andes (Other Keyword)
1-25 (135 Records)
How did prehispanic farmers make a living in the hyperarid, high-altitude Atacama Desert, and how did their lives and landscapes change under different political regimes? In this paper, we discuss our ongoing project on irrigated landscapes in the interfluvial region between the Upper Loa and Salado rivers in northern Chile. Research has focused on two sites (Paniri and Topaín) with remarkably well preserved spring-fed canal and terrace systems and a residential and administrative center...
Agriculture is a state of mind- the Andean potato’s unending domestication (2015)
Most scholars agree that territoriality and commitment to a landscape participated in the domestication syndrome and agriculture. The geophyte Solanum, the potato, is a particularly engaging crop to study domestication origins, being a stem tuber, with wild species growing throughout the Andes of South America, it is only with recent genetic research that we know its likely location of domestication. Wild potatoes continue to be found in potato fields today, aiding the diverse varieties still...
Analogist Ontology at Chavín de Huantár (2016)
The ontological turn in Anthropology has revealed new possibilities for considering the relationships between humans, material things, and “other-than-human persons,” as well as reassessing the Western notion of a nature/culture dichotomy. One site where these insights have begun to be applied is Chavín de Huantár in Peru. The iconography of the site is well known for its mixed human/animal hybrids, a style that prompted John Rowe to consider the art figuratively as visual kennings, with certain...
Analyzing Skeletal Manifestations of Pre-Columbian Tuberculosis in the Northeastern highlands of Peru (2016)
The current understanding of Pre-Columbian tuberculosis is unclear, and in several geographic areas very little is known. To date most knowledge of ancient tuberculosis comes from isolated case studies. These studies are informative as they consider the individual in question but they offer little insight into the demographic or social impact of tuberculosis. This population-based study describes osteological lesions consistent with possible tuberculosis in 15 individual skeletons excavated from...
Anchoring the Absolute to the Relative: Recent Chronological Research in the Virú Valley, Peru (2015)
For decades north coast specialists worked within a paradigm that viewed the Moche as an expansionist state. Moche fine ware was regarded as a reliable indicator for dating this polity's imperialism over its neighbours, an idea that traces its roots to the Virú Valley Project of the 1940s. Extensive recent field research has led many to question this colonial model, however, and to propose other, more fragmented, geopolitical scenarios. This shift has both undermined the universal usefulness of...
Andean Foodways: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Pre-Columbian and Colonial Food and Culture (2016)
Pre-Columbian Andean cultures have strong cultural and religious ties to plants and animals in their surrounding landscape. The preparation of food crops and cultigens that sustained life had strong cultural associations to ethnic identity, ritual, and religious practices in the annual cycle. Archaeologists have documented the biological complexity of the Andes and the social importance of feasting, rituals and rites in ancient and colonial societies. Indigenous perceptions and beliefs regarding...
An Archaeological and Historical Inquiry of Andagua, Peru, 1000-1800AD (2015)
This paper outlines developing dissertation research that integrates archaeological and historical evidence about the community of Andagua and the Ayo Valley in the Southern Peruvian Andes. Constructed as a Spanish colonial reducción, Andagua resides in a seldom-visited highland area, and today is merely considered a rural, provincial neighbor of Arequipa. Andagua, however, has a striking past evident in the substantial prehispanic remains that surround and lie buried beneath the contemporary...
The Archaeology of Rebellion and Resistance: Archaeological Investigations of the Neo-Inca State of Vilcabamba, Peru (2015)
In 1536 Manco Inca, the ‘puppet’ ruler installed by Pizarro, threw off the shackles of colonial rule and led a rebellion against the Spanish. After failing to retake the former imperial capital of Cusco, Manco Inca and his followers established a Neo-Inca state in Vilcabamba, the remote region east of Cusco. Vilcabamba functioned as the seat of Inca resistance against the Spanish from A.D. 1536 to 1572. While the historic record from the 1600s and 1700s is rich, few records exist for the...
