South America: Andes (Geographic Keyword)
476-500 (845 Records)
The use of portable X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF) for in-situ elemental analysis is becoming widespread in archaeology and cultural heritage studies. Archaeologists and conservators routinely use pXRF instruments in the field and many museums use them in-house for identification of pigments, metals, and inorganic pesticide residues, characterization of minerals and determination of alloy composition. The NMAI Conservation Department has been using pXRF for over fifteen years for a variety of...
Materials Preparation and Procurement at Cochasquí as Indicators of Social Organization (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Excavations at earthen pyramid sites in northern Ecuador have documented the presence of unique circular baked-earth floors atop the pyramids which have been interpreted to be a marker of the especially sacred nature of the structure. Yet little is known about the process by which these floors are produced and fired or the societies that built them. Recent...
Meat and Potatoes: A Mixed 7,000-Year-Old-Diet (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation examines the diets of 16 prehistoric burials at Soro Mik’aya Patxja, a high-elevation Archaic Period site occupied 7,000 years ago in the Peruvian Andes. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes were analyzed to infer the prehistoric hunter-gatherer diets during a period that preceded the domestication of tubers, quinoa, and vicuña. Plants such as...
Meat, Transport, Fertilizer, and Meaning: Considering the Role of Camelids and Ritual in Moche Food Production (2018)
Camelids (i.e., llamas and alpacas) were domesticated in the Andean region of South America over 6000 years ago. Since then, camelids have occupied a place of central importance in Andean lifeways over the longue dureé. Nevertheless, while camelid pastoralism in the landscape of the highland Andes has been well documented ethnographically, ethnohistorically, and archaeologically, the intimate relationship between people and camelids in the Andean coastal valleys is less understood. In this...
Memories of Disaster and Monumental Places in the Callejon de Huaylas, Peru (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Living Landscapes: Disaster, Memory, and Change in Dynamic Environments " session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1970, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake destroyed numerous towns and displaced many families throughout the Callejon de Huaylas, Peru. In the search for new land and new lives, many of the displaced families began to settle on elevated archaeological sites of monumental architecture located in alluvial plains and near...
Memories of New Pasts in Cuzco and Huarochirí (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For decades, historical and anthropological understanding of the late prehispanic Andes was based in large measure on the written texts produced during the periods of Spanish invasion and colonization. However, while scholarly work based on these documents has long emphasized that control and manipulation of social memory was central to the expansion of the...
Memory and Resilience after the Collapse of the Wari Empire: Analysis from the Remains of Home and Funerary Contexts (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 last 5 years a team of researchers from the National University of San Cristobal de Huamanga has been carrying out archaeological research in the sectors of Vegachayuq Moqo, Capillapata, Chupapata, and Cerro San Cristobal in the capital of the Wari Empire. The results obtained show an occupation sequence from the Huarpa period (emergence of the...
Merchants and Muleteers: A GIS Approach to Movement in the Eighteenth-Century Andes (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. “El Lazarillo de Ciegos Caminantes” (1775) describes the colonial highway from Buenos Aires to Lima. Authored by a Spanish official, Alonso Carrió de la Vandera, the document records a uniquely elite experience of travel. The author describes a journey taken from Buenos Aires to Lima structured by the posta, a colonial system of lodging and transport...
Merqueitalaque: Un ejemplo de resistencia e interdependencia local a la llegada Inka (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Navigating Imperialism: Negotiated Communities and Landscapes of the Inka Provinces" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. La anexión de otros grupos culturales fue una estrategia sociopolítica recurrente de la política incaica durante el siglo XV. Dichas estrategias tendían a variar según la ubicación, las características de los grupos humanos, y el tipo de la relación de éstos con el Incario. Mediante la investigación para...
Mesodesma donacium as a Paleoclimatic Archive on the Coast of Peru (2018)
Quebrada Jaguay is one of the earliest maritime settlements in the New World. The southern Peruvian coastal site was occupied from the Terminal Pleistocene to the Middle Holocene ~13 to 8 ka and demonstrates a society highly dependent upon marine resources. Archaeological deposits excavated in the 1990’s and 2017 contained high volumes of marine faunal remains, predominantly the surf clam Mesodesma donacium, which accounts for 99% of the shell remains. M. donacium are used in this study to...
Metal, Pigment, and Prestige: An Analysis of the Form, Decoration, Status, and Use of Inca Stone Vessels (2018)
The ethnohistoric and archaeological records provide ample evidence of the ideological significance of metals and pigments in the pre-Columbian Andean world. This study explores the use of these materials in the complex decorative techniques utilized by the Inca when finishing stone vessels.This research integrates data generated from ethnohistoric sources, portable X-Ray Fluorescent (pXRF) tests, and reconstructive experimentation in order to provide a better understanding of how metals and...
Microartifact Analysis: An Application at Pampa La Cruz, Huanchaco, Peru (2018)
For decades archaeologists have been trying to develop methodologies that will help them determine what activities took place in and around ancient structures. Since people tend to clean activity areas, especially those that are used repeatedly, visible artifacts are rarely discovered in the context where they were originally used. Microartifact analysis focuses on the tiny fragments (<1 cm) of ceramics, bone, lithics, shell and other microartifacts that are produced as a result of human action....
A Microscopic Analysis of Inclusion Size in Middle Horizon 1 Ceramics from Huari (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. Huari, the capital of an Andean conquest state during the Middle Horizon, contains ceramics of a multitude of local and foreign styles. While these styles have generally been defined by their outer appearances, it is still unclear whether they can also be distinguished according to their pastes. A...
