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The 35th Annual Midwest Conference on
Andean and Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory at SIUC, IL
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Conference Program:
Saturday, Feb. 10Opening Remarks (9 AM)Izumi Shimada (Southern Illinois University) Dr. Alan Vaux, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Science or Session Sat. 1
Christine Elisabeth Boston (University of Western Ontario, Canada) Bernardo Arriaza (Universidad de Tarapaca, Arica, Chile) Preliminary studies tested the general conclusion that societies’ health degraded as they shifted from a nomadic, hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a sedentary, agricultural lifestyle. However, the ancient societies of northern Chile are a unique culture that appears to defy these long held assumptions. From the earliest human occupational periods, the Chilean societies were (sedentary) hunter-gatherers-fishers. Furthermore, later Chilean agricultural societies had relatively balanced diets since they also relied on fishing. To test the hypothesis that morbidity increases as societies shift from hunter-gatherer to agriculture, we studied 8 skeletal health markers on 61 of subadults ranging from the Chinchorro to Inka periods. These health markers were lower leg infections, congenital malformations, cribra orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis, club foot, trauma, dental pathologies, spina bifida, and general infections. Despite the small sample size, this study gives a glimpse of childhood health conditions and morbidity patterns in northern Chile. Of the 8 conditions, cribra orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis was the most common with 32.8 percent. However we found no statistical differences of morbidity patterns between preagricultural and agricultural societies. John W. Janusek (Vanderbilt University) Arik Ohnstad (Vanderbilt University) For decades, Andean archaeologists have considered the importance of carved stone monoliths in the prehispanic Lake Titicaca Basin. With some notable exceptions, few studies have detailed their ritual or political significance for sociopolitical changes in the region. In this paper, we present a slightly revised chronology of monoliths and monolith iconography based on our ongoing research at Khonkho Wankane, Bolivia. We then discuss what we consider to be significant shifts in this iconography through the Late Formative Period (100 BC ~ AD 500) and Middle Horizon (AD 500 ~ 1000). Changes in monolithic production and expression, we argue, played a key role in fostering regional religious and political shifts, and in forming a new ideology of Ritual personhood that helped produce the momentous transformations in cultural values and power relations that gave rise to the Tiwanaku polity. Yoshifumi Sato (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies) Julio Manrique Valdivia (Universidad Católica Santa María de Arequipa) This is the preliminary report for the first season of Proyecto de Investigación Arqueológica de Palermo. The site of Palermo is multicomponent site with occupations from Early Formative Period to Late Horizon, located on the southwest side of Lake Titicaca, near Juli, Puno, Peru. Since the reconnaissance survey practiced by Lupaca Archaeological Project in 1991, the site has been seemed to be the important political and economic center for the development of local society in the Upper Formative (500/200B.C.-A.D.500) and Middle Horizon (A.D.500-1100) because of the presence of the sunken court. From September to November in 2006, we excavated a part of the ceremonial area of this site including the sunken court and the large wall enclosure to verify some hypotheses proposed by the previous research, especially focusing on the local acceptance of the Tiwanaku material culture. The excavated materials are under analysis and we need continue more investigation to clarify the site formation process. But the research indicates that two architectural complexes did not compose the single ceremonial complex in Tiwanaku period contrary to the previous research. In this presentation, we examine the nature of Tiwanaku phenomenon in right of this architectural evidence and present the prospect for the future research. Richard C. Sutter (Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne) Bioarchaeological studies of ethnogenesis provide an important long-term perspective on the formation of population identities. In the South Central Andes, a number of different cultural groups emerged in the wake of the collapse of the Tiwanaku polity. Within the middle Moquegua Valley of southern Peru, calibrated radiocarbon dates and archaeological survey data indicate that middle valley Tiwanaku colonists dispersed to the sparsely inhabited upper tributaries and coastal section of the valley following the collapse of Tiwanaku influence beginning around A.D. 900. Among the cultural groups that emerged in the wake of this collapse were the coastal Chiribaya. While some scholars argue that the Chiribaya represent a locally derived ethnic that evolved from pre-existing coastal populations - the coastal señorío model - others assert that the Chiribaya were direct descendants of formerly middle valley Tiwanaku colonists - a model referred to as the two-stage diaspora model. This paper tests these two competing models by examining dentally derived biodistance data using hypothetical design matrix analyses. Results indicate that the two-stage diaspora model has a high and statistically significant correlation with the two-stage diaspora model, while the coastal señorío model produces a low, negative, and nonsignificant correlation with the observed biodistances. Chiribaya ethnogenesis is discussed in light of these results. MORNING BREAK(20 minutes)Session Sat. 2 (starting 11 AM):
