South America (Continent) (Geographic Keyword)
1,751-1,775 (1,799 Records)
Dramatic culture change occurred in the Central Andes at the onset of the Middle Horizon (MH) (AD 500-1000). During this period, a state society emerged in the Ayacucho Valley and expanded across Peru. Even before the emergence of this state, however, culture contact of the Ayacucho heartland had already started with some remote regions in the late part of the Early Intermediate Period (EIP). This far-reaching contact would have gradually been intensified toward the beginning of the MH. Indeed,...
What is a Hill of Beans Really Worth?: Paleoethnobotanical Analysis of Urban Huari Foodways (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Seeing Wari through the Lens of the Everyday: Results from the Patipampa Sector of Huari" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Preliminary investigation into the use of plants at the site of Huari from the 2017 field season of the Programa Arqueológico Prehistoria Urbana de Huari resulted in new information placing the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) as a central component of the daily meal for those living in Patipampa in...
What the Shell: the Zooarchaeology of Cerro San Isidro, Peru (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Zooarchaeologists have extensively documented the importance of marine resources in the ancient Andes, and the first field season at Cerro San Isidro (Ancash, Peru) proves no different. The multi-component hilltop site lies in the agriculturally rich 'Moro Pocket' of the middle Nepeña Valley, at least an eight-hour walk from the ocean on the north-central...
What the Shells Tell: Interdisciplinary Malocoarchaeology and Holocene Paleoclimate in Coastal Peru (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Fryxell Symposium in Honor of Dolores Piperno" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dolores Piperno has been a trailblazer in interdisciplinary research, building on deep, innovative approaches to plant remains to answer a multitude of questions in archaeology and beyond. In this interdisciplinary spirit, I review research into Holocene paleoclimate along the Peruvian coast derived in the first instance from the study of...
What Was Tiwanaku, Really? (2021)
This is an abstract from the "A New Horizon: Reassessing the Andean Middle Horizon (AD 600–1000) and Rethinking the Andean State" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. More than 30 years ago, Garth Bawden wrote a prescient review on the "Andean State as a State of Mind." He critiqued Andean scholars for focusing on the state as an analytical unit. He complained that much good scholarship was being ruined due to the "albatross of the state," and urged...
What's a Niche Got to Do with It? Spatial Analysis of Niched Structures at Patipampa and Other Middle Horizon Sites (2018)
Excavations at the Middle Horizon (AD 500-100) capital city of Huari in the summer of 2017 focused on understanding processes of urbanization and the resulting realities of everyday life in the domestic sector of Patipampa. Several of the architectural spaces exposed during excavation were more intensively investigated. This paper focuses on the architectural space containing niched walls in order to understand how the Wari utilized this type of space in comparison to the uses of the other...
When Archaeology Meets History: Documenting the Conquest and Transition Period at Pachacamac, Peru. (2017)
Traditional accounts of the conquest of Peru are well known and universally accepted: in 1535, Francisco Pizarro – who had arrived two years earlier – decided to create a new capital in the neighbouring Rimac river valley, which would one day become the current city of Lima. In order to achieve this, Pizarro forcibly displaced all the contemporary inhabitants of Pachacamac, leaving this major Inka pilgrimage site completely abandoned. However, new finds recovered during the 2016 excavations at...
When Irish Eyes View Maya Classic Period Political Systems (2018)
Several debates have endured for decades within the field of anthropological archaeology as to the character of lowland Classic period Maya political organization. Scholars have been struck by the contrast between Maya regal-ritual centers possessed of impressive monumental architecture with the minimal references from the documentary record to any kind of bureaucratic organization. There is disagreement as to the scale of the larger Maya polities and whether or not some polities had begun to...
When Technological Analysis Becomes a Setback: The Case of the Points in the Interior of São Paulo 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. Historically, the shift from the study of form to the study of techniques was guided by the transition from the Cultural History approach to the New Archeology. This theoretical readjustment was incorporated into Brazilian archeology decades later, strongly impacting the way that the collections was studied. Today the reality is that, although lithic...
When the Saints Come Marching In: Colony, Church and Change in the Andes (1480–1615) (2018)
Spanish conquest of the Andes commenced in 1532 and, for all intents and purposes, was over by 1572. Yet, this somewhat simplifies the story. Throughout the Andean region, but especially away from the early strongholds of Spanish power, such as the towns and cities, conquest was a mixture of appropriation and negotiation. Drawing on research from the Ica Highlands (South-central Peru) and the Cordillera Negra (North-central Peru) this paper examines how Spanish religious orders initially...
When the Volcano Erupts: Lessons from the Archaeological Record on Human Adaptation to Catastrophic Environments (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. How do repeated disasters shape and strengthen communities? The Tilarán-Arenal region of Costa Rica is one of the most volcanically active regions in the world, but despite the risk, from the advent of sedentary villages during the Tronodora phase (2000-500 BC) until the arrival of Spanish in the 16th century, people demonstrated remarkable resilience. Using...
When Traditions Are Manufactured, Used and Broken: examples from Tupian contexts in Amazonia. (2017)
One of the most insightful contributions recently put forward by Anthropology and Ethnoarchaeology is related to the concept of the "communities of practice". It is naturally connected to issues such as the relation between language and material culture, transmission, identity, persistence, structure as well as the limits of socially permitted restructuring of practices, and even the possible contingencies which might cause deep change and break the structure and, therefore, Tradition. The...
