Late Formative Period Research Articles

Bioarchaeological Evidence of Violence between the Middle and Late Formative (500–400 BC) in the Peruvian North-Central Coast

Abstract In this study, we address interpersonal violence during the transition between the Middle and the Late Formative periods in the Central Andes, a critical period of political disintegration, hypothesized population pressure, and reorganization of the belief systems that is poorly known from a bioarchaeological viewpoint. Our objective is to understand the nature of the violence and associated factors in this context based on a detailed description of skeletal trauma in 67 well-preserved individuals (20 adolescents and adults and 47 subadults) recovered from Quebrada Chupacigarro cemetery (500–400 BC); this site is located in the middle valley of Supe on the Peruvian north-central coast. To detect patterns and potential causes, we registered the prevalence of traumatic injury according to age, sex, anatomic location, mechanisms (blunt, sharp, mixed, etc.), timing (antemortem or perimortem), and manner (inflicted or accidental). The results show a high prevalence of fractures in the whole population, but especially in adolescents and adults. Eighty percent of the adolescents and adults perished due to the intentional trauma and show patterns that suggest repetitive episodes of interpersonal violence. Perimortem injuries in the skull, face, and thorax are compatible with lethal interpersonal violence. The findings support a probable scenario of intercommunity violence in the middle valley of Supe around 500–400 BC.

The hydraulic network of the pre-Hispanic city of Tiwanaku (Bolivia): New insights from the integration of canal morphology, hydrogeological and palaeoenvironmental data

Water management enabled the development of ancient societies allowing them to ensure agropastoral production and manufacturing activities. In the Andes, near the shore of Lake Titicaca, the city of Tiwanaku (Bolivia) is one of the largest pre-Hispanic urban centres in South America. Abrupt climate changes in the high-altitude Altiplano during the late Holocene likely forced the population to develop water management strategies. So far, knowledge concerning the existence of a water network around the city of Tiwanaku is limited to hypotheses derived from surface and aerial observations. In this study, geoscience techniques (morphology, geophysics, sedimentology and chronostratigraphy) helped to reconstruct the canals' morphology and their flow dynamics, along with their chronology of operation in a context of hydroclimatic change. Two ca. 30 m large canals bypassing the monumental core and supplied by a shallow water table and multiple tributaries, connected the agricultural and the urban areas. The structure and organization of the network testify to an elaborate knowledge of the local hydrology by the former builders of the city. It ensured water supply and flood management in relation to the extreme intra- and inter-annual variability of precipitations in the central Andes. The palaeogeographical and landscape reconstruction demonstrates that canals were set from natural features during the early Late Formative period (200 BCE to 200 CE) during a wet period likely for water resource management needs. During the Tiwanaku state (before 800 CE), the filling of the canal network with soil and sediment suggests a major change in its use, and possibly its partial abandonment, during a major restructuration of the site, in a period of increased regional precipitation.

Diversity on the Altiplano: Geochemical perspectives on 3,000 years of potting practices in the Lake Titicaca basin

Potters in the Lake Titicaca basin produced a wide variety of ceramic styles over the last 3000 years. Archaeologists have drawn on this variety across space and time to track processes such as the development of multi-community polities during the Late Formative (200 BC-AD 600), the origins and expansion of Tiwanaku (AD 600–1000), the creation and maintenance of political boundaries during the Late Intermediate period (AD 1000–1400), and the strategies of Inca conquest and consolidation (AD 1400–1534). We report on LA-ICP-MS research into Titicaca ceramics and clays conducted at the Field Museum’s Elemental Analysis Facility (EAF), and present the first review of raw materials and pottery analyzed from across the region. Ceramic samples from the northern basin include samples from Taraco, Pukara, and neighboring sites, and speak to the diversity of intraregional potting practices during the Late Formative Period. Ceramic samples from the southern basin span the Middle Formative through the Inca periods, and index local and regional practices over two millennia. After presenting our specific case studies, we touch on how shifting scales of locality impact the chemical signatures explored here, the potential for comparative analyses across the region, and future directions for research collaborations.

