South America: Andes (Geographic Keyword)
201-225 (845 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper explores ideas of identity and status at the earliest Jesuit church in Ayacucho, Peru (ca. 1605-1767 CE), La Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesús de Huamanga (ICJH). Starting with an exploration of indigenous resistance to Spanish colonialism, this case study uses stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen as proxies for diet and burial location as a proxy...
The Dietary Importance of Maize and Aquatic Resources during the Regional Development Period at El Dornajo, Southwest Ecuador (2018)
Earlier studies of subsistence at the site of El Dornajo in southwestern Ecuador examined faunal, macro- and macro-botanical remains. These studies indicated that residents consumed large quantities of shellfish and marine fish during both the Formative and Regional Development periods (2800 BC – 700 AD), with a marked decrease and differential access based on socioeconomic status in the later period. It has been hypothesized that site residents increased their reliance on domesticated plant...
Different Dead for Different Purposes: The Ancestors and Ancestral Spirits of Rapayán in the Peruvian Central Andes. (2018)
During the Late Intermediate Period (1000-1450 C.E.), the inhabitants of the Rapayán region in the Peruvian central Andes created a complex landscape for the dead. These were disposed of in natural caves along cliffsides surrounding residential sites as well as in a variety of above-ground mausoleums constructed at highly visible locations. In this paper, I develop a typology of sepulchres and analyze their spatial patterning. Building on ethnographic and ethnohistorical material, I argue that...
Differential Diagnosis of Tuberculosis in a LIP and Late Horizon Skeletal Sample of Southern Peru (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. The Moquegua Valley of southern Peru is known for multiple studies regarding the presence, origin, and evolution of tuberculosis in the pre-contact Americas. These studies have primarily focused on tuberculosis in Middle Horizon and Late Intermediate Period contexts and the continued presence and evolution of the disease during...
Digital Connoisseurship: Applications of Machine Learning to Moche Iconography (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the absence of a written language, the study of the complex narrative iconography of the Moche or Mochica culture of the North Coast of Perú (250-900CE) forms an important foundation of our understanding of the cultural dynamics and ritual traditions of this Pre-Columbian society. Fineline iconography on Moche ceramic vessels in museum and private...
Digital Standardization of Ceramic Nomenclature: A Case for Central Coast Peruvian Pottery Forms during the Late Intermediate Period (2018)
In this paper, I present a generalized morphological typology for all Central Coast Peruvian ceramic vessels. Today, as in the past, similarly shaped (or in some cases identically shaped) vessel forms have been given different names by different authors, obfuscating another’s researcher’s ability to cross reference ceramic forms rapidly. As publishable material becomes increasingly digitalized and online accessible, it is not hard to imagine a "patch" program that identifies differently named...
Dimensions of Health in the Andes: A Bioarchaeological Investigation of Morbidity Patterns 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. This paper uses a bioarchaeological approach to examine the morbidity profiles of highland communities in the Cusco region of Peru during the centuries that witnessed the rise, fluorescence, and demise of the Inka Empire (ca. 1300-1550 CE). Through original analysis of human skeletons from the sites of Huanacauri and Matagua and a...
The Dirt on Cultural Diversity: Examining Occupation Floor Surfaces in the Moquegua Valley (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. The recent rise in the availability of literature on the topic soil chemical analysis has inspired growing interest in evaluating soils at archaeological sites to gain a more detailed picture of the lives and culture of the people that once lived there. Through soil analysis, we can better define areas once used for residential...
Discovery at Cardal, Peru of an Initial Period Polychrome Frieze of the Manchay Culture (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the 2018 field season, the authors unearthed a portion of a large polychrome frieze at the U-shaped civic-ceremonial center of Cardal in the Lurin Valley of Peru. This talk provides a brief description of the excavations and its discovery. The frieze was located on the lower terrace of the right arm of the platform complex and was buried by the...
Disturbing the Ancestors: Interpreting Early Intermediate Period Commingled Remains at La Iglesia, Huanchaco Perú (2018)
While the Inca, Moche, and Chimu cultures boast grand sites along the north coast of Perú, much is to be learned about the earlier Gallinazo (50 BC/100 AD–500 AD) Salinar (200 BC–200 AD), and Cupisnique (ca. 1500–300 BC) cultures from small, coastal settlements. The 2017 field season of the Programa Arqueologico Huanchaco investigated these earlier Peruvian cultures during a five week excavation near the Iglesia de Huanchaco, approximately 15 km northeast of the Huacas de Moche. Initial ceramic...
Diverging Patterns of Community Organization in the Late Intermediate Period Cajamarca Region of Northern Peru (2018)
The organizational concept of ayllu has been central to many discussions of community generation and organization in the Andes, but the blanket application of ayllu is also problematic. In the Cajamarca region of northern Peru, the beginning of the Late Intermediate Period (A.D. 1000 – A.D. 1450) saw a demographic shift, with many settlements forming or relocating to higher elevation defensible and occasionally fortified positions indicating possible increases in competition and conflict...
The Diverse Impacts of Spondylus along the Coast of South America (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Political Economies on the Andean Coast" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. From Ecuador to northern Chile, the Andean coast was home to diverse polities that have been studied by both archaeologists and historians. These studies have provided extensive datasets for interpreting coastal political economies, but research often emphasizes models developed for the central Andean highlands. Due to differences in environmental...
