra en las poblaciones del Tiwanaku Terminal – Intermedio Tardío Temprano (ap. 900 – 1200 d.C.) en la región de Cohoni, en los valles orientales del río La Paz, en Bolivia. Se resumen los antecedentes investigativos de la región, y especialmente las excavaciones realizadas por nosotros en contextos habitacionales del sitio de Chullpa Loma, uno de los más grandes y complejos de Cohoni. Consideramos datos sobre la arquitectura habitacional y funeraria del sitio, así como los...
Documenting Dietary Effects of Imperial Collapse and Drought: Bioarchaeology and Stable Isotope Analysis at Huari-Vegachayoq Moqo, Peru (2017)
This study examines the diets of 32 individuals who were deposited in the Vegachayoq Moqo sector at the site of Huari, the capital of the Wari Empire. The commingled skeletal remains date to the second half of the Late Intermediate Period (LIP), long after the empire’s collapse circa 1100 CE. This was also a time of an extended drought. The diets, reconstructed from carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes from bone collagen, are compared among the individuals and to those of earlier Wari populations...
Does technology hinder or assist story-telling? A critical theory approach to archaeological representation and relational data (2017)
Advances in archaeological science are throwing new light on old concerns about representations of the past. Methods such as GIS allow archaeologists systematically to analyze multiple variables at once and rapidly to view data from various vantage points. Critics argue that such methods lose sight of the experiential aspects of history—the cultural differences that influenced how different people participated in social life and told stories about their past. This paper argues that this critique...
Doing it the old-fashioned way: Dating Paleoindian Rock Art in Eastern South America (2015)
Rock painting flourished in several parts of the world, including eastern South America. Traditions that can be important evidence not only of development of art, society, and religion but also of science and technology. Techniques for direct dating are in active development these days, but archaeological stratigraphy and radiometric dating can give an important baseline to compare with other methods. We present an example of this strategy and its results at Monte Alegre, Brazil and briefly...
Donald Lathrap, the Tropical Forest, and Hemispheric Archaeology (2018)
Donald Lathrap was a visionary anthropologist and archaeologist. His contributions always reflected the "big picture": an understanding that all pre-Columbian culture history was intertwined, and that these connections went back through time to origins in the lowland tropics, or the Tropical Forest. He practiced an archaeology that gave equal weight to iconography and religious thought, and rim sherds and energetics. The most significant issues for Lathrap’s version of American Archaeology, is...
Dress Codes: Color Patterning in Wari Tapestry-Woven Tunics (2016)
Artistically elaborate tapestry-woven tunics were the raiment of rulers and other esteemed elites of the ancient Andean Wari civilization (AD 600-1000). The tunics’ figurative iconography is well known: drawn from a limited repertoire that often relates to the Wari state’s official religious cult, it almost always comprises a single type of motif that repeats many times in different orientations and color combinations (color blocks) across each tunic’s gridded body. Less legible and recognized...
Dressing the Child: An Analysis of Camisas at Chiribaya Alta (2017)
Children learn and communicate their social identities through dress. Thus, examinations of ancient clothing can reveal the process of socialization in past societies. The presence of child and adult sized camisas in the graves of Chiribaya children suggest that these items communicate more than a child’s living identities. Here, we analyze camisas at Chiribaya Alta to examine the process of socialization and the role of death as a potential rite of passage. The site of Chiribaya Alta, an elite...
Drilling inside the Structure Atop the Mound: A Potential Lapidary Workshop at Buen Suceso (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Finding Community in the Past and Present through the 2022 PARCC Field School at Buen Suceso, Ecuador" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The lithic materials recovered from Buen Suceso are varied in use types and materials. This paper will focus on the collections of chipped stone drills excavated from the Unit 6 Structure at the site, located on top of a possible mound. The presence of concentrations of these drills in...
Drinking power: Moche tombs as sites of subjectification (2015)
In the ethnohistoric record of the Andes, the bodies of the dead feature as key material objects through which living rulers claimed power over people and territory, especially irrigated land. This was true for the highland Inka, and also for coastal societies such as Chimu. In the archaeological record for earlier societies such as Moche, we see evidence for a similar complex of practices involving tombs, entombed bodies, and associated artifacts and offerings. These mortuary assemblages were...
Drivers and Consequences of Past Human Migrations: Life-History Approach for the Southern Andes (WGF - Post PhD Research Grant) (2021)
This resource is an application for the Post PhD Research Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Migrations are an intrinsic aspect of human societies, past and present. This global character can be used to build a comparative anthropological framework seeking to understand the drivers and consequences of migration. Within this agenda, we seek to comprehend what are the causes and social effects of a rapid migration pulse recorded between AD 1270-1420 in the southern Andes (Uspallata Valley,...
Drones, Photogrammetry and 3d Modeling in Peruvian Archaeology (2017)
Air photography, using Drones and 2D/3D Models produced with Photogramettry, is changing the way we do field archaeology. This technology also can be a powerful tool in telling a story about the sites and the work that we, as archaeologists, do there. However, several technological adaptations have to be developed in order to take full advantage of these new technologies. In this paper, we will walk you through the process of combining air and ground based 3D modeling along the North Coast of...