Arqueología de los repartos mercantiles en los Andes coloniales: endeudamiento, elites locales y cultura material. (2017)
La colonización de los Andes representó una oportunidad de enriquecimiento individual para peninsulares, criollos y nativos. Esto se logró mediante el mercantilismo forzoso de productos europeos y americanos, promovido por mercaderes limeños y tempranamente ejecutado por los corregidores (entre otros). El reparto de mercaderías a precios excesivos generó el endeudamiento forzado de las comunidades nativas. En muchos casos, los curacas también buscaron beneficiarse de esta práctica, colaborando...
Beyond the Cultural Pale?: Contextualizing El Morro de Tulcán within Regional Earthen Mound Development in the Northern Andes (2016)
El Morro de Tulcán is a massive earthen mound located near Popayán in southern Colombia. This structure towers over the surrounding landscape with a height of 50 meters at its highest point. This pyramid is an anomaly within the surrounding cultural vicinity, where tolas (i.e., earthen mounds) are a rare form of construction throughout much of Colombia. The closest region of tola development is in high concentrations in northern Ecuador, amongst the Caranquis and Yumbos. Research at El Morro de...
Big Plans for Small Pots: Development of an Organic Residue Analysis Protocol for Ancient Wari Miniature Wares (2017)
Excavations from the Monqachayaq sector of the site of Huari uncovered an impressive burial that contained over 300 miniature vessels. The vessels were offered by a people known as the Wari (c. A.D. 600 – 1100), an ancient culture thought to be responsible for one of the Andes first great empires. Even more remarkable, the vessels retained the desiccated remains of their contents. The anthropological insight that can be gained has direct implications for a better understanding of Wari practices...
A Bioarchaeological Survey of Skeletal Tuberculosis in Prehistoric Southern Peru (2017)
Recent studies of pre-Columbian Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC) genomes identify pinnipeds as a source of human tuberculosis in South America (Bos et al. 2014). These results raise questions regarding the timing of this zoonotic transfer and the subsequent human host adaptation and dissemination of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Here we present a survey of skeletal tuberculosis throughout the Osmore Drainage of southern Peru, where the pinniped to human "jump" had occurred by ~AD 1000....
A Biocultural Assessment of Gene Flow, the Andes and the Himalayas (2016)
Anthropological population geneticists often attempt to explain the pattern and distribution of human genetic variation globally. Central to this pursuit is understanding the degree to which cultural, biological, and geographic variation impact migration of people, and the genetic traits (alleles) they bear. Gene flow, the transfer of alleles from one population to another, flows in the path of least resistance. All other things being equal, this means that topology creates resistance, and we...
Biography and Symbolism of Sicán Painted Textiles: First Approximation (2015)
Simple cotton cloths primed as canvases and painted with complex imagery are the rarest group of fiber arts found in the Andes. Long-term excavations of Middle Sicán (900-1100 CE) elite cemeteries at the site of Sicán on the North Coast of Peru, however, have shown that high quantities of these paintings, often in polychrome and over 10m in length, decorated the interior surfaces of elite tombs. In this paper we present evidence for their manufacture and use, as well as approaches to preserving...
The bravery and beauty within: Skeletal analysis of the ancient Chachapoya people at Kuelap (2015)
In early 17th century historical descriptions, Garcilaso de la Vega describes the Chachapoya people of Peru as "very brave", "the men well-formed and the women extremely beautiful". While the archaeological remains cannot address the veracity of these statements, the analysis of the skeletal remains from important Chachapoya complexes, such as Kuelap, provide the only direct means of reconstructing a biological profile of these ancient people, including aspects of their physical morphology,...
Ceramic production for Castillo de Huarmey, Peru: multiple productions and buzzing potters (2017)
The paste analysis of the ceramics found in the Castillo de Huarmey, a Middle Horizon Wari political center on the north coast of Peru brought forth the existence of a variety of production areas and a panorama of multiple producers with different agendas or practices. Much of the ceramics appear to have been made with material available in the Huarmey lower valley, coastal area, and probably the adjacent Culebras Valley. The fine painted Wari ceramics and fine reduced impressed wares present a...
The Character of Conflict Research Project
Objectives: This study uses osteological and radiocarbon datasets combined with formal quantitative analyses to test hypotheses concerning the character of conflict in the Nasca highlands during the Late Intermediate period (LIP, 950 – 1450 C.E.). We develop and test osteological expectations regarding what patterns should be observed if violence was characterized by intra-group violence, ritual conflict, intermittent raiding, or internecine warfare. Materials and methods: Crania (n = 267)...
