Este trabajo discute el uso de plantas psicoactivas en el Valle de Azapa del norte de Chile. Al respecto, en el norte de Chile existen evidencias arqueológicas materiales tempranas e ininterrumpidas relacionadas con prácticas psicoactivas en torno a la Anadenanthera, acompañadas de evidencia química que consigna el consumo de Erythroxylum. En este contexto, se evalúa el consumo de Anadenanthera y Banisteriopsis en el cabello de treinta y dos momias del período Medio (ca. 500–1000 d.C.) del Valle de Azapa, mediante cromatografía gaseosa y espectrometría de masa. De los casos analizados ninguno resultó positivo para el consumo de Anadenanthera, pero dos resultaron positivos para la ingesta de Banisteriopsis, planta psicoactiva preparada como infusión denominada generalmente Ayahuasca. Se postula que el consumo de Banisteriopsis en el Valle de Azapa estaría relacionado con prácticas curativas y medicinales como por ejemplo en el parto y/o puerperio, más que una práctica alucinógena.

Excavations conducted in 2015 and 2016 discovered a unique set of friezes at the Initial period (2100–1000 cal BC) site of Taukachi-Konkán in the coastal Peruvian valley of Casma. At this time, the Casma Valley was dominated by the Sechín Alto polity, a cultural development of unprecedented complexity characterized by large planned cities, monumental constructions, and strong interconnections among component settlements. Friezes are known from all major Sechín Alto polity sites where they typically adorn structure facades; however, the Taukachi-Konkán friezes are unusual because they cover all four interior walls of a sunken court with restricted access. Based on analysis of the context and content of these friezes, we suggest that the collective imagery depicts aspects of Sechín Alto polity cosmology, including possible iconography relating to their creation myth. Furthermore, motifs from the Taukachi-Konkán sunken court can be found at contemporary sites both within and outside the Casma Valley. This suggests that the worldview we reconstructed may have been widespread during the Initial period.

Children and childhood have emerged as important topics for understanding the history of African slavery in the Americas. In historical archaeology, analyses of subadult skeletal remains have provided valuable information about the biological and social conditions of captivity, yet children are infrequently the primary subjects of study in African diaspora bioarchaeology. Recent bioarchaeological research at Hacienda La Quebrada, a late colonial sugar plantation in central Peru, brings new data to bear on these subjects. Excavations at the cemetery for the plantation's enslaved African and Afro-descendant population recovered 158 subadults ranging from newborns to 20 years old, who represented 64% of the burial sample. Paleodemographic data and skeletal indicators of stress indicate that enslaved children were disproportionately affected by the conditions of life at Hacienda La Quebrada, particularly because of insufficient diets and susceptibility to infection and disease. Although these results are specific to the context of plantation slavery in Peru's coastal sugar economy, they contribute new information about the history of African slavery in Peru and about the study of childhood in conditions of captivity and colonialism in the Spanish Americas more broadly.

We explore the transformation of a site into a place of remembrance by evaluating the life history of an urnfield at Cerro de Trincheras, Sonora, Mexico. Prehispanic inhabitants used this cemetery as a cremation burial ground ca. AD 1300–1450. Memory of the cemetery persisted into historical times among inhabitants of the area, but its use changed. We argue that critical and contextualized approaches to cemeteries are needed to understand the complexity of how burial spaces are used through time.

Since at least 1742, the mineralogical collection of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN) in Paris has hosted, under the reference number 22.U, a biconvex lens-shaped obsidian artifact, also described as a mirror, measuring 250 mm in diameter and finely polished on both faces. It has usually been ascribed to the shipment sent by Hernán Cortez in 1522 to the Emperor Charles V, which was captured by a French privateer. We investigated the object using modern techniques. The elemental composition of the obsidian determined by the particle induced X-ray emission (PIXE) method showed that the raw material originates from the Mullumica deposit (Ecuador). Documentary investigations revealed that the lens (renumbered No. 176.101) was sent in 1737 from Quito, Ecuador (at that time part of the viceroyalty of Peru), to France by members of the Godin–La Condamine geodesic expedition (1735–1743). The mirror is thus among the rare Ecuadorian archeological or colonial artifacts to have reached the Old World during the eighteenth century.

