South America: Andes (Geographic Keyword)
51-75 (1,096 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Innovations in Ecuadorian Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The earliest written descriptions of the Tamaylacha (Jubones) River and its surroundings were penned by the priest Pedro Arias Dávila (1582) during his journey(s) through Cañari territory. These were followed by the accounts of Francisco José de Caldas who joined the research expedition of von Humboldt and Bonpland in 1804, the accounts by...
Archaeological Identifiers of Cultural Affiliation: The Case of the Middle Horizon(?) Site of Sonay, Peru (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The site of Sonay in the Camana Valley of southern coastal Peru was originally identified as a Wari-affiliated site, based on the close architectural similarities of its major structure to other Wari imperial sites. The two original radiocarbon dates from below the structure suggested an occupation at the very end of the Middle Horizon, long after it is...
Archaeological Illustration and Imaging: Documentation of Pañamarca’s Archaeological Project (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Paisajes Arqueológicos de Pañamarca: Findings from the 2018–2023 Field Seasons" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For decades now, with the appearance of analogue photography, and more recently of digital technologies, a debate has arisen about the functionality, advantage/disadvantage between different archaeological recording techniques—considering that their main objective is to capture as accurately as possible the...
Archaeological Immersion and the Rhythmanalysis of Place: Experimental Virtual Reality Spatial Analysis at Jatanca (Je-1023), Peru (2024)
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. The phenomenon of place as it is rhythmically embodied, akin to a fabric that is collectively worn and interwoven over successive generations, unfolds at the center of our presentation. We explore the intricate meshwork of place-making, applying an...
Archaeological Investigations in El Paraíso. A Late Preceramic Architectural Complex in Lima – Peru (2018)
El Paraíso architectonic complex is located in the lower section of the Chillon River Valley, less than 2 km from the Pacific Ocean, in Lima, the capital city of Peru. It is composed by 14 structures, or huacas, distributed in an area of 47 hectares, in a rural place named Chuquitanta. The site is recognized as one of the earliest expressions of monumental architecture and social complexity in Peru since the works of Frédéric Engel in the 1960’s and Jeffrey Quilter in the 1980’s. Since 2015, the...
Archaeological Textiles in the American Museum of Natural History's Bandelier Collection (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Between 1892 and 1903, Adolpho Bandelier undertook an ethnographic and archaeological expedition to Peru and Bolivia, collecting materials on behalf of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). Bandelier sent four crates of materials back to the AMNH from Caleta Vitor, northern Chile including mummies, grave goods and other fiber and stone artifacts....
Archaeologies of Flow in the Southern Jequetepeque: The Organization of Infrastructure, Irrigation, and Roads (2024)
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 2" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Canoñcillo probablemente derivó su importancia inicial de su posición a lo largo de los principales corredores de tránsito que conectaban la costa y la sierra. Su ubicación en el margen del desierto no se presta fácilmente al asentamiento. El río...
The Archaeology of the Acari Valley and the Legacy of Francis Allen "Fritz" Riddell (2018)
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE ACARI VALLEY AND THE LEGACY OF FRANCIS ALLEN "FRITZ" RIDDELL Katrina J. Bettcher & Lidio M. Valdez In 1954, newlywed archaeologists Francis Allen "Fritz" Riddell and Dorothy Menzel arrived in the Acari Valley on the south coast of Peru with the purpose of investigating the site of Tambo Viejo as part of the Inca Royal Highway Project directed by Victor von Hagen. Various sites in the region were recorded and investigated. After retirement in the early 1980s, Fritz was...
Archaeometric Analysis of Mural Paintings at Pachacamac, Peru (2019)
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. From 2014 to 2018, we excavated Building B15, a small temple decorated with mural paintings at the archaeological site of Pachacamac. These are the first paintings discovered on the site since 1938. On the walls, as on...
Architectural Contexts in Quilcapampa (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Wari and the Far Peruvian South Coast: Final Results of Excavations in Quilcapampa" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper will briefly discuss the architecture at Quilcapampa, with particular emphasis on possible patio groups at the site. We discuss these groups, the contexts found in the rooms, and the access patterns between spaces. The site appears to be arranged around a principal asymmetric plaza, with...
Architectural Style and Urban Organization at the Patipampa sector of Huari (2018)
Defining spatial organization was a key research question for the excavations at the Patipampa sector of the Middle Horizon (AD 500 – 1000) site of Huari in the Ayacucho valley of Peru. In the 2017 excavations we used methods designed to expose the upper portions of walls, in order to define architectural spaces and clarify organization of the sector. Some architectural spaces were excavated more completely, fully exposing walls and architectural features. Our excavations revealed distinct...
Architecture and Urban Planning of Inka Cusco (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Dedication, Collaboration, and Vision, Part II: Papers in Honor of Tom D. Dillehay" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The architectural and urban reconstruction of Cusco as ancient Inka capital has been a central scientific objective in Peruvian archaeology for more than a century. From the pioneering work of Squier and Uhle, continued by Uriel Garcia, Varcárcel, Chávez Ballón, and Rowe, among many others, and continuing...
Are Inka Khipu Knots Anything More than Numbers?: A Computational Investigation (2018)
Inka khipus--the knot and cord recording devices of the Andes--have been said to have recorded everything from accounting, to histories and songs. Leland Locke demonstrated in the 1920s that Inka khipu knots often have standard numerical values. However, non-numerical Inka khipu signs remain elusive and undeciphered. Recent work by Gary Urton, however, has identified Inka khipus and individual khipu cords with knots that do not obey the standard numerical rules Locke identified. May Inka khipu...
