South America (Continent) (Geographic Keyword)
1,351-1,375 (2,200 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We present the results of 2019 excavations at Pachamachay and Panaulauca, two Early Holocene archaeological sites in the high Andes of central Peru. These classic sites, previously excavated in the 1970s and 80s, provide evidence for early and persistent use of the high-elevation (>4000 m above sea level) Andes mountains. We used a low-impact approach to...
New Kid on the Block: El Niño-Modoki in Peru—Past, Present, and Future (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the climatological phenomenon referred to as El Nino Modoki, warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the central Pacific are flanked on the east and west by cooler SSTs. Over the last century, El Niño-Modoki has increased in frequency, but a long-term sequence has yet to be established prior to the last four centuries. At least on the north coast of...
New Manteños Social Spaces: The Materiality of Ligüiqui (Manabí, Ecuador) (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Innovations in Ecuadorian Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The "Perduraciones" project, which has been taking place in the central area of the Ecuadorian coast since 2018, has focused part of their research on the characterization of the social space resulting from the process of articulating European colonization on the present coast of Ecuador during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. In the...
New Methods for Duct Exploration and Gallery Discovery at Chavín de Huántar (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Originally the only known underground gallery between Building A and the Circular Plaza of Chavín de Huántar, the Caracoles gallery was long thought by Professor John Rick of Stanford University to be one of multiple chambers due to its three wall ducts, each exiting at an unknown location. This paper illustrates the methods developed for exploring these and...
New Perspectives in the Geoarcheological Context of Hunter-Gatherer Sites from the Beginning of the Holocene, Serranópolis, Brazil (2018)
The GO-JA-01 and GO-JA-02 archaeological sites, located in sand stone shelters of Serranopolis excavated from the 1970s to 1990s and earliest at 10.400 years B. P., were occupied by hunter-gatherer and agricultural-ceramist groups. Recent studies have raised hypotheses regarding the appropriation and construction of the landscape by hunter-gatherer groups, based on evidences related to the paleoenvironment and the archeological site formation process in the Rio Verde river alluvial plain. The...
New Perspectives on the Ica Society: Tracing Changes in Material Culture in the Ica Valley on the Peruvian South Coast from the Middle Horizon to Early Colonial Period (ca. 1000–1600 CE) (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Developments through Time on the South Coast of Peru: In Memory of Patrick Carmichael" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For nearly 600 years the Ica society flourished in the vast deserts of the Peruvian south coast. Rising to considerable regional influence during the Late Intermediate period (ca. 1000–1476 CE), little is known of its origins or later years. Our recent excavations in the lower Ica Valley have begun to...
New Phylogenetic Information from Ancient DNA for Central Panamá (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. New interpretations of Precolumbian Panamanian archaeological sequences and regions are provided. Results from ancient DNA (aDNA) analyses of remains from the site of Panamá Viejo, Panamá, are compared with a multiple burial found in the vicinity of La Pintada in Coclé, Panamá. The Panamá Viejo materials are classified as haplogroup A2 and include...
New radiocarbon dates confirm late Pleistocene human occupation in the Pampas of Argentina at c. 12,170 14C yrs BP: evidence from extinct horse at the Arroyo Seco 2 site (2015)
The Arroyo Seco 2 site (AS2) is a multi-component open air hunter-gatherer site located in the Pampean Region of Argentina. A recently published monograph summarized the current interpretations of the site, which contains bone remains of 11extinct Pleistocene mammals, including Eutatus seguini, Glossotherium robustum, Megatherium americanum, Paleolama cf. wedelli, Toxodon platensis, Equus (Amerhippus) sp., Glyptodon sp., Hemiauchenia sp., Hippidion sp., Macrauchenia sp., and Mylodontinae. While...
New Records of Pre-Hispanic Dogs (Canis familiaris) in Argentinean Northeast (2018)
Canis familiaris has a limited record in pre-Hispanic archaeological sites of Southern South American, but in the last decade, more specimens were published. In this context, we present new remains of domestic dogs from five archaeological sites along the Paraná and Uruguay Rivers in the Northeast of Argentina, an area with few published records. We also discuss their roles within human societies. The studied sample includes seven cranial and one postcranial specimens corresponding to seven...
New Research on Andean Mummies at the Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels, Belgium (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Royal Museums of Art and History preserves seven complete or partial Andean mummies. Three are still surrounded by textiles in the form of funerary bundles. Four others lacked textile remains but were probably also held up by ties and fabric. For the museum and for Belgium, one of them is very important because he was made famous thanks to the...
New Starch Grain Results and a Synthetic Approach to Foodways at Quilcapampa La Antigua (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Wari and the Far Peruvian South Coast: Final Results of Excavations in Quilcapampa" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The mundane and commensal foodways of Wari and Wari-influenced peoples is a burgeoning area of interest that has the potential to illuminate various aspects of Wari identity. The Middle Horizon period was a particularly turbulent time in terms of identity politics. The establishment of Wari satellite...
New Survey Results from the Bolas Region, Costa Rica (2018)
The Bolas region presents one of the earliest steps toward the monumentality and complex social patterns that characterize later World Heritage sites in Greater Chiriquí. The forces and factors associated with these social changes remain incompletely understood. This paper shares the results from recent shovel test survey in the Bolas region and offers observations on broad social trends from the Formative period onward. Particular attention is paid to Mosca, another large and monumental site in...
New Surveys along the Middle Basin of the Quequén Grande River, Pampas Region (Argentina) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the last 30 years, archaeological research in the middle course of the Quequén Grande River, Pampas region (Argentina), has provided a wealth of data, both in the density of recorded archaeological sites, and in its chronological representation, which spans from the Late Pleistocene to Late Holocene (10,250--1500 14C years BP). This is true of the...
