South America: Andes (Geographic Keyword)
1,026-1,050 (1,096 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeophycology: New (Ethno)Archaeological Approaches to Understand the Contribution of Seaweed to the Subsistence and Social Life of Coastal Populations" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The exploitation and consumption of seaweeds is a thriving matter of research, arguably started in the 1980s by the ethnographic work of Shozo Masuda in the Andes. This study goes beyond local discussions or milestones about proxies...
The Use of Balances in Late Andean Prehistory: Merchants or Bureaucrats? (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. In prehistory, scales were used by both merchants and bureaucrats and their use had profound impacts on economic and administrative practices. Research in the Andes has not critically addressed the role of balances in political economies, but their presence throughout the Andean coast highlights the need to explore how they were used and by whom....
Use-Wear Analysis of the Middle Horizon (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. Use-wear analysis is a qualitative method of study that observes abrasion patterns on material remains. Wear traces can come from stirring, lids, storage techniques, and other culinary practices. Apparent wear patterns and abrasion coarseness are features that help infer the use of different vessel forms. I applied this technique...
Using Multispectral Drone Imagery for Identification of Prehispanic Agricultural Features (2018)
In recent years, the use of multispectral satellite imagery has become an increasingly viable option for archaeological site detection and classification. Nevertheless, the high costs and relatively low resolution of multispectral data present challenges for local-scale archaeological feature detection. In this presentation, we will examine the advantages and limitations of using UAV aerial multispectral imagery as a means of local-scale feature detection. We compare results of remote sensing...
Using Parry Fracture Data to Further Assess Violence in Andahuaylas during the Late Intermediate Period (2018)
Previous studies of crania showing recurrent trauma suggest high rates of violence in the Andahuaylas province of Peru during the Late Intermediate Period. Through an assessment of direct blow fractures to radius and ulna bones (lower arm bones), we further examined violence in the region, anticipating a high rate of parry fractures. The skeletal remains assessed come from Sonhuayo, a fortified habitation sector of Cachi, a Chanka site in the west-central portion of the Andahuaylas province....
Using Trauma Distributions, Victim Profiles, and Differential Scavenging to Infer Characteristics of Prehistoric Warfare: A Case Study from the Peruvian Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000–1450) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Non-state warfare has the potential to effect myriad aspects of people’s lives. The last several decades of archaeological research have revealed that conflict has shaped much our evolutionary history and regional population trajectories. Despite the importance of prehistoric warfare, it remains a substantial challenge to elucidate the basic characteristics of...
The Utility of Portable XRF for Preliminary Site Prospection at Contaminated Colonial Period Mining Sites (Puno, Peru) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Field portable x-ray fluorescence spectrometry (pXRF) has seen an increase in use for testing potentially toxic levels of heavy metals in modern mining and industrial waste sites. Understanding the spatial variation of pollutants in soil is necessary for identifying proper prevention measures for soil contamination and long-term effects on human health. While...
Variability among the Dead: Population Structure and Inferred Cultural Adaptations to the Changing Environmental and Sociopolitical Landscapes during the Late Moche (AD 650–800) Era in the Jequetepeque Valley, Peru (2018)
Recent bioarchaeological and archaeological research regarding the environmentally influenced demise of the Moche (AD 200 – 800) of the Jequetepeque Valley, Perú, indicates a variety of responses, including population dispersals, political fragmentation, cultural hybridization, and new political alliances with recently arrived foreigners at ceremonial centers. Biodistance analyses suggest that adjacent highland Cajamarca peoples from the adjacent highlands arrived in the Jequetepeque and likely...
Variations in Settlement Patterns and Neighborhood Organization in Early Horizon Peru (2018)
This paper examines forms of proto-urban settlements in coastal Ancash, north-central Peru, centered on the Nepeña Valley. During the Early Horizon (800-100 BC), the region witnessed the development of culturally and economically interrelated settlements with varying degrees of architectural density and complexity. Most of these centers were organized around clusters of walled enclosures with duplicate domestic facilities interpreted as multi-functional residential complexes, or compounds....
Vibrant Ruins and the Construction of Casma Ancestralized Landscapes: Preliminary Insights from the Lower Nepeña Valley (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. In coastal Ancash, archaeologists have been puzzled by the presence of Casma style objects (~AD 800-1300) at archaeological sites with earlier cultural components. This has led to significant cultural historical and chronological confusion including...
Victims or Venerated? A Bioarchaeological Examination of Gendered Ritual Violence and Social Identity of the Possible Aqlla at Túcume, Peru (2018)
Human sacrifices are frequently referred to as ‘victims’ of ritual violence, which presupposes that the sacrificed had no control over their fate or were unjustly harmed. Many examples of human sacrifice have been identified recently across the north coast of Peru involving a range of time periods and bodily treatment to suggest that there was incredible variation in practice, including in the identity of those sacrificed. Both males and females have been identified as sacrifices, but rarely are...
The View from the North: Topará and Early Horizon Commoner Lifeways at Jahuay, Quebrada Topará, Peru (2019)
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. Just north of the Chincha Valley, the village site Jahuay at the mouth of the Topará valley offers an opportunity to investigate non-elite lifeways, and specifically the Topará cultural tradition, in the Chincha region during the terminal Early Horizon Period (approximately 250-1...
A View from the Virú: Place and Sight in the Virú Valley Project Reconsidered (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological investigation on the north coast of Peru to this day draws from the 1946 Virú Valley Project; however, recent investigations have reevaluated chronologies and settlement hierarchies previously based on these data. Continuing these investigations, this paper revisits the valley to reconsider the idea of place and sight in the Virú landscape....
