This article reports the material evidence of roads in the northwestern Maya Lowlands that were in use from the Middle Preclassic (800–300 BC) through the Late Classic (AD 700–900) period in Chiapas and Tabasco, Mexico. The study includes archaeological evidence recovered from field research in an area covering approximately 670 km2 and 618 recorded archaeological sites. It presents the physical characteristics of a series of piedmont paths that connected the region from the Usumacinta River to the Tulijá River, including large population centers such as Palenque and Chinikihá. The study uses a geographic information system (GIS) least cost path (LCP) analysis to identify the location of roads and how they relate to regional settlement patterns. It also tests the use of modern computational models to advance regional studies in the Maya area. Study results show how the Classic Maya adapted and appropriated the region's topography to facilitate movement, long-term settlement, and the building of landesque capital.

Archaeology is increasingly employing remote sensing techniques such as airborne lidar (light detection and ranging), terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), and photogrammetry in tropical environments where dense vegetation hinders to a great extent the ability to understand the scope of ancient landscape modification. These technologies have enabled archaeologists to develop sophisticated analyses that overturn traditional misconceptions of tropical ecologies and the human groups that have inhabited them in the long term. This article presents new data on the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in northern Colombia that reveals the extent to which its ancient societies transformed this landscape, which is frequently thought of as pristine. By recursively integrating remote sensing and archaeology, this study contributes to interdisciplinary scholarship examining ancient land use and occupation in densely forested contexts.

This study uses isotope and microbotanical data from the analysis of teeth and dental calculus to investigate camelid diet and foddering practices at Quilcapampa (AD 835–900). By providing taxonomically specific evidence of foods consumed, botanical data from dental calculus complement the more general impressions of photosynthetic pathways obtained through isotopic analysis. Results suggest that the camelid diet incorporated maize (Zea mays), algarrobo (Prosopis sp.), potato chuño (Solanum sp.), and other resources. The life-history profile of one camelid (Individual 3) reveals dietary change from mainly C3 plants to more C4 plant contributions as the animal aged. This pattern is supported by carbonate isotope results indicating that this individual spent its youth in the mid-valley ecozone before becoming more mobile later in life. As this life-history example shows, isotopic and microbotanical analyses are complementary approaches, clarifying a pattern of seasonal transhumance that linked the lives of humans and animals along the Middle Horizon (AD 600–1000) caravan networks that crisscrossed the central Andes.

This article revises the spatial and temporal boundaries of the Casas Grandes tradition associated with northwest Chihuahua, Mexico, based on new data collected in neighboring northeastern Sonora. The Casas Grandes tradition attained its greatest extent during the Medio period (AD 1200–1450/1500) followed by a dramatic demographic and political collapse. Hunter-gatherer groups subsequently occupied most of northwest Chihuahua. Data from the Fronteras Valley, Sonora, presents an alternative scenario, with a clear pattern of cultural continuity from the eleventh century to the colonial period in which sedentary farmers occupied the same landscapes and occasionally the same villages. These observations contribute to our understanding of the spread and subsequent demise of the Casas Grandes tradition in hinterland regions. For the Fronteras Valley, we infer that immigrant groups originally introduced Casas Grandes traditions and that uneven participation in a suite of shared religious beliefs and practices was common to all the hinterlands.

Using data from several well-preserved pyres, which are rarely found well preserved in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, we examine cremation customs and their associated pyrotechnologies at the site of Cerro de Trincheras in northern Sonora, Mexico, from AD 1300 to 1450/1500. We explore variations in pyre construction and use, thermal alterations of the deceased, the deceased individuals’ biological profiles, the performance of mortuary rituals, and the sensorial experiences of both the mourners and the wider Cerro de Trincheras community. The residents of the site were masters of the pyrotechnologies associated with cremations, making efficient pyres for the deceased and maximizing their resources. The group also created transformative funeral rituals that may have facilitated and mediated a wide range of emotional responses toward their deceased.

