{"title":"People of Clay and Stone: Indexing Other-than-Human Animacy and Collective Identity in Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico","authors":"Jeffrey S. Brzezinski","doi":"10.1017/laq.2024.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2024.12","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyzes the assemblages of humans and other-than-humans that animated the sacred landscape of Cerro de la Virgen, a hilltop site occupied during the Formative period (1800 BC–AD 250) in the lower Río Verde Valley of coastal Oaxaca, Mexico. Commensalism in the region increased markedly in scope and complexity throughout the Formative period, culminating in the region's first polity at AD 100. Feasting practices became relatively standardized, but the placement of objects and bodies in public architecture—a set of collective practices associated with the vital forces that animated the cosmos—varied considerably from site to site during the late Terminal Formative period (150 BC–AD 250). Lower Verde scholars have argued that these idiosyncrasies reflect the myriad collective identities of the region's hinterland communities, a pattern rooted in local affiliations that may have conflicted with an expanding regional identity centered at the urban center of Río Viejo. I augment this discussion by highlighting the role that the materiality of the landscape, present before humans even occupied the region, played in the construction of collective identity. I develop an interpretive approach that pays special attention to Indigenous concepts of ontology, particularly those related to animacy and its transference, and uses the semiosis of American philosopher Charles Peirce to elucidate meaning from deposits of cached objects. The animate qualities assembled through fired clay and chiseled stone at Cerro de la Virgen afforded a ritual pattern that was unique in coastal Oaxaca at the end of the Formative period.","PeriodicalId":17968,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Antiquity","volume":"75 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142207016","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
W. James Stemp, Christophe Helmke, Geoffrey E. Braswell, Jaime J. Awe
{"title":"Obsidian Tool Function and Maya Lithic Economy at Terminal Classic Pook's Hill, Belize: Subsistence, Domestic Activities, and Craft Production","authors":"W. James Stemp, Christophe Helmke, Geoffrey E. Braswell, Jaime J. Awe","doi":"10.1017/laq.2024.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2024.10","url":null,"abstract":"The typological, technological, and use-wear analyses of obsidian artifacts from Terminal Classic Pook's Hill (AD 830–950+) provide opportunities to better reconstruct socioeconomic activities in this <jats:italic>plazuela</jats:italic> group, including long-distance trade, tool production, subsistence practices, domestic tasks, and the organization of craft production. Based on visual sourcing, most of the obsidian originated from highland Guatemala, specifically El Chayal. The majority of obsidian artifacts were prismatic blades, although both casual and bipolar reduction of blade cores and the recycling of blades from earlier occupations occurred at the site. Use-wear analysis reveals that obsidian tools were mainly used for subsistence and domestic household activities; however, the concentrations of tools with specific wear patterns (bone, ceramic, plants, and shell) at some locations in the <jats:italic>plazuela</jats:italic> provide evidence for local craft production among the population. Further support for craft production is provided by comparable use-wear on chert/chalcedony tools from these same locations. The products of low-level craft production were used within Pook's Hill itself and may have been distributed to neighboring communities within the Roaring Creek and Upper Belize River Valleys. Despite the sociopolitical and socioeconomic disruptions to lifeways that accompanied the Terminal Classic period, the Pook's Hill Maya seem to have experienced minimal upheaval in their daily lives and continued local low-level craft production. However, one important change in the Terminal Classic appears to be the increased difficulty in obtaining obsidian at Pook's Hill and the growing need for tool recycling and raw material conservation.","PeriodicalId":17968,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Antiquity","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142206901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Implications of Rock Art Aesthetics in Olmec Sculpture","authors":"Jillian Mollenhauer","doi":"10.1017/laq.2024.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2024.11","url":null,"abstract":"The development of freestanding stone sculpture by the Olmec people of Mesoamerica's Gulf lowlands has long been considered one of the defining artistic achievements of the Formative period. However, by the Middle Formative period the production of freestanding sculpture was often eclipsed by the contemporaneous creation of rock art outside the Gulf lowlands. In this article I argue that Gulf Olmec sculptors and audiences occasionally co-opted the aesthetic and ritual treatments of rock art at topographic shrines to construct and reinforce the sacred geographies of primary site cores. In so doing, Olmec elites converted the ideological power of the wild and the animate earth into a form of political capital.","PeriodicalId":17968,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Antiquity","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142207017","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Paisajes