On the early development of Huastecs (Gulf of Mexico) revealed by the Earth's magnetic field recorded in domestic hearths

AbstractA detailed magnetic mineralogy and archaeomagnetic study was carried out on recently discovered domestic hearths and burned floors at the Chak Pet archaeological settlement (Tamaulipas, Mexico). The study aimed to obtain reliable absolute chronological constraints on the early development of Huastecs during the Formative period. Oriented hand samples corresponded to four domestic hearths and one burned floor. Continuous thermomagnetic curves revealed mostly irreversible behavior, while titanomagnetites, titanomaghemites, and goethites are assumed to carry the remanent magnetization. In total, 87 specimens were subjected to stepwise demagnetization of natural remanent magnetization using an alternating field procedure. Characteristic remanent magnetization directions were obtained for 29 samples of two hearths and one burned floor. No single, technically acceptable paleointensity determination was obtained. The new archaeomagnetic age intervals for Chak Pet allow locating the origin of this settlement at the Gulf of Mexico within the Middle Formative (900–600 BCE) continuing until the Late Formative period (350–100 BCE). New archaeomagnetic ages are in accordance with the diagnostic pottery analysis. Dated archaeological elements are associated with both ceramic types and different sets of burials, providing a reliable tool to calibrate their chronological and stratigraphic positions.

Starch Analyses on Culinary Equipment from Chavin de Huantar

Abstract Excavations at the Wacheqsa sector from Chavin de Huantar identified contexts from the Middle Formative (1100–900 BC) and Late Formative (900–550 BC) periods. We present results of starch analysis conducted in culinary equipment (ceramics) retrieved from domestic occupations and a large midden. Microbotanical analysis revealed a variety of plant food resources, such as maize, beans, olluco, and possibly chili peppers.

La estrategia de los líderes del sitio arqueológico Pacopampa en la sierra norte del Perú desde una perspectiva de la arquitectura ceremonial

Recent investigations at large Formative Period sites in the northern highlands of Peru have revealed the emergence of social leaders in the late Formative Period, i.e., around 800-700 BC. In this paper, using the data from the Pacopampa archaeological site where the author has been excavating, I analyze the strategies adopted by the emerging leaders to maintain their power from the perspective of manipulating social memory, and show that the strategies of these leaders varied from region to region.

Monumentality as traditional ecological knowledge in the northern Maya lowlands

The emergence of monumentality in the Maya lowlands has been linked to political complexity. But how did the emergence of these monuments relate to changing human-environment interactions? Here, the author proposes that Maya monumentality embodies traditional ecological knowledge, or TEK. Taking the example of Tzacauil, the gathering of fieldstone for the preparation of land for cultivation is connected to agricultural intensification and the florescence of monumentality in the Late and Terminal Formative period (300 BC–AD 250). Exploration of the relationships between monumental traditions and localised TEK practices may illuminate the entanglement of complexity, subsistence and human-environment interactions in other parts of the world.

Embedded religiousness and the Kotosh religious tradition in highland Peru: the site of La Seductora

Religion played a key role in the social organisation and political authority of early Andean societies. Excavations at La Seductora in Peru have identified a circular structure with a central hearth and an underground ventilation shaft. The authors argue that the structure belongs to the Kotosh religious tradition, which dominated the central Andes during the Late Archaic and Formative periods (2800–550 BC). Probably representing a small shrine for use by local families, the authors situate La Seductora within the context of power and religiosity in Andean society, providing a model of relevance to similar contexts elsewhere in the world.

"Sex and the City", Then and Now: The Reception of a TV Series of Extended Duration by a Generation of Extended Youth

One of the most popular TV series of the 21st century, Sex and the City, continues to have a significant media and cultural impact to this day, as shown by the production of two films which are thematically a continuation of the series, and a 2021 sequel series (And Just Like That…). In terms of genre, this series could be defined as hybrid (postmodern); its postmodern characteristics are also apparent in its considerable intertextuality and spilling over into other segments of culture, while its recycling and new iterations have given it a new lease on life, so that Sex and the City could be termed a series of extended duration. This paper discusses the two decades long public life of this media text, as well as the reception of the original series and its sequel in the local Serbian context. Particular focus is placed on the reception of the Sex and the City phenomenon by members of the media generation X in Serbia, on how much of an imprint the series has made, and what meanings and values are associated with it. The study was conducted with three focus groups, and the respondents can be characterized as members of a generation of extended youth, who originally watched the series in their late media formative period. Based on discussions with respondents, the reception of the recent sequel of this series (And Just Like That…) is also analyzed in order to shed light on the question of the possible creation and content of generational semantics relating to this element of TV culture. Twenty years after it first aired in Serbia, Sex and the City continues to be a highly recognizable product of television culture, and among local members of generation X there are numerous cultural references to the series, regardless of whether the viewers are fans or critics of the series. Among respondents there is a divergence in the perception both of the original series and of its sequel (most frequently related to the respondent’s sex), with almost universal agreement regarding the open and humorous character of the original media text, which, however, has not been recognized in the current sequel. It can be said that the original series continues to represent a significant segment of this media generation’s pop culture experience, while its latest iteration appears not to have added new elements to this experience among respondents.