Viewshed and Network Analysis of Late Formative (600 BCE - 200 CE) Chit'apampa Cuzco, Peru (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cuzco, Peru has long been recognized as an important archaeological area in the Andes. Despite this recognition, earlier periods prior to the emergence of the Inka state remain under researched, especially regarding pre-Inka political organization. In particular, the Late Formative (600 BCE - 200 CE) is a period in which several important political...
Violence among the Gallinazo: New Insights from Pampa la Cruz, Moche Valley (2018)
The Moche of the North Coast of Peru, are well known for their ritualized culture of violence. Warriors, prisoners, weapon bundles, and sacrifice are commonly depicted in a variety of Moche media, and archaeological evidence from urban centers suggests such acts were practiced. What is not known is if the Early Intermediate Period ancestors of the Moche also engaged in such acts of violence. Pre-Moche, Gallinazo phase urban sites were often located in defensible settings and some show evidence...
Violence and Selected Funerary Treatment: Insights from a Collective Open Tomb of the Upper Nepeña Drainage, Peru (AD 1300–1500) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond the Ancestors: New Approaches to Andean "Open Sepulchers"" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The recent PARAMa project undertook the excavation of several open sepulcher funerary contexts in the Upper Nepeña Drainage, among which two structures were thoroughly excavated. Their content, predominantly skeletonized and partially mummified human remains, were analyzed, representing the first systematic...
Violent Ritual and Inter-regional Interaction during the Early Intermediate Period and Early Middle Horizon in the Majes Valley, Arequipa, Peru (2018)
Artifacts from yungas and coastal zones of Arequipa, Peru show varying degrees of integration into the ideological and material networks of prominent neighboring cultures of the Early Intermediate Period (Nasca) and Middle Horizon (Wari). Ongoing research suggests these communities and towns were well-integrated into foreign trading networks, whether through direct interaction with foreign traders or down-the-line exchange. While foreign-produced goods and emulation of foreign goods or...
Virtual Reality and Archaeological Practice (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Virtual reality (VR) is a tool that offers an opportunity to approach archaeological analyses and communications through a different lens. VR provides a platform where data can be continuously updated and modified as is becomes available as well as adding an element of interactivity. VR allows the user to engage with a simulated environment, walk around,...
Volumetric Analysis of Neckless Jars and Bottles in Early Horizon Nepeña, Peru (2018)
This contribution explores feasting practices discernible from the pottery assemblage at three Early Horizon archaeological complexes in the lower Nepeña Valley, north-central coast of Peru: Caylán (800 - 1 BCE), a large town or city interpreted as the primary center of a multi-tiered polity; Samanco (500 - 1 BCE), a small coastal town involved in production and exchange of maritime resources; and Huambacho (600 - 200 BCE), a ceremonial center associated with agricultural production. In feasting...
Vínculos (in)visibles: Relationships of Power in the Colesuyo during the Inca Empire (2018)
It has been suggested that Inca colonization strengthened kin bonds between ayllu members while at the same time requested tribute by means of establishing "fictive" kin affiliations. Therefore, subjugated populations response to Inca imperialism caused the consolidation of local and regional identities. However, what occurred in the Colesuyo? Colesuyo region of southern Peru, inhabited by multi-ethnic small-scale groups –the Cochunas from the upper Moquegua Valley and the Coles and Camanchacas...
Walking in Tiwanaku Shoes: Small Things, Quotidian Cues and Tiwanaku Identities in Diaspora (2018)
In the absence of living interlocutors for the Andean Tiwanaku state society (AD 500-1000),we ask how Tiwanaku peoples imagined and reproduced themselves as social beings. A conventional view poses that Tiwanaku civilization at its apogee was unified by common membership in, or allegiance or aspiration to, an elite political culture, as evidenced by a high culture of specialized craft production, elite ritual functions, and religio-political iconography. This paper instead applies practice...
Walled Rock Wak’as on Inka Royal Estates in the Heartland (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. This paper analyzes early state formation and integration of local groups at two royal estates, Tipon and Pisaq. Tipon, southeast of Cusco, began as a Killke period settlement before 1400. It functioned as outpost in the buffer zone between the Muyna and Pinagua in the Lucre Basin and the growing Cusco...
Walls and Pathways: GIS Analyses of Defensibility and Spatial Organization, Huamanga Province, Peru (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This project uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to analyze Late Intermediate Period (LIP) spatial organization and defensibility practices in the Huamanga Province, Peru. The Peruvian LIP (AD 1000-1450) is the period between the collapse of the Tiwanaku and Wari States and the rise of the Inca Empire. This is an ideal time period to study the...
War and Peace and the Origins of Political Control in the Central Andean Coast: 3000 BC–AD 600 (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Warfare and the Origins of Political Control " session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The central Andes has a long history of the rise and fall of centralized political organizations, beginning with construction of the first large-scale ceremonial centers in the New World between 3000 and 1800 BC. Some see these early centers as pilgrimage centers, lacking significant political power, while others argue they were urban...
Warfare and Captive Sacrifice in the Moche World: New Data from Excavations at Pampa la Cruz, Moche Valley, Northern Coastal Peru (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Depictions of combat and the capture and killing of captives are well known in Moche (ca. AD 200-850) art. Since 1995, the iconographic record has been joined by archaeological evidence of the practices themselves. The most dramatic discoveries were made in Plazas 3A and 3C at the Pyramid of the Moon between 1995 and 2001, with scattered deposits...