Late Formative Period Research Articles

Landscape Setting as Medium of Communication at Chavín de Huántar, Peru

The Central Andean ceremonial centre of Chavín de Huántar is situated in a dramatic, mountainous and dynamic environment high on the eastern slope of the Peruvian Andes, yet the site's landscape setting has remained in the shadow of its monumental architecture, complex lithic art and highly elaborated material culture. Nevertheless, that dynamic landscape setting was an integral part of the site's significance as a ceremonial centre and may be read as evidence of the capacity, worldview and message of the site's builders. First, Chavín's setting is evidence of capacity, demonstrating the considerable degree of labour mobilization and organization, as well as expertise, implied by the site's modified landscape. Second, Chavín's landscape, considered in its Central Andean context, provides evidence of worldview, demonstrating that landscape setting was a medium of interest for Chavín's designers. Third, the modified landscape provides evidence of message, allowing exploration of what Chavín's designers were trying to communicate, and to whom. Focusing on these three aspects in reading Chavín's landscape suggests that landscape setting was a vital aspect of Central Andean Middle and Late Formative Period (1000–500 bce) ceremonial centres and argues that emergent elites actively exploited landscape setting as a communicative medium and forum for dissemination of ideology, deliberately communicating to multiple audiences.

Head Extraction, Interregional Exchange, and Political Strategies of Control at the Site of Wata Wata, Kallawaya Territory, Bolivia, During the Transition between the Late Formative and Tiwanaku Periods (A.D. 200-800)

This study focuses on trophy head taking during the transition between the Late Formative period and Tiwanaku period (A.D. 200-800) based on evidence from a dedicatory offering found at the site of Wata Wata, east of the Titicaca Basin. Although trophy-head taking was common in other precontact Andean cultures, evidence of the practice among cultures from this region is usually present only in iconography and not in actual physical remains. We explore the nature of this find and its placement within the trade and ceremonial center of Wata Wata. The three individuals included in the offering underwent various levels of violence at or around the time of death, including beheading, cranial and facial fracturing, defleshingjaw removal, and possible eye extraction. Such violence makes it unlikely that the heads were offered as part of a cult to revere ancestors. We argue that these heads, entombed in a ritual cache and sealed with a capstone, embody a strategic metaphor to remove authority and influence from the individuals, because skulls can be Andean symbols of power in life and the afterlife. The violent acts carried out on these crania may also have been a way to advertise broader changes during this transitional period in the Kallawaya region, a strategic exchange corridor between ecological zones in the Central Andes.

We Need Better Chronologies: Progress in Getting them

Archaeologists have long celebrated their unique ability to deal with the long term. But we are increasingly recognizing that we can and must also understand more rapid events. They are critical for many of the questions we now consider most interesting, such as distinguishing between changes that unfolded gradually and those that happened suddenly. In considering interactions among regions, we need something better than cross-dating on the basis of resemblances in material objects. That is especially so when we would like to know where something first developed and the tempo of its spread to other regions. As one particularly clear example of the beneficial effects of finer chronologies, Robert Santley (in Sanders et al. 1979:65-73) showed how shorter phases can drastically alter our picture of the ebb and flow of settlement history in a region. When Basin of Mexico sites in the Cuauhtitlan region are dated only in broad terms to the Middle and Late Formative periods, a rather placid picture of settlement change emerges.

El transcurrir del tiempo y las prácticas mortuorias: Quebrada de Humahuaca (Jujuy, Argentina)

Prehistoric people who inhabited the Argentine Northwest, as in the rest of the Andean region, maintained a close coexistence with burial spaces, which generally were not spatially segregated. The proximity between the worlds of the «living» and «dead» is a problem that is being worked by archaeologists in association with the so-called «ancestor worship». The study of mortuary practices, that is, death rituals, funerary structures, contexts of burial and other practices related to death, as a part of the social practices of different groups, is an interesting source of information that may account development processes and social change experienced by prehispanic populations. In this paper we develop a series of reflections focused on mortuary practices recorded in the Quebrada de Humahuaca, tracing its history during the Late Formative Period (AD 500-900), the Regional Development Period (AD 900-1430) and the Inca conquest (AD 1430).

