South America: Andes (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Piscitelli.

The Late Preceramic Period was a time of dramatic cultural transformations in the Central Andes. At the beginning of the 3rd millennium B.C., at least 30 large, sedentary agricultural settlements with monumental architecture appeared between the Huaura and Fortaleza river valleys in a region known locally as the "Norte Chico" ("Little North"). Since the publication of Moseley’s The Foundations of Maritime Civilizations (1975), the north central coast of Peru has been viewed as an exceptional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patricia Lagarde.

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. The sculptural figures at Chavín de Huántar have long been considered potent symbols of a unified religious tradition across the Andes mountains. Today, Chavín is recognized as a Formative period pilgrimage center located in the highlands of modern-day Peru. It is known for its...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kylie Quave.

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. Inka ceramic workshops have been identified in many Inka provinces, but the process of making and disseminating Inka pottery in the imperial heartland of Cuzco has been largely unknown until recently. Previously, scholars assumed Inka pottery was made in state-sponsored workshops near the urban...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ari Caramanica.

This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Failure" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ethnohistoric documents describe the north coast as a verdant, irrigated landscape at the time of Spanish conquest; yet, only a few decades later, colonial archives are filled with legal disputes over water rights, water shortages, and the desertification of farmland. Cataclysmic demographic collapse caused by the introduction of European diseases accounts for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Juliana Gómez. Henry Tantaleán.

This is an abstract from the "From the Paracas Culture to the Inca Empire: Recent Archaeological Research in the Chincha Valley, Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Este trabajo presenta los resultados del análisis bioarqueológico realizado a ocho fardos funerarios del periodo Paracas Tardío (400-200 BCE) relacionados con el estilo cavernas que fueron recuperados en el Cerro del Gentil, valle de Chincha. Los fardos funerarios asociados a este...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Veronica Williams.

For Northwestern Argentina (NWA) the period between AD 1000 and 1400 represented a state of political fragmentation, conflict situations, and the emergence of hierarchies materialized in the presence of defensive settlements, iconography, war paraphernalia, and evidence of trauma on human remains. Climatic change that occurred in the Andes starting in the 13th century is one of the main causes of this regional disruption. The archaeological data from the high quebradas (ravines) of the Valle...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lauren Kohut.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Late Intermediate period (1100–1450 CE) in the highland Andes of South America has long been characterized by warfare and climate stress. These conditions almost certainly had profound impacts on ancient farmers. It has been suggested that climate changes compelled farmers to diversify by cultivating crops in a greater range of ecological zones or by...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Byron Camino.

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. Los estudios arqueológicos realizados a lo largo de 7 años en La Ciudad del Conocimiento “Yachay”, permitieron reinterpretar y redefinir a los realizados por Jijón y Caamaño (1914, 1920) y Porras (1987), quienes identificaron una ocupación que se desarrolló en el sector y...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aleksa Alaica. Luis Manuel Gonzalez La Rosa.

This is an abstract from the "Bridging Time, Space, and Species: Over 20 Years of Archaeological Insights from the Cañoncillo Complex, Jequetepeque Valley, Peru, Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Moche artistic representations are known for their composite images of plants, animals, humans, and supernatural forms. The genesis of this artistic tradition rests in the beliefs about the relations between species, environments, and worlds. Food...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Singletary. Jose L. Peña.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Textile production was one of the most important aspects of Andean economy, since households were required to produce it for elites or local authorities, and in other instances, large specialized centers were exclusively producing textiles for the state. The excavations conducted at the site of Santo Domingo, which is a large cemetery, have provided...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephanie Hornbeck. Emily Kaplan.

This is an abstract from the "From Materials to Materiality: Analysis and Interpretation of Archaeological and Historical Artifacts Using Non-destructive and Micro/Nano-sampling Scientific Methods" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Field Museum’s collection holds the only known Colonial era tiana, or carved wooden stool, from Peru. This important object was among the inaugural collections at the Museum, entering the collection at its founding in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Guy Duke. Sarah Rowe. Brandi Reger.

During excavations at the Valdivia site of Buen Suceso, Ecuador, in 2017 we recovered a number of figurines. Using in-field photogrammetry and post-field processing, we have created digital 3D models of these figurines. For us, the purpose of photogrammetric models is: 1) to facilitate comparisons across assemblages by a variety of scholars, and 2) for use in public education and outreach. While the creation of 3D images via photogrammetry is becoming more common in archaeological practice, the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only BrieAnna Langlie. John Wilson. Jacob Frank.

This is an abstract from the "Finding Fields: Locating and Interpreting Ancient Agricultural Landscapes" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Driving through the Lake Titicaca basin of southern Peru travelers are often struck by terrace covered hillsides rising from the plain. Nearly every hillside encountered has been transformed from steep faced rocky hillsides into arable land. These ancient fields were constructed and farmed millennia ago to help...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christine A. Hastorf. Melanie Miller.

