The earliest Lowland Maya are commonly recognized by permanent architecture and the appearance of pottery. However, when other lines of evidence are considered, strong continuities with late Archaic populations can be seen. Reconciling these views relies on more than simply gathering more data. It is also necessary to consider the effect of decades of scholarship that defines the precolumbian Maya as “civilization” rather than considering the historical contexts of important transitions, such as the one that culminated with sedentism, the adoption of new technologies, and participation in long-distance exchange. The Archaic-to-Preclassic transition was relatively brief and largely obscured by the practices of establishing permanent dwellings. Nevertheless, this period must have been extremely dynamic and marked by significant cultural change, making it important to researchers interested in early Mesoamerica. Using three lines of evidence—subsistence, economy and technology, and stratigraphically controlled radiocarbon data—this article argues that the Lowland Maya had their cultural origins at least in the late Archaic and that the case for pottery before ca. 1000 B.C. remains uncertain. Future research is needed to determine precisely how far back in time certain cultural practices that characterize Preclassic and Classic Maya society can be documented.

During the last four decades, mesoamerican archaeologists regularly have employed various chemical assay techniques to determine the geological sources of obsidian artifacts. In recent years, the reliability of these analytical procedures has increased and their costs have declined, encouraging the assay of ever larger samples. Nonetheless, several constraints make it unlikely that compositional data will be used routinely to attribute entire collections to their geological sources. This report describes a test of visual sourcing, a technique that for many sites in the Maya region is only slightly less accurate than compositional assay. We also propose sampling strategies that combine visual and compositional sourcing in ways that allow large collections to be accurately sourced at low costs. Finally, we suggest ways to develop the technique for use throughout Latin America.

The puquios of Nasca are a system of subterranean filtration galleries that provide water for irrigation and domestic uses in the middle portions of the Nasca, Taruga, and Las Trancas valleys of the Río Grande de Nasca drainage of the south coast of Peru. At present 36 puquios function in these three valleys; in the past their number may have exceeded 50. We discuss the formal characteristics and the construction of the puquios, and describe each of the extant puquios. The results of archaeological settlement surveys conducted in the three valleys indicate that the puquios did not yet exist in Early Nasca (Early Intermediate Period 2-4) times, but were almost certainly in use by the time of the Inka conquest of the region in the late fifteenth century. We suggest that the initial construction and use of the puquios may have occurred as early as Nasca 5 times, and probably not later than Late Nasca (Early Intermediate Period 6-7) times.

The Aguateca Archaeological Project conducted extensive excavations of elite residences at the Maya center of Aguateca, which was attacked by enemies and abandoned rapidly at the end of the Classic period. Burned buildings contained rich floor assemblages, providing extraordinary information on the domestic and political lives of Classic Maya elites. Each elite residence served for a wide range of domestic work, including the storage, preparation, and consumption of food, with a relatively clear division of male and female spaces. These patterns suggest that each of the excavated elite residences was occupied by a relatively small group, which constituted an important economic and social unit. In addition, elite residences were arenas where crucial processes of the operation of the polity and court unfolded through political gatherings, artistic production, and displays of power.

A recent study of Early Formative Mesoamerican pottery by instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) yielded surprising results that prompted two critiques in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The INAA study indicated that the Olmec center of San Lorenzo was a major exporter of carved-incised and white pottery and that little if any pottery made elsewhere was consumed at San Lorenzo. The critiques purport to "overturn" the INAA study and demonstrate a more balanced exchange of pottery among Early Formative centers. However, the critiques rely on a series of mistaken claims and misunderstandings that are addressed here. New petrographic data on a small sample of Early Formative pottery (Stoltman et al. 2005) are potentially useful, but they do not overturn INAA of nearly 1000 pottery samples and hundreds of raw material samples.

This report examines 10,845 lithic artifacts from the rapidly abandoned city of Aguateca, Guatemala, to elucidate elite artistic and craft production in Classic Maya society. The methods used include high-power microwear analysis. The results suggest that significant numbers of Maya elite, both men and women, engaged in artistic creation and craft production, often working in both attached and independent contexts. The royal family and other elite households produced many artistic and craft items, including wood carvings and hide or leather goods. The scribe inhabiting Structure M8-8 carved stelae for the ruler, and the high-status courtier/scribe living in Structure M8-4 emphasized the production of shell and bone objects and other royal regalia in a courtly setting. Clearly, Aguateca was a center of part-time production of both utilitarian and luxury goods as well as of consumption. Classic Maya elite men and women artists/craft producers possessed multiple social identities and roles, which in turn implies a more flexible and integrated system of Classic Maya elite participating in attached and independent craft production more than is usually proposed.