Plants in Transit Communities: Circulating Tubers and Maize in the Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia

Archaeologists working in the Late Formative Lake Titicaca Basin have identified several “transit communities”—villages that benefited from long-distance exchange. Some scholars suggest that such places played a key role in the development of the Middle Horizon city of Tiwanaku. In this article, we explore the movement of plant goods into transit communities during both the Late Formative (300 BC–AD 500) and Middle Horizon (AD 600–1100) periods. After presenting the current understanding of transit communities, we summarize previous work on both local plants, including tubers and quinoa, and the presence of maize. We then report on a recent microbotanical study of ceramics recovered from excavations at Late Formative Challapata (in the eastern basin) and a burial from the Middle Horizon occupation at Chiripa (in the southern basin). For the first time we identify lowland tubers in the Lake Titicaca Basin, including yuca, sweet potato, and arrowroot. These findings reveal the critical importance of microbotanical analyses for tracing regional connections and foodways in emergent Middle Horizon worlds, as well as the need for more complex interpretive models for things/plants-in-motion.

Macabalaca: New Evidence of the Kotosh Religious Tradition in the Huarmey Valley, Peru

Rescue excavations at the site of Macabalaca (PV35-72) in the Huarmey Valley, Peru, identified a rectangular structure with niches on its walls and a floor with a central hearth. We present results of those excavations, emphasizing the stratigraphic components and relative chronology. We conclude that the structure belongs to the Kotosh Religious Tradition (KRT) and can be preliminarily placed in the Late Archaic (2800–1800 BC) or Early Formative period (1800–1200 BC).

Incised Lines: Planning and Design in the Late Formative E Group at Yaxuná, Yucatán, Mexico

Although direct evidence of civic planning is rare among Mesoamerican sites, such features offer great insight into past practices, intentions, and urban transformation. Using data from the transition to the Late Formative period (ca. 400–300 BC), I argue that direct evidence of urban planning is present in the monumental constructions of Yaxuná in Yucatán, Mexico. There, investigators detected a series of carefully rendered incised lines directly on Floor 6 of the E Group plaza. Along with the buildings' exposed surfaces, incised lines served as visual markers for placing rubble and dry-core fill into two categories: large dry-core stones and small compact fill. These visual distinctions informed the location of features built on top of this fill, including Floor 5 and a causeway spanning the plaza's central axis, distinguished from the white floor surfacesascab(a durable product of pulverized limestone) by a red-orange color. The incised lines at Yaxuná grant insight into how ancient builders envisioned public works and then implemented and completed features in a step-by-step design process, which required precision and foresight.

The Life and Death of a Child: Mortuary and Bodily Manifestations of Coast–Interior Interactions during the Late Formative Period (AD 100–400), Northern Chile

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.

Agriculturización

Although the importance of agriculture as a key factor in the economic development of Andean peoples and territories has been widely recognized worldwide, there have been few attempts to assess its historical importance in the construction of pre-Columbian agricultural landscapes in the Andes of Ecuador. This article presents the first results of the analysis of the Kañari agrarian landscapes in the upper Chanchán basin, showing a long historical trajectory that spanned almost 2000 years from the Late Formative Period (543-381 cal BC) to the final phase of the Integration Period (1386-1438 cal AD). Extensive and intensive farming systems (permanent fields and terraces) acted as a transforming agent of the space, imprinting an agro-sacralized cultural signature with the configuration of three types of landscapes: Domestic, Social and Sacred. The agriculturization of these landscapes shows how the intensification of agriculture under a unilinear progression model does not generally mean a natural retreat of ecosystem processes, due to human intervention for the production of its crops. The elasticity of the pre-Hispanic Kañaris agroecosystems could be sustained in the face of the historical processes of agriculturization throughout its historical trajectory.