Dyes used in pre-Hispanic textiles from the Middle and Late Intermediate periods of San Pedro de Atacama (northern Chile): new insights into patterns of exchange and mobility

Pre-Hispanic Andean textiles constitute the longest continuous textile record in the world, their structure and design being one of the most significant markers of group identity in Andean populations. Since the Late Formative Period (ca. 100–400 AD), the region around San Pedro de Atacama (SPA) in the Atacama desert of northern Chile has been part of a complex and extensive network of interacting polities through which raw materials, agricultural products, goods, people and ideas circulated in the South-Central Andes. The archaeological record in SPA abounds with textiles from various cultures that participated in such network. A study of these textiles would allow intercultural as well as diachronical comparisons. Numerous studies on textiles found in SPA have focused on their technological and iconographic features. This work addresses the identification of the organic dyes employed in the manufacture of 38 textiles found in funerary contexts in SPA from the Middle (ca. 400–1000 A.D.) and the Late Intermediate periods (ca. 1000–1450 A.D.), using high performance liquid chromatography with a diode array detector (HPLC-DAD). Purpurin and not alizarin was found in all red dyed fibers and indigotin (IND) and indirubin (INR) in all blue dyed fibers. Natural sources of these dyes are exogenous to SPA; their importation into SPA lasted for nearly a millennium. A positive correlation was found between [IND]/[INR] concentration ratio and the altitude of the place where the fiber was presumably dyed. Overall, the results indicate that finished garments and also raw dyes and ready-to-use dyed fibers were imported into SPA from neighboring regions and that foreign weavers were possibly active at SPA.

Las representaciones femeninas, sus diseños corporales y su simbología en el occidente mesoamericano

The female ceramic figurines realized in the west Mesoamerica territory, have an important body painted decoration which represent singly or combined geometric designs like spirals, straight, zigzag and wavy lines, circles, concentric circles, triangles, crosses and points are observed like decoration. This order designs transcends by the location in breasts, pelvic and belly area, in addition to this, most of them allude to the sexed body. It is thus the symbolic codes present in the sculptures can be interpreted from the relationship with thoughts of life, where societies are intimately linked with the cycles of nature, with the universe distribution of vertical and horizontal way, which refer archetypal concepts in Mesoamerica. Therefore it is important to consider these representations as possible social and cosmological allegories conceptions of culture that developed in the late formative and half Classic period (BC 200 – AD 400/600), during the tradition of the Tumbas de Tiro in territory comprised by the present states of Jalisco, Colima, Nayarit, Michoacan and the south central of Sinaloa.

Lidar data and the Izapa polity: new results and methodological issues from tropical Mesoamerica

Light detection and ranging (lidar) and pedestrian survey are employed to document regional settlement patterns associated with the well-known center of Izapa in Chiapas, Mexico. Within an area of 47.5 km2, we located 413 previously undocumented mounds with associated time diagnostic artifacts. These mounds are the remains of both monumental architecture defining regional centers as well as domestic house mounds. This paper presents new data of overall occupation levels from the low hills zone that complements previously published patterns from the piedmont surrounding Izapa as well as eight newly documented Middle and Late Formative period (850 cal. bc–ad 100) monumental centers of various sizes that are coeval with Izapa. In addition to these substantive archaeological findings, the efficacy of lidar data acquired from two environmental zones (low hills and piedmont) are compared to evaluate how well Prehispanic mounds were detected under different vegetation covers. We conclude that the lower density of lidar collection from the low hills zone was as effective at detecting archaeological mounds as the higher density collection campaign used in the piedmont zone. The implication of these findings is that higher-density collection strategies may not always improve the documentation of archaeological features.

Reconstructing the formation and land use history of the Mound 2 depression at Río Viejo, Oaxaca, Mexico

Archaeological and geoarchaeological work in the lower Río Verde Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico reveal a varied spatial relationship between the prehistoric inhabitants and this dynamic floodplain region over the last 3000 years. Significant demographic expansion occurred by the Late Formative period following floodplain aggradation resulting from a change in stream hydrology and morphology. During the Classic and Postclassic periods, major shifts in settlement and land use occurred, primarily from the productive floodplain to the piedmont. The archaeological site of Río Viejo has played a pivotal role in the political and social history of the valley. Archaeological data indicate the site was occupied from the Middle Formative to the Early Postclassic and was an urban center and the political seat of the region during the Terminal Formative and again in the Late Classic. Four large depressions are associated with mounded architecture at the site. We collected paleoenvironmental and geoarchaeological data from the Mound 2 feature. A synthesis of this multi-proxy data has enhanced our understanding of site formation, occupation, and land use from the Late Formative to Postclassic times. The analysis indicates that the depression associated with Mound 2 was originally a borrow pit on the floodplain that was enhanced and augmented by monumental mound building. The area around Mound 2 was the focus of domestic and agricultural use during the Terminal Formative. An apparent cessation of activity around Mound 2 occurred during the Early Classic, which is consistent with a significant contraction in population at the site at this time. Activity resumed at Mound 2 in the Late Classic and continued until at least the Early Postclassic. These changes in occupation history appear to have resulted from political developments within the valley.