Curaumilla-1 presents the earliest date for Archaic coastal occupation and marine exploitation in central Chile (8,500 years B. P.). The remains of marine invertebrates from this site at Punta Curaumilla were studied. The number of present species, minimum number of individuals for 14 species, and mean sizes of two of these species were established. Recent studies have demonstrated that modern shellfish gatherers are important modifiers of rocky-intertidal communities in central Chile. Consequently, we attempt here to define the probable ecological role of past people at Punta Curaumilla as shellfish gatherers. The molluscan species present at Curaumilla-1 are much the same as those exploited at present by shellfish gatherers in central Chile. Two pulses of occupation were identified within the Archaic and Early Ceramic periods respectively. During these events it is likely that Precolumbian people may have temporarily or permanently modified sectors of the rocky intertidal at Punta Curaumilla.

In this article we present a synthetic overview and preliminary analysis of the data collected by members of the Sierra del Lacandón Regional Archaeology Project (SLRAP) during four field seasons of research from 2003 to 2007. We examine the growth, development, and transformation of the Classic Maya polities of Piedras Negras, Guatemala, and Yaxchilan, Mexico, located in the Middle Usumacinta Basin. This analysis uses a conjunctive approach, incorporating analyses of iconography, epigraphy, settlement patterns, ceramics, mortuary patterns, and architectural styles. During the Late Preclassic period (c. 250 B.C.-A.D. 350) settlement was scattered widely across the study region and Piedras Negras and Yaxchilan were only two of a number of other equally powerful Preclassic communities. In the Early Classic period (c. A.D. 350-600) royal dynasties were established at both Piedras Negras and Yaxchilan and the population of the region became concentrated at these two sites. During the Late Classic period (c. A.D. 600-810) the political frontier between Piedras Negras and Yaxchilan was repopulated and transformed into a contested border zone surrounding a political boundary. This territorial expansion culminated in endemic warfare by the eighth century A.D., which may have ultimately led to the demise of these two Maya polities.

The lower Ica Valley on the hyperarid south coast of Peru is today largely depopulated and bereft of cultivation, yet its extensive archaeological remains attest to substantial prehispanic populations. This paper describes archaeological investigations to retrace changes in geomorphology, ecology, and land-use in Samaca, one of the riparian oasis basins of the lower Río lea, with the aim of investigating when, how, and why such changes took place. Archaeological interpretations of culture change in the region often invoke the impacts of major ENSO perturbations (El Niño). While our investigations confirm that major El Niño events around the end of the Early Intermediate Period likely offer part of the explanation for marked landscape change in the Samaca Basin, we also demonstrate the significance of more gradual, human-induced destruction of Prosopis pallida (huarango) riparian dry-forest. Huarango is a remarkable leguminous hardwood that lives for over a millennium and provides forage, fuel, and food. Moreover, it plays a crucial role in integrating fragile desert ecosystems, enhancing soil fertility and moisture, and accomplishing desalination and microclimatic amelioration. We propose that south coast valleys remained densely forested well into the Early Intermediate Period, attenuating the impact of El Niño events and supporting hitherto underappreciated agroforestry adaptations. Gradual deforestation eventually crossed an environmental threshold: river and wind erosion increased dramatically and precipitated radical desertification, feeding back into cultural changes in the Middle Horizon. Thus we argue Prosopis-human ecological relationships merit proper recognition in our archaeological interpretations of the south coast of Peru.

This study reports stable carbon-isotope ratios for both bone collagen and apatite, and nitrogen-isotope ratios for bone collagen for 72 Maya skeletons from 9 zones representing contrasting status groups at Altun Ha, Belize. The sample spans the Preclassic to Postclassic periods, approximately 800 B. C. to after A. D. 950. Although Altun Ha has a maize-based (C-4) diet, it has a much stronger marine/reef component than any other Maya site studied so far. Two possible dedicatory burial groups are dietarily distinct. The source of protein appears to have been fairly stable throughout the site sequence, but a marked shift to reduced consumption of C4 foods seems to have occurred after the Early Classic period. A second similar decline probably occurred between the Late/Terminal Classic and the Postclassic periods. These apparent temporal trends may, however, be confounded by differences between zones. High status is marked by consumption of large quantities of C4 foods, possibly including C4-fed terrestrial animals. Males consumed more meat and C4 foods than did females. All δ-values and collagen-apatite spacings indicate that children were breastfed until at least the age of three or four.

