El área de Laguna del Diamante (3.000 m snm) tiene una oferta de recursos atractiva para las sociedades humanas durante los últimos 2.000 años. Este trabajo evalúa la variable intensidad en la ocupación humana en Laguna del Diamante en cinco segmentos temporales entre 2030 y 440 años cal aP. Estos segmentos se modelaron a partir de 14 fechados radiocarbónicos procedentes de tres sitios; la densidad de lascas proximales se evalúa como proxy de intensidad de ocupación. Se comparan los pulsos registrados arqueológicamente con la variabilidad ambiental vinculada a aumento/disminución de temperatura y humedad, de los últimos milenios en tres lagunas: Aculeo, Chepical y del Maule (33°-35°S). A partir de diversos indicadores —cobertura vegetal, extensión/disminución de la cubierta de hielo, cambios de la precipitación relacionados al sistema de vientos del oeste y su variabilidad debido a El Niño Oscilación del Sur— se observó en casi toda la secuencia una asociación positiva entre condiciones favorables y ocupaciones intensas. Se discute el registro de dos pulsos de mayor intensidad: entre 1200 y 1280 años cal aP, asociado con aumento de temperatura de verano e intensificación de precipitaciones; y entre 450 y 500 años cal aP, vinculado con condiciones frías y coincidente con la presencia incaica en el área.

Even though lithics in the Maya region have traditionally been relegated to appendices and tool-type lists, much has been done to move beyond this descriptive approach in the last decade. In this article we highlight general themes of lithic studies in the Maya region since 2011, including economic production and exchange, the role of lithics in ritual practice, and the use of previously understudied raw materials and lithic forms, such as ground stone. Employing a temporal scope that encompasses the Maya and their preceramic predecessors, we explore gendered patterns of research within lithic studies from a feminist perspective and discuss the impacts that gender disparities have on academic thought.

This article investigates the utility of a chaîne opératoire approach centered on technologies of ceramic production for identifying Inca mitmaqkuna archaeologically. Although early documents suggest that the Inca program of resettlement (mitmaq) was massive in scale, archaeologists have had minimal success in identifying such relocated populations. Here we test a novel approach that focuses on technologies of production and associated tool assemblages used within different communities of practice. Previous studies indicate that the ethnic Cañari of southern Ecuador used a distinctive method of pottery manufacture involving a specific chaîne opératoire and a unique set of production-related tools. According to early sources, the Inca deported Cañari peoples to various sectors of Tawantinsuyu. In this article, we investigate the contemporary manufacturing style of ceramics from the Ancash region of north-central Peru—an area where Cañari mitmaqkuna were purportedly resettled—to determine whether distinctive communities of practice potentially representing relocated communities might be visible. The results of this study suggest that it is possible to identify connections among distant communities of practice via a focus on craft production technologies that, in certain historical contexts, may be construed as evidence for the presence of resettled populations.

Most population estimates for Maya sites are for the Late Classic period, a time of peak population in the Central Maya Lowlands. At Naachtun, Guatemala, a major city during the Early Classic that continued into the Late Classic period, researchers recently carried out an ambitious program of test pitting in residential areas; its aim was to model the growth of residential units during the entire Classic period and so better contextualize the rise of Classic Maya dynasties and the scale of their economic and political power. This article presents an improvement to the existing method for estimating population for periods preceding the population apex (in this case, the Early Classic period): it not only estimates the occupancy rate of residential units occupied pre-apex but also assesses their size, using a typology I developed based on their morphology and pattern of transformation.

Este trabajo busca conocer las estrategias tecnológicas, los rangos de acción y la conectividad en las estrategias humanas de ambientes marginales. Se discute, para el caso del sur de Mendoza, el modelo clásico de trashumancia cazadora recolectora entre tierras bajas y altas. El estudio se centra específicamente en El Payén y en el uso de la obsidiana andina Laguna del Maule. En El Payén, esta obsidiana ocupa el primer lugar entre las variedades conocidas y su uso se vinculó a circuitos de movilidad estacional que involucraban tierras bajas y altas. La obsidiana Laguna del Maule posee dos subtipos geoquímicos, el Subtipo 1 registrado en cordillera, y el Subtipo 2 localizado en depósitos fluviales distales. En este trabajo modelamos las estrategias de interacción de tierras altas con tierras bajas, enfocándonos en modelos propuestos para La Payunia, que ponen énfasis en la tecnología lítica y se articulan con análisis geoquímicos y geoarqueológicos. Los resultados sostienen que las poblaciones de El Payén obtenían este recurso mediante distintas estrategias tecnológicas: un aprovisionamiento serial del Subtipo 2, con circuitos de movilidad centrados en tierras bajas; diferente al Subtipo 1 de aprovisionamiento cíclico, que habría involucrado la interacción entre tierras altas y tierras bajas.

