Ancient Landscapes of Carabamba, Peru: The 2024 Summer Field Season of the Carabamba Archaeological Research Project (CARP)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

From May to August 2024, members of the Carabamba Archaeological Research Project (CARP) conducted drone surveys and surface collections at the five largest ancient settlements in the Carabamba Plateau of northern Peru (Cerro Sulcha, Cerro Shamana, Cerro Cuidista, Cerro Paredones-Amarro, and Cerro Quinga). Surface collections at these settlements produced ceramic materials that indicate long occupations, spanning the Initial Period (~1800 - 900 BCE) to the Late Horizon (~1470s - 1532 CE). These settlements also feature lithic materials that point to a variety of domestic activities, such as digging implements for cultivation and scrapers for hide and meat processing, along with finished quartz and other debitage. The aerial drone maps of these settlements provide more detail on the nature of the occupations themselves, allowing us to identify a variety of features including large perimeter walls, corrals, domestic patio terrace groups, platform mounds, and water reservoirs and aqueducts. These data point to deep and complex histories of human settlement in the Carabamba Plateau that can be further explored through excavation, settlements that were shaped by exchange, migration, agropastoralism, and imperial expansion.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52550