Ricardo Moyano (Alumnus of University of Chile) The Incan ushnu was generally linked to large platforms or truncated pyramids constructed inside squares or public spaces in Cuzco and in some of the principal administrative centers of the Tawantinsuyu, with political, administrative, and religious functions. In this work, I present the results obtained from an analysis of astronomical and topographic variables of the ushnu in the metallurgical center Viña del Cerro (Atacama Region III, Chile). These results suggest that the ushnu could furthermore be linked to the creation and adjustment of a local solar horizon calendar related to mountains that were considered huacas in pre Hispanic times. This would have contributed to the control and ideological subordination of local groups in the Tawantinsuyu, aimed at assuring the mining capacity in the Copiapó Valley and the metallurgic production in Viña del Cerro. R. Tom Zuidema (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) Paul Kosok, in his book on Land, Life and Water in Ancient Peru first suggested that a textile of the Chuquibamba style represented a sidereal lunar calendar although the representation of such a calendar was not very precise. Two other textiles represent in much more precise form one a sidereal lunar calendar and the other a solar month calendar. I will give a short report on both and compare them with the calendar as represented by the Ceque system of Cuzco. Brian S. Bauer (University of Illinois at Chicago) Antonio Coello Rodríguez Christopher Dayton Patrick Ryan Williams The fate of the mummies of the Inca kings following the Spanish conquest of Peru has been the focus of more than a century of historical and archaeological research. Several lines of evidence indicate that five of the royal mummies were deposited in the Hospital of San Andrés in Lima in 1560. In this work, we summarize what is currently known concerning the fate of the royal Inca mummies as well as the results of a recent ground-penetrating radar survey and an archaeological testing program which we conducted on the hospital grounds. The excavations revealed: the location of hospital’s first cemetery, the remains of a 19th century fountain, an Early Colonial trash pit, and most intriguingly, a vaulted structure. While we did not find the royal mummies, the historical research and archaeological field work yielded new information on the history of the San Andrés compound and life in Lima during Early Colonial times. Brendan J. M. Weaver (Western Michigan University) The indigenous class of workers of the Spanish colonial Andes which we call the yanaconas, remain a largely under studied and poorly understood group. However, a recent investigation into the Census of the Yanaconas of Potosí included in Cajas Reales 18 of the Archivo Histórico de Potosí sheds new light on the subject. This paper asks ethnohistorical questions of the census completed in 1575 and illuminates the place of the yanacona at the time of the Toledan reform of the Viceroyalty of Perú, which as a class of skilled labor was vital to the colonial economy. Through both a macro and micro analysis of aspects of the document, I have found clues to better understand this diverse and multi-ethnic group with respect to individual occupations, the organization of labor within the parish system, the evolution of the structure of yanaconaje, and the structures of colonialism in 16th century Alto Perú. LUNCH BREAK(from 12:30 to 2 PM)Session Sat. 3 (starting 2 PM):
Deborah M. Pearsall (University of Missouri) Neil A. Duncan Sedimentary cores were extracted by vibracorer from former mangrove swamps in SW coastal Guayas province during brief field sessions in the summers of 2004, 2005 and 2006. Estuary edges fringed by mangrove swamps are low-energy environments in which sediments carried from surrounding drainages build up. Microfossils such as phytoliths and pollen extracted from mangrove swamp cores may capture regional patterning in vegetation – the composite picture of human and natural processes on the landscape – in settings in which natural lakes are lacking. Today we provide an overview of the core sequences recovered from the Chanduy, Punto Carneiro, Valdivia, and Estero Punguay localities, focusing on dating and sedimentation patterns within the sequences. An interesting finding is a period of very rapid sedimentation across all sequences at 14C BP 6000-5500. We discuss possible interpretations of this event and present preliminary microfossil results. Nathan Craig (The Field Museum) Alvaro Ruiz, Winifred Creamer Jonathan Haas Gerbert Asencios Jesus Holquin Rebecca Osborn 2006 excavations at the site of Caballete (occupied in the 3rd millennium B.C.) in the Fortaleza Valley on the Peruvian coast provide new insights into the nature of occupation and subsistence at Late Archaic monumental complexes. Excavations revealed permanent residential architecture and indications of widespread short term occupations. Temporary occupations are marked by layers of use surfaces, post holes, and shallow