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Background taken from Andy's Art Attack - Free Images |
The following is a tentative list of speakers (arranged alphabetically), institutional affiliations, titles, and abstracts. This list will be updated as additional submissions are received.
Virgil Roy Beasley |
This summer, I propose to conduct archaeological research on the sambaquis of Santa Catarina, Brazil. Sambaquis, the local term for the massive shell mounds found along the Atlantic Coast, represent thousands of years of occupational debris accumulation. The mounds appear to be the result of incremental construction events consisting of undetermined architecture and numerous human burials in conjunction with the deposit of a large amount of shellfish remains. Radiocarbon dating indicates that sambaqui construction starts as early as 4,000 B.C. and continued into the early years of this millennium. The sambaquis are at times quite large, with some of the surviving mounds exceeding thirty meters in height and several hundred meters in diameter. It is believed that these mounds are symbols of developed social organizations, focal points of cultural activity that may be indications of complex social relations hitherto unsuspected for these societies.
In other areas of the coast, initial evidence indicates that the sambaquis are clustered in certain areas. However, it is unclear whether this clustering is due to environmental or cultural factors. A stratified sampling strategy by resource zones will help us to determine if site placement is a result of resource concentrations or if other cultural factors are at work. Research this summer will concentrate on survey and recording. Future seasons will involve excavation at selected sites, with a strong emphasis on recovering material that can be dated by radiocarbon methods in order to establish contemporaneous mounds. It is suspected that the mounds are concentrated around rich resource areas and that the settlement structure allowed certain groups to control specific resource zones. This will be my dissertation research, and I welcome any suggestions or criticisms.
Robin Beck |
The goal of my project is to compare the developmental sequences of corporate architecture at two Middle Formative (1500 BC-500 BC) centers along the Taraco Peninsula, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia. While excavations at the site of Chiripa have revealed a complex sequence of corporate architecure spanning a thousand years, intensive fieldwork has yet to be conducted at the recently recorded site of Yanapata-Alta, located eight kilometers west of Chiripa. Yanapata covers nearly eight hectares and is distinguished by several domestic terraces and a possible irrigation canal. Its corporate architecture consists of two platform constructions, similar to the single platform construction at Chiripa, located approximately 100 meters apart. Semisubterranean courts such as those discovered at Chiripa are also likely to be present. The first phase of my proposed research is a magnetometer survey of the Yanapata which I will conduct in the summer of 1999, to be followed by more intensive excavations in 2000.
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Karen Chávez
and Sergio Chávez |
An examination of pottery trumpets as ritual paraphernalia associated with the Yaya-Mama Religious Tradition includes their technique of manufacture, associated styles, spatial distribution, contexts, and dating. Interpretations and comparisons are made.
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Sergio Chávez |
This paper deals with ethnographic studies documenting for the first time tonqo cultivation with higher yields per hectare than ever expected in the Basin. Fifty-two Aymara communities on the Copacabana Peninsula alone grow tonqo to supplement their diet and generate enough surplus for barter or sale. The upper limits of its cultivation may now be established at 4100 masl, constituting the highest reported in the Andes and perhaps also in the world. Therefore, prevailing interpretations of prehistoric interaction with distant and lower zones that ignore its growing potential in the Basin will be re-examined.
Lourdes Giordani |
Some scholars consider the prevalence of gardening magic and the existence of an earth-mother figure among Amazonian societies as atypical (e.g., Robert Carneiro and Philippe Descola). Carneiro, for instance, observed that since horticulture is a nonhazardous and secure subsistence, little supernaturalism is associated with it.
Drawing on my own field research among the Yabarana Indians of the State of Amazonas (Venezuela), and further scrutiny of the anthropological literature (i.e., ethnographies, archaeological research, and chronicles), I argue that (1) some Amazonian societies have/had a complex of beliefs which resemble those commonly associated with the Andean Pacha Mama; (2) gardening magic in Amazonia is much more prevalent than many scholars have previously claimed; and (3) the study of material and symbolic exchanges between Amazonian and Andean societies is still in its infancy and should occupy a central position in our research agenda for the 21rst century.
Charles M. Hastings
Central Michigan University
This paper comments on the status of archaeological research in the yungas valleys of the Department of Cochabamba with respect to east-Andean valleys elsewhere in Bolivia and the Central Andean region. Attention is focused on the Altamachi Valley in Ayopaya Province, Cochabamba, based on a brief visit to the valley in 1998 and earlier visits to Cochabamba. The natural setting, accessibility, modern land use, modern settlement pattern, and community structure are discussed. The findings of this first trip to Altamachi suggest that the valley has significant potential for archaeological investigations. However, any future projects there will face considerable logistical challenges and will require continuing sensitivity to local community concerns and public relations.
Catherine Julien
Western Michigan University
Abstract.
