South America (Continent) (Geographic Keyword)
201-225 (2,200 Records)
The northern highland Ecuadorian site of Cochasquí is one of the country’s most respected archaeological resources. Investigations by archaeologists Jacinto Jijón y Caamaño (1910s), Max Uhle (1932), and Udo Oberem (1964-65) had principally focused on this Late Period site’s highly visible quadrangular earthen pyramids, which can reach heights of approximately 20 meters. The archaeological and public fascination with the visibly monumental has long diverted attention away from between and beyond...
Beyond Sunken Courts: Jerry Moore’s Influence on Lake Titicaca Basin Archaeology (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Humble Houses to Magnificent Monuments: Papers in Honor of Jerry D. Moore" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Through both his research and mentorship Jerry Moore has had a profound effect on the development of studies of landscapes and built environments in the Lake Titicaca basin. His own investigations have advanced our understanding of ritual interaction in the paradigmatic public spaces of the region: sunken courts....
Beyond the Big Picture: An integrative Paleogenomic study to address regional dynamics and political organization in the Peruvian Moche Culture (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Ancient DNA in Service of Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The genomic revolution opened up new dimensions for paleogenomic research, inconceivable only a decade ago. However, with a primary focus on big-picture population genetics like large-scale migration events, paleogenetics also became somewhat removed from problem-based archaeological research questions with a regional focus, addressing issues such...
Beyond the Wall: Defensive Arrangements, Conflicts and Coexistence Inside an Andean Oasis during the Late Intermediate Period (1100–1450 AD) (2018)
Located on the western foothills of the Andes, in the region of Tacna, the study area seems to have been densely occupied during the Late Intermediate Period (1100–1450 AD) as the recent archaeological research carried out in the area has demonstrated it. The many agricultural terraces and irrigation canals, as well as the numerous residential settlements, some of which are fortified, seem to demonstrate a strong desire for control and management of resources among the different groups occupying...
Beyond Wari Empire and Inka Analogy: Refining Reconstructions of Wari Power in Middle Horizon Cusco (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. In the Cusco region of southern Peru, the Middle Horizon has generally been interpreted as a period during which a strong Wari imperial state conquered and then tightly controlled local populations and resources. Research conducted at the large Wari installation of Pikillaqta and at other...
Bifacial Technology in Central-South Patagonia: A Preliminary Insight into Hunter-Gatherer Behavior during the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition and Early Holocene in the Deseado Massif and Nearby Spaces (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bifaces can be useful in different kinds of situations. For example, they can be part of a curated strategy for peopling of new environments, as well as during their colonization. The knowledge of their distribution around the landscape, taking into account raw materials involved as well as their manufacturing stages and discard causes, compared with lithics...
Big Data, Big Challenges: The Preliminary Results of the Moche Valley Ancient Settlement Survey (MVASS) on the North Coast of Peru (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We present the preliminary results of the Moche Valley Ancient Settlement Survey. MVASS involves systematic recording of all known prehistoric sites in the Moche Valley (2,708 km2) and creation of an open-access GIS environmental and archaeological database. The project involves archival research, drone mapping of key sites, and additional pedestrian survey. ...
Big Pictures, Broad Questions, and Archaeological Knowledge along the Steppe and the Forest in the Southern Argentinean Patagonia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Patagonian Evolutionary Archaeology and Human Paleoecology: Commending the Legacy (Still in the Making) of Luis Alberto Borrero in the Interpretation of Hunter-Gatherer Studies of the Southern Cone" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Luis Alberto Borrero changed the way archaeological knowledge was produced in Southern Patagonia (and beyond). We consider three analytical units that underlie his legacy: the landscape, the...
Big Plans for Small Pots: Development of an Organic Residue Analysis Protocol for Ancient Wari Miniature Wares (2017)
Excavations from the Monqachayaq sector of the site of Huari uncovered an impressive burial that contained over 300 miniature vessels. The vessels were offered by a people known as the Wari (c. A.D. 600 – 1100), an ancient culture thought to be responsible for one of the Andes first great empires. Even more remarkable, the vessels retained the desiccated remains of their contents. The anthropological insight that can be gained has direct implications for a better understanding of Wari practices...
The Biggest Party of All? Zooarchaeological Analysis of an Oversized Late Inca Banquet at Pachacamac (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pachacamac is a major archaeological site on the central coast of Peru, occupied from the 5th to the 16th centuries, AD. This paper reports the results of an interdisciplinary study of a late Inca context discovered in building B4, excavated in 2016 and 2018 by the Ychsma Project (ULB). A series of analyses were conducted, including zooarchaeological ones,...
Bioarchaeological Analysis of Preclassic Human Remains Recovered from a Lime Kiln, El Mirador, Guatemala (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Multidisciplinary Investigations in the Mirador Basin, Guatemala" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the preliminary findings pertaining to the exhumation and bioarchaeological examination of a collection of Preclassic period human remains recovered from a lime kiln in El Mirador Basin, Guatemala. The disarticulated and fragmented skeletal remains of nine individuals were compressed into a...
A Bioarchaeological Approach to Demographic Patterns and Preadult Deaths in the Andean Late Intermediate Period (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During eras of heightened, intergroup conflict, noncombatants may experience increased risk of death, either as a direct result of targeted killings or from more indirect means stemming from resource stress and inadequate nutrition, for example. Documenting whether changes in mortality during violent time periods deviate from expected demographic patterns...
