South America (Continent) (Geographic Keyword)
2,051-2,075 (2,200 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster details the results of cranial modification typology research conducted at Jarana, a Late Intermediate and Early Inca administrative site located in the San Juan de Churunga river valley of southern Peru. Cultural cranial modification was particularly widespread among pre-Hispanic societies in the Andes. The practice is commonly interpreted as a...
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 Animal-Human Interactions during the LIP in the Central Coast of Peru (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In recent decades, zooarchaeological studies have been increasing in South America. Nevertheless, combining the methods used to understand some questions related to animal and human interactions in ancient Peru seems crucial. In this paper, we will present the first results of an ongoing multidisciplinary project focused on the central coast of Peru during...
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 Nasca ‘Trophy Head’ Individuals from the Site of Zorropata in Peru Using Isotopic and Biochemical Methods (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Myriad factors shaped cultural practices such as ‘trophy head’ taking in Andean prehistory. Zorropata, located in the Las Trancas Valley, Nasca, Peru, was a large domestic site with likely ceremonial function occupied relatively continuously from the Late Nasca period (c. AD 450-600) until the early Middle Horizon/Loro period (c. AD 600-1000). Archaeological...
Understanding Pottery Production at El Campanario (Huarmey-Peru) through Ceramic Paste Analysis and pXRF (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Scaling Potting Networks: Recent Contributions from Ceramic Petrography " session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The present research focuses on the strategies in the procurement of raw material used in the production of pottery at the El Campanario site during the beginning of the Late Intermediate period (AD 1150–1280). The manufacture of pottery occurred within the domestic areas at this site and while domestic pottery was...
Understanding Quilcapampa (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. As the papers in this session have demonstrated, the site of Quilcapampa La Antigua in a previously isolated region of southern Peru is notable for its long-distance connections, strong Wari influence, and brief occupation during the tenth century AD. In this closing paper on our excavations, I want to...
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 Ritual of Peri-abandonment Deposit Behavior Evidenced by Late Classic Maya Figurines at the Site of Baking Pot, Cayo District, Belize (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project is an archaeological field school operating in the Cayo District of Western Belize and has excavated at multiple sites in Belize annually since 1988. In the past five years, the project has focused on excavation of peri-abandonment deposits, or deposits of artifacts built up during and after the...
Understanding the Tapajó Socio-Political System through the Study of Landscapes and Material Culture (2018)
The socio-political organization of the Tapajó people living in the Lower Amazon region during late precolonial times has been studied through two main sources: contact chronicles and archaeological data coming from the Santarém site located at the mouth of the Tapajós River. Based on these sources, researchers have formulated three models to explain the socio-political organization of the Tapajó. However, recent surveys and excavations conducted in the upland Belterra plateau provide new data...
Understanding Vertebral Anomalies and Growth Patterns During the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000–1470) in the Huanchaco Bay Area, Peru (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The mass sacrifice of Chimú children in the Moche Valley has become the largest event in the world. Two mass occurrences were discovered at the sites of Huanchaquito Las Llamas (HLL) and Pampa la Cruz (PLC). At PLC the sacrificial events date to the Late Intermediate period (AD 1000–1470). This research explores birth defects of the lumbosacral spine that...
Underwater and Above-Water: Archaeology and Ethnography of Underwater Gathering and Diving Practices along the Coast of Southernmost South America (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Underwater and Coastal Archaeology in Latin America" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The coasts of the Fuego-Andean-Patagonian archipelago, south of Chiloé Island, have a length of over 80,000 km and roughly comprise three distinct areas: the Chonos archipelago, the western channels, and the Fuegian channels. The underwater world of this archipelago as a whole must have been a rich and coveted treasure. The...
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...
Ungendering Sex in Moche Ceramics (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Future Is Fluid...and So Was the Past: Challenging the 'Normative' in Archaeological Interpretations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Moche ceramic art (Peru, first millenium) is a corpus of veristic images including explicit depictions of sex acts and human genitalia. Because anatomical sex is so visible in these artifacts, the temptation to collapse sex and gender is strong – but what if we begin, instead, by...