En las sociedades andinas actuales las relaciones de parentesco determinan el tipo de matrimonio y el patrón de residencia posmarital que garantizan el manejo de los recursos, la supervivencia y la estabilidad reproductiva de la población. Sin embargo, es escasa la información disponible en el Área Andina Centro-Sur (AACS) para explicar los sistemas de parentesco durante el poblamiento original del territorio y su impacto en la estructura de las poblaciones locales posteriores a la conquista y colonización europea. En el presente trabajo se investiga el patrón residencial en dos sectores del AACS a partir de datos bioarqueológicos disponibles para el Noroeste Argentino y Norte de Chile. La información necesaria pudo ser recuperada a partir de la arqueología y de la antropología física regional. La muestra proviene de 8 localidades y 44 sitios con fechados que cubren el intervalo cronológico desde 3000 aC hasta 1450 dC, desde grupos arcaicos tempranos hasta comunidades agroalfareras tardías. Se emplearon 1.897 observaciones y 27 variables craneométricas. El análisis se realizó con técnicas estadísticas multivariadas: el cálculo de la varianza generalizada (determinante de la matriz de varianzas y covarianzas) para cada sexo y la estimación de los estadísticos de distancia (D2) y divergencia fenotípica (Fst) entre grupos y sexos. Los resultados revelan el efecto de distintos flujos migratorios que determinaron la estructura de las poblaciones. En todos los casos la varianza generalizada masculina es mayor que la femenina indicando una mayor variabilidad entre sitios y una mayor actividad migratoria. Los valores de D2 y Fst femeninos son mayores entre regiones y localidades con una menor tasa migratoria. Estos resultados indican, en general, la prevalencia de una estrategia de supervivencia basada en un sistema de parentesco que favoreció un modelo de residencia matrilocal.

In Brazil, as in most countries, history and natural history museums are the repositories of rich collections of excavated archaeological material. One of the major challenges in working with these collections is the paucity of information available regarding the original excavations, which raises important questions that archaeologists and museum studies professionals have been grappling with for several decades: what interpretive value do these collections have without any contextual information, and are they worth maintaining in museum archives that are facing continuing crises in space and resources? This article uses the concepts of entanglement and assemblage to discuss a collection of ceramics excavated from one of the first Spanish Jesuit missions in colonial Paraguay, San Ignacio Miní (1610–1631), and housed at the Museu Paranaense in Curitiba, Brazil. Despite the lack of contextual information from the 1963 excavation, we can begin to explore the entangled pasts, present, and future of these objects by tracing the trajectory of the collection from the initial formation through excavation and contemporary analysis. Innovative approaches are needed to address methodological and theoretical concerns in analyzing archaeological museum collections to ensure that the knowledge and potential insights entangled in these collections are not lost.

In this study, we present new data from the ancient Maya site of Yaxnohcah in southern Mexico. These data, which are drawn from lidar-based GIS analysis, field inspection, and the excavation of two small, closed depressions, suggest that many of this site's features served a dual function. Quarrying to extract construction materials left behind closed depressions that were then sealed to create household reservoirs. We classify these water-storage features as quarry-reservoirs. The ubiquity of these small quarry-reservoirs represented an important community water source outside the sphere of direct elite control.

Paleodemographic simulations are rare in the Maya region, because generally the skeletal collections do not represent well the ancient living population, are poorly preserved, and lead to flawed age-at-death estimations. The skeletal collection of Xcambó, however, is suitable for paleodemographic analysis and is large enough to enable comparison of paleodemographic trends between the Early (AD 250–550) and Late Classic (AD 550–750) periods. Three demographic simulations were generated; two relied on growth rates calculated from the site's previous archaeodemographic data, and a third simulation was based on a stationary scenario by applying Weiss's (1973) and Séguy and Buchet's (2013) models. All simulations indicate that Xcambó’s Late Classic population was growing faster than its Early Classic peers, with higher rates of survivorship and more severe mortality rates. We argue that the differences are more likely due to shifts in lifestyle and wealth than to environmental changes, as is confirmed by other bioarchaeological and skeletal indicators.