Polities require individuals who envision and materialize them; in turn, people's political identity as residents depends on them. The polity and the resident are self-evident only in hindsight, and we discuss their co-constitution. During subjectification, people create and submit to an authority. Our case study is the Early Classic (AD 350–600) emergence of Tamarindito in the south-central Maya Lowlands (modern Guatemala). The Petexbatun Regional Archaeological Project and the Tamarindito Archaeological Project have extensively studied this capital of the Foliated Scroll polity. Although its divine rulers present themselves as fully formed since time immemorial, we discuss how they built their authority through self-serving narratives. Tamarindito originates in the Early Classic, and in the late fourth or fifth century, rulers selected a 70 m high hill as seat. Plaza A's monumentality conceals a small-scale labor effort and a slowly growing polity. Only two non-elite households attached themselves to the royal court during the fifth and sixth centuries, suggesting that non-elites recognized the royal authority only slowly. The formation of the Foliated Scroll polity was an immanent process. Self-aggrandizing divine kings struggled to claim authority, and non-elites subjectified themselves over several centuries.

Excavations conducted by Beloit College in 1958 and 1960 identified the site of La Magdalena in the Bajío of Mexico. Investigators have since highlighted three primary phases of occupation at La Magdalena, two of which were proposed to have been culturally influenced by Teotihuacan or Tula. Modern research in the Bajío mostly diverges from those postulations of distant connections, supplanting them with local patterns that hold much more explanatory power. Archaeometric studies are pivotal in this regard but have thus far been infrequently used. This research analyzes the obsidian assemblage from La Magdalena and finds a nearly ubiquitous utilization of a local obsidian source known as Ojo Zarco. These findings merit a reevaluation of obsidian in the eastern Bajío and argue for more archaeometric studies that elucidate local procurement patterns.

Los cazadores recolectores del este de Sudamérica ajustaron, durante el Holoceno, sus conductas territoriales a las fluctuaciones climáticas y ambientales. Estas sociedades implementaron una estrategia económica con una tecnología caracterizada por puntas de proyectil en piedra tallada. Estos cazadores fueron responsables de innovaciones técnicas y variabilidad en las formas y dimensiones de las puntas. Dichos cambios fueron estimulados por el menor tamaño de la fauna del Holoceno, la caza en ambientes anegadizos, la disponibilidad de materias primas y la experimentación de nuevas técnicas de propulsión. El sistema técnico buscó resolver los problemas planteados por la movilidad a través del reciclaje de puntas dañadas. Se analizaron 25 puntas de proyectil provenientes del este de Uruguay. Se relevaron aspectos tecno-tipológicos; se empleó lupa binocular (5× a 72×) y microscopio metalográfico (50× a 400×). Los análisis traceológicos, con base experimental, dan cuenta de fracturas en el ápice y confirman que se trata de puntas empleadas en armas arrojadizas. Los rastros registrados y algunos residuos sugieren que estas puntas fueron enastiladas y transportadas en un carcaj. Las observaciones realizadas parecen confirmar que parte de los ejemplares estudiados corresponden a puntas de flecha usadas con arco, una innovación de gran impacto en las tierras bajas.

A core region is the first place for expected shifts in archaeological materials before, during, and after political changes like state emergence and imperial consolidation. Yet, studies of ceramic production have shown that there are sometimes limited or more subtle changes in the ceramic economy throughout such political fluctuations. This article synthesizes recent efforts to address political economic changes via geochemical characterization (neutron activation analysis; NAA) in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin in western Mexico. This region was home to the Purépecha state and then empire (Tarascan; ca. AD 1350–1530), one of the most powerful kingdoms in the Americas before European arrival. The combined ceramic dataset from four sites in the region result in eight geochemical groups. Our analysis indicates that the region experienced long-term and relatively stable ceramic production that was not substantially altered by the emergence of the state and empire. In addition, we find evidence for (1) dispersed, localized production; (2) long-lived compositional ceramic recipes; and (3) a complex ceramic economy with differential community participation. We discuss why documenting local ceramic production and craft production more generally is important for the study of past political economies.

