South America (Continent) (Geographic Keyword)
976-1,000 (2,200 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Subsistence Crops and Animals as a Proxy for Human Cultural Practice" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The southwestern Amazon Rainforest Ecotone is the transitional landscape between the tropical forest and seasonally flooded savannahs of the Bolivian Llanos de Moxos. These heterogeneous landscapes harbor high levels of biodiversity and some of the earliest records of human occupation and plant domestication in...
Indigenous Miners and the Making of the Andean Markets in Colonial Huancavelica (2017)
The mercury mines of Huancavelica have often been described through two familiar discourses in the colonial narrative, the European pursuit of wealth through extractive industries, and the simultaneous destruction of indigenous Andean communities through brutal forced labor and the corrosive effects of the colonial market. While these two historiographical traditions contain a great deal of truth, they can minimize the role of indigenous Andeans in the creation of new economic networks that...
The Indigenous Worldview of Water in the Isthmus of Panama (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Unraveling the Mysteries of the Isthmo-Colombian Area’s Past: A Symposium in Honor of Archaeologist Richard Cooke and His Contributions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The rivers are natural limits to many cultures between the knowing and unknowing worlds. Also, they were the border between different territories and a fundamental element in establishing a settlement in a place or not. The names of the rivers are...
Industrial Islands: Ecological Impacts of the steam-powered mills of the El Progreso plantation, Galápagos Islands. (2017)
From 1880 to 1917 "El Progreso" plantation operated on the humid highlands of San Cristóbal Island in the Galápagos archipelago (Ecuador). The plantation enterprise used steam-powered machinery for sugar refining and alcohol distillation. Despite its remote location, 1000 km west from the South American coast, this large operation took advantage of the latest industrial technology. A number of specialized machines were used in sugar processing which were imported from factories in Scotland and...
Inequality and Taskscape in a Precolumbian Agricultural Landscape (2017)
Raised fields and other earthworks, as parts of archaeological landscapes, can be theorized through Ingold’s related concepts of taskscape and lines. In the Bolivian Amazon, such earthworks are the physical remains of group or community activities in the precolumbian past. As such, they are both the products of community tasks, and infrastructure, or resources that in turn afford other community tasks. In conjunction with archaeological survey and excavation, mapping of raised fields and other...
Initial Period Friezes and Architecture at Taukachi-Konkan, Casma Valley, Peru (2018)
Recent excavations at a number of intermediate-sized mounds of the Initial Period (2100-1000 B.C.) site of Taukachi-Konkán in the Casma Valley of Peru have uncovered surprising new evidence of clay friezes and architectural forms previously unknown for the Initial Period along the coast of Peru. One U-shaped mound complex has an associated sunken rectangular plaza that contains distinct friezes on all four of its sides. The content of the friezes includes two sea lions, a large feline and two...
Inka and Local Elite Interaction as Reflected at the Inka Site of Incahuasi, Cañete, South Central Coast of Peru (2018)
Incahuasi, located at the mid-valley of the Cañete river, is the largest Inca administrative center reported from Peru's Central Coast. Although first built as a military base by the Inca Tupac Yupanqui in his war against the Guarcos, the site was completely transformed into an administrative center with an extense and prominent storage facility. Recent research at the site has focused in Sector B, described as an elite residential complex. Excavations have found a significant number of finished...
Inka Colonialism without Inkas: Uncovering the Role of Lowland-Affiliated Populations in the Consolidation of the Eastern Andean Frontier (2018)
As the Inkas expanded their imperial hegemony over the valleys of the eastern Andes, their armies fought and then forged political and military alliances with the various cultural groups comprising the Charkas confederacy. While the Spanish chronicles and local ethnohistoric sources attest to these events and to the important role the local indigenous populations played in Inka colonization efforts along the eastern imperial frontier, they are all curiously silent on another important population...
Inka Conquest Narratives along the Northern Frontier: Evidence from the Pais Caranqui, Ecuador (2018)
When the Inka moved into Northern Ecuador at the end of the 15th century, they were met with fierce resistance from the semi autonomous societies of the Pais Caranqui. Chronicler accounts and Inka narratives note that conflict occurred and fortifications were constructed before the Inka were eventually victorious and continued their conquest northwards. However, these accounts do not accurately highlight the true complexity of the groups the Inka encountered, the prolonged nature of the...
Inka Dry Ashlar Masonry, a Deliberate Seismic-Proof Architecture? Reassessment through an Archaeoseismological Approach in the Cuzco Area, Peru (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For decades now, various scholars have assumed that the Inkas developed seismic-resistant construction techniques. While it is true that some architectural features are particularly well suited to face the seismic risk, no structural evidence can demonstrate with confidence the intentionality of the earthquake resistance. As part of our research, we discuss...
Inka Dynamics in the Cochabamba Valley (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. After expansion from Cuzco, the Inca introduced a statecraft model based principally on the mobilization of numerous population groups across longer and shorter distances. In this sense, the Inca Empire can be conceptualized as a “mobile state” that was to last for only 80 to 100 years (1445-1538 AD). Inca influence in the area of Bolivia was moderate...
Inka Economic and Ritual Landscapes in the Cañete Valley: Strategies to Align the Lunahuana and Guarco (2018)
I will assess strategies employed by the Inka state in interactions with local populations in the Cañete Valley and adjacent valleys. The Spanish found two señorios in the lower Cañete Valley: the Lunahuana, whom they described as well organized and inclined to submit to Inka rule and the Guarco who lived on the shore, offered fierce resistance, and were brutally subdued. The Inka built Inkawasi in Lunahuana territory, envisioned as one copy of Cusco. Inka presence in Guarco territory is...