Dual organisation and mortuary ritual: architectural and archaeobotanical evidence for the southern proto-Je, Brazil and Argentina (2016)
Circa A.D. 1000 the Mound and Enclosure Complex (MEC) began appearing on the landscape of southern Brazil and Misiones, Argentina. The MEC mark a distinct change in funerary practice reflecting increasing complexity in social structure. Modern southern Je groups exhibit dual social organisation, characterised by exogamic, patrilineal moieties, dividing all beings, objects, and natural phenomena into two cosmological categories. Archaeological research is beginning to identify the early evolution...
Duendes, Fantasmas y Encantamientos: How Dos Mangas Connects to Archaeological Heritage through Folktales (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Finding Community in the Past and Present through the 2022 PARCC Field School at Buen Suceso, Ecuador" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The lands of the Comuna Dos Mangas are replete with archaeological material, including the Buen Suceso Archaeological site. Over the Comuna’s history, generations of its residents have encountered thousands of artifacts from the Valdivia, Machalilla, Chorrera, Guangala, and Manteño...
Dwellings and Corporate Groups in Montegrande, Jequetepeque Valley, Peru: A Household Study of Social Differentiation (2015)
This research takes two kinds of analytical unit, dwelling and hypothetical corporate group, to analyze and compare spatial relationship between the east and west sectors in Montegrande, a Early Formative site locates in Jequetepeque Valley, Peru. The map-based analysis reveals different changing pattern during the two phases of occupation. The primary result shows that east sector went through a significant transition from phase 1 to phase 2 in the configuration of corporate group and in the...
A Dynamic Social Landscape: Recent Investigations at the Hacienda Guachalá, Northern Highlands of Ecuador (2017)
The area of Cayambe in the northern highlands of Ecuador is marked by the physical remains of successive waves of Inca and Spanish imperial expansion and their enduring consequences. Across the landscape high altitude fortifications evidence the drawn-out struggles between expanding Inca and local forces during the 15th century. Similarly, elite haciendas that transformed the rural countryside in the interests of imperial and state power continue to dominate the social and political landscape....
Dynamics of Interaction and Integration between the Tawantinsuyu and the Local Populations of the Kollasuyu: Contributions from the Mediterranean Valleys of Central Chile (2016)
This paper aims to contribute to a critical analysis of the dynamics of interaction and integration between the Incas and the local populations in the Kollasuyu based on the results of research projects carried out during the last decades in the valleys of Aconcagua, Maipo, and Mapocho in the Mediterranean area of the western slope of the Andes. The collected records point to complex processes of acceptance, rejection and differential integration of local populations with respect to the...
The Earliest Occupation of Colombia: Balance and Perspectives at the Beginning of the 21st Century (2017)
In First Americans research in Colombia, the last three decades of the 20th Century were significant in terms of enthusiasm and motivation. Studies carried out by scholars such as Ruth Gruhn and Alan Bryan in Venezuela and other places were fundamental references for Colombian teams and encouraged advances in Pleistocene archaeology. Gonzalo Correal, Thomas Van der Hammen and Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, among others, followed widely their contributions. Following Colombian generations of...
Early "Guañape" Ceramics from the North Coast of Peru: New Data from Gramalote (Moche Valley) and Huaca Prieta (Chicama Valley) (2016)
The problem of the introduction or adoption of the ceramic technology in the Central Andes is still an open debate. Earlier efforts have identified that ceramic vessels in the Moche and Chicama valleys were already in use around 1600-1500 B.C. Current research support the fact that the Second millennium is tentatively the period when domestic wares became popular in this region. New data from the Gramalote and Huaca Prieta sites support this view, suggesting that there seems to be formal...
Early coastal occupations in Taltal, Southern Atacama Desert, Chile (2016)
In this presentation we will discuss recent results on the historical trajectory of hunter-gatherer-fishers from the coast of Taltal, Southern Atacama Desert, Chile. We will focus on the Early Holocene period (around ca. 11.500 – 10.000 cal BP) which includes several logistical occupations in rock-shelters and an open-air pigment mine. Our research aims to understand geographical and climatic conditions during the early human occupation of the area and its relation to human mobility and...
Early Complexity in the Upper Amazon: The Mayo Chinchipe-Marañón. (2016)
Hypotheses that held Amazonia untenable for the development of complex societies have now been discarded. The presumed incapacity of the soil to ensure permanent agricultural production (sustain large populations) has been proved false, not because of the limitations of the soil, but rather because Amazonians found ways to overcome the flaws and develop adequate strategies for sustainable food production. Recent studies show that early complexity was present in the tropics with forms of typical...
Early expressions of persistent leadership and inequality in the Andean Preceramic (2016)
Research over the past few decades in the Andean world has identified a number of preludes to sociopolitical complexity, persistent leadership, and emergent inequality that involve a diversity of social and cultural forms, including the control and manipulation of ritual or religious power, the mobilization of labor to construct a variety of forms of public architecture, the display of status or prestige items, and control over access to socially valued goods. In many archaeological contexts...