Are We Living in a Simulation? Digital Reconstructions of Early Sites in Coastal Peru (2018)
Rapidly evolving modern technology has resulted in powerful tools for preserving and visualizing archaeological materials. Extensively recording a site with digital technologies enables new explorations of site discovery and recovery processes while concurrently providing a permanent, detailed record of the material. Here, Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene maritime sites in coastal Peru are reconstructed at various scales. Drone photography and GIS are utilized to collect high-resolution...
Art, Archaeology, and Archives: Pañamarca at Midcentury (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 the modern history of American archaeology, the relationship between art and science has often been an uneasy one. But in northern Peru in the 1950s, archaeologists, artists, and poets enjoyed a remarkably close camaraderie that has seldom been...
Artisanal Lineages, Communities of Practice and Learning Traditions in Muisca otive goldwork (Colombia): An Initial Exploration (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Movement of Technical Knowledge: Cross-Craft Perspectives on Mobility and Knowledge in Production Technologies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Technological and stylistic regularities in material culture are often used to define archaeological ‘cultures’, and variously interpreted as resulting from communities of practice, learning traditions and/and imitation, together with consumer or patron demands....
Aryballos, Bowls, and Bolas: Examining the Distribution of Provincial Inka-Style Pottery in the Threatened Borderland Region of the Valles Cruceños (2019)
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. As the violent threat posed by the marauding Chiriguanos emerged in the terminal decades of Tawantinsuyu, the Inkas and their local allies made a concerted push to turn the southeastern imperial frontier into a strategically fortified zone and enhance their ability to repel the lowland invaders....
Assembling an Architecture of the Ayllu: Political Sequence, Historical Process, and Emergent Institutions at the Middle Horizon Site of Tecapa, Jequetepeque Valley, Peru (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. The late Middle Horizon site of Tecapa, in the southern Jequetepeque Valley, comprises a series of monumental compounds abutting a Late Moche huaca. Although the architecture resembles the orthogonal cellular style that has come to be associated...
Assembling Empire: Continuity and Change in the Long-Term Development of the Inca Empire (2018)
This paper explores the use of assemblage theory, derived from the work of theorists such as Deleuze, Guattari, and DeLanda, as a way of overcoming inherent problems in earlier attempts at understanding sociopolitical change. Exploring the implications of this historical materialist approach involves linking processes operating at different scales of time, and tracing historical genealogies of practice and the ways they were assembled to produce political sovereignty. I argue that not only are...
Assessing Chronology, Spatial Setting, and Architectural Planning at Pampa de Llamas-Moxeke, Casma Valley (2018)
The archaeological site of Pampa de las Llamas-Moxeke in the Casma Valley, Peru is an architectural complex comprising two opposing large platform mounds united by a sequence of aligned rectangular platforms and structures. The site was studied mainly in the 20th Century by various investigators; the most recent of whom carried out intensive excavations in the 1980s aiming to produce exact dates and explain the function of the settlement. This previous work suggested that the complex dates to...
Assessing Food-Based Trade and Mobility in the Chincha Valley (Peru) Using Portable X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (2018)
Peru is commonly known for having the largest empire in pre-Columbian America, but comparatively little is known about the subsistence practices of the pre-Inca communities that existed in the inland valley of Chincha during the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000-1476). The Chinchas formed a powerful socio-economic entity within the Chincha Kingdom in part of the southern region of Peru nearest to the Pacific Ocean. Our research tests the hypothesis that individuals relied more heavily on a...
Assessing Impacts of Late Holocene Environmental Variability on the Demography of Prehispanic Societies in Northern Chile (18°-29°S) (2018)
Agricultural communities began to spread over much of the Atacama Desert (18°-29°S) at 3.5 ka BP, triggering unprecedented levels of population growth. In inland areas and particularly along desert oases, this phenomenon featured increasing complexity in food-production systems and sedentary lifestyles with population aggregating in architecturally complex villages. Whereas, littoral populations maintained marine foraging and fishing strategies with limited inland food-resources. Both lifestyles...
Assessing Shellfish Discard for Discerning between Field Processing or Residential Relocation in the Subtropical Pacific Coast of South America (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Human Behavioral Ecology at the Coastal Margins: Global Perspectives on Coastal & Maritime Adaptations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Variability in site structure and shellfish assemblages from hunter-gatherer sites in the Pacific coast of Los Vilos (31°50 ’S, South America) has been attributed to changes in field processing decisions across the Holocene. However, these changes have not been evaluated considering...
Assessing Systemic Stress from Archaeological Hormones Recovered from Hair of Human Sacrifices at Huanchaquito Las Llamas, Peru (~1450 CE) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Excavations at the Peruvian northern coastal site of Huanchaquito-Las Llamas (HLL) revealed the largest mass human sacrifice event in the Americas, with more than 400 sacrificed children, women, and camelids governed under the Chimú State. Dated to the Chimú’s imperial decline (circa 1450 CE), preliminary genetic analyses indicate that these children were...
Astronomical Meanings in Hearths from the Middle Preceramic villages of Paloma and the Late Preceramic site of Buena Vista in Central, Coastal Perú (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. Hearths from over 50 domestic structures at the stratified Middle Archaic fishing villages of Paloma, Chilca Valley, Peru, were found within circles of house poles. Domestic structures were burned and abandoned, sometimes with an old male burned on top. Burials in the last occupation were placed with...