Recent investigations in the Casma Valley on the north-central coast of Peru have uncovered a series of circular and rectangular/square structures, each containing a central hearth associated with either four subfloor ventilation shafts or a single open ventilation trough. The structures date to the Late Preceramic period (2500-1800 B. C.) and the Initial period (1800-900 B. C.). All are small and were originally roofed with perishable materials to hold in heat and smoke from the central hearth. It seems likely that these ventilated hearths represent a coastal variant of the Kotosh Religious Tradition that has been well documented in the Peruvian Highlands. The structures probably served as ritual chambers for small groups of people, somewhat analogous to the sweathouses of various Native American groups.

Hunter-gatherer occupations of the forests of Patagonia are still not well understood compared to those of the open steppe and the coasts. The paucity of forest sites with a thorough chronological framework and the incomplete picture of climate-human dynamics in such environments pose a challenge to understanding the occupations of such habitats. This paper presents recent work at the Las Quemas rockshelter, an archaeological site located in the Andean forests of the Aisén region (44°38’ S) dating between 6100 and 2400 cal B.P. We examine the context of the site, its rock art, and the technological and functional dimensions of its lithic assemblage. By comparing these records with local environmental reconstructions that report forest area fluctuations after the Post-Glacial period, this study provides novel data for a comprehensive regional-scale model of human occupations in central Patagonian forests. Following an initial mid-Holocene occupation, recurring occupational events at the site coincide with a significant contraction of forested area in the region during the late Holocene. The results are discussed in regard to regional archaeological data and current models of forest occupation in Patagonia.

The remains of non-native deer (Cervidae) have been sparsely recorded in Amerindian archaeological sites of the West Indies, but evidence indicates the presence of at least two genera, white-tailed deer (Odocoileus) and brocket deer (Mazama), during the precolumbian era known as the Ceramic Age (ca. 500 BC–AD 1500). Due to underreporting of finds and lack of regional integration of existing records, however, the West Indian distribution of cervid remains and their cultural importance are not well understood. Here, I synthesize records for unmodified and modified deer bone from 29 archaeological sites on seven islands in the precolumbian island Caribbean with descriptions for four new records of deer bone artifacts from Carriacou and Grenada. I discuss taxonomic attribution issues, evidence for manufacturing techniques, and the utilitarian and symbolic significance of deer bone artifacts. Particular attention is given to proportions of worked and unworked bone, element diversity, and skeletal part representation as a means to distinguish the introduction of living deer from the introduction of carcass products. The evidence presented here is consistent with island Amerindians importing cervid bone as finished artifacts or raw material for tool and ornament manufacture rather than live animals. This study enhances our understanding of the ways in which Amerindians were engaged in exchange networks based on the movement of exotic goods between the West Indies and continent. More broadly, it contributes to conceptual methods for distinguishing the transfer of body parts from the translocation of live animals in studies of exotic animal dispersal by humans.

Recent investigations at mountaintop sites around the Ayacucho Basin in the central Andes have identified a distinctive category of isolated Inca stone-faced platforms. Test excavations of the three-tiered platform at one site, Incapirqa/Waminan, revealed a narrow vertical shaft penetrating from the original surface through the fills to a small basin cut into the underlying andesite bedrock. A carefully arranged deposit of three unusual stones was found in this basin. Early Spanish chroniclers give firsthand accounts of a variety of Inca solar rituals observed in Cuzco in which revered objects were deployed, including some sculpted in stone. The detailed descriptions of these stone objects are corroborated by the excavated finds at Incapirqa/Waminan and offer suggestive analogies for interpreting their context and significance.

We use a provincial perspective combined with compositional and stylistic data and historic accounts to propose three provincial strategies for imperial interactions—bolstering, resistance, and emulation—and note a fourth, exodus. A sample of three Late Postclassic period (A.D. 1350–1521) pottery types differs in chemical composition between two localities in south-central Veracruz, Mexico. Sherds from the Aztec provincial capital of Cuetlaxtlan along the lower Cotaxtla River are compared to those from the Lower Blanco River where Callejón del Horno is located. The composition of stamped-base bowls, Texcoco Molded censers, and Aztec III-style Black-on-orange bowls is distinct in samples from the two localities, with only scant evidence of exchange. A few vessels of Aztec III Black-on-orange were imported from the Basin of Mexico to Cuetlaxtlan. The stylistic characteristics on Aztec III-style Black-on-orange vessels do not distinguish the two Veracruz localities, but there are differences between them and illustrated vessels from the Basin of Mexico. The Cuetlaxtlan province was subject to unusual imperial investments, which may account partly for the emulation of imperial styles. Despite documentary evidence of rebellions, another factor was local decisions to use a prestigious exogenous style.