Characterizing the mortuary practices in Hualcayán, Ancash, Perú: Analysis of the content and distribution of artifacts in funerary contexts (2016)
In prehistory, the Peruvian highlands contained a complex array of mortuary practices through space and time. In the Ancash region at the site of Hualcayán, several funerary contexts have been excavated since 2011 that demonstrate this variation in mortuary practices between 250 BC to AD 950. This paper presents the results of a study of the archaeological materials excavated from six tombs at Hualcayán, that include the analysis of decorated ceramics, botanical and faunal remains, lithics,...
Charki and Red Currant Jam: Provisioning Extractive Industries in Republican Highland Peru (2017)
With the current boom in the archaeology of the colonial period in the central Andes, we risk losing sight of the potential for archaeological investigation of the colonial aftermath. Following important work further afield in the Southern Cone, I argue for the particular relevance archaeology could have in exploring trade liberalization, emancipation, and the new commodity booms of the 19th century. Drawing on the recent investigation of a series of Republican tambos (roadside inns) in the...
The Chaupiyunga as an Eco-cultural Frontier: Inter-zonal exchange and negotiation in the Huanangue Valley during the Late Intermediate Period (1100-1470 CE) (2016)
As a region of high ethnic and ecological diversity, the ancient Andes can be viewed as a collection of ecological, cultural, and political frontiers. Studying the processes that occurred along these frontiers is vital to understanding the indigenous political and economic systems that developed throughout the region prior to Spanish contact. As a transitional zone between the coast and the highlands, as well as a geographic bottleneck through which people and goods had to pass, the...
Childhood Diets and Residential Mobility in the Late Intermediate Period, Colca Valley, Peru: A Study of Carbon and Oxygen Isotope Ratios from Dental Apatite (2017)
Around AD 1300 in the Colca Valley of southern Peru, an increasing proportion of elite individuals began to mark themselves as ethnically distinct by elongating the heads of children. This permanent act had far-reaching effects on the livelihoods of modified individuals, especially females, who exhibit more diversified diets in adulthood and experienced lower rates of cranial trauma. The present study complements prior stable isotopic analysis of bone collagen by examining carbon and oxygen...
Chimú Conquest and Administration at Talambo, Jequetepeque, Perú (2016)
There are few communities in the Andes untouched by the legacies of empire. On the North Coast of Peru, the Chimú (900—1470 AD) formed the most extensive empire in the region prior to Inca conquest. Significant archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence from the Jequetepeque Valley—the first region to be incorporated by the Chimú— has illustrated the nature of this conquest and the varying impacts on local communities. The site of Talambo, located in the lower neck of the Jequetepeque Valley, has...
The "Coastal Cajamarca" Style Did Not Come from the Coast (2016)
The "Coastal Cajamarca" style of painted bowls was first documented by Disselhoff in the 1950s at the site of San Jose de Moro (Lower Jequetepeque Valley, Peru). There are two competing hypotheses with regard to the origin of this ceramic style: (1) it originated from the coast or (2) it was produced in the middle valley or chaupiyunga zone, an intermediate area between the coast and the highlands. In this paper I present evidence from the site of Las Varas, located in the Middle Jequetepeque...
Coastal politics in Cajamarca: recent research in the middle Jequetepeque Valley (2016)
Based on research at Ventanillas, a Late Intermediate Period community in the middle Jequetepeque Valley, Peru, this paper discusses the role of coastal polities and highland influence in a multiethnic middle valley context. Mapping, surface collection, and excavations in 2011 and 2013 focused on investigating the cultural and political affiliation of Ventanillas residents. Ventanillas’ imposing adobe platform mounds link the site visibly to coastal traditions; however, households used a mix of...
Cochasquí in Context: The Evolution of a Monumental Center (2017)
Recent investigations suggest that the history of the northern Ecuadorian mound group at Cochasquí was complex and that the perception of the site as a single, mostly unchanging monumental center is simplistic at best. Begun by AD1000, the earliest constructions within the complex were modest rounded mounds, several containing burials. By AD1250, much larger, ramped square mounds signaled a major shift in site function possibly associated with the eruption of Quilotoa volcano, 125 km to the...