Nieve Nieve, a local rural community under Spanish rule (2017)
The archeological site of Nieve Nieve is located in the middle Lurin Valley, Central Coast of Peru. The spatial configuration of this site differs drastically from other late prehispanic settlements in the valley. The presence of a colonial church as well as a series of architectonic compounds built along parallel and perpendicular streets not only indicate a well planned construction but also the introduction of a new, and probably foreign, urban design. Yet, other aspects such as the...
No Hearth, No Problem: A Multidisciplinary Exploration of Ceremonial Architecture at Two Late Preceramic Sites in the Norte Chico Region (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Illuminated Communities: The Role of the Hearth at the Beginning of Andean Civilization" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Multi-elemental analytical techniques like X-Ray Fluorescence have been employed to determine the use of space through residues left behind from human activities. In addition, methodologies primarily used in other disciplines such as pollen analysis or micromorphology can illuminate the...
No Smoking Gun: The Potential and Limitations of Isotopic Sourcing of Archaeological Cinnabar in the Central Andean Region (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Identifying spatial patterns and diachronic changes in the intensity and range of the circulation of goods can provide crucial insights into shifting economic, social, and political organization of ancient societies. As such, archaeologists interested in identifying evidence of long-distance interaction in the past have increasingly turned to geochemical...
No-Budget Archaeology: Landscape Archaeology Using Free Data and Software (2018)
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and remotely-sensed data are now used ubiquitously in archaeology. While these tools offer incredible possibilities for landscape archaeology and can be extremely cost-effective compared to traditional survey methods, they are nevertheless costs that must be borne by research budgets and home institutions. Data acquisition can easily reach thousands of dollars, and industry-leading GIS software platforms require expensive annual licenses. But all hope is...
Nominal Ruptures in Archaeological Heritage Governance? Heritage Ethics vs. Embedded Politics in the Participatory Paradigm of Peru’s Qhapaq Ñan Project (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Arqueología colaborativa en los Andes: Casos de estudios y reflexiones" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation discusses the permeability of the Qhapaq Ñan Project’s participatory paradigm with historically rooted politics in archaeological heritage governance in Peru. In the early 2000s, the transnational nomination of the Qhapaq Ñan to the UNESCO World Heritage List harnessed a participatory approach for...
Non-metric Traits and the Influence of Cranial Modifications: A Case Study from the South-Central Andes (2018)
Non-metric cranial traits and craniometric scoring are often used as a quicker and cheaper alternative to genetic markers when analyzing biological distance within and between populations. However, in populations with intentional artificial cranial modifications, the only option is scoring non-metric cranial traits since the craniometrics are too heavily affected by the modifications. Studies have shown that although non-metrics are the best alternative, some traits cause a bias that can differ...
North/South Archaic mobility in Dry Puna. Hunter- Gatherers from upper Azapa valley bassin, northern Chile. (2017)
The different models of hunter-gatherer mobility in South Central Andean area, despite its theoretical and conceptual factors, normally emphasize for the Archaic Period the complementarity between vegetation belt for various biotic resources, depending on availability, location and seasonality. Here we complement such models at a meso-scale level, based upon results from surveys and excavations in upper Azapa valley bassin, a region located at the foothills of the Northern Chile Cordillera. Our...
Northern Gallinazo: A Transformational View from the Lambayeque Region, Peru (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Gallinazo sociopolitical organization is rarely considered outside the Virú Valley heartland. My recent work in the Lambayeque region of northern coastal Peru brings to light several anomalies that force reevaluation of long-standing ideas. Today, there are several persistent yet mistaken observations that continue to skew the perception of prehispanic Andean...
Not Becoming Inka: Anarchism as a Set of Human-thing Relationships (2018)
Power depends on certain modes of relation between people and things; a fact archaeologists have recognized for some time. Thus there can be no states or rulers without monuments, elite regalia, official iconographies and the like—although traditionally it is only the human component that has been seen as the active element in this equation. More recently, archaeologists have sought to reconsider humans not as the users of things, but as their partners and co-participants in the social. In this...
Not Quite One and the Same: Repetition and Rule in the Inka Provinces (2017)
The use of molds for pottery manufacture is an integral part of the ceramic tradition of the North Coast of Peru, dating to at least as early as AD 100. Analysis of mold-made Chimu-Inka monkey effigy vessels excavated from mortuary contexts at the sites of Farfan and Tucume suggest that Late Horizon fineware production occurred in local workshops rather than in a centralized facility—a pattern consistent with other studies of Inka pottery production from around the Central Andes. The use and...
Not Something to Grind Your Teeth Over: Experimental Mounting of Enamel for Stable Isotopic and Microscopic Analysis (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While preparing a set of zooarchaeological materials for microscopic and high-resolution stable isotopic studies, we found ourselves gritting our teeth to produce a set of mounts that met the standards for the intended lab analyses. Our target specimens were camelid teeth from the Terminal Pleistocene levels of Cuncaicha, a highland rockshelter in Southern...
Not Your Backyard Garden: Terraces in the Shadow of La Milpa’s Temples (2018)
Terrace construction for agriculture was integral to the survival and growth of ancient Maya centers in the Lowland Neotropics. Terraces supplied communities with food for consumption and trade, materials for construction and goods production, and plants of medicinal and ritual significance. Research into ancient Maya agricultural practices has been largely situated in wetlands contexts, known to be sites of extensive landscape modification for agricultural purposes. Nevertheless, terraces are...