Salinas de los Nueve Cerros is a precolumbian Maya city located at the base of the highlands in the lowlands of west-central Guatemala. It is the only Classic-period center in the southern Maya Lowlands that based its economy on the production of an important raw material for export: salt. Because of its economic role and its location along a major trade route, Salinas de los Nueve Cerros had a particularly long history of occupation. The site has evidence of a large sedentary population starting during the Middle Preclassic (by ca. 800 B.C.) that continued several hundred years beyond the Classic collapse, before finally being abandoned ca. A.D. 1200. The salt source was located in the center of the city. This presents a rare opportunity to test the degree of elite control over the production of a non-elite resource. Production during the Classic period does appear to have been tightly controlled by elites, as evinced by the presence of multiple administrative structures and elite tombs throughout the salt-working zone, located less than 100 mfrom the site epicenter.

Archaic projectile points from the Andean Altiplano exhibit a curious trend of increasing size over time, in contrast to a well-documented size reduction throughout North America. Although a number of hypotheses exist to account for decreasing projectile-point size, there are currently no explicit explanations for increasing size. We consider several hypotheses and interrogate two techno-economic hypotheses. We posit that increasing point size compensated for lost dart momentum or accuracy that resulted from the shortening of atlatls or atlatl darts as wood became increasingly scarce on the tree-sparse Altiplano. We evaluate these hypotheses using a replicated Andean atlatl system in ballistic trials. Contrary to expectation, results show that point enlargement significantly reduces penetration depth, allowing us to confidently reject the momentum hypothesis. Point enlargement, in contrast, tentatively correlates positively with accuracy. Our experiment further shows that camelid bone is an effective and economical alternative to wood for atlatl production. Despite suboptimal lengths, camelid radioulna atlatls have a convenient morphology that requires low production time, which helps explain empirically observed camelid bone atlatls from the Andean highlands. More generally, our observations lead us to consider that central tendencies in archaeologically observed projectile-point size may reflect a trade-off between penetration and accuracy.

It has been known for several decades that certain regions of the Maya Lowlands were characterized by specialized production of chert tools in ancient times. The extent, intensity, organization, and net social effects of centralized lithic production in the Maya area as a whole, however, are not well understood. In order to address issues of broader relevance to social and economic processes, lithicists working in the Maya region need to develop analytical approaches suited to the study of complex economies. The research presented here attempts to establish simple baseline measures for use in comparing the production of siliceous stone tools, both formal and expedient, at different scales across the Maya area. Scholarship in this region has been chronically plagued by prolonged, unresolved debates—mostly a factor of the multitude of single-site-focused projects employing different methodologies and research emphases. The present study therefore proposes a new direction in Maya lithic studies with the goal of enhancing comparability of data on ancient economic structure through the use of standardized statistics that facilitate spatial analysis. Using the proportion of early-stage core reduction debris to the total of all debitagefrom a given context, for instance, enables the analyst to roughly assess the amount of tool manufacture taking place locally. By extension, inferences can be made about the degree of economic integration and interdependence characterizing any given geographic scale, including the architectural group, site, region, and so on. Preliminary analysis of patterns in early-stage reduction illustrates differential spatial distributions of chert tool production and consumption at several scales from across the southern Lowlands, allowing for the refinement of current models of ancient Maya lithic economy.

Settlement studies of the prehispanic Lowland Maya have tended to rely upon dwelling remains that are visible at the ground surface, though floors and living surfaces that leave no surface indications are known to exist. Such “invisible” dwellings have been encountered beneath platforms and in “vacant terrain” lacking surface indications of architecture, and given more systematic attention, could represent a sizable and socially significant segment of the prehispanic populations in the region. This paper describes the application of electromagnetic induction, a geophysical technique, for locating nonplatform dwellings at Chau Hiix, Belize. A conductivity signature for nonplatform dwellings was identified that includes plaster, nonplatform floors, both in an area of vacant terrain and beneath a residential terrace, in association with trash pits and episodes of limestone bedrock mining, presumably for the acquisition of raw material for the floor. The technique also holds promise for locating ground-level floors, use-areas, and possibly footpaths. While this pilot study was limited in scope, it demonstrates the enormous potential of electromagnetic induction for locating these otherwise elusive features.