Agricultural and residential space were integrated in prehistoric lowland Mesoamerica for productive and domestic activities to produce distinctive patterns of settlement and land use visible in the archaeological record. Ethnoarchaeological studies provide information on the behavioral component of site formation in such contexts. Contemporary residential refuse treatment and the use of infield agricultural land are examined here from a sample of farming households in the Sierra de los Tuxtlas of southern Veracruz, Mexico. A model of site structure (the House-Lot model) relates the maintenance of refuse-free (clear area) and refuse-laden (intermediate area) spaces within the house lot to household farming activities outside of the residential lot. Variation in the intensity of cultivation on infield plots is shown to correlate with variability in the size of areas within house lots. This research suggests that the distribution of prehistoric residential debris might be used to diagnose factors of ancient agriculture and settlement in contexts commonly encountered during archaeological excavation and survey.

In northeastern Mexico, near Ocampo, Romero’s and Valenzuela’s caves have been central to explanations of agricultural origins in Mesoamerica for more than four decades. Along with caves in Tehuacán and Oaxaca, these "Ocampo caves" have provided almost all of the available evidence for the initial appearance of a number of key Mesoamerican crop plants, including maize, beans, and squash. This article reanalyzes the cultural and temporal context of five crop plant assemblages in the Ocampo caves: maize (Zea mays), bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria), and three species of squash (Cucurbita argyrosperma, C. moschata, C. pepo). Fifteen AMS radiocarbon dates on early domesticates both confirm the stratigraphic integrity of the two caves and substantially revise the temporal framework for initial appearance of core domesticates in northeastern Mexico, showing the transition to food production in Tamaulipas took place more recently than previously thought. A substantially foreshortened chronology for Ocampo crop plants confirms the northern periphery role of Tamaulipas in the origins of agriculture in Mexico, while also underscoring the need for establishing AMS-based archaeobotanical sequences across Mesoamerica to gain an adequate context for understanding the temporal, environmental, and cultural contexts of initial plant domestication in the region.

The acquisition and use of exotic, valuable, and ritually important elite goods is a prominent feature of many imperial political economies. After an extensive review of the archaeological and documentary sources on one specific valuable in the empire of Chimor, this paper analyzes the visual representation of such goods, an aspect seldom addressed by archaeologists. An architectural relief recently excavated at Chan Chan, the capital of Chimor, sheds new light on the use of exotic materials and long-distance trade and exchange along the Pacific coast of South America in the late Prehispanic period. This relief, named "Los Buceadores" (The Divers) for the principal imagery depicting Spondylus divers, is important for elucidating the role of this valuable in the early development of the Chimú empire. It is argued that the Chimú rulers sponsored a long-distance exchange network during an early stage of the expansion of the Chimú polity and that the fruits of this network, particularly Spondylus, formed a critical element in the formation and maintenance of the ritual and economic basis of power for the expanding state.

This paper examines ethnohistoric and archaeological evidence of Inka imperial strategies for controlling resources and people in the Titicaca Basin and the coastal valleys of southern Peru and northern Chile, and suggests that Inka imperial policies were adapted to meet local conditions in a series of dynamic political and economic interactions. In the coastal region between the Tambo Valley of southern Peru and the Azapa Valley of northern Chile, Inka policies included, variously, the resettlement of labor colonists (mitmaqkuna), the direct incorporation of coastal groups, and the maintenance of alliances with autonomous coastal elites. Altiplano elites exploited the imperial system to extend their own networks of colonization and exchange. Recent archaeological surveys in the Ilo-Ite coastal region, as well as unpublished data collected by Gary Vescelius between 1958 and 1960, indicate that the Inka developed more direct control of the south-central coast than earlier polities had achieved, but that imperial control over this region was limited and influenced by the persistence of autonomous coastal groups. Groups around Ilo remained fairly independent, while parts of the Tambo and Sama valleys and the Quebrada Tacahuay were brought under direct imperial control.