hearths. Artifactual evidence suggests fisherfolk occupied these temporary encampments. Longer term residential architecture consisted of multiple reconstruction events. Subsistence remains from these contexts indicate the importance of a diversity of botanical resources as well as marine products. Margaret Brown Vega (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) Ten radiocarbon dates from recent excavations at the fortress of Acaray in the Huaura Valley, Peru confirm the site was used during two periods of time: the Early Horizon (ca. 900-200 B.C.) and the Late Intermediate Period (ca. A.D. 1000-1470). These two periods are characterized by the elaboration of defensive settlements in neighboring valleys on the north coast and into the highlands to the east. To date the 35-hectare site of Acaray is the largest fortified site currently known in the near north coast and holds significant potential for exploring these two widely separated periods of conflict on the coast of Peru. This paper assesses the spatial dimensions of the fortress at Acaray through time using radiocarbon dates, architecture, and distributions of material culture. I consider the two major occupations in terms of regional dynamics and briefly assess hypotheses about site function. The evidence suggests that at least for the Late Intermediate Period occupation Acaray was used as a refuge. AFTERNOON BREAKMatt Schauer (University of Illinois at Chicago) The design characteristics of fortified entranceways in the pucaras of the Pambamarca Complex in northern Ecuador reveal the defensive strategies of the Inca Empire. This project is the summary of a preliminary survey completed in the summer of 2006 to analyze the border region on the Inca northern frontier where fourteen hilltop fortresses belonging to the Inca lie in direct opposition to several indigenous fortresses belonging to the local Cayambe people. The defensive architecture at five of the Inca fortresses and two of the indigenous fortresses were measured, mapped and compared to understand the general strategic layout and defensive capabilities of these fortresses. The military, administrative, ritualistic and symbolic functionalities of these fortresses are considered based on the archaeological remains. Results from the 2006 survey and excavations as well as the findings from past field seasons will be reviewed and future questions will be investigated as part of this 5-year ongoing project at Pambamarca. Rafael Segura (Southern Illinois University) In light of the fact that there has been no recent overview of the archaeology of the Peruvian central coast in spite of increasing interest in the subject, I offer this brief review, which is not intended to be exhaustive, but to serve to highlight a number of important recent finds with potential far-reaching impacts and as well as certain inherent implications and limitations for future investigations. Among the work discussed are some salient results from excavations carried out between 2000 and 2001 at the extensive urban site of Cajamarquilla at the neck of the Rímac valley. Evidence collected demonstrates that (a) certain traditional assumptions, such as a strong Huari occupation at the site, need to be re-evaluated; and (b) new directions for investigation, such as land use and irrigation technology, should be pursued in order to obtain a better developmental insight of this Andean region. Enrique Lopez-Hurtado (University of Pittsburgh) The discussion about how interested individuals or groups acquired and maintained elite social positions, and the role that ideology played in this process, touches important aspects about pre-Columbian societal dynamics in the Peruvian Central Coast. Here, according to ethnohistoric sources, social power was built around religious prestige focused at one of the most important pilgrimage centers of the ancient Andes: Pachacamac. However little is known about the relationship between this ideological component of social hierarchy and more mundane social processes. In this paper I will elaborate on how the study of the site of the site of Panquilma located less than a day’s walk from Pachacamac aims to contribute information that will illuminate the debate about the different ways in which ideological processes related to economic and political ones in the acquisition and maintenance of social rank. I suggest that by focusing on a community located in the hinterland of an important religious center, the study of Panquilma will offer a new perspective on the way in which the ideological ascendance of the religious center related to local economic and political forces in the development of social power. BUSINESS MEETINGDINNERSunday, February 11Session Sun. 1 (starting 9 AM):