In this article we present a study that seeks to explain the nature of, and the mortuary practices behind, the burials containing multiple individuals at the site of El Caño, Panama (part of the “Gran Coclé” archaeological tradition, ca. AD 700–1000). We set out to test our first impression of these burials as products of sumptuous funerals held upon the death of the rulers that included, among other practices, human sacrifice. With this in mind, our research aims to elucidate the status relationships between individuals, the circumstances of their deaths, and the religious and symbolic significance of their burials. The results reveal the presence of an individual of higher status within every tomb, the existence of a pattern with respect to the status of those who accompany that individual, the practice of mortuary treatments typical of sacrificial contexts, toxic substances, an iconography referring to human sacrifice, and the clear intention of using a burial as a representation of social order. Considering all this, we conclude that multiple burials at this site should be interpreted as high status. Our study highlights the practice of human sacrifice in funerary rituals linked to that status.

Most archaeological research on the impact of Inka imperialism at the domestic level centers on the intrusion of Inka-style buildings into pre-Inka domestic settlements as transforming the experience of domestic life and actively hindering interhousehold interaction. Results from excavations in the site of Ampugasa in Huarochirí (Lurín valley, Lima, Peru) show that pre-Inka residential spaces (patio-groups) were replaced by enclosures with a single access to an internal patio for domestic activities. My analysis shows that pre-Inka houses were ritually closed, directly connected to the site's ritual core, and remained part of the everyday life experience of people in the settlement. I argue that Ampugasa's transformation corresponds to a pattern of Inka imperialism in Huarochirí that enshrined rather than erased the collective ritual practices through which the people of Huarochirí maintained a broad regional identity. I propose that the interplay between Inka transformation of domestic space in Ampugasa and the continuity of ritual and secular practices among the site's inhabitants shows a space of negotiation where Inka imperialism still relied heavily on local practices that fostered the continuity of collective identities.

Contrary to Burger et al. (2016), there is ample evidence of colonial cinnabar mining in southern Ecuador.

Presentamos una revisión exhaustiva de la información disponible sobre la tecnología lítica de las sociedades finipleistocénicas de la Meseta Central de Santa Cruz (Patagonia, Argentina). Hasta el momento esta sólo había sido estudiada de manera fragmentaria. Abordamos de forma integrada los procesos de producción y consumo registrando tres aspectos de la tecnología: disponibilidad de materias primas en los paisajes donde se encuentran los sitios; estructura de los conjuntos y sus características tecnomorfológicas; y funcionalidad de los instrumentos. Los resultados indican que la disponibilidad de recursos líticos habría influenciado en la organización de la tecnología, en la elección de los lugares donde se desarrollaron distintas prácticas sociales, y en el modo en que se estructuraron las actividades de producción y consumo entre distintos sitios. Se prefirió el diseño de instrumentos unifaciales sobre soportes generalizados, pero también se elaboraron diseños que implicaron mayor inversión de trabajo. Así, las formas de uso y las funciones a las cuales fueron destinados los instrumentos influyeron en otros aspectos de la tecnología.

The stirrup-spout bottle is one of the most representative forms in the Chimú (A.D. 900-1470) ceramic repertoire. I discuss the ceramic assemblage of this coastal culture and describes more precisely the various manufacturing processes of the stirrup-spout bottle. Although molds used to produce these complex vessels are known today, only little information has been published on the various stages involved in their manufacture. My purpose is to contribute to this research using medical imaging computed tomography (CT) scans of intact stirrup-spout vessels. Based on my findings, I propose that changes in the construction of these vessels correlated with a transition in ceramic production to a semi-industrial level during the time of the Chimú Empire.

This article examines the urban layout and development of the ancient city of Angamuco (AD 250–1530)—a populated urban center located within the core area of the Purépecha Empire in Michoacán, Mexico—through the lens of its complex road network. Image and network analysis of lidar datasets revealed more than 3,000 roads distributed throughout the site, identified the main patterns of road arrangement, and documented variable accessibility within the city. After presenting a summary of these results, I propose that road networks are fundamental components of urban centers that can help reveal social configurations, local interactions, and models of governance. The study of the road network at the site of Angamuco suggests that this city developed organically without the strong influence of political hierarchy a few centuries prior to the formation of the Purépecha Empire. Angamuco inhabitants organized and negotiated space and settlement within their immediate community and had access to virtually all areas of the city.