This is an abstract from the "Thinking about Eating: Theorizing Foodways in Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological studies of ancient foodways focus on understanding subsistence practices in terms of the movement of species over space and time, human/plant/animal strategies, ecological transformations, periods of abundance/famine, economics, and politics. The values that foods are imbued with, the meaning and significance they...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patricio De Souza. Isabel Cartajena. Rodrigo Riquelme. Eugenia De Porras. Boris Santander.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The early peopling of the Atacama Desert coincided with the Central Andean Pluvial Event II (CAPE II), an extensive pluvial event during the Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene (13,800–8500 cal yr BP). A large number of early human archaeological sites from this period have been found along the borders of the Imilac and Punta Negra (24.5° S) high altitude basins...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aldo Watanave. Michelle Watanave. Elvis Monzón. Sintia Santisteban.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, the authors will present the results of their first excavation season at Huaca Menocucho, in the Moche Valley on the north coast of Peru, exposing the political, religious, and economic activities carried out by the people who lived at the site. This excavation revealed the site was first occupied during the Initial period (1800–500 BC),...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jo Osborn.

This is an abstract from the "If Animals Could Speak: Negotiating Relational Dynamics between Humans and Animals" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dogs played many roles within prehispanic Andean societies, including companions, hunting and herding partners, guardians, sacrifices, and mortuary offerings. Their role within maritime communities however remains surprisingly understudied, particularly considering the importance of maritime adaptations...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Peiyu Chen. Ali Altamirano-Sierra. Carlos Osores Mendives. Jhon Cruz Quiñones.

By studying fauna and botanic remains unearthed from Huaca Negra Archaeological Project, this presentation seeks to understand subsistence system and daily life in Late Preceramic Period, and how it might have changed in later Initial Period. Huaca Negra is a fishing village located in the northwest of the Virú Valley and is 1.2 kilometers from the current shoreline. The site was occupied between 5,000-3,200 CalBP, from Late Preceramic Period to Initial Period, which witnessed the transitions...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sadie Weber. Matthew Sayre.

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. The exchange of goods and movement among different ecozones is a hallmark of Andean society. Key to this system of mobility were camelid caravans, which are possibly best known for the Wari or Tiwanaku cultures but are today dwindling in frequency or have disappeared in the Andes. These caravans were established in the much earlier Formative...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Geoffrey Taylor.

Knowledge of Wari plant use has progressed significantly with analyses from sites such as Conchopata and Cerro Baul, but there has yet to be any investigation into Wari plant foodways at the capital city of Huari. This paper will investigate the botanical remains from flotation samples recovered throughout the 2017 excavations of Patipampa, a domestic sector of the site occupied during the Middle Horizon (AD 500-1000). For years, it has been assumed that the emergence of the Wari state in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lauren Pratt.

This is an abstract from the "American Foragers: Human-Environmental Interactions across the Continents" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cloud forests are montane tropical rainforests typically characterized by persistent fog, diverse microclimates, and rich biodiversity. Although some regions have long histories of development of technological and sociopolitical complexity in cloud forests (e.g., the Mayan highlands), in the central Andes cloud...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Milosz Giersz.

Since the fundamental work of Dorothy Menzel, it has been suggested that a new center of power and prestige arose on the North-Central Coast of Peru during the late Middle Horizon, and that its focal point was probably located in the Huarmey Valley. Unfortunately, this hypothesis has not been empirically confirmed for more than 40 years, due to the lack of strong evidence based on systematic archaeological research. Since 2010 an international team of scholars performs multidisciplinary research...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicole Payntar. Julia Earle. Camille Weinberg. R. Alan Covey.

The roots of Inca archaeology lie in reports and memoirs of 19th century travel, which culminated in Hiram Bingham’s 1911 Yale Peruvian Expedition. These accounts traced routes that brought international attention to architectural remains of Inca royal estates and religious monuments, providing an early "guide" to would-be travelers and framing the formative years of Inca archaeology. As research proliferated in the past 50 years, some archaeologists have promoted the remains of royal estates as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lucas Kellett.

This paper examines how Late Intermediate Period or Chanka phase (~AD 1000-1400) communities were formed during a period of overlapping social and environmental risks in the Chanka heartland of Andahuaylas. In particular, the paper considers how aggregated hilltop communities formed and functioned under new social and economic conditions. Recent archaeological research from Andahuaylas suggests that the majority of aggregated Chanka phase ridgetop sites were likely inhabited by neither...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paula Ugalde. Vance Holliday. Calogero Santoro. Jay Quade.

This is an abstract from the "From Middens to Museums: Papers in Honor of Julie K. Stein" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We investigated site formation and modification of surficial and shallow Paleoindian sites (ca. 13-11 cal. ka) located in the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert. Sites occur primarily on inactive Pleistocene to Pliocene alluvial terraces, in and beneath desert pavements, a sparsely studied context for archaeological sites. Our...