The Inka Empire in the Valley of Volcanoes, Southern Peruvian Andes (2018)
States and empires attempt to incorporate and transform local landscapes and cultural practices in efforts to legitimize their social orders. Research on the Inka Empire in the Andagua Valley of the Southern Peruvian Andes has shown how these processes are incomplete and become entangled with local practices and the stubborn materiality of history. This poster presents recent archaeological and anthropological research, identifying the reach and effects of Inka Empire and distinguishing local...
Inka Materiality in Local Practice: A Case Study from Huarochirí (Lima, Peru) (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Indigenous Stories of the Inka Empire: Local Experiences of Ancient Imperialism" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The results from archaeological excavations on a residential settlement and a ritual-public center in Huarochirí suggest minimal use of Inka-style material culture in most everyday life contexts. At the same time, architectural intervention suggests a significant transformation on both sites’ layouts....
Inka Provincialism and the Empire: Commensalism and Social Agency (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Alfareros deste Inga: Pottery Production, Distribution and Exchange in the Tawantinsuyu" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As a multiethnic empire, the Inkas maintained varying forms of relations with the provinces and outllying frontier regions. To maintain control, state power was often materialized in state architecture, prestige materials and standardized ceramic styles disseminating the imperial ideology. Despite...
The Inka Road and Mobility of a Fisher Community in the Cañete Valley, Peru (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Inka Road system was a critical infrastructure for expanding and consolidating the Inka empire in the Andes. From the traditional view, the existence of the Inka Road across diverse regions was seen as an indicator of how the Inkas integrated and controlled the mobility of subject communities. Other recent perspectives have emphasized the mobility of...
Inka Unku: Imperial or Provincial? State-Local Relations (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Standardized Inka tunics or unku were created under the Inka State auspices as symbolic expressions of their expansionist power. To ensure these textiles acquired the status of effective insignias of territorial control, the Inka imposed technical and aesthetic canons on highly skilled weavers. These conventions were adapted relative to the traditions and...
Inspiration from Beyond the Border or Innovation from Within? Reconsidering the Paracas-Nasca Transition on the Peruvian South Coast (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. During the final centuries of the Early Horizon (~300–100 BCE), independent Paracas communities across multiple valleys on the Peruvian south coast began an extended process of social, cultural, political, and religious transformation. These changes ultimately culminated with the development of the...
Instituting Care: Reproductive Health Governance and the Ethics of Humanizing Birth in Brazil (WGF - Dissertation Fieldwork Grant) (2015)
This resource is an application for the Dissertation Fieldwork Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation. This project set out to understand how the paradigm of 'humanized birth' is implemented in Salvador, Brazil, through Rede Cegonha, a government program to improve maternal and infant healthcare in Brazil's public health system. Over the course of twelve-months of multi-sited ethnographic research, the project followed Rede Cegonha from the federal Ministry of Health to the local health...
Integrating Aerial Kite and Drone Imagery into the Moche Valley Settlement Database (MVSD) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster presents the results of 5 seasons (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2022) of aerial kite and drone imagery from the Moche Valley and the integration of these data into the Moche Valley Settlement Database (MVSD). The MVSD is a collaborative initiative that is synthesizing Prehistoric (~10,000 BCE – 1500s CE) and Viceroyalty Era (1500s – 1800s CE)...
Integrating archaeobotany to provide Insight into domestic and public ritual in southern Brazil (2017)
Archaeobotanical results are integrated with archaeological and paleoecological data for the southern proto-Jê of the southern Brazilian highlands. Results from a domestic structure displays a pattern of architectural termination and renewal that not only uncovers an ancient ritual practice, but also reveals practices of plant management when considered alongside paleoecological data. Within the wider context, the data support a change in the performance of ritual practices revolving around fire...
Interacción Socioeconómica Costa-Sierra en el Valle Medio del Rio Mala Durante Periodos Tardíos (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. La presente investigación es el resultado de una prospección en el valle medio del río Mala en Perú, desde el anexo de Checas hasta el anexo de Minay; durante la cual se identificó un total de 10 sitios arqueológicos, muchos de los cuales no presentaban un registro en la literatura arqueológica. En el presente trabajo se discute la interacción...
Interacción y cambio social en los medios de circulación del período Formativo Medio y Tardío en la zona altoandina de Lambayeque, Norte del Perú (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Investigaciones sobre el cambio social entre el Periodo Formativo Medio y Tardío de los Andes Centrales tienen identificado diversos estímulos (sociales, climáticos e ideológicos) como causante de dicha realidad. Sin embargo, durante la última década una creciente acumulación de datos de diversas regiones ha configurado el rol activo de las interacciones...
Interaction and Resistance against the Inka on the Land of the Cañaris, Southern Ecuador (2018)
According to the early Spanish chronicles, the Cañaris were a constellation of chiefdoms which fiercely challenged the Inka expansion to the north. Early Texts show that war and conflict was the way they interacted in the region. As a conquest strategy during Wayna Qhapac's rule, the Inkas built important infrastructure in their heartland, such as Tomebamba in Cuenca and Ingapirka in Hatún Cañar, in addition to other smaller sites along the Qhapac Ñan. However, the archaeological evidence for...
Interactions, Geopolitical Mastery, and Empire: What Local-Level Political Machinations Tell Us about Imperial Strategy during the Late Prehispanic Period (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Dedication, Collaboration, and Vision, Part I: Papers in Honor of Tom D. Dillehay" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tom Dillehay’s early research in the Peruvian Chillon valley integrated archaeological and historical methods to demonstrate that Inka imperialism was not monolithic. Critically engaging with traditional models of verticality among Andean communities, his data-rich research demonstrated that the previous...