agrícolas miniaturas de tiempos prehispánicos tardíos en las tierras altas de Arica (Andes centro sur)","authors":"Marcela Sepúlveda, Thibault Saintenoy, Rubén Santos","doi":"10.1017/laq.2024.16","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2024.16","url":null,"abstract":"Resumen La agricultura fue una actividad fundamental de las comunidades aldeanas de las tierras altas de Arica en los Andes centro sur, durante el período Intermedio tardío (1100-1450 dC), hasta convertirse en uno de los principales propósitos de la expansión inca en la región en los siglos quince y dieciséis. Este trabajo presenta el hallazgo, en la cuenca alta del Valle de Azapa, de maquetas o infraestructuras agrícolas grabadas en miniatura. Caracterizamos sus formas y soportes, examinamos su distribución en los territorios tardíos de la región y las contrastamos a macroescala regional con evidencias similares. Finalmente, discutimos su vínculo con el flujo de conocimientos y experiencias relativos al manejo del agua y la topografía, junto con la ritualización del paisaje agrícola en tiempos incas.","PeriodicalId":17968,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Antiquity","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142207018","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
José Castelleti, Bernardo Arriaza, Corina Solís, María Rodríguez Ceja, Claudia Silva, Milagros de Ugarte, Katherine Cisternas, Katherine Vega
{"title":"Nuevos fechados absolutos para el proceso de formación de sitios Chinchorro en el Morro de Arica, costa centro-sur andina","authors":"José Castelleti, Bernardo Arriaza, Corina Solís, María Rodríguez Ceja, Claudia Silva, Milagros de Ugarte, Katherine Cisternas, Katherine Vega","doi":"10.1017/laq.2023.74","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2023.74","url":null,"abstract":"Resumen Los últimos trabajos de sondeo llevados a cabo en la zona de reservas de la cultura Chinchorro en el Morro de Arica (Desierto de Atacama, costa centro-sur andina), han permitido fechar y analizar estratigráficamente los depósitos domésticos asociados espacialmente a las conocidas áreas de funebria Chinchorro de los sitios arqueológicos Morro 1, Morro 1/6, Morro 1/5 y Colón 10. El rango de fechas <jats:sup>14</jats:sup>C precerámicas obtenidas en este sondeo (7090-3715 cal aP), en comparación al rango de fechas <jats:sup>14</jats:sup>C de funebria (6453-3687 cal aP) registradas en estudios anteriores, permite hipotetizar para los espacios domésticos de este sector del Morro de Arica, un probable momento ocupacional previo al desarrollo de la momificación entre la población humana. El análisis crono-estratigráfico llevado a cabo sugiere un proceso de formación de sitios marcado por dos momentos de actividad fúnebre en asociación con la actividad doméstica vecina. Esta última se inicia más tempranamente, y todos los depósitos se encuentran intensamente intervenidos durante momentos alfareros, intermedio tardíos y tiempos recientes.","PeriodicalId":17968,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Antiquity","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142207019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
María Clara Álvarez, María P. Barros, Daniela Storchi Lobos, Milagros Ríos Malan, Cristian A. Kaufmann
{"title":"Aportes del sitio Hangar a los modelos de dieta y distribución del guanaco en las pampas de Argentina","authors":"María Clara Álvarez, María P. Barros, Daniela Storchi Lobos, Milagros Ríos Malan, Cristian A. Kaufmann","doi":"10.1017/laq.2024.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2024.4","url":null,"abstract":"Resumen En este trabajo se presentan los resultados del análisis de los restos faunísticos de Hangar, un sitio arqueológico ubicado en la región pampeana argentina. Los fechados realizados sobre huesos de guanaco sitúan cronológicamente a las ocupaciones humanas en el Holoceno tardío final, período escasamente representado en el área. Los análisis tafonómicos y estratigráficos indican que el sitio presenta complejos procesos de formación, con una baja integridad, aunque con buena resolución. Los principales procesos que afectaron a los restos fueron la bioturbación y las tareas de laboreo de la tierra. Las evidencias aportadas por Hangar muestran la explotación de distintos taxones, entre los que se destacan el guanaco, el venado de las Pampas, la vizcacha, el peludo y el ñandú. Estos datos constituyen un importante insumo para el creciente avance en el conocimiento de la subsistencia de los cazadores-recolectores que habitaron la región pampeana. En particular, los fechados-taxón obtenidos aportan nuevos datos para la discusión acerca de la retracción del guanaco en momentos tardíos en el área Interserrana bonaerense.","PeriodicalId":17968,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Antiquity","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140927912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Can Data Science Contribute to Understanding the Khipu Code?","authors":"Manuel Medrano, Ashok Khosla","doi":"10.1017/laq.2024.