Beyond Raised Fields: Exploring Farming Practices and Processes of Agricultural Change in the Ancient Lake Titicaca Basin of the Andes

ABSTRACTIn the Lake Titicaca Basin of the Andes, narratives of agricultural change have focused exclusively on a single innovation: raised fields. In this article, I examine macrobotanical remains and other archaeological datasets to elucidate a wider range of past farming practices that contributed to processes of agricultural change on the Taraco Peninsula, Bolivia, during the Formative Period (1500 B.C.E.–C.E. 500). This analysis reveals strong continuities in crop selection through time, with farmers gradually diversifying a basic set of cultigens—quinoa and tubers—but never abandoning them. Patterns in wild plant species indicate continuity in agropastoral land use up to the Late Formative Period (second century C.E.) when the unintended consequences of long‐term tilling and camelid grazing transformed the botanical landscape into one that required a new set of practices to remove weeds and replenish nutrients to the soils. Examining how these practices and the farmers enacting them articulated with broader processes of demographic, environmental, and sociopolitical change reveals dynamic, multivariate courses of agricultural change even before the inclusion of raised fields.

FORMATIVE OBSIDIAN PROCUREMENT AT TRES ZAPOTES, VERACRUZ, MEXICO: IMPLICATIONS FOR OLMEC AND EPI-OLMEC POLITICAL ECONOMY

AbstractWe report the results of chemical sourcing of obsidian artifacts from Tres Zapotes using X-ray fluorescence analysis. This is the first obsidian sourcing study for this major Olmec and Epi-Olmec center in which samples are drawn from secure archaeological proveniences specifically assigned to Early, Middle, Late Formative, and Protoclassic periods. We employed a stratified random sampling strategy to select 180 obsidian artifacts from excavated assemblages, supplementing the random sample with another 24 specimens drawn from rare visual categories. Consequently, we are able to characterize changes in the relative importance of different obsidian sources in the political economy of Tres Zapotes across the critical transition from Olmec to Epi-Olmec society with greater confidence than has been possible for the Gulf lowlands while extending our observations to the full sample of 5,713 visually characterized obsidian artifacts—2,695 of which come from the well-dated Formative contexts examined in this article. Our study confirms the absence of obsidian from Otumba and from Guatemalan sources in the excavated Olmec assemblage in favor of sources from eastern Puebla and Veracruz, supporting a model of overlapping autonomous networks for obsidian procurement at Gulf Olmec sites. Presence of the Guatemalan San Martín Jilotepeque source in Epi-Olmec contexts may relate to the reestablishment of trans-Isthmian contacts, while increasing prevalence of Zaragoza-Oyameles obsidian from eastern Puebla marks the beginning of a long-term trend. Although more even representation of obsidian sources in Epi-Olmec contexts is consistent with the hypothesized transition from an exclusionary Olmec political economy toward a more “corporate” system associated with power sharing among factional leaders at Tres Zapotes, neither Olmec nor Epi-Olmec elites monopolized a particular obsidian source or technology.

THE EVOLUTION OF ANCIENT MAYA EXCHANGE SYSTEMS: AN ETYMOLOGICAL STUDY OF ECONOMIC VOCABULARY IN THE MAYAN LANGUAGE FAMILY

AbstractThis article presents a cultural reconstruction of ancient Maya economic development derived through etymological study of exchange-related terms in Mayan languages. It applies the results of historical linguistic analysis to archaeological and epigraphic data in order to gain insight into Maya economic prehistory. Cognitive spheres examined include generalized exchange, reciprocation, appropriation and vertical transfers of goods and labor, open commerce, and material valuables. Among the most poignant implications of the results are the antiquity of commerce and its rather extended evolutionary trajectory. Indicators of intense commercialization, however, are few and rather late. Widespread recognition of several elements of the diverse complex of Contact period Mesoamerican valuables can be traced only to the latter part of the Late Formative period or afterward. Evidence of formalized market systems—specifically linking commerce to towns and architectural plazas—appears only late in the Classic period. Terms associated with the hierarchical appropriation of goods and labor appear earlier and are more persistent and stable over time. In particular, there is a single widespread root for tribute obligation apparently subsuming tax, plunder, and work debt all under a single term, as well as evidence for the great antiquity of formalized servitude. Finally, various forms of general reciprocity and gifting are, as might be expected, shown to be of great diversity, complexity, and antiquity. In the course of analysis, several recent models of Mayan language interaction and diversification are examined and evaluated, and a slightly revised linguistic chronology is suggested that better reconciles linguistic data with archaeological facts as they are currently known. The results also have interesting implications for proto-Mayan geographical origins.