Earl Lubenski |
Obsidian from the Ecuadorean sites of Hacienda La Florida (Santo Domingo) and Ayalan Cemetery will be compared to each other and to El Inga as to sources in the Ecuadorean Andes and cutting edge/mass ratio. "Expense" of the obsidian in terms of distance from source, transport difficulties, and exchange will be discussed.
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Joel E. Myres |
University of California at Irvine |
| Scott R. Woodward | Brigham Young University |
| Mark J. Rowe | |
| Ray T. Matheny |
As a means to reconstructing population history, genetic studies have focused on present-day indigenous peoples and biological remains obtained from the archaeological record. This study presents an overview assessment of Andean genetics obtained from genetic studies conducted in over 30 locations throughout Peru. Particular emphasis is placed on notable regional differences and how these differences can be used to understand ancient and modern population movements. This information will assist in deciphering the extent and spread of peoples through time and shows promise in exploring population interaction and exchange of relevance to Andean cultural history.
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Mario A. Rivera |
Archaeological research at the coastal sites of Camarones and Pisagua provided data regarding the coexistence of two different traditions in Northern Chile between 1500-500 B.C. In previous papers I have reported on the archaeological data revealed by settlement patterns as well as distinctive features of the material culture that characterized both traditions. This paper deals with paleobiological studies and interpretations regarding diet patterns of both traditions, as reflected from mummified remains excavated from sites Pisagua-7 and Camarones 15-D.
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Dan Shea |
Although the radiocarbon date of occupation of Ramaditas is subsequent to the last of the Chinchorro mummies, Rivera and Shea have interpreted it as overlapping with coastal sites of an apparently continuing Chinchorro Tradition. An update of the use of radiocarbon dates suggested to this Conference in 1994 will be discussed. Fieldwork of 1997, 1998, results will be interpreted as partial confirmation of the "Chinchorro Tradition" hypothesis. Dietary elements and fishing evidence in the occupation imply association with sophisticated coastal adaptations.
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John Staller |
The chronological depth and development of complementarity in formative coastal and highland Ecuador is the focus of this study. Specialized or status traders called mindalá have long been known by Andean scholars. Such specialized traders are thought by most experts to be an economic pattern borrowed from the Pochteca of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica, and to be of relatively recent origin in the Andes. The viability of both these propositions are considered on the basis of the archaeological record of formative Ecuador and ethnographic data. The preliminary results suggest that among coastal polities, such status traders appear to have represented an integral feature of highland-lowland interaction in the western Andes. A large body of ceramic evidence and formative site distributions for the Ecuadorian formative are synthesized in order to address the nature of long-distance exchange in these early periods. The specialized or status traders in South America have long been believed to be peripheral to the vertical archipelago economy of the pre-Hispanic Andean highlands. Ethnographic, ethnohistoric, as well as ceramic evidence from a large number of formative ceramic complexes from both coastal and highland contexts dated to between 1850 to 500 BC are introduced. The results strongly imply that mindaláes may have very early origins among coastal polities and represented an integral feature of the complementary imperative that characterizes pre-Hispanic Andean interaction.
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Richard Sutter |
This paper reports on a blind test of the assignment of sex using techniques proposed for use with juvenile and fetal skeletal remains. These techniques rely upon non-metric, sexually dimorphic morphological traits of the juvenile pelvis and mandible. The skeletal remains of nearly 100 subadult mummies of known sex from the Azapa Valley were examined by this study. The ages of these remains ranged from fetal to eighteen skeletal years. Sex was assigned using each of the methods without prior knowledge of the sex of the skeletal elements being examined. In general, juvenile human remains from the Azapa Valley showed a great deal of sexual dimorphism. All traits examined by this study produced significant results, suggesting that these traits are useful for the assignment of sex among pre-Colombian juvenile remains. The significance of these results for Andean bioarchaeology are discussed.
Robert Thompson |
Many authorities on the adoption of agriculture in the Americas (e.g. Smith and Fritz) doubt the accuracy of claims for early maize in South America. This doubt is based on two central concepts: First, maize domestication probably occured only once in the Balsas River valley of southwestern Mexico. The process of domestication of maize there is not shown to be older than 7,000 BP, which is later than the earliest dates given for South American maize. Secondly, the basis of the extra large cross maize identification technique has been called in to question. Based on new evidence from food residues at La Emerenciana, and an overview of carbon isotope data from Valdivian skeletal remains, a strong case can be made for the presence of maize in Ecuador by 4000 BP, but not before the Late Valdivian.
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Kayoko Toshihira |
One of the focuses of Andean archaeology is on the development of social complexity during the Formative Period. Also, cultural relationships between Chavin, the key culture of this period, and other local cultures are still under debate. An archaeological project conducted in the summer of 1997 in the Chicama Valley, the heartland of the Cupisnique culture, yielded both architectural and ceramic data, which shed light on local social/cultural development in this valley.
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Background taken from Andy's Art Attack - Free Images |