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2024.5","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In “How Can Spin, Ply, and Knot Direction Contribute to Understanding the Quipu Code?” (2005), mathematician Marcia Ascher referenced new data on 59 Andean <span>khipus</span> to assess the significance of their variable twists and knots. However, this aggregative, comparative impulse arose late in Ascher's <span>khipu</span> research; the mathematical relations she had identified among 200+ previously cataloged <span>khipus</span> were specified only at the level of individual specimens. This article pursues a new scale of analysis, generalizing the “Ascher relations” to recognize meaningful patterns in a 650-<span>khipu</span> corpus, the largest yet subjected to computational study. We find that Ascher formulae characterize at least 74% of <span>khipus</span>, which exhibit meaningful arrangements of internal sums. Top cords are shown to register a minority of sum relationships and are newly identified as markers of low-level, “working” <span>khipus</span>. We reunite two fragments of a broken <span>khipu</span> using arithmetic properties discovered between the strings. Finally, this analysis suggests a new <span>khipu</span> convention—the use of white pendant cords as boundary markers for clusters of sum cords. In their synthesis, exhaustive search, confirmatory study, mathematical rejoining, and hypothesis generation emerge as distinct contributions to <span>khipu</span> description, typology, and decipherment.</p>","PeriodicalId":17968,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Antiquity","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140887442","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Caches, Memory, and Ritual at the Maya City of Cival","authors":"Kaitlin R. Ahern","doi":"10.1017/laq.2023.62","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2023.62","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article examines Middle and Late Preclassic period ritual activity and caches discovered in the Central E Group complex at the ancient Maya site of Cival, which is located in northeastern Peten, Guatemala. It focuses on a series of excavations conducted in 2013 and 2014 at Structure 9, the E Group's western radial pyramid and uses theories of social memory and sacred place to provide insight into the recently discovered caches, termination rituals, and the deliberate destruction of architectural features found there. It also draws on previous ritual activity conducted in the Central E Group plaza and the site's broader history to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the role of this complex as a sacred place and hub of memory at Cival for more than 1,000 years.</p>","PeriodicalId":17968,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Antiquity","volume":"49 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140562774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Deposit of Silver Aquillas from the Site of Punrun Llacta de Soloco, Amazonas, Peru","authors":"James M. Crandall, Lorenzo Risco Patiño","doi":"10.1017/laq.2024.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2024.3","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This report examines the deposit of a sixteenth-century cache of silver <span>aquillas</span> within a Chachapoya household at the site of Purun Llacta de Soloco. The report examines their context and contents. These findings have implications for a larger examination of social value in Andean societies and the specialized treatment and use of ritual objects during the tumultuous colonial period.</p>","PeriodicalId":17968,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Antiquity","volume":"61 28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140563084","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nicolás C. Ciarlo, Ana Castelli, Joaquín Rodríguez Saumell, Carlos G. Landa, Leonardo Dam, Diego Carabias Amor, Alasdair Brooks, Luis V. J. Coll, Rodrigo Torres
{"title":"Estudio preliminar e identificación de un campamento de náufragos en el contexto de la Guerra del Brasil (1825-1828), Partido de Patagones, Buenos Aires","authors":"Nicolás C. Ciarlo, Ana Castelli, Joaquín Rodríguez Saumell, Carlos G. Landa, Leonardo Dam, Diego Carabias Amor, Alasdair Brooks, Luis V. J. Coll, Rodrigo Torres","doi":"10.1017/laq.2023.73","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2023.73","url":null,"abstract":"<p>La navegación, la tecnología naval, la vida a bordo y las actividades llevadas a cabo en barcos de época moderna y contemporánea han sido temas ampliamente estudiados dentro de la arqueología marítima y náutica. Sin embargo, el devenir de los náufragos sobrevivientes de accidentes y las correspondientes evidencias materiales en la costa, no fueron abordados en grado semejante. Las investigaciones muestran un desarrollo dispar, destacando los trabajos realizados en el Pacífico occidental. En Latinoamérica, esta problemática se encuentra aún apenas esbozada. El estudio arqueológico de campamentos de náufragos puede aportar información novedosa para conocer las relaciones humanas, interpersonales e intergrupales, en situaciones de crisis. En este artículo, presentamos los primeros resultados del análisis arqueológico-histórico de la materialidad asociada al sitio Faro Segunda Barranca 4, localizado en el Partido de Patagones, Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina. A partir de una discusión de las diferentes líneas de evidencia, identificamos los restos como un campamento de náufragos en el marco de la Guerra del Brasil o Guerra de Cisplatina (1825-1828).</p>","PeriodicalId":17968,"journal":{"name":"Latin American Antiquity","volume":"48 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2024-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140562648","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}