South America: Andes (Geographic Keyword)
751-775 (1,096 Records)
The immense size of most Wari Imperial administrative centers has limited the breadth of our understanding of the social, political, ritual and economic activities that may have occurred within these large rectilinear compounds. In order to address these limitations, the 2017 Nasca Headwaters Archaeological Project excavation season at Incawasi attempted to apply a more traditionally North American methodology to six 50x50 meter Wari patio groups in order to draw broad conclusions about the...
Political Complexity and Gendered Violence in the Andes – A Bayesian Approach (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The nature of violence in the pre-modern past remains an enduring question in anthropological research. In this study, we investigate the potential relationship between sociopolitical organization and the frequency and type of violence experienced by adult males and females in Andean archaeological contexts. For this study we establish four broad...
Political Economy at a Casma Valley Middle Horizon Center: Evidence from Pan de Azúcar de Nivín, Peru (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 2017 the Proyecto de Investigación Arqueológico Nivín seeks to clarify the cultural affiliation of the groups that occupied the middle Casma Valley, Peru. Architectural and ceramic features demonstrate the influence of both Wari and Casma cultural traditions at Pan de Azúcar de Nivín (PAN), a site occupied AD 950-1150. While the Wari Empire expanded from...
Political Economy in the Multicentric Sicán City, Peru (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. Sicán political economy can be analyzed using the staple and wealth finance approach; in this talk I’ll focus on the latter. Interpretations about Sicán’s economy and exchange have been until now based mainly on the study of elite funerary contexts in the Sicán Core and ample craft production outside the city. In this talk, evidence of permanent...
Political Organization of the Tiwanaku Polity: A View from Copacabana (2021)
This is an abstract from the "A New Horizon: Reassessing the Andean Middle Horizon (AD 600–1000) and Rethinking the Andean State" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tiwanaku has been described as an expansive state by archaeologists working in the first half of the twentieth century. At that time, the idea of a powerful empire in Bolivian prehistory aided and reinforced the nationalistic political narrative. However, archaeological data does not...
Pollen Analysis at El Campanario (Peru): Preliminary Study from a Public Architecture (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The present research analyzed pollen samples recovered from public architecture at the site of El Campanario in Huarmey Valley (Peru). This exploration focuses on issues regarding archaeological palynology by presenting a case study with a preliminary set of samples in an attempt to open a line of research at El Campanario. The adobe platform, where the...
Population Dynamics and Subsistence Variability on the Farming/Hunter-Gatherer Boundary: Central Western Argentina as a Case Study (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Global Perspectives on Human Population Dynamics, Innovation, and Ecosystem Change" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This case study integrates times-series of multiple types of proxy to evaluate causal relationships between population dynamic, subsistence/diet variation, and ecosystem change. The presentation evaluates whether intensification based on wild and domesticated resources takes different evolutionary...
The Population Genetics of Machu Picchu (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since its discovery a century ago, Machu Picchu has become an iconic archaeological site, inspiring researchers and visitors alike. Its history and function, however, are unclear and hypotheses have been advanced ranging from Machu Picchu as a royal estate, sacred shrine, or city. Here we present the preliminary results of our genomic study of human burials...
The Portable Murals and Painted Shrouds of Middle Sicán Tombs (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The primacy of textiles as the preeminent expressive medium of identity and alterity is well documented in Andean prehistory. Based on the study of three types of textiles including tapestry woven patches and painted cloth housed in the Ethnological Museum of Berlin as they compare to mixed-media mounted canvases found in situ at the site Sicán, this paper...
Post-Chavín Political Developments in Ancash: Comparative Perspectives from the Nepeña and Pallasca Regions (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Peering into the Night: Transition, Sociopolitical Organization, and Economic Dynamics after the Dusk of Chavín in the North Central Andes" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, we present preliminary results of our 2019 excavations at the centers of Cerro San Isidro (Nepeña) and Pashash (Pallasca) in the Moro and Cabana regions of north-central Peru, respectively. Both are multicomponent hilltop sites that...
Post-fire incising as a means of controlling esoteric knowledge in the Andean Formative (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. Post-fire incision as method of surface "decoration" is extremely rare in the Central Andean region. This technique was used almost exclusively by the Cupisnique culture on the Peruvian North Coast during the Formative Period, primarily on ritual pottery. The technique was...
Post-Fire Incisions on Wari Pottery (2018)
Whole ceramic vessels and sherds incised after firing are known from Middle Horizon sites in the Wari heartland and periphery, associated with offering, burial and ceramic production contexts. Incisions include a wide variety of forms and have been interpreted as graffiti, makers or owners marks, and score marks to control breakage. The presence and forms of post-fired incisions were recorded during inventory of all ceramics excavated at Huari by the Huari Urban Prehistory Program in 2017. Their...
A Post-Wari World: Late Intermediate Period Defensibility in the Huamanga and Huarpa Provinces of Peru (2018)
Following the collapse of the Wari empire (ca. AD 1000), a widespread demographic and settlement change occurred in the Ayacucho Region of Peru. People were moving away from the rich farmlands and ritual centers of the flatlands to settle on hilltops and ridges. Many scholars point to strategic defense as a cause of settlement shift during this period—the Late Intermediate Period (ca. AD 1000-1450), suggesting warfare was endemic, while others suggest the sites facilitated agro-pastoralism and...