Middle Horizon Cusco and Long-Distance Networks: Reconciling Spatial Variation through a Zooarchaeological Lens at Ak’awillay, Peru (2018)
The ten years of research at the Middle Horizon site of Ak’awillay in the Cusco region of Peru have attested that local elites were the main interlocutors of trade with Wari colonists (Bélisle, 2013). In the era of interdisciplinary research, zooarchaeological methods have the capacity to shed new light on patterns that are seen in other material remains. In the case of the Middle Horizon (AD600-1000) contexts of Ak’awillay, new insights into the extent of trade networks and long-distance...
The Middle Horizon Occupation of Pan de Azúcar de Nivín, Middle Casma Valley, Peru (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Casma State Material Culture and Society: Organizing, Analyzing, and Interpreting Archaeological Evidence of a Re-emergent Ancient Polity" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 2017, the Proyecto de Investigación Arqueológica Nivín has conducted architectural mapping, limited test excavations, surface collection, and analysis of associated materials from sites located in the middle Casma Valley. The research goals are...
The Middle Horizon Period at Ancón: A Reassessment (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancón, Peru represents one of the largest pre-Colombian cemeteries in the Andes. Discoveries of more than three thousand burials spanning the length of Andean history cement Ancón’s continuous role as an important location to commemorate the dead. Less clear, however, is whether Ancón supported a concurrent residential population throughout this time,...
Migration and Inequality: Using Biochemistry in a Historical Skeletal Assemblage from Bogota, Colombia (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Skeletal assemblages from the recent past present a valuable opportunity to contextualize bioarchaeological analyses with historical documentation. This study integrates historical and osteological data with analyses of multiple isotope systems to discuss inequality and migration within a sample of individuals (n = 120) from a 19th-20th century skeletal...
Minimizing Distractions and Focusing on What Matters: Using Autonomous Drone Flight Technology to Examine Architecture across the Circum-Titicaca Basin (Puno, Peru) (2018)
Drones have tremendously influenced how archaeologists can capture data, hailed as particularly "efficient" tools for our field. Such is the case, for example, in projects which aim to produce highly detailed basemaps useful for various site-level GIS analyses. However, despite radical developments within the past few years which have significantly improved accessibility and in-field usability, an under-represented reality is the unexpected challenges these technologies almost always present in...
Mining, Extractive Metallurgy and Imperialism in the Inka Empire (2018)
The Inka empire directed significant resources and labor towards the extraction of metals from the provinces. Using the examples of Porco (silver), Viña del Cerro (copper) and the Tarapacá Valley (copper and silver), this poster explores Inka strategies for obtaining metallurgical wealth. These case studies show that, as suggested by ethnohistoric sources, large-scale silver extraction was directly overseen by the state. In contrast to models of more indirect state involvement typically...
Mirages of the State: Maritime Landscapes of Southern Peru at the Beginning of the Republic, 1821-1879 (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The intersection of trade regulation and geopolitical reconfigurations that followed Independence from Spain in 1821 gave the Peruvian coasts new importance in the Post-Colonial Period. Global commodity trade was an inherently maritime endeavor and aided in the consolidation of a new oceanic world in the Pacific basin during the mid-nineteenth century....
Mito y rito, en tanto política y gobierno, en la costa de los Andes Centrales durante el Tawantinsuyu (2018)
Las formaciones sociales de carácter imperial se articulan desde sus propias dinámicas, reproducidas desde sus relaciones y su territorio. Estos mecanismos deben ir reformulándose en el proceso de expansión, integrando las dinámicas sometidas políticamente, desarrollándolas y transformándolas, originando nuevas formas políticas dentro los antiguos procesos regionales y en el propio centro imperial. El caso particular del Tawantinsuyu parece generar tres tradiciones integradoras diferenciadas, y...
Moche Valley Ancient Settlement Survey (MVASS): Assessing Archaeological Heritage Destruction and Land-Use in Peru’s Lower Moche Valley (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. "I’m sure it’s all gone by now…", these were the words of Dr. Michael Moseley, director of the Chan Chan-Moche Valley Project (CCMVP) from 1969-1974, in reference to the 420 archaeological sites that were originally registered in the lower portion of the Moche Valley. This statement highlights the need for a comprehensive regional study of archaeological...
Moche Women: Multiple Realities and Alternative Powers (2018)
The growing breadth of data coming from scientific excavations of Moche sites in different valleys along the north coast of Peru has led to major advances in our understanding of the diverse ways of being Moche as well as the complex relationship between religious and political powers. How gender relations played into these Moche experiences however remains relatively understudied. Here, I specifically focus on the place of women in Moche society through time and space. Some women have now been...
The Mochicas under the Lambayeque Rule (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Them and Us: Transmission and Cultural Dynamism in the North of Peru between AD 250 and 950: A Vision since the Recent Northern Investigations" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent studies have revealed that the Lambayeque society, primarily during the Middle Sicán period (AD 900–1100), was highly stratified and multiethnic. It is now inferred that the society was governed by a federation of the Lambayeque elite...
Modeling Early Human Migration Patterns in South America: A Preliminary Spatial Analysis on the Peruvian Coastline Using Machine Learning and Bayesian Statistics (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The first South Americans' coastal migration routes remain a central question to studying the settlement patterns of human colonizations worldwide. However, these early migrations likely occurred along a coastline that today is mostly submerged. Consequently, in countries like Peru, there is currently a shortage of coastal archaeological sites that date to...