This article offers a challenge to previous interpretations of the ring villages of Central Brazil. Specifically, these large villages that were occupied by ceramic-making agriculturalists have been characterized as marginal and anomalous developments resulting from late population movements triggered by the European conquest. New data presented here show that the ring villages have a much greater time depth. Their sudden appearance around A. D. 800 is explained as a local response to both regional and external pressures. Information on settlement pattern variables such as village layout and size, differences in cultural inventory, and comparison of archaeological and ethnographic data illustrate sociopolitical and demographic changes through time that have critical implications for Amazonian archaeology.

A recent systematic archaeological survey in the Ejutla Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico, enables us to examine long-term settlement-pattern changes in this small region and its shifting Prehispanic relation with the larger, adjacent Valley of Oaxaca. Throughout the sequence, Ejutla was settled less densely than Oaxaca, though the degree of difference varied through time. Ejutla was not a simple microcosm of Oaxaca; rather the former region shifted from a sparsely inhabited frontier to a more-dependent periphery that maintained different degrees of autonomy over time. Through a multiscalar examination of this contiguous area larger than a single valley, new perspectives are gained concerning political and economic relations and processes at the macroregional scale for the southern highlands of ancient Mesoamerica.

This investigation uses a bioarchaeological approach to test the existence of pre-Inka colonists within the Andean coastal valleys of Moquegua, Peru, and Azapa, Chile, as predicted by Murra's (1972) classic model of verticality. The archaeological evidence and biodistance results obtained using genetically controlled dental traits from 859 skeletal and mummified remains indicate that the Late Intermediate period (A.D. 1100-1476) coastal Chiribaya people of the Moquegua Valley, Peru, likely represent descendants of altiplano populations that migrated to the coastal region following the disintegration of the Middle Horizon (A.D. 750-1100) Tiwanaku colony located in the middle Moquegua Valley. In the neighboring Azapa Valley, Chile, genetic change among prehistoric populations was due to gradual in situ microevolution of local populations rather than colonization by altiplano people. Coastal populations of the Azapa Valley maintained biocultural continuity with the Archaic period Chinchorro coastal population. It is concluded that Murra's model of direct verticality should be evaluated using both biological and archaeological data on a case-by-case basis.

Desde principios de siglo se ha propuesto la coexistencia de los gliptodontes con los cazadores recolectores pleistocénicos de la región pampeana, pero las evidencias presentadas para apoyar esta hipótesis fueron ambiguas. El componente inferior del sitio La Moderna (región pampeana, República Argentina) indica que un representante de esta familia, Doedicurus clavicaudatus, fue faenado a orillas de un pantano, utilizando un instrumental expeditivo de cuarzo cristalino, hacia ca. 7,000 a 7,500 a. P. En este artículo se presenta una síntesis de los hallazgos de La Moderna y se resume y discute también el registro de restos de gliptodontes y de un armadillo extinto (Eutatus seguini) de otros sitios arqueológicos pampeanos. Los hallazgos de La Moderna y de otros sitios con fauna pleistocénica, tales como Arroyo Seco 2, apoyan la hipótesis de que en la región pampeana, la mayoría de las extinciones faunísticas se produjeron luego de los 10,000 a. P. y que en consecuencia, varios géneros pleistocénicos sobrevivieron hasta el final del Holoceno temprano.

According to historical sources, the Inka relocated groups of craft specialists to provincial centers to manufacture goods for the state. Recent fieldwork in the Leche Valley on the north coast of Peru provides insights into the organization and technology of pottery production at these centers. While Inka style jars were added to their repertories, potters continued to manufacture vessels in local styles using local techniques. These results caution against a reliance on style in identifying products made in administered contexts, and question the equivalence of style with polity in the Inka provinces. They also highlight a need to critically evaluate Inka cultural policies and the significance of subject styles in the empire.

Excavations in northern Honduras have produced evidence of initial village life that is among the earliest cases documented in Mesoamerica. Settlement beginning prior to 1600 B. C., the production of sophisticated pottery by 1600 B. C., and integration in economic exchange networks extending into Guatemala and Mexico by 1100-900 B. C. (calendar ages), are all consistent with patterns recorded in the Gulf Coast, Central Highlands, and Pacific Coast of Mexico. Supported by a suite of 11 radiocarbon dates, these findings overturn traditional models that viewed Honduras as an underdeveloped periphery receiving delayed influences from Mexican centers.