Temporalities of the Formative Period Taraco Peninsula, Bolivia

Within the last 15 years archaeologists have developed a ‘dwelling’ perspective in studies of prehistoric landscapes. This research takes a critical approach to time, highlighting the temporality of practices in both daily life and longer-term processes. In this article I investigate temporalities of the Middle (800–200 BC) and Late Formative (200 BC–AD 500) periods on the Taraco Peninsula (Bolivia), drawing on data produced by the Taraco Archaeological Project. Particular attention is paid to long-term landscape tempos, place-making and the intertwined rhythms of technical practice. I end with a brief discussion of the temporal changes that correspond with the urbanization processes seen at the Middle Horizon (AD 500–950) center of Tiwanaku.

Hunting, Herding, and Caravanning: Osteometric Identifications of Camelid Morphotypes at Khonkho Wankane, Bolivia

AbstractKhonkho Wankane is a ceremonial center located in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia. During the Late Formative period (AD 1–500), its residents practiced agropastoral lifeways and participated in the rise of the state at Tiwanaku. Like at many Andean sites, bones from the family Camelidae are the most abundant large mammal in domestic contexts. Identifying camelid morphotypes represented by these bones carries far‐reaching implications for understanding past hunting, herding, and caravanning practices, and their roles in larger social and economic webs. Identifications were based on a locally focused reference collection, including llamas (Lama glama) from the immediate vicinity of the site, as well as Andean guanacos (Lama guanicoe), a much smaller morphotype than the Patagonian guanacos used in many osteometric studies. Multivariate statistical analyses and incisor morphology identified all four camelid. Different analyses suggest that the crux of osteometry lies in the reference collection, not the statistical test. An additional, very large morphotype likely corresponds to a castrated llama, the preferred cargo animal among modern drovers. The presence of these animals is interpreted as evidence that groups hunted vicuña (Vicugna vicugna) and guanaco, which are not currently present around the site, herded llamas and alpacas (Vicugna pacos), and perhaps organized caravans with castrated llamas. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Feasting with Zea Mays in the Middle and Late Formative North Coast of Peru

This work reports the presence of Zea mays microremains in three feasting episodes performed during the Middle and Late Formative Period in the North Coast of Peru. The remains of the Cerro Blanco de Nepeña feasts may represent a step toward the intensification of Zea mays consumption in ritual contexts, related to changes in the ceramic assemblages, and parallel to the transformation of ritual spaces during the second half of the Formative Period.

PREHISTORIC ATACAMEÑO CERAMIC STYLES AND CHRONOLOGY REASSESSED

Archaeology in San Pedro de Atacama (northern Chile) contributes significantly to our understanding of the Middle Horizon Tiwanaku polity, its iconography, regional interaction spheres, and other pivotal themes in Andean Studies. New AMS C14 dates, however, allow us to revisit San Pedro chronological phases and the associated ceramics that often define them. This paper extends previous important contributions to ceramic analysis in the area by presenting the ceramic material found in newly dated tombs and the temporal relationship of red, black, and grey polished vessels. The results suggest that these key San Pedro ceramic styles may be more contemporary in time than previously thought. Color variation may therefore be the result of different symbolic and contextual uses rather than temporal production developments. This leads to a reevaluation of the accepted phase structure as a linear sequence of key ceramic types and of the current understanding of cultural fluorescence during the late Formative and Middle Period (ca. AD 100-900).

Osteological remains of condors from the Late Formative Cerro Punta Blanca, Lorin Valley, Peru.

In 2007 we found same partial skeletal remains of two Andean condors with evidence of cut marks and fractures postmortem in archaeological context of lime exploitation during the Late Formative period, at the site of Cerro Punta Blanca (300-100 b.C.). It is located at lomas of Jatosisa, Lurin valley, Peru. These bones were associated to a pottery fragment representing a snake.This association permitted us to relate it to the myth of transformation of the snake into a condor seen in petroglyphs, bone flutes and textiles of the Archaic and Formative periods and registered in etnohistorical texts and astronomic representations. This study confirms the importance of the condor in Andean ritual context of inhabitants of green hills since two millenniums ago.