A Bioarchaeological Approach to the Social Construction of Community Identities in Mountain Landscapes (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Living and Dying in Mountain and Highland Landscapes" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Huarochirí Manuscript has made legendary the social relationships of pre-Columbian groups inhabiting the Andean mountain landscape that ascends steeply from the present-day coastal capital city of Lima, Peru, to the high-altitude Huarochirí Province. In this famous collection of ethnohistoric narratives, authored in the indigenous...
Bioarchaeological Research at Castillo de Huarmey, Peru (2017)
The Wari imperial mausoleum, discovered in 2012-13 at the site of Castillo de Huarmey, Peru brought to light remains of 64 individuals buried within the main chamber underneath and additional seven in the contexts directly associated with the mausoleum. The upper layers of the building also yielded a collection of human and animal remains. The collection of human remains brings a unique set of data for bioarchaeologists. The research performed so far include standard analyses like taphonomy,...
A Bioarchaeological Study of a Weaver Mummy from Hualmay, Peru (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2010, the archaeological research project in the Los Huacos area of Hualmay discovered a funerary bundle that was named "The Weaver of Hualmay". It is believed that it corresponds to an adult woman, since associated with the bundle there was a reed basket filled with spinning tools, needles and cotton, among other items for textile production. The study...
A Bioarchaeological Survey of Skeletal Tuberculosis in Prehistoric Southern Peru (2017)
Recent studies of pre-Columbian Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC) genomes identify pinnipeds as a source of human tuberculosis in South America (Bos et al. 2014). These results raise questions regarding the timing of this zoonotic transfer and the subsequent human host adaptation and dissemination of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Here we present a survey of skeletal tuberculosis throughout the Osmore Drainage of southern Peru, where the pinniped to human "jump" had occurred by ~AD 1000....
The Bioarchaeology of Greater Chiriquí: Challenges, Finds, and Future Directions (2018)
Greater Chiriquí, the pre-Columbian cultural sphere encompassing western Panama and southern Costa Rica, has been subjected to intense looting activities since the mid-19th century. Nevertheless, archaeological exploration of the area to date has successfully contextualized the nature and transitions of non-perishable material culture. However, organic remains rarely survive in funerary contexts due to the high acidity of the soil, high humidity, and high precipitation in this region. Human...
Bioarchaeology of Imperial Relations: Chanka and Inca Interactions at Sondor (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. An empire expanding into a previously established community can have significant impacts on the identity and culture of the conquered, depending on the negotiations set into place between the invaders and native communities. A prominent example of these negotiations of imperial control occurred in the prehistoric highlands when the Inca rose to power...
Biocultural Evolution of the Oral Complex in Coastal Atacama and the Interplay of Selection, Plasticity, and Population Histories (2017)
Indigenous groups have inhabited and exploited the coastal valleys of the Atacama Desert since Paleoindian times. Contact with the altiplano began early on but marine-based diets were eventually supplemented by agricultural adaptations as influence turned to population movement over time. We propose that the oral complex was likely subject to some degree of selection early in the sequence in response to dietary demands, but would have been relaxed as diet diversified and softened. This trend...
Biodistance Comparisons for the Chimú-Era (AD 1000–1450) Child Sacrificial Remains from Pampa la Cruz, Huanchaco, North Coast of Peru: A Preliminary Report (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Here we report dentally derived biodistance results for 120 Chimú-era (AD 1000–1450) children from three of six temporally discrete sacrificial events—specifically events 1, 4, and 5, at Pampa la Cruz (PLC), Huanchaco, Perú, which we compare with a late Chimú-Inka affiliated skeletal sample (n = 44) from the nearby cemetery at Iglesia Colonial, Huanchaco,...
Biodistance Studies of Riverine Shell-Mound Builders from Ribeira de Iguape Valley (São Paulo and Paraná, Brazil) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "“The South Also Exists”: The Current State of Prehistoric Archaeology in Brazil: Dialogues across Different Theoretical Approaches and Research Agendas" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Biodistance studies (craniometrics and aDNA) have been very useful tools to unravel the biological diversity of human populations in the past. In this abstract, we present biodistance analyses based on cranial measurements in order to...
A Biogeographic Approach to Hunter-Gatherer Dispersion Constraints in Northern Patagonia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Patagonian Evolutionary Archaeology and Human Paleoecology: Commending the Legacy (Still in the Making) of Luis Alberto Borrero in the Interpretation of Hunter-Gatherer Studies of the Southern Cone" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Northwest Patagonia late Holocene human occupation was almost a "barrier" against farmer dispersion, at least during the last 1500 years BP. The causes for this remain unclear and are...
Biogeographic Barriers, Marginality and Explicit Analytical Scales in the Northern Archipelago of Western Patagonia, Chile. (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Patagonian Evolutionary Archaeology and Human Paleoecology: Commending the Legacy (Still in the Making) of Luis Alberto Borrero in the Interpretation of Hunter-Gatherer Studies of the Southern Cone" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The last decade of archaeological research in the coast of northwestern Patagonia, specifically in the Chonos Archipelago (43°-46° S), has been profoundly influenced by theoretical...
A Biography of the Yumbos (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Yumbos, Barbacoan peoples of the western flank of the Andes in northern Ecuador’s Pichincha province, have been the principal object of my studies for the past four decades. I draw upon archaeological research by myself and my team (especially including Alejandra...
The Biological Baseline in Zooarchaeology: Unpacking the Domestication of South American Camelids (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Breaking the Mold: A Consideration of the Impacts and Legacies of Richard W. Redding" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The domestication of llamas and alpacas in South America resulted in compelling similarities to sheep and goat pastoralism in Western Asia, but the underlying biology of the wild ancestors of camelids provided distinct challenges to human control and selection. The pastoral economies of South America...