From Kotosh to Pacopampa: Sixty-Years of Japanese Investigations on the Andean Formative

Summary

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.

From the excavations at Kotosh during the 1960’s, the University of Tokyo school of Andean Archaeology has consistently carried out large-scale archaeological researches focusing mainly on the Formative Period of the central Andes. All the archaeologists participated in the excavations, from the first ones by University of Tokyo Scientific Expedition at the site of Kotosh till the current Pacopampa Archaeological Project by the National Museum of Ethnology team, continue to share a principal research theme, the formation process of early Andean Civilizations. Their researches can be characterized by multi-year and large-scale excavations focusing on a single ceremonial center such as Kotosh, Huacaloma, Kuntur Wasi, and Pacopampa, and cooperative public activities with local communities for the practical use of archaeological sites as cultural patrimony. The former has resulted in establishing fine-grained site chronologies while the latter produced a site museum co-managed by archaeologists and local populations. In this paper, the authors will summarize the sixty-year history of their researches on the Andean Formative in chronological order and consider their legacies to Andean archaeology both in research methodology and public activities.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• The Legacies of Archaeologists in the Andes: Second Symposium, the Institutionalization and Internationalization of Andean Archaeology

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23994