Due to the poor conservation of domestic structures in tropical and subtropical environments, the study of households has received little attention from Caribbean archaeologists. However, recent studies have produced good quality household data in the form of post-mold distributions that can be used to address this topic. A method for the definition of houses using the post-mold data is introduced, and three cases from Puerto Rico are used to investigate changes in house shape and size through prehistoric times. These changes are discussed in the context of sociocultural and political trends in Precolumbian social formations.

The degree and nature of the influence of the Middle Horizon Wari empire (ca. A.D. 540-900) on the culture history of Peru's north coast has been a topic of much heated debate over the past two decades. The arguments have tended to polarize around the issue of whether or not there was a Wari invasion of the north coast. Those arguing against the invasion hypothesis have claimed that there was no direct Wari influence on north coast cultural history. Those arguing in favor of the invasion hypothesis have attributed nearly all changes evident in the archaeological record to the results of a Wari military conquest. An attempt is made here to decouple the issues of Wari influence and Wari invasion. In an analysis of the architecture of the Wari imperial administrative sites and the ciudadela architecture of Chan Chan, capital of the north coastal Chimu empire, some remarkable similarities are seen. The shift from the pre-Middle Horizon Moche (ca. 100 B.C.-A.D. 650) pattern of pyramid-dominated ceremonial centers to the Late Intermediate period (ca. A.D. 900-1476) ciudadela form of the Chimu is seen as a result of conscious imitation of the prestige Wari imperial style. It is argued that this imitation is a likely result regardless of whether or not there was a Wari invasion.

En este trabajo exponemos y discutimos los resultados obtenidos a partir de estudios realizados a puntas de proyectil lanceoladas recuperadas en sectores acotados de las sierras y llanuras pampeanas de Argentina. El análisis se basó en puntos morfométricos adicionando, además, variables como largo, ancho, espesor y materia prima de los especímenes. La morfometría geométrica fue la principal herramienta utilizada, complementada por estudios tipológicos clásicos y estadística multivariada. Los instrumentos líticos examinados, pertenecientes a sistemas de armas utilizados por cazadores-recolectores, son comúnmente identificados como puntas Ayampitín. Estos constituyen un elemento diagnóstico sobre la tecnología existente en el centro de Argentina durante el Holoceno temprano-medio. Los resultados permitieron discutir que a la variabilidad propia del conjunto se adiciona una variabilidad interna en los tipos morfológicos básicos (pedunculadas y apedunculadas). Además, la selección de rocas para la talla estuvo fuertemente ligada a las aptitudes físicas de aquellas, existiendo, asimismo, una correlación entre algunas materias primas y las formas de los ejemplares. Finalmente, los diseños básicos fueron utilizados en un sistema de propulsor. La discusión permitió plantear nuevas líneas de evidencia a desarrollar para aportar al conocimiento de las etapas iniciales del poblamiento sudamericano.

The archaeological record in the Negro River in central Uruguay Republic is remarkable for its richness, including the presence of a significant number of Paleoindian fishtail points. As part of ongoing research on the earliest human occupations in this region, luminescence dating is applied to develop a terminal Pleistocene-Holocene regional chronology. Eight ages were derived from six samples taken from sedimentary fluvial deposits from two sites near the city of Paso de los Toros. The resulting dates span 11.8 and 1.04 ka corresponding to the Late Pleistocene and the whole Holocene. Because the chronology of the sedimentary sequences spanning these ages is poorly known, the presented results become a significant contribution to the construction of a chronostratigraphy sequence in the area. The results also show how single-grain dating can distinguish different components of mixed assemblages.

Scientific drawings, including maps, are increasingly recognized as theory-laden media for conveying information. The degree to which this quality impacts archaeological interpretations is revealed in the history of the published maps of La Venta, a Formative period Mesoamerican regional center. La Venta is pivotal to understanding the Olmec culture of Mexico’s Gulf Coast, yet archaeological knowledge is based primarily on one small portion of the site, Complex A, excavated in 1955. Since destroyed, Complex A is now known especially through visual representations. A review of the Complex A maps in the original field report and subsequent publications demonstrates how these technical drawings have sometimes superseded the textual excavation data in generating and disseminating archaeological knowledge. Over time the maps have become more schematic and misleading, impeding understandings of La Venta and its role in regional cultural manifestations. Reliance on totalizing plan maps has led most archaeologists to overlook the 1955 excavators’ major interpretations of the construction history of Complex A. However, the 1955 conclusions regarding the longevity of the formal design rules of the complex, reiterated by later archaeologists precisely because they are clearly visible in plan maps, are less well supported by the stratigraphic evidence.