Despite the abundance of lithic debitage at preceramic sites in the Maya Lowlands, these data have rarely been studied in detail. We analyzed the chipped chert debitage from Caye Coco and Fred Smith, two Archaic period sites in the Freshwater Creek drainage of northern Belize, to evaluate strategies of lithic raw material procurement, stone tool production, and tool use. The technological and use-wear analyses of the debitage demonstrate that the sites’ inhabitants procured most of their tool stone from the Northern Belize Chert-bearing Zone (NBCZ) and relied on hard-hammer percussion to produce flakes for use as expedient tools and some crude bifaces and unifaces. Although similar patterns of raw material procurement and tool production are demonstrated at both sites, some differences exist, including bipolar reduction at Caye Coco. Based on use-wear analysis, the debitage at the island site of Caye Coco was primarily used for working wood, shell, and hard contact materials and for digging soil. On the shore at Fred Smith, most use-wear is consistent with working wood, plants, and hard contact materials, as well as digging soil. For both sites, analyses suggest the increasing importance of a horticultural subsistence strategy with reduced mobility and reliance on some cultigens that were locally produced.

Camelid pastoralism, agriculture, sedentism, surplus production, increasing cultural complexity, and interregional interaction during northern Chile's Late Formative period (AD 100–400) are seen in the flow of goods and people over expanses of desert. Consolidating evidence of material culture from these interactions with a bioarchaeological dimension allows us to provide details about individual lives and patterns in the Late Formative more generally. Here, we integrate a variety of skeletal, chemical, and archaeological data to explore the life and death of a small child (Calate-3N.7). By taking a multiscalar approach, we present a narrative that considers not only the varied materiality that accompanies this child but also what the child's life experience was and how this reflects and shapes our understanding of the Late Formative period in northern Chile. This evidence hints at the profound mobility of their youth. The complex mortuary context reflects numerous interactions and long-distance relationships. Ultimately, the evidence speaks to deep social relations between two coastal groups, the Atacameños and Tarapaqueños. Considering this suite of data, we can see a child whose life was spent moving through desert routes and perhaps also glimpse the construction of intercultural identity in the Formative period.

For many years, the existence of ancient human settlements in the Amazon was deemed impossible, particularly those as old as 12,000 BP as found in Pedra Pintada Cave in Monte Alegre, in the state of Pará, by Anna Roosevelt and colleagues in the 1990s and by Edithe Pereira's team in 2014. In this article, we present the results of the technological analyses of the bifacial tools found in the cave, focusing on raw materials, techniques, shaping and retouching methods, and technical procedures. The analyses indicate careful knapping, with no mistakes, in hundreds of flakes in the shaping and retouching phases, as well as fragmented tools with flaws. Whenever possible, we compare the results to the data published by Roosevelt and colleagues in 1996 from the same site.

El caracol terrestre Megalobulimus spp. ha sido registrado con gran frecuencia en cementerios prehispánicos de los oasis de San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, a pesar de su carácter ajeno al entorno desértico de esta región. Efectivamente, su hábitat se encuentra en el ambiente húmedo y tropical del noroeste de Argentina, por lo cual es señalado en la literatura arqueológica como indicador del intercambio de larga distancia, y que su función habría sido contener pigmentos colorantes. En este estudio multidisciplinario analizamos su presencia desde los contextos funerarios mismos, complementándolo con el análisis taxonómico de ejemplares arqueológicos y la revisión de datos biológicos-etológicos de dicho gasterópodo. Con ello presentamos datos inéditos respecto de la utilización de Megalobulimus en Atacama, brindando al mismo tiempo nueva información acerca de su vínculo con la práctica inhalatoria de sustancias sicoactivas. Concluimos que el significado simbólico del caracol podría vincularse a la renovación vital por medio del agua fertilizadora de la tierra, y que de ahí surgiría el interés por convertirlo en contenedor de sustancias pigmentarias, carbonáticas y/o alucinógenas. Así, dicho carácter simbólico permitiría explicar el rol que jugó el caracol Megalobulimus en las redes de intercambio ritual del área circumpuneña, y por extensión, en los Andes centro-sur.