LOWLAND MAYA GENESIS: THE LATE ARCHAIC TO LATE EARLY FORMATIVE TRANSITION IN THE UPPER BELIZE RIVER VALLEY

AbstractThe transition from the Late Archaic to the Late Early Formative period witnessed profound changes in the Maya lowlands. In addition to the establishment of the first settlements and agrarian communities, this critical phase of cultural development heralded the introduction of ceramics, saw changes in lithic technology, gave rise to inter-regional trade and exchange, and witnessed the introduction of a complex symbolic system expressed on portable objects. In this article, we synthesize data collected over the past several decades by various archaeological projects in western Belize to provide an overview of the cultural changes that unfolded during the Late Archaic to Late Early Formative period in the Upper Belize River Valley. We also provide evidence indicating that it was during this critical transitional period that we begin to see the establishment of several cultural traditions that became uniquely lowland Maya.

Managing environmental challenges with anthropogenic bedrock modification: archaeological survey evidence from the Upper Basin (USA) and the island of Kos (Greece)

Human-environmental interaction studies typically focus on large-scale landscape modifications of vegetation or soils and rarely address smaller-scale human alterations to site settings. This approach is based on a broad concept of environment as “set” having spatially dispersed and regionally defined attributes, as opposed to something that is mutable at the scale of individual groups of humans living at a specific location. This paper examines how two prehistoric groups, the Final Neolithic to Early Bronze Age 2 occupants on the island of Kos, Greece and the Late Formative Period occupants in the Upper Basin, northern Arizona, selected and modified habitation locations involving exposed bedrock. Although chronologically separated by thousands of years and occupying different continents, these two groups share similarities in population size, socio-political complexity, and environmental challenges. In facing these challenges, both groups apply practical, but different, approaches that utilized one of the most prevalent globally available resources -- limestone bedrock.

La Cerámica aguada en las tierras altas (Puna Meridional Argentina, Catamarca)

This paper presents a technological and decorative study of a ceramic sample identified with the Aguada typology from the Casa Chávez Montículos site in Antofagasta de la Sierra, (Puna Meridional Argentina). The characteristics of this pottery, result of the proposed analysis, will be compared with similar attributes of the pieces coming from the mesothermal valleys of Hualfín and Abaucán analyzed by other authors. The objective of the comparison is to identify similarities and differences in the different steps of the production process of this type of pottery. Thus, new data will be contributed to the discussion, raised (Olivera, 1992; 1997), about the region from which the influence that led to the Aguada presence in Antofagasta de la Sierra during the Middle and Late Formative period (2000 to 1100 BP) came, while analyzing the particular characteristics of Aguada in Antofagasta de la Sierra.

Changing Olmec trade routes understood through Least Cost Path analysis

This paper uses Least Cost Path (LCP) analysis to explore travel routes between the Gulf Coast and Soconusco regions of Mexico. LCP results are compared between the two regions during the late Early Formative period (1400-1000 cal BC) when San Lorenzo was the largest Olmec center on the Gulf Coast and the Middle Formative period (1000-400 cal BC) when La Venta replaced it. We contrast the well-known Tobler Hiking Function and the less well known Anaya Hernandez method to determine the LCP routes for each period as well as to calculate changes required to make the voyage as one Gulf Coast center eclipsed the other. We compare LCP models with changing locations of political centers and with colonial-period accounts of actual travel through the region that allows us to infer the logic of Olmec era trade networks. Methodologically, we show how the Anaya Hernandez friction values for LCP analysis are more appropriate for mountainous environments as they more reliably model the importance of slope than the Tobler Function does. Substantively, we demonstrate how important population centers were located along LPC routes. Further, that beginning during the Middle Formative period there were more connections to the highlands of Chiapas and Guatemala than in earlier times.

Temporal Inflection Points in Decorated Pottery: A Bayesian Refinement of the Late Formative Chronology in the Southern Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia

The Late Formative period immediately precedes the emergence of Tiwanaku, one of the earliest South American states, yet it is one of the most poorly understood periods in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin (Bolivia). In this article, we refine the ceramic chronology of this period with large sets of dates from eight sites, focusing on temporal inflection points in decorated ceramic styles. These points, estimated here by Bayesian models, index specific moments of change: (1)cal AD 120(60–170, 95% probability): the first deposition of Kalasasaya red-rimmed and zonally incised styles; (2)cal AD 240(190–340, 95% probability): a tentative estimate of the final deposition of Kalasasaya zonally incised vessels; (3)cal AD 420(380–470, 95% probability): the final deposition of Kalasasaya red-rimmed vessels; and (