Four seasons of excavation at the Santa Isabel site on the shore of Lake Nicaragua have recovered an extensive assemblage of material remains relating to Early Postclassic period (A.D. 800–1250) domestic practice. This paper reports initial project results, specifically relating to themes of architecture, foodways, specialized production, and belief systems. Exceptional preservation of organic materials such as faunal and botanical remains, as well as bone tools, permits an expansive description of the material culture relating to household level consumption. Through the intensive coverage of 5 ha of the site center, including 10 house mounds, we see that intra-site variation also reflects community organization. Finally, Santa Isabel presents potential for inferring cultural relationships between central Mexico (based on ethnohistorical accounts) and Greater Nicoya.

Recently completed investigations in the Naco Valley, located within the Rio Chamelecon drainage of northwestern Honduras, suggest that, by 1200 B. C., emergent elites were experiencing variable success in their efforts to construct sociopolitical hierarchies. Though able to harness labor in the construction of large platforms, these scions apparently did not monopolize crucial economic processes nor could they command the exclusive allegiances of their subordinates over protracted periods. Political centralization, social heterogeneity, and boundary formation processes were, therefore, not mutually reinforcing and the polities that resulted were small and ephemeral. Comparison of Naco"s trajectory with contemporary developments in neighboring portions of southeastern Mesoamerica hint at the varied developmental paths that ultimately laid the foundation for the emergence of relatively stable, hierarchically organized polities in the subsequent Classic period (A. D. 200–900).

This study examines the relationship between agricultural intensification and social complexity in past societies using a diachronic, contextualized population, the Nasca of the southern coast of Peru (A.D. 1–750). Using stable isotope analysis of human bone collagen, we tested social assumptions arising from the relationship between agricultural intensification and social complexity during the Nasca’s cultural fluorescence, including the construction of underground filtration galleries (puquios). Our data show that while agricultural intensification may have spurred social complexity in the Nasca region, it engendered few significant differences in access to foodstuffs. High status individuals in Nasca society had access to more meat than low status individuals, especially during time periods characterized by more social conflict, increasing trade routes, and agricultural intensification. Meat consumption may have been an important marker of status identity among the Nasca. Nasca elites, however, did not control access to agricultural products such as maize as effectively as they did meat. These dietary data support the contention that an indigenous process of innovation and intensification was the major catalyst to later social complexity in the Nasca population from the Las Trancas Valley.

Este artículo intenta definir áreas de consumo primarias y periféricas formales que se producían en Colha, en vista de las opciones de transporte y demanda del consumidor. Por medio de un modelo de presencia/ausencia, se examinan conjuntos líticos de 29 sitios del Preclásico Tardío y el Clásico Tardío en el norte de Belice buscando evidencia de variación en la demanda del consumidor según los periodos y según la proximidad a las vías acuáticas naturales. Durante el Preclásico Tardío, la más grande diversidad de herramientas formales ocurrió en los sitios que se sitúan al noroeste de Colha. Durante el Clásico Tardío la demanda por la herramientas formales de Colha se manifiesta en un mayor número de sitios que se sitúan a una distancia más grande y en todas direcciones del centro de producción. La comparación de la distribución de herramientas formales de pedernal, basada ya sea en el transporte terrestre o acuático, parece indicar que el uso de las vías acuáticas internas o marítimas (costeñas) se incrementó significativamente el tamaño del sistema de intercambio local. Los resultados de este estudio ilustran el significado de las rutas naturales de transporte como recursos explotables y en el desarrollo del sistema de intercambio local.

The Inca expansion to the southern Andes catalyzed important political and symbolic changes in local communities. In addition to economic changes in mining production and the installation of logistical and administrative infrastructure, new forms of ideological violence emerged in the Copiapó Valley, Chile. One new form was the display and discarding of human heads, a burial pattern unprecedented in the region. In this article, we present evidence of perforated heads buried without grave goods next to a local cemetery in a Late Horizon village. We argue that the performative use of modified severed heads from young individuals at the Iglesia Colorada site was part of Inca ritual practices. Their use represented an effort to ideologically rule over newly incorporated subjects by demonstrating power and ensuring their compliance.

The site of Ceibal was founded around the beginning of sedentary life in the Maya lowlands. Excavations at the Karinel Group within the site reveal domestic structures and ritual deposits dating to the Middle Preclassic, Late Preclassic, and Terminal Preclassic periods (c. 1000 BC–AD 300). The results complement data from Ceibal's Central Plaza and publications on early households in other regions of the lowlands, inviting future investigations of temporal and geographic variation in Preclassic Maya domestic rituals.