The Diverse Legacies of the Viru Project (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Legacies of Archaeologists in the Andes: Second Symposium, the Institutionalization and Internationalization of Andean Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1946 a group of North American archaeologists with Andean experience, undertook a program of research in the Viru Valley, designed to supplement Rafael Larco Hoyle’s seriated sequence of ceramic styles based on vessels from graves and purchased...
The Diversity of Mining Infrastructure and Organization in the Southern Provinces of the Inca Empire (2018)
Despite the importance of mineral and metal production for the Inca's political economy in the Collasuyu, mining infrastructure during this period encompasses a range across scale, spatial structure and labor organization. This diversity reflects both the variability of Inca state interventions and independent enterprises working outside of the imperial political economy. Generally, state mining is evidenced by Inca-style architecture, including formal public spaces or plazas; social-aggregation...
Documenting Early Exposure to Violence and Physical Stress among Juveniles in the Late Prehispanic Andes (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Growing up during periods of chronic warfare can have long-term impacts on health and well-being across the lifecourse. Public health research has demonstrated how early exposure to violence or other physical stressors contributes to increased morbidity and mortality among children and adolescents. Within bioarchaeology, investigating the lived experience...
Documenting the Complexity of the Petroglyphs of Toro Muerto, Southern Peru (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Toro Muerto, situated in Arequipa Region in southern Peru, consists of over 2.5 thousand stone blocks covered with petroglyphs, which makes this site unique not only in Peru but also in South America. In this presentation we outline the current results of a new project which aims to document the whole site. This includes...
Doing Context-Specific, Anthropological Bioarchaeology: Hard Times from England to the Andes (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Debra L. Martin" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The concept and approach of "bioarchaeology as anthropology," wherein bioarchaeology is framed as interdisciplinary, hypothesis-driven, biocultural, cross-cultural, and focused on understanding the adaptation and evolution of social systems, was pioneered by George Armelagos and has been progressively strengthened and amplified...
Don Lathrap, Precocious Civilization, and the Highland-Lowland Link in Andean Archaeology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Legacies of Archaeologists in the Andes: Second Symposium, the Institutionalization and Internationalization of Andean Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The dynamic interaction between culture areas has been and continues to be important. Traditionally, the boundaries or frontiers between culture areas were considered fixed. Many scholars now recognize that these spaces were fluid and their inhabitants...
Drinking Together: The Role of Foodways in the Wari and Huaracane Colonial Encounter in the Moquegua Valley, Peru (2018)
Food is a unique form of material culture, representing a multiplicity of ethnic, gender, racial, political, and economic identities, that is consumed and reaffirmed through daily practice. In this way, food remains provide a nuanced perspective on a variety of archaeological issues. This paper focuses on Wari imperial expansion and how foodways enabled both Wari colonists and local peoples to negotiate the colonial experience during the Middle Horizon (AD 600-1000), Peru. Using...
Early Ceremonial Architecture in the Cajamarca Highlands of Peru: A Newly Recorded Circular Court at Callacpuma within the Cajamarca Basin (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 presents data on a newly recorded monumental circular court located within the Cajamarca Basin of the northern Peruvian Highlands. Large circular courts, better known from the Initial and Formative Periods of the Andean Central coast and highlands, are very rare or at least not well known for the northern Andes. Recent work has investigated an 18...
Early Ceremonial Hearth Use in the Upper Amazon: Santa Anna–La Florida, Palanda, Ecuador (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Illuminated Communities: The Role of the Hearth at the Beginning of Andean Civilization" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the outstanding traits of the Mayo Chinchipe – Marañón culture is the spiral architecture that appears on the mound terraces of at least two major sites of the upper Amazon. In one of them, the vortex of the spiral was a ceremonial hearth that contained a votive cache in its base. The...
Early Monumental Architecture in Peru: Sunken Circular Plazas from the Late Archaic (5000–2600 B.C.) to the Final Formative (400–200 B.C.) (2018)
We hereby focus on a feature of monumental architecture in north and central Peru from the Late Archaic (5000-2600 B.C.) to the Final Formative (400-200 B.C.) respectively illustrated by the sites of Sechín Bajo and Pallka both located in the Casma Valley. This specific feature is the sunken circular plaza (SCP), a public-oriented sunken space whose circular shape runs from 1,5 m to 80 m, as the most extreme examples. Through the record and description of 64 sites –some of them contained several...
Early Occupations of the Late Pleistocene–Early Holocene in the Northern Highlands of the Semiarid North of Chile (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Here, we present the results of archaeological surveys and excavations carried out in the Pedernales Salt Flat and the upper course of the Jorquera River (26°–27° S, 3,000–4,500 m asl). Environmentally, they are characterized by an Andean steppe with biotic resources distributed in patches. Surveys were directed toward specific geoforms such as river terraces,...
Early Ritual and Public Hearths in the Casma Valley, Peru (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Illuminated Communities: The Role of the Hearth at the Beginning of Andean Civilization" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Around 1500 BC, the complex society of the Sechin Alto polity of the Casma Valley, Peru produced a wide variety of architectural forms ranging from large platform mounds to small single room dwellings. Hearths used for public or ritual purposes are frequently associated with some of these...
Early Settlements and Networks of the Formative South-Central Andes: Sunken-Court Distribution and Variation through Systematic Imagery Survey and Targeted Ground-Checking (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. By the Middle Formative period (1000–500 BCE), the first permanent architecture appears along the shores of Lake Titicaca in the form of sunken, semi-subterranean courts. These were centers of important public and religious activities and are indicative of emergent forms of permanent political leadership and hierarchies. Thanks to their monumental size,...