South America: Andes (Geographic Keyword)
276-300 (1,096 Records)
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,...
Early Social Life of Andean Tuber and Seed Domestication (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeobotany of Early Peopling: Plant Experimentation and Cultural Inheritance" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture initiated fundamental changes in the way people interacted with plant communities in areas beyond their places of origin. The South American Andes is one domestication center that provided two of the world’s most important crops: potatoes and...
Early Use of High-Altitude Tubers in the Eastern Cordillera of Colombia (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeobotany of Early Peopling: Plant Experimentation and Cultural Inheritance" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper we discuss the importance of high-altitude tubers to early peopling of northern Andean area of South America and their role in the colonization of environments like Bogota plain that resulted in different ways of inhabiting and transforming the region during the early and middle Holocene....
Eating and Drinking at Chavín de Huántar: What the Microbotanical Evidence Can (and Can’t) Tell Us (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the cumulative findings, to date, of ongoing microbotanical analyses carried with the aim of interpreting internal and external interactions from diverse contexts at Chavín de Huántar. Since microbotanical analysis offers us a view into the production and...
Eating and Empires: Stable Isotope Analysis to Reconstruct Diet and Foodways in the Wari Heartland (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. Dietary patterns within a community can reveal insights into how communities were organized and how social class or gender roles could shape who had access to which foods. In this study, we use stable isotope analysis of archaeological humans and fauna from three Wari sites in the imperial heartland...
Eating Local: Plant Use and Identity in the Cinti Valley, Bolivia, in the 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. The Cinti Valley, Bolivia, has been occupied for at least 9,000 years, with an intensification in settlement in the Late Intermediate period. In 2004 Rivera Casanovas proposed that the sites in the Cinti Valley formed a three-tier site hierarchy, with a capital, local centers, and small villages. To study the impact of these settlement patterns on food and...
Echoes in the Wake of Collapse: Cultural Connectivity during the Middle Horizon to Late Intermediate Period in the Lower Ica Valley, Peru (2018)
This paper examines what happened to cultural connectivity on the south coast in the wake of Wari’s collapse based on our ongoing investigations at the site of H-8 in the lower Ica Valley. We investigate in particular how the echoes of the Middle Horizon resonate in the genesis of the Late Intermediate Ica culture that emerged here thereafter. We present evidence that H-8 was first founded at this time (c. 1000CE), and operated as a caravanserai within an intensifying network of trade and...
Ecology and Human Habitation of Andean Forests (2018)
People have altered the naturally forested areas of the tropical Andes for natural resources and as places for settlements. The forests collectively represent a global biodiversity hotspot, with many unique species. Environmental gradients are abrupt, with dramatic changes in temperature regimes with altitude, but also with switches in humidity from dry to pluvial depending on exposure to prevailing winds. The steep environmental gradients create dispersal barriers to plants and animals,...
The Effect of Imperial Conquest on Regional Settlement Patterns: A Case Study from the Peruvian South Coast between ca. 1000–1532 CE (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological research clearly demonstrates that imperial expansions have significant effects on regional settlement patterns. One region where imperial conquests affected social life is the Peruvian south coast. During the Late Intermediate Period (LIP, ca. 1000–1450 CE), the region was controlled by localized polities such as the Chincha and Huarco. With...
El cacicazgo en la experiencia de los Caranquis-Cayambis en la Sierra y en Daule, costa del Ecuador: Una aproximación desde la etnohistoria y la arqueología (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. En la sierra norte del Ecuador, la cosmovisión andina, la geografía con su mosaico de nichos ecológicos, diversidad de recursos, y la necesidad de una seguridad social y alimentaria, exigió un sistema de gobierno práctico y muy visible, para resolver los problemas ecológicos...
El caso Huarco y la hegemonía Inca en el valle bajo de Cañete (2018)
En el valle bajo de Cañete, la élite Huarco compartía una tradición cultural similar con las élites vecinas a lo largo de la costa centro-sur; a la llegada de los incas, esta tradición se mantuvo pero reconfiguraron sus estrategias políticas y económicas. De esta manera lograron proteger sus relaciones interregionales en este territorio, con el fin de aprovechar los beneficios de la presencia inca en el valle. El Huarco, de acuerdo a los relatos etnohistóricos fue un señorío fuerte e...
El Continuum cultural, una nueva estrategia de investigación y gestión del patrimonio arqueológico en Lima, Perú (2018)
Los cientos de sitios arqueológicos en plena ciudad de Lima así como la usual inexistencia de una valoración positiva de estos por parte de la comunidad vecina, son un reto para la investigación y gestión del patrimonio arqueológico monumental. Como una alternativa a ello, el proyecto encargado del complejo arqueológico Mateo Salado (en el distrito de Lima), ha venido aplicando desde el 2011 un plan de gestión en cuyo marco se creó la estrategia del Continuum Cultural. Esta es una perspectiva...