This article presents results from the excavation and analysis of 11 slab-cist tombs associated with the site of Ayawiri, one of the largest hillforts in the western Lake Titicaca Basin during the Late Intermediate period (LIP; AD 1100–1450). These semi-subterranean tombs typically contain commingled human remains. Variation between and within tombs in the number of individuals, the body parts represented, and the degree of skeletal articulation points to a complex burial practice that likely involved tomb reopening, successive burial, and even the deposition of select body parts. Demographic and mortuary profiles suggest that burial practices were decentralized and flexible, structured by shared attitudes toward “the dead” and the dead body but also subject to the prerogatives and preferences of semi-autonomous corporate groups. This study advances our understanding of a lesser-known mortuary tradition in the Lake Titicaca Basin—one long overshadowed by more prominent burial towers (chullpas)—and sheds new light on the complex interactions that took place between the living and the dead during the LIP.

Se presenta un análisis detallado de tres queros con las escenas “El Inca y la Coya” y “Guerra de los incas contra los chunchus o antis”. Cada pieza es individualizada mediante sutiles diferencias tanto en las escenas figurativas como en las bandas de signos tocapus. Esta característica es propia de los queros con escenas complejas y bandas de tocapus de más de seis signos. Llegamos a la conclusión de que el encargo al artesano/artista comprendía ciertos requisitos, que podemos denominar mensajes semánticos asociados directamente al futuro propietario de los objetos. En el caso de la escena “El Inca y la Coya” muy probablemente se trataba, en primer lugar, de hacer referencia a los verdaderos (o supuestos) ilustres ancestros del propietario del vaso. En el caso de la escena “Guerra de los incas contra los chunchus o antis” se trataba, muy probablemente, de resaltar una gesta sobresaliente del ancestro, algo que se conocía de la tradición oral inca. Resulta que el lenguaje visual andino expresado en los queros manifiesta una complejidad y una precisión en los mensajes trasmitidos por esta vía mucho mayor de lo que se solía pensar.

Through our research at Bahía Yendegaia on the Beagle Channel in southernmost Patagonia—the ancestral territory of the Yagán people—we discovered the first rock art site on Tierra del Fuego Island. The geometric visual images found at Yendegaia Rockshelter present motifs and compositions analogous to those recorded at other sites on the southern archipelago associated with the marine hunter-gatherer tradition. They also show graphic similarities to the rock art paintings attributed to terrestrial hunter-gatherer populations from the Pali Aike volcanic field, located on the north side of the Strait of Magellan in mainland Patagonia. Both, however, display quantitative differences, which suggest that they emerged from different visual traditions but from the same field of graphic solutions. Navigational technology enabled the canoe-faring Fuegian people to have long-distance mobility and to maintain a flow of social information mediated via visual imagery expressed in material forms, such as rock art and expressions of portable art. Ethnohistoric reports suggest a cooperative social interaction more than a competitive one. This cooperative social dynamic would have been necessary for the survival of marine societies in the harsh environmental conditions characteristic of the southern part of south Patagonia.

Thanks to many epigraphic references compiled in the last 35 years, there is a growing consensus among Mayanists that a hegemonic state existed in the Maya Lowlands during the Classic period headed by the Kaanu'l royal dynasty and based at Dzibanche and Calakmul. Many aspects of its organization are still poorly documented, however. Important questions that remain unanswered include how power was exerted and passed on within this political system in ways that might differ from those found in an average-sized Maya kingdom. In this article we present new archaeological and epigraphic data from Chochkitam, a little-known site in northeastern Peten, Guatemala. Although this was a center of average size, the epigraphic texts reveal its political standing as a royal city with important connections with the Kaanu'l and other regional powers at various significant junctures during the Classic period, including before, during, and after the Kaanu'l hegemony. These historical reconstructions, although fragmentary, provide important data to validate emerging hypotheses regarding how the Kaanu'l kings managed their domain.

Sealings recovered from the Omo M10 temple, a provincial center of the Andean Tiwanaku state (AD 500–1100), and from the Muru Ut Pata neighborhood of the Tiwanaku capital, as well as a signet ring from the Akapana East complex of Tiwanaku's highland capital, shed light on the hitherto undocumented use of seals and sealings in Central Andean complex society. The identification of Tiwanaku sealings related to the signet ring seal has implications for understanding the transmission of identity, authority, and authenticity over time and distance in early Andean states.