Where are the camelids? II: contributions from the stable isotope ecology to understand mobility and exchange patterns in the South Central Andes (2017)
There is a growing volume of literature arguing that camelids were a local resource for Prehispanic societies that inhabited the coastal and intermediate Andean valleys from Peru. Indeed, existing evidences show uninterrupted herding practices along the Peruvian lowlands (>2,000 masl) at 8°S-16.5°S during the interval 800 BC-1100 AD. Although camelids archeofaunal remains, textiles and iconographic representations are recurrent in low-elevation sites from the northernmost Chile (17°-19°S), the...
Where are the camelids? Mobility models and caravanning during the Late Intermediate Period (ca. 1000-1400 A.D.) in the northernmost Chile, South Central Andes (2017)
Llamas were one of the most valued animals in the Andes. Their importance has transcended the subsistence sphere as they were not only used as a source of food but also served for medicinal and ritual purposes; their fiber was fundamental for manufacturing textiles, and they were a source of symbolism and "food" for thought and ideologies. Nevertheless, their use as pack animals in exchange caravans has been prominent, stimulating intense mobility and long distance traffic between diverse...
Where Are the Cinchecona? Mortuary Architecture and Socio-political Organization in Jauja, Peru, during the Late Intermediate Period (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond the Round House: Spatial Logic and Settlement Organization across the Late Andean Highlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Late Intermediate period constitutes a time of important changes in the life of pre-colonial Andean societies, including new mechanisms for the construction of power and authority. In the case of the Yanamarca valley in Jauja, central highlands of Peru, previous investigations have...
Where condors reign: Methodological challenges in the bioarchaeology of Chachapoya cliff tombs in Peru (2017)
Traditional archaeological practice involves horizontal mapping and excavations of ancient settlements and cemeteries, but bioarchaeological research of mortuary practices in the Chachapoyas region of northeastern Peru is stymied by the challenging vertical slopes, almost constant rain, and the placement of burial structures on seemingly impossible to reach ledges on exposed rock escarpments. Exploring and registering archaeological vestiges of these cliff cemeteries requires the combination of...
Where the Land Meets the Sea: Preceramic Complexities on the North Coast of Peru (2017)
Interdisciplinary investigation of the large coastal mounds of Huaca Prieta and Paredones and their associated domestic settlements represent Preceramic human occupation as far back as ∼14000 cal BP. Research at these sites has documented a long Preceramic sequence from the activities of the first maritime/terrestrial foragers from the late Pleistocene to early Holocene to the construction of the mounds and the introduction and development of agriculture and monumentality from the middle to late...
Where the River Flows: Water Politics and Textile Production in Colonial Peru (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Water is intrinsically linked to textile production. The dye process requires a substantial amount of water to acquire a consistent and proper color. Colonial textile mills, known as obrajes, were strategically built near bodies of water for this reason. Obrajes significantly shaped colonial water politics. Their presence on the water changed waterscapes, or...
Where-felines? An XRF-Based Sourcing of Tiwanaku's Chachapuma Sculptures (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. Turnovers in political and religious authority in the ancient Titicaca Basin correspond with significant, intentional shifts in material procurement practices. During the 5th century AD, the developing Tiwanaku elite asserted a new ideological hegemony through a novel monumental and iconographic tradition. Tiwanaku masons also...
Whispers from the forest: the excluded past of the Aché Indians of Paraguay (1994)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the EXARC Bibliography, originally compiled by Roeland Paardekooper, and updated. Most of these records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us using the...
Who Founded Quilcapampa? Wari Agents, Social Network Analysis, and the Unfurling of a Middle Horizon State (2018)
At the beginning of the ninth century AD, a Wari-affiliated settlement was founded in the Sihuas Valley of southern Peru. Celebrants ritually smashed face-necked jars when they abandoned the site less than a century later. These vessels likely represent elites or ethnic groups in the Wari sphere - agents whose associations in conflict or cooperation can be used to tell a more dynamic story of the founding of Quilcapampa during this turbulent era of Wari state expansion. This paper uses social...
Whom the Sea Has Taken (1966)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the EXARC Bibliography, originally compiled by Roeland Paardekooper, and updated. Most of these records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us using the...
Who’s Who? Investigating Historic Burials at Chavín de Huantar Peru Using Radiogenic Strontium Isotope (87Sr/86Sr) Analysis (2018)
Since 2009, the Programa Arqueológico Chavín has unearthed a series of historic burials from the Monumento Arqueológico Chavín de Huántar. Although the identity of the deceased remains a mystery, initial archaeological and ethnographic evidence suggests that the individuals may be casualties of the War of the Pacific (1879-1883), perhaps even Chilean soldiers who met an unusual and unfortunate fate at the hands of Chavín’s residents. The current paper presents radiogenic strontium isotope...
Why did people begin to make rock art?: A study case from Central North of Chile (2017)
The origin of rock art has frequently asked from an evolutionary and cognitive perspective to understand the dawn of making images in the Paleolithic. But in many regions of the world the beginnings of rock art production occurred later. The Central North of Chile is one of these places. In this area, the practice of marking and chipping rocks surfaces started around 2.000 BCE in coherence with the transition from the Middle to the Late Holocene and the start of many transformations in the...
Why did they leave? The Wari Withdrawal from Moquegua (2017)
In Moquegua the monumental provincial center of Cerro Baúl was ritually abandoned circa 1050CE. It is at this time that Wari affiliated occupation of the sacred summit ended and production of imperial Wari goods ceased in the region. This evidence does not indicate that the empire collapsed at this time, but instead suggests when Wari officials chose to withdraw from this frontier region. Why did they leave? In this paper we discuss the changing population dynamics in Moquegua at 1050CE and how...