Isabelle Druc (University of Wisconsin-Madison) From ethnohistorical documents, we learn that, at the time of the Inca conquest, the Huaris and Piscobambas occupied south-central Conchucos. From ethnographic study, we know that two different ceramic traditions existed in the same area. However, the spatial distributions of these traditions do not coincide with the boundaries of the Huari and Piscobamba groups. This communication explores the notions of nations and ethnic groups in relation to ceramic tradition. It leads to the recognition of the identity of two different factions (parcialidades) within the Huari group. Communication with film documentary. Izumi Shimada (Southern Illinois University) Gabriela Cervantes (Catholic University of Peru) Carlos Elera (National Sicán Museum) Go Matsumoto (Southern Illinois University) Rafael Segura (Southern Illinois University) Since the pioneering work of Max Uhle at Pachacamac at the end of the 19th century, excavation of undisturbed burials has been a widespread and persistent fixation in Andean archaeology. The burial has been often seen as a sealed context representing a single event in time. Correspondingly, archaeological attention has been narrowly confined to discrete pits or other funerary structures where human remains and gravelots are normally found. Data and observations from the recent excavations of an intact cemetery at the west base of the Huaca Loro temple at Sicán and a well-preserved portion of the famed cemetery in front of the Pachacamac Temple illuminate the importance of amplifying the temporal and spatial scope of funerary analysis and adopting a flexible situational concept of funerary contexts. We argue that many pre-Hispanic burial contexts in reality are products of complex and varied cultural formation processes and were accompanied by rituals that were performed over hundreds of years. Aniko Bezur (Art Institute of Chicago) Izumi Shimada (Southern Illinois University) The archaeological utility of a hand-held X-Ray Florescence (XRF) spectrometer was tested during the recent excavation of an intact Middle Sicán (ca. A.D. 1000-1100) elite cemetery along the western base of the monumental temple mound of Huaca Loro at the site of Sicán. We discuss the potential and various key considerations for use of this powerful analytical equipment in archaeology. Its relatively small size (roughly the size of a portable hair dryer), simple operation, and rapid availability of chemical compositional data allowed us to take multiple readings of varied artifacts (metals, pigments, clays, and lithics) still in situ. Our analysis has shown an unexpectedly higher occurrence of copper-silver alloy objects in over two dozen elite burials excavated. Implications of this and other analytical results will be considered. MORNING BREAK(20 minutes)Cristina Rospigliosi (Southern Illinois University) Results offered by the Sican Archaeological Project (SAP) during the last 25 years have revealed the economic and political power of the Middle Sican elite settled in Poma, the center of the Middle Sican state in the North Coast of Peru. However, how the elite operated this power outside its center is still not well understood. For instance, we still need to better understand the mechanisms of coercion and/or negotiation used by the Poma elite, and to what extent the labour force outside this center of power was controlled by the Poma elite. The excavation of a Middle Sican metal and ceramic workshop (Huaca Sialupe) outside Poma provided a new dataset to address these questions. Analysis of ceramic molds (Taylor 2002) from Huaca Sialupe concluded that the workshop primarily produced bowls, deep dishes, plates and fine black bottles. My own analysis of the production wasters has confirmed the great variability within the few morphological types produced at the workshop. Moreover, preliminary analysis shows that the Huaca Sialupe wasters do not resemble ceramics from Huaca Pared Uriarte, the nearby Middle Sican administrative site. Rather, these wasters are very similar to sherds excavated from the “Great Grand Plaza” in Poma. This paper presents the results and interpretations of the analysis of more than 1500 ceramic wasters from Huaca Sialupe. It offers some ideas on the power of the Middle Sican elite and the relationship with its hinterland. Haagen D. Klaus (Ohio State University) Manuel Tam (Universidad Nacional de Trujillo) European colonization of the Central Andes – primarily understood from unfortunately incomplete ethnohistoric sources – represented an unprecedented cultural development in terms of scope, impact, and violence. This paper presents results from first bioarchaeological study of colonial Peru, synthesizing archaeological, biological, and ethnohistoric data from the north coast Lambayeque Valley. We test two hypotheses: (1) indigenous Mochica Indian health was negatively impacted by European contact; (2) conquest led to the annihilation of Mochica cultural practices. Multivariate statistical analyses of paleodemographic and skeletal biological data collected from 255 late pre-Hispanic and 459 Colonial-era skeletons reveal conditions of chronic biological stress in colonial Lambayeque. Spanish socioeconomic transformations were key factors leading to depressed female fertility, elevated prevalence of degenerative joint disease and periosteal infection, stunted growth, and greater dietary emphasis on starchy carbohydrates. Enamel hypoplasia patterns signal a shift towards high-mortality, epidemic-related childhood stress. At the same time, burials in colonial Lambayeque encoded pre-Hispanic Mochica practices inside Catholic rites. Ritual interactions with the dead, traditional burial orientations, and red pigments embodied a domain of symbolic resistance and reflect the emergence of hybrid Euro-Andean cultural patterns. Death rituals were an element of a broader indigenous response endeavoring to buffer the potentially catastrophic effects of contact. Ultimately, this case study is a first glimpse of dynamic interplays between indigenous health, agency, and identity that emerged in historic Peru. |
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