Economic directness is a new model of socioeconomic organization for the Paracas culture (800–200 BC) in southern Peru, with wider implications for economic theory of the prehispanic Andean past. Using an archaeoeconomic approach to analyze settlement patterns, obsidian artifacts, malacological material, and camelid skeletal remains, this study reconstructs the Paracas economy by using primary archaeological data from the northern Nasca Drainage. Its results force reconsideration of existing socioeconomic models for the ancient Andes such as verticality, circuit mobility, llama caravan mobility, transhumance, and market concepts. Whereas components typical of these models are often absent in the case of the Paracas economy, our new proposal of economic directness integrates their relevant aspects. Economic directness is defined essentially by direct access to important resources from diverse ecological tiers, direct and down-the-line exchanges, reduced transaction costs, llama caravan transport, unbalanced commodity flows across the western Andes, and forces of supply and demand with major consumption on the coast. These features formed under conditions of population growth, generating a continuous and dense settlement pattern from the Pacific coast to the highland puna zone.

Use of Patagonia's forests by hunter-gatherers remains relatively poorly understood. Regional archaeological records indicate initial forest colonization during the middle Holocene, infrequent use until late prehistory, and, even then, fairly sparse occupation, likely in conjunction with use of the adjacent steppe. Recent excavations at Río Ibáñez-6 West in Aysén, Chile, provide a new perspective for understanding the prehistoric use of Patagonian forests, particularly regarding timing of the initial occupation and the potential for development of a forest-specific adaptation. We provide chronological, lithic, archaeofaunal, and macrobotanical data that show use of the Ibáñez River valley at least a millennium earlier than previously documented. These data indicate increased dietary breadth in late prehistory, supporting the established hypothesis that the valley became a closed system at that time. From our data we develop hypotheses regarding prehistoric forest use in Aysén that have implications for the broader understanding of the suitability of the forest for prehistoric human foragers.

In the archaeological tradition of what is today Peru, studies of sedentary agricultural groups have accorded a minor role to the analysis of stone tools relative to other suites of material culture. Here, we illustrate the value of such lithic collections via a case study of settlement sites from the Chachapoyas region of northern Peru (AD 300–1500). This study demonstrates the potential of methods such as use-wear microscopy and raw material analysis to address questions of theoretical interest to archaeologists studying sedentary society, such as subsistence, household behavior, and ceremonial practices. A set of generalized linear models of the spatial distribution of volcanic stone indicates that lithic raw material acquisition at these ceramic period sites was likely embedded in other activities. In addition, we examine an unusual set of limestone and carbonate-patinated artifacts that suggest that lithic procurement and selection were informed and strategic, if not conforming to expected technological priorities. We suggest that, by taking the potential value of lithic artifacts into consideration from project design through field collection and assemblage sampling, researchers can minimize biases that may otherwise limit the value of lithic assemblages.

Se caracterizó mediante análisis de fluorescencia de rayos X portable (pXRF) un conjunto de obsidianas (n = 142) del sitio San Gregorio Atlapulco, en Xochimilco, Ciudad de México, procedentes de los niveles precerámicos, a través del análisis de 10 elementos químicos (Mn, Fe, Zn, Ga, Th, Rb, Sr, Y, Zr, Nb); esto nos permitió conocer la composición elemental de cada uno de los artefactos para posteriormente efectuar comparaciones con obsidianas de yacimientos sistemáticamente muestreados. Los resultados indican una amplia dominancia de la subfuente de Soltepec en Otumba (94%), además de otras dos fuentes menores que incluyen a Pachuca. Lo anterior tiene implicaciones importantes sobre los procesos de interacción de los grupos precerámicos del Holoceno medio en la Cuenca de México, y permite vislumbrar la importancia de la obsidiana de Otumba para el período denominado Arcaico, y la formación de redes de intercambio tempranas que continuarían durante el período Formativo.

In this study, we analyze extensive segmented and standardized agricultural fields in the marginally productive terrain of the Pampa de Guereque in the Jequetepeque Valley on the north coast of Peru. Although portions of the associated canal system were constructed continuously from late Formative to Chimú times, the segmented fields date to the late Chimú–Inka period and were only partially finished, apparently never fully used, and ultimately abandoned. We provide description of field plots and irrigation canals and discuss the implications of state-level construction and labor management of the fields, as well as the probable reasons for their abandonment.