South America (Continent) (Geographic Keyword)
1,476-1,500 (2,200 Records)
In 2016, a large excavation project was carried out at the site of Mawchu Llacta in the Colca Valley of southern Peru. A colonial reduccíon (planned town), Mawchu Llacta is a large site with plazas, chapels, a parish, and domestic compounds. These spaces all consist of complex standing architecture in varying degrees of preservation. Eleven excavation blocks were opened to better understand ritual and everyday life in the town. The extent and distribution of the excavations, however, presented...
Photogrammetry Modeling and GIS Analysis at Rumiqolqa (Cusco, Peru), a Multi-ethnic Labor Colony Occupied during Inca and Spanish Colonial Rule (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster employs digital archaeological mapping methods such as photogrammetry and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to examine domestic labor practices, architectural style, and town planning at Rumiqolqa, a massive colony in Cusco, Peru where a multi-ethnic population of forcibly resettled workers quarried stone for Inca and then Spanish colonial...
Photovoice and Participatory Strategies for Community Heritage in the Peruvian Andes (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Huancavelica mining landscapes in the Peruvian Andes present two historical narratives that continue to shape contemporary heritage discourse. On one hand, Huancavelica was the "crown jewel" of the Spanish empire due to lucrative mercury mining. For indigenous Andean peoples forced to labor underground, Huancavelica became known as "the mine of death" due...
Phytochemical Characterization of Chicha de Molle Production at Cerro Baúl (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Exploring Culture Contact and Diversity in Southern Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Converging evidence from archaeological excavations and ethnographic research in the Peruvian Andes has demonstrated that the indigenous alcoholic beverage chicha de molle has a time depth of at least the Middle Horizon (600 CE – 1000 CE). The most impressive example of large-scale, pre-Hispanic production of chicha de molle hails...
PHYTOLITH ANALYSIS OF STRATIGRAPHIC SOIL SAMPLES FROM STONE-LINED FEATURES AT THE COCTACA SITE, JUJUY PROVINCE, ARGENTINA (2010)
A total of 16 soil samples from the Coctaca site, located in Jujuy Province, Argentina, were submitted to PaleoResearch for interlab cross-checking of phytolith extraction techniques and analysis. Stratigraphic soil samples from four different types of possible agricultural features were submitted for analysis.
PHYTOLITH AND STARCH ANALYSIS OF TWO GRINDING STONE RESIDUE WASHES FROM NORTHERN CHILE (2011)
Two grinding stones from northern Chile were washed for phytolith and starch remains. The washes were conducted in Chile and the resulting residue was dried and sent to PaleoResearch Institute for analysis. The goal of the analysis was to identify plant opal phytoliths and starch grains that may be derived from plant material processed with these tools.
A PHYTOLITH AND STARCH RECORD OF FOOD AND GRIT IN MAYAN HUMAN TOOTH TARTAR (1997)
Diet often is reconstructed based on indirect evidence. Tooth tartar traps food particles, preserving a record of food consumed. Dental calculus removed from primary and secondary burials at Kichpanha was examined to identify imbedded phytoliths, starch granules, and debris as indicators of diet. The purpose of this study is to determine whether phytoliths and starch granules are preserved and recoverable from human dental calculus, to establish appropriate methods for this recovery and to...
PIA Atalla
The "Chavín Phenomenon" in Huancavelica, Peru: Interregional interaction, ritual practice, and social transformations at Atalla
The Piedras Rayadas of El Tigre, Honduras: Brokering Place and Cultural Memory (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Problem of the Monument: Widening Perspectives on Monumentality in the Archaeology of the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Grooved boulders seem to be an archaeological feature unique to El Tigre island in Honduras. Distributed around the small island, they are known locally as piedras rayadas, and feature in local oral histories. As durable traces, their meaning is everchanging, yet...
Pigment Mining for Color Meanings: El Condor Mine from Atacama Desert (A.D. 300-1.500) (2017)
The mineralogical richness of the Atacama Desert allowed for the development of an important set of mining-extracting and metallurgic, lapidaric and pigmental productive activities, which became significant activities in the sociocultural dynamics of desert dwellers. El Cóndor mine, an important hematite source located in the middle section of the Loa River, was exploited from the Formative Period (~A.D. 300) until Inka times (~A.D. 1500). In contrast to other mining sites in Atacama, El Cóndor...
The Pinta Ceramic Phase. Explaining a Paracas ceramic phase from Cerro del Gentil (2017)
During the last five years, we have developed an archaeological research program in the southern Peruvian coastal valley of Chincha. This project focuses on the rise of the Paracas society ca. 800-200 BCE. We excavated the monumental Paracas site of Cerro del Gentil located in the Chincha mid-valley where we recovered an important ritual context in a sunken court related to the Pinta phase. The Pinta phase was defined by Dwight Wallace in 1950´s but not has been systematically described. In...
The Pipil/Nicarao Migration from the Perspective of Pacific Nicaragua: An Archaeological Critique of Mythstorical Mobility (2018)
Ethnoshitorical sources describe migrations from central Mexico of Nahuat and Mangue speakers, known as the Pipil/Nicarao and the Chorotega, who settled along the Pacific Coast of Central America in the centuries prior to European contact. According to these accounts the new groups introduced cultural and religious traits into settlements in El Salvador, the Pacific coast of Nicaragua, and northwestern Costa Rica. Beginning in 2000, archaeologists from the University of Calgary have investigated...
Pisanay and the Endangered Rock Art Traditions of Arequipa, Peru (2017)
Drawing on the archaeological excavations at the site of Pisanay, located in the Sihuas Valley of Arequipa (southern) Peru, this paper will situate the rock art at the site within the broader contexts of multiple rock art traditions in the region. These traditions include both painted and pecked images on rock surfaces, a wide variety of geoglyphs, mobilary art, and sacred offerings made to particular rocks and geographic landmarks that represent huacas (loosely ‘holy places’). Within the...