Potters of Castillo de Huarmey: Confluence, Production, and Innovation of Ceramics (2023)
This is an abstract from the "A Decade of Multidisciplinary Research at Castillo de Huarmey, Peru" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Multidisciplinary research and analyses of ceramics found in Castillo de Huarmey, a political center of the Wari Empire during the late Middle Horizon (AD 800–1000), conducted in the last 10 years have produced new interpretations. A large number of ceramic vessels were deposited as offerings in elaborate mausoleums to...
The Pottery of Chincha Revisited (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Developments through Time on the South Coast of Peru: In Memory of Patrick Carmichael" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent studies on the late prehispanic periods in the Chincha Valley, Peru, have enabled scholars to obtain a better understanding of the Chincha Kingdom. However, the pottery of Late Intermediate period and Late Horizon Chincha Valley has received little attention since the Dorothy Menzel’s critical...
Pottery Offerings and Ritual Gestures in Sutar Conti, a Ceremonial Site on the Processional Pathway of the Licancabur Pampa, San Pedro de Atacama, Chile (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Inter-nodal archaeological studies show how pottery, among other functions, is part of the offerings found in ceremonial contexts associated with journeys through the Atacama Desert. Focusing on ethnohistorically recognized processional pathways, with the Licancabur volcano as a ceremonial node, our investigation centers on Sutar Conti, a site renowned for...
Pottery Rituals and Ritual Pottery: Ceramic Production, Use, and Disposal among the Guancavilca of Coastal Ecuador (AD 800–1532) (2018)
The Colonche Valley of coastal Ecuador represents an east-west corridor as well as the apex of north-south interconnected valleys. Hilltop sites of the Manteno-Guancavilca (AD 800-1532) have been reported across the high flat ridgetops of these valleys since the early 20th century. Recent comparative analysis of surface vessels at newly discovered sites in the eastern Colonche Valley demonstrates the coalescence of examples of all types found at sites throughout the valleys. Mineralogical and...
Pottery Traditions in the Hyperarid Core of the Atacama Desert: Petrography and Geochemistry of Iluga Túmulos Ceramics (Tarapacá, Northern Chile) (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Scaling Potting Networks: Recent Contributions from Ceramic Petrography " session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Iluga Túmulos site (900 BC–AD 1600) is an archaeological area of great significance, with abandoned agricultural and public structures partially buried by aridization processes. It represents a record of multiple cultural occupations, which started in the Early Formative and continued until Inca and Spanish...
Power as Nurture: The Inkas and Their Tiwanaku Ancestors (2018)
Religion bonded Andean societies across centuries (Moseley 1992; Kolata 1995) and archaeologists request greater focus on religious ideologies to evaluate the Andean past (Kolata 2000; Hastorf 2007)—gaping silence in the scholarship surrounds the so-called "female, spiritual" side of society. From this hurin moiety (Rostworowski 2007; Silverblatt 1987), particulars of an overarching hegemonic strategy of power-as-nurture emerged among the Inkas (and with different details among their Tiwanaku...
Pozuelo: The Earliest Ceramic from Chincha Valley (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. Nuestras recientes excavaciones arqueológicas en el valle de Chincha fueron realizadas en el sitio arqueológico de Pozuelo descubierto por Lanning y Wallace en la década de 1960. Desde entonces, Pozuelo ha sido citado como el sitio que contuvo a la cerámica más temprana del valle de...
Practicas textiles y complejidad social Recuay: Nuevas evidencias de Pashash (Ancash, Perú) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "After the Feline Cult: Social Dynamics and Cultural Reinvention after Chavín" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recientes investigaciones en Pashash revela nuevos datos para comprender la complejidad social de los grupos Recuay en la sierra norcentral, Perú (200-600 dC). Esta ponencia se enfoca en el material textil hallado junto a otros objetos en un contexto de ofrenda de elite. El análisis de hilos y restos textiles...
Practicing Communities and Experimental Bioarchaeology: A Look at the Tiwanaku (AD 500–1100) and Their Descendant Communities in Bolivia (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Communities of Practice in the Ancient Andes: Thinking through Knowledge Transmission and Community Making in and beyond Craft Production" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Using ethnographic interviews and experimental (bio)archaeology, over 20 individuals participated in this research to look for movement similarities between their modern labor and tasks their Tiwanaku ancestors likely performed, as shown by skeletal...
Pre-Colombian Metallurgy at the Middle Horizon (600–1000 CE) Site of Castllo de Huarmey, Huarmey Valley, 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 Castillo de Huarmey, located on the north coast of Peru and dated to the Middle Horizon period (650-1050 CE), is widely known for an important discovery of the first undisturbed Wari royal mausoleum. With multiple burials, rich ceremonial offerings, and a wealth of grave goods, the assemblage embraces a diversity of artistic, iconographic, and...
Pre-Columbian textiles from Castillo de Huarmey: Fabric Structures and Iconographic Motifs as Indicators of Cultural Influences (2018)
Castillo de Huarmey on the north coast of Peru is an archaeological site of pre-Hispanic Middle Horizon period (AD 600-900), widely known for the discovery of the first undisturbed Wari royal mausoleum. From 2012-2013 remains of fifty-eight elite female individuals were found accompanied by rich ceremonial offerings and grave goods, including textiles. The state of preservation and the condition of a large portion of the fabrics are poor, especially those coming from the primary burial contexts....
Pre-hispanic Building Stone Quarrying and Selection near Mt. Coropuna, Perú (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Studies of Inka quarries have largely been restricted to the Cusco heartland, such that only a handful of quarries have generally served to describe Inka stoneworking technology, labor organization, and material selection as a whole. This bias has resulted in a dearth of understanding as to how Inka stoneworking varied over time and between geographical...