Unraveling Indigenous Histories in the Upper Itajai Valley (Santa Catarina State, Brazil): Insights from Archaeological Research at the Tobias Wagner Site (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Upper Itajai Valley, nestled within Santa Catarina, Brazil, has stood as the enduring homeland of the Laklãnõ-Xokleng people for centuries—a testament to their remarkable resilience despite persistent struggles for land and social rights. Against this backdrop, we present new archaeological findings from the Tobias Wagner site, which comprises 18...
Unraveling the Political and Economic Complexities of Late Formative (600 BCE–CE 200) Cusco: A View from Muyumoqo (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond Borders at the End of a Millennium: Life in the Western Andes circa 500–50 BCE" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite the archaeological significance of the Cusco region, research on societies that preceded the Inka in their heartland have lagged behind other areas. In particular the Late Formative (600 BCE–CE 200) presents a time of increasing social complexity, increased participation in interregional trade...
Unrecognized Complexity: Defining the Significance of Huaca Letrada and the Northern Gallinazo (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the last 30 years, perspectives on the Gallinazo and Virú have changed significantly. Results of 2022 intensive surface survey and accompanying drone-based mapping of sites on the south bank of the mid-La Leche Valley show that reassessment must continue. Comparable to the monumental crafting center of Cerro Songoy-Cojal in the mid-Zaña Valley to the...
Unresolved Questions in the Study of *Mopa Mopa: History, Geography, and Chemistry (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Plant Exudates and Other Binders, Adhesives, and Coatings in the Americas" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. *Mopa mopa is the collective name given to the resin from species of the plant genus *Elaeagia (family Rubiaceae) that grows in regions of Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. The resin has been used from prehispanic times to the present day to decorate a range of objects from colonial Inka *qeros to highly decorated and...
Unstable Frontiers: Isotopic Model of Agricultural Dispersal in the Subtropical Andes (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The south of Mendoza province, Argentina, has been characterized as the southernmost limit of pre-Hispanic agricultural dispersion in South America. This limit, originally defined by the presence of macrobotanical remains, was re-discussed in light of the stable isotope data of δ13C and δ15N obtained on collagen and apatite from human remains. These...
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...
Unveiling Laklãnõ-Xokleng Stories: The Southern Je Archaeological Context in the Upper Itajaí Valley (Santa Catarina State, Brazil) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation builds on research conducted by the LEIA/UFSC team in the Upper Itajai Valley (Santa Catarina State, Brazil) to put together components of a deep Laklãnõ-Xokleng history associated with the data archaeologically labeled as Southern Je. Contexts related to this archaeological category indicate that sites composed of pithouses began to be...
Upano, an Anthropized Valley in the Upper Amazon (2018)
Sangay, Ecuador, is probably the most prestigious and impressive site in Amazonia. It is indeed an immense establishment regrouping dozens complexes of artificial earthmounds and a network of endless paths dug along the edge of a terrace of the left bank the Upano. Many archaeological sites have been found in this narrow and straight Upano Valley has been modified over tens of kilometers in length by the pre-Columbian, but few of them have been excavated. Does this multitude of interconnected...
The Upper Marañón after Chavín and before the LIP: Glimpse into Poorly Documented Times (2024)
This is an abstract from the "After the Feline Cult: Social Dynamics and Cultural Reinvention after Chavín" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While the Late Intermediate period (LIP) in the upper Marañón region is well known for its unique surface stone architecture such as tall multistoried tombs, the periods immediately following the Early Horizon are still poorly documented and understood. Nonetheless, excavations at the site of Rapayán in Ancash...
Urban Organization and Agricultural Practices at Las Huacas, Chincha Valley (AD 1100-1570) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In modern times the Chincha Valley is one of the most productive agricultural valleys of Peru, and its offshore islands were rich in guano — bird excrement that is a potent fertilizer — that was exploited by foreigners from the Colonial into the Republican Periods (AD 1523-1879). While the importance of the valley’s agriculture and resources is well known...