La costa del Pacífico de los Andes meridionales tiene una larga historia ocupacional que muestra una diversificación regional hacia el Holoceno medio y tardío. La costa del centro norte de Chile tuvo una importante ocupación cazadora-recolectora entre 6000 y 2000 cal aP, que difiere de las observadas en áreas vecinas por sus características ambientales e históricas. Los estudios de contextos funerarios revelan que estos grupos experimentaron una expansión demográfica y vivieron conflictos sociales durante este período. Sin embargo, el énfasis en la importancia de los contextos funerarios entre 6000 y 2000 cal aP ha limitado nuestro conocimiento de las estrategias medioambientales de estos grupos y el uso de los recursos costeros. Esta investigación examina evidencias recuperadas de contextos residenciales y funerarios del sitio Punta Teatinos (Bahía de Coquimbo, costa centro norte de Chile, 29°S) para evaluar las estrategias de uso ambiental aplicadas. El estudio de estas evidencias —incluyendo estratigrafía, fechados radiocarbónicos, material lítico, malacológico y zooarqueológico; microfósiles, cálculos dentales, isótopos estables y arte rupestre— indican una explotación de recursos costeros, a los que se sumaron otros de origen terrestre. Aunque no se identificaron cambios temporales en la explotación de los recursos costeros, las pruebas también indican cambios en la constitución de los paisajes históricos y de las redes sociales extrarregionales.

Este estudio contribuye al entendimiento de la interrelación entre cambio ambiental, modificaciones en las estrategias de subsistencia y movilidad de grupos cazadores-recolectores, y la incorporación de nuevas tecnologías de captura y procesamiento de recursos durante el Holoceno tardío en el centro-oeste de Santa Cruz, Patagonia meridional, Argentina. Se presentan valores inéditos de δ13C sobre apatita y valores de δ15N y δ13C sobre colágeno de 42 individuos recuperados en estructuras de entierros con diferentes cronologías. Se utilizó el concepto de nicho isotópico para entender las continuidades y/o cambios de la dieta cazadora-recolectora. Se evaluó si hubo variaciones temporales y sexuales entre los nichos isotópicos de los individuos con patrones diferentes de organización social y económica en momentos previos y posteriores a los 900 años aP. Los resultados indican cambios en la dieta en los últimos 1.000 años, lo que se plasmó en valores más bajos en δ13Capa de los individuos enterrados en los chenques tardíos y, en particular, en las mujeres. De esta manera, la información paleodietaria apoya la hipótesis de modificaciones en el nicho isotópico a través del tiempo.

This article charts the collection history of the only surviving precolumbian cotton reliquary (cemí) from the Dominican Republic, establishing its provenance from the mid-nineteenth century through a previously unpublished manuscript written by the collector, Rodolfo Domingo Cambiaso Sosa, and using archival documents in Italy. The cemí, found in a cave in the southwest of the country near the town of Petitrou (Enriquillo), was purchased in 1882 by Admiral Giuseppe Giovanni Battista Cambiaso, one of the founders of the Dominican Navy. It emerged in international publications commemorating the quadricentennial of the Spanish–Indigenous encounter in 1892 and shortly thereafter was sent to Genoa, Italy. It entered the collections of Turin's Royal Museum of Antiquities in 1928 before being passed to the newly established Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. It was rediscovered by Dominican scholars in the 1970s and has inspired numerous investigations since, including renewed collaborative links between the Dominican Republic and Italy.

In the area along the southern Gulf Coast in Mexico, a large number of previously unrecorded archaeological sites have recently been detected with the aid of lidar data, which also allowed us to determine the orientations of hundreds of structures and architectural assemblages, including many standardized complexes dated to the Early-to-Middle Formative transition. As revealed by our analyses, most orientations were based on astronomical and calendrical principles, occasionally combined with certain concepts of sacred geography. While the results of these analyses were presented in a recently published article, here we explore the potential of alignment data for addressing other questions of archaeological relevance. The distribution of particular building types and regional variations in alignment patterns in the study area suggest the existence of two somehow different cultural spheres, loosely corresponding to the areas conventionally called the Gulf Olmec region and the western Maya Lowlands. Examining pertinent evidence, we argue that it was in this area where some of the most prominent orientation groups materialized in later Mesoamerican architecture originated. We also attempt to reconstruct the paths of their diffusion, which are expected to contribute to understanding the dynamics of long-distance cultural interaction in Mesoamerica.

Complex human–environmental processes form identifiable, lasting features on the landscape that can illuminate past human behavior and human–environment interactions. We examine the anthropogenic landscape of the ancient port of Macurany, located along the middle Amazon River in Parintins, Brazil, and identify four classes of anthropogenic landscape features at the site: wharfs, middens, terra preta (dark or black earths), and cultural forests. Middens, terra preta, and cultural forests have been found at archaeological sites in regions surrounding Macurany, but wharfs have not previously been reported in Amazonian contexts predating European contact. Taken together, these features are clearly the result of anthropogenesis and represent a range of subsistence, settlement, and infrastructure-building activities pointing to an ancient society that was actively engaged in modifying the surrounding landscape for purposes beyond settlement and subsistence. Evidence for a permanent, extensive, continuously settled society practicing intensive landscape engineering in this region of Amazonia reinforces findings of dense habitation, infrastructure, and early urbanization in Amazonia prior to European contact. This research helps expand our understanding of human–environment interactions, landscape formation processes, and settlement organization in ancient Amazonia.

Ceramics play a central role in the debates around the relationship between the Viru and the Moche. A recent model considers Negative and Moche-decorated ceramics produced by potters affiliated with the elites to be the cultural markers of the Viru and Moche populations, respectively. Due to the similarity of Viru and Moche plain-wares and the presence of Castillo Decorated ceramics in Viru and Moche contexts, this model sees both types of ceramics as domestic traditions, produced by independent potters and sharing a common technique. The research we present here supports this recent model by reconsidering the social and cultural meaning associated with these ceramic types: it uses a novel approach for South America of reconstructing the chaîne opératoire by studying the traces visible on ceramics at a macroscopic and microscopic scale. The study demonstrates how these potters used their own traditions to produce decorated and undecorated ceramics. Furthermore, we found that Castillo Decorated is a type produced only by Viru potters, and we argue that its presence in Moche contexts is evidence of the numerous exchanges maintained by these two populations.

The Tiwanaku civilization (around AD 500–1100) originated in the Bolivian altiplano of the south-central Andes and established agrarian colonies (AD 600–1100) in the Peruvian coastal valleys. Current dietary investigations at Tiwanaku colonial sites focus on maize, a coastal valley cultivar with ritual and political significance. Here, we examine Tiwanaku provincial foodways and ask to what degree the Tiwanaku settlers maintained their culinary and agrarian traditions as they migrated into the lower-altitude coastal valleys to farm the land. We analyze archaeobotanical remains from the Tiwanaku site of Cerro San Antonio (600 m asl) in the Locumba Valley and compare them to data from the Tiwanaku site in the altiplano and the Rio Muerto site in the Moquegua Valley during the period of state expansion. Our findings show high proportions of wild, weedy, and domesticated Amaranthaceae cultivars, suggesting that Tiwanaku colonists grew traditional high-valley (2,000–3,000 m asl) and altiplano (3,000–4,000 m asl) foods on the lowland frontier because of their established cultural dietary preferences and Amaranthaceae's ability to adapt to various agroclimatic and edaphic conditions.

The increasing use of massively parallel sequencing in the study of current and ancient human populations has enabled new approaches to bioanthropological and archaeological issues; however, its application to archaeological samples requires the use of technologies that are not easily accessible outside US and European research centers. To obtain an ancient mitogenome in Argentina, several institutions collaborated to apply massively parallel sequencing and bioinformatic methodologies on an enriched ancient DNA library of an individual from the Beagle Channel (dated 1504 ± 46 years BP), a region of particular interest for this line of inquiry. Phylogenetic reconstruction showed a close relationship with a Yamana from Navarino Island and an individual from Hoste Island (Chilean Antarctic Province): the three shared an ancestor who lived between 203 and 4,439 years ago. These three have mutations reported only for current and ancient individuals from the Beagle Channel, and their relationship with the rest of the D1g sub-haplogroups is unclear. The results obtained here are consistent with the reduction of mobility in the Fuegian archipelago around 4500 years BP that has been proposed based on archaeological evidence.

Recent archaeological and remote sensing research in the Maya Lowlands has demonstrated evidence for extensive modification of the landscape in the forms of channeled fields and upland terraces. Scholars often assume these measures were taken primarily to intensify maize production; however, paleoethnobotany highlights a greater diversity of crops grown by the precolonial Maya. This study combines the growth requirements of 18 crops cultivated by ancient Maya farmers with lidar and other geospatial data in a suitability model that maps optimal areas for growth. These 18 crops cluster into five groups of crops with similar growth requirements. Across the study region, different groupings of crops had different suitability in and around different ancient Maya centers and agricultural features. This spatial variation in suitability reflects the heterogeneity of land resources and adaptations and contributes to existing conversations about economic and settlement organization in the study area. The results of this study serve as a foundation for future field studies and more complex spatial models.

We examined stable isotopes (δ13C, δ15N, and δ34S) of camelid, cavid, and cervid remains from Upanca, an archaeological site located in the Southern Nasca Region on the south coast of Peru. Occupation at the site began in the Middle Archaic (around 3200–3000 BC) and continued through the Nasca period (AD 100–650). Remains predating 2500 BC show low δ13C and δ15N values, whereas remains after this time show increasing and especially more variable isotopic values. We interpret this pattern as marking both a process of agricultural intensification and camelid husbandry diversification. Agricultural intensification began first with C3 plants in fertilized fields, beginning around 2200 cal BC, followed by an increasing use of C4 plants (maize, kiwicha, or both), particularly after 800 cal BC. By the beginning of the first millennium, people were using a diverse range of strategies to raise llamas and alpacas, including feeding them wild or cultivated C3 plants, feeding them cultivated C4 plant foods, mixing C3 and C4 plant foods, foddering some in natural coastal environments, and acquiring still other camelids by hunting wild stocks (guanaco, vicuña). Data also suggest that cavids were consuming at least some C4 products after 1000 cal BC and that the use of C4 plants increased over time.

Se presentan los primeros resultados del análisis de pieles procesadas recuperadas en el sitio Puerto Tranquilo 1, ubicado en el extremo norte de la Isla Victoria, en el Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi, Provincia de Neuquén, Argentina. El material estudiado proviene de un nivel tardío, por encima de un fogón fechado en 640 ± 60 años aP (1288–1431 cal dC). El conjunto incluye tanto fragmentos de piel con pelo como depilados, con costuras de tendón y pelo, pintados y con reparaciones. Se aplicó una metodología específica para el análisis de las pieles y las fibras, con una descripción técnico-morfológica detallada a partir del análisis macro- y microscópico (SEM/óptico). Las características de la médula y de la cutícula de las fibras permitieron la identificación de Lama guanicoe y Mustelidae (cf. Galictis). Se aplicaron estrategias analíticas y metodológicas novedosas y se generaron datos acerca de las diferentes dimensiones del uso humano de los recursos faunísticos y de la producción de tecnologías en el área boscoso-lacustre norpatagónica. La comparación con otras evidencias arqueológicas, etnográficas y etnohistóricas permitió reconocer rasgos tecnológicos recurrentes en la preparación de las pieles y en la manufactura de artefactos, como parte del proceso productivo del cuero en Norpatagonia.

This article evaluates the level of interpersonal violence among human groups that inhabited northern Patagonia and southern Pampa (Argentina) during the Middle and Late Holocene, especially before contact with Europeans. We analyzed a particular type of trauma—blunt force trauma—in skull samples from several archaeological localities and compared our outcomes with those of a previous experimental work. The results agree with what is expected for small-scale societies within the regional historical and archaeological framework. The recorded percentages show a diachronic increase toward higher frequencies of this injury among males than among females and subadults, but the differences are not statistically significant. Generally, the levels of violence remained relatively constant during the period studied. Most of the injuries reflect low levels of damage, which allows us to hypothesize that the objects causing the injuries would be elements of everyday life. A smaller proportion show significant bone alteration that could be associated with weapons manufactured to exert violence or hunt animals.

The Lomas Entierros archaeological site provides a case study of domestic activities in two socioeconomic sectors. Located in Central Pacific Costa Rica, it was a primary center and important node for the exchange of goods throughout the region. In this article, we characterize and compare the domestic and socioeconomic activities at two structures from different sectors of the site through the analysis of micro-remains, chemical residues (phosphates, carbonates, pH, carbohydrates, protein residues, and fatty acids), and starch grains. Our findings show that differences between the two structures were determined both by their function and the socioeconomic status of their occupants. Structure 13, in the elite sector, presents a richer dataset that suggests the cooking of plants and mollusks in the interior of the dwelling. Structure 44, in the intermediate-status sector, has a lower diversity and density of remains, suggesting very low use that may result from its role as a storage space. This article provides a nuanced methodology for the study of domestic spaces in tropical areas.

En este trabajo se discute un conjunto de indicios de poblamiento humano en diferentes locus de la Pampa Occidental: el sitio 1 de la localidad Tapera Moreira, El Carmel y Casa de Piedra. El poblamiento inicial de este territorio ha estado restringido a un solo dato cronológico correspondiente al Holoceno temprano, proveniente del sitio Casa de Piedra 1 (8620 ± 190 años aP) que no ha sido replicado en ese u otros sitios de la región. Por ello no ha sido incorporado en la agenda de la discusión sobre esta temática en publicaciones recientes. Sin embargo, en años posteriores a su publicación se han suscitado diversos hallazgos cuyos contextos señalan gran potencial informativo en relación con la ocupación humana inicial de paisajes sin historia previa. Se presentan indicadores de cultura material (puntas de tipo cola de pescado, litos discoidales y materias primas muy seleccionadas y con tratamiento térmico) recuperados en asociación en diferentes locus pampeanos, que se relacionan con las expectativas generadas para una etapa de ocupación inicial del paisaje. Se propone un modelo de exploración lenta y discontinua que utilizó vías de transitabilidad de distinto rango en el proceso de conocimiento y colonización de estos ambientes desérticos.

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.