Place-Making, Erasure, and the Death of Kingship at the Ancient Maya Site of Pacbitun, Belize (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 Late Classic Period (550–800 CE) at Pacbitun, a sequence of events took place that changed the landscape of power and sacredness in the site’s core during a tumultuous time in the Belize River Valley. The sequence of caches and burials likely began in order to consecrate a new courtyard (Court 3) and establish the new center of power at the site....
Places, Ports and Their People: The Rise of the Peruvian Post-Colonial State in the Arequipa Coast (2018)
In this paper I provide insight into the earliest decades of the Peruvian post-colonial state (1821-1879) from the vantage point of the Arequipa coast. The Andean south, with its center in Arequipa, had a traditional mercantile basis that favored improvements in trade, particularly those that resulted in the rapprochement of the city of Arequipa to the sea. After independence (1821-1824), new ports were established; the operation of certain coves sanctioned; and extractive activities shaped the...
Planina Nazca bez záhad (2011)
The Nazca Plains without mysteries The author explains the pictures on the Nazca Plains as tended work areas, created while making ropes and nets. The adjacent pictures of animals and various symbols served as symbols of the groups of makers.
Plant Use in the Platform-Chamber Complex: A Paleoethnobotanical Study of Structure 1 at Alto Pukara, Taraco Peninsula, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The site of Alto Pukara is located on the Bolivian Altiplano near Lake Titicaca. It dates to the Middle Formative, a period which whitnessed the emergence of settlements, craft specialization, and hierarchical political development in the region. Excavations by Robin Beck in 2000 and 2001 uncovered two structures, which were identified as part of a...
Plants and Steppe Hunter-Gatherers in Central Patagonia: A Case Study from the Aisén region (45° S, Chile) (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Histories of Human-Nature Interactions: Use, Management, and Consumption of Plants in Extreme Environments" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Research on the use of plants among hunter-gathering groups has made visible the use of a predictable and ubiquitous resource that is locally and seasonally available, and that count with multiple potential uses. Recent studies at the Baño Nuevo 1 site (Aisén, Chile) have revealed...
Plants in Ancient Pots: A Comparative Study of Paleoethnobotanical Results from Unwashed and Washed Ceramics (2017)
Paleoethnobotanists study human-plant interactions in the past, including the role of plants in ancient foodways. Microbotanical remains (phytoliths and starch grains) enable the identification of many plants because their morphology can be diagnostic to the family, genus, and species. Microbotanical samples can be extracted from specific artifacts, such as ceramics, enabling a better understanding of their use. Paleoethnobotanists can thus discern associations between certain vessel types and...
Plow Zone Archaeology in a Wari Imperial Center (2018)
The immense size of most Wari Imperial administrative centers has limited the breadth of our understanding of the social, political, ritual and economic activities that may have occurred within these large rectilinear compounds. In order to address these limitations, the 2017 Nasca Headwaters Archaeological Project excavation season at Incawasi attempted to apply a more traditionally North American methodology to six 50x50 meter Wari patio groups in order to draw broad conclusions about the...
Point Counter Point: Interpreting Chipped Chert Bifaces in a Terminal Classic "Problematic Deposit" from Structure A2 at Cahal Pech, Belize (2018)
Sixteen small chert bifaces are part of a Terminal Classic (AD 800-900) peri-abandonment "problematic deposit" recovered just above the surface near the western base of Structure A2 at the ancient Maya site of Cahal Pech, Belize. The results of stylistic, technological, and use-wear analyses performed on these chert artifacts indicate: 1) production from locally available stone; 2) five different tool styles; 3) evidence for some tool curation/re-sharpening; and 4) wear patterns on some of the...
Points of Early Human Mobility: A Preliminary Synthesis of Paleo-Central American Sites (2018)
This poster addresses an understudied area relevant to the initial peopling of the Americas: what are the earliest indications of human activity in Mesoamerica (particular emphasis on Guatemala)? Its geographic location and its relatively narrow expanse make the southern half of Middle America the natural stage to funnel terrestrial and coastal/riverine routes of early human migrations. Despite this consideration, archaeological research targeting Paleoamerican horizons [pre-12,800 BP] in this...
Political Complexity and Gendered Violence in the Andes – A Bayesian Approach (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The nature of violence in the pre-modern past remains an enduring question in anthropological research. In this study, we investigate the potential relationship between sociopolitical organization and the frequency and type of violence experienced by adult males and females in Andean archaeological contexts. For this study we establish four broad...
The Political Ecology of Camelid Pastoralism by Wari and Tiwanaku Colonists in the Moquegua Valley, Peru (2017)
The Moquegua Valley in southern Peru was the locale where the rival early imperial states of Wari and Tiwanaku established provincial colonial centers. Both Wari and Tiwanaku colonists concentrated their settlements in the low to mid-sierra elevations of the valley, elevations that are not modern zones of camelid husbandry. The political ecology of imperial settlement at this elevation fostered the development of local systems of camelid pastoralism that were significant economic components for...
Political Economy at a Casma Valley Middle Horizon Center: Evidence from Pan de Azúcar de Nivín, Peru (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 2017 the Proyecto de Investigación Arqueológico Nivín seeks to clarify the cultural affiliation of the groups that occupied the middle Casma Valley, Peru. Architectural and ceramic features demonstrate the influence of both Wari and Casma cultural traditions at Pan de Azúcar de Nivín (PAN), a site occupied AD 950-1150. While the Wari Empire expanded from...