Mammalian Microfaunal Remains from Khonkho Wankane (Late Formative Period), Mollo Kontu (Middle Horizon Period) and Pukara de Khonkho (Late Intermediate Period) in the BolivianAltiplano

Paleoecological and taphonomic analysis of the mammalian microfauna from three Bolivian altiplano sites is presented: Khonkho Wankane [Late Formative period; number of identified specimens (NISP) = 1019], Mollo Kontu (Middle Horizon period; NISP = 610) and Pukara de Khonkho (Late Intermediate period; NISP = 165). The following species, all of which are present in this region today, were identified: Akodon boliviensis (Bolivian grass mouse), Andinomys edax (Andean mouse), Auliscomys sublimis (Andean leaf-eared mouse), Cavia porcellus (guinea pig/cuy), Chinchilla chinchilla (chinchilla), Ctenomys leucodon (white-toothed tuco-tuco), Eligmodontia puerulus (Andean gerbil mouse), Galea musteloides (common yellow-toothed cavy), Lagidium viscacia (vizcacha), Neotomys ebriosus (Andean swamp rat),and Oligoryzomys destructor (destructive pygmy rice rat). Some direct human involvement with the deposition of some of the larger species (Cavia porcellus, Chinchilla chinchilla, Ctenomys leucodon and Lagidium viscacia) was noted, although C. porcellus was identified only from a single element from Mollo Kontu. Most deposition was likely due to natural in-burrow deaths and other natural attrition of these species. No significant shift in environment during the occupation of these sites was detected. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A DIVINE WIND: THE ARTS OF DEATH AND MUSIC IN TERMINAL FORMATIVE OAXACA

AbstractThis paper examines the social context of music and musical instruments in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica through the detailed analysis of a late Terminal Formative period (a.d.100–250) burial from the site of Yugüe in the lower Río Verde Valley of Oaxaca. The burial contained a sub-adult male interred with an incised bone flute and a plaster-backed iron-ore mirror. The Yugüe flute is the earliest reported bone flute from Mesoamerica and is incised and carved to create the bas relief image of a skeletal male figure. Based on the instrument's archaeological context and elaborate incising, we argue that the flute was categorized in pre-Columbian ontology as an animate object that actively participated in ceremonial action at Yugüe. While the nature of such ceremony remains unclear, the incising on the flute indicates that the instrument was capable of making manifest ancestral and divine forces affiliated with rain, wind, and agricultural fertility.

Herpetofaunal Remains from Khonkho Wankane, an Urban and Ceremonial Centre in the Southern Lake Titicaca Altiplano: Unique Behavioural Correlates to Osseous Taphonomy

This research reports the herpetological (reptile and amphibian) remains from Khonkho Wankane, an urban and ceremonial centre in the southern Lake Titicaca region of the Bolivian Altiplano, which fluoresced during the Late Formative period. The total n = 1710, including a minimum of six taxa and representing a significant portion of the relatively depauperate modern herpetofauna recorded for the Lake Titicaca area. A lizard of the genus Liolaemus (Tropiduridae) was identified. Amphibians are represented by Andean toad Rhinella spinulosa (Bufonidae) and by at least four taxa of frogs: [cf. Gastrotheca marsupiata (Hylidae) and Pleurodema marmorata or P. cinerea and Telmatobius spp. (Leptodactylidae)]. The latter genus does not include members of the giant variants (T. culeus) that dwell in Lake Titicaca. The question of how these remains were incorporated into the site deposits is examined taphonomically. No indicators of human or small carnivore predation were detected. Significant spatial clustering of amphibian remains was detected, with two clusters contributing n = 1562 or 92.4% of the amphibian total (n = 1690). These concentrations also are characterised by a depressed ratio of cranial versus postcranial elements, which cannot be explained by recovery methods. These concentrations of herpetofaunal remains likely represent in-burrow deaths of species sheltering for thermoregulatory benefits away from this harsh Altiplano environment, with the lowered recovery of cranial elements hypothesised to have resulted from a lack of ossification. The bulk of herpetofaunal remains recovered therefore likely were recent intrusions into the site deposits and do not represent the residue of human exploitation during the occupation of Khonkho Wankane. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

POWER MATERIALIZED: THE DART-THROWER AS A PAN-MESOAMERICAN STATUS MARKER

AbstractThroughout the deep history of Mesoamerica, the dart-thrower (a.k.a. atlatl) played a vital utilitarian and symbolic role. Although it was a highly effective tool exploited for practical purposes such as hunting and warfare, ample evidence exists which reveals its association with themes of authority, power, and prestige. The survival of ornamented dart-throwers, as well as the context in which the implement appears in Mesoamerican material culture and forms of graphic communication, reveal its role in the production and assertion of high social status. This argument will be supported by archaeological and ethnographic evidence which demonstrates that the dart-thrower served as a pan-Mesoamerican symbol of power beginning no later than the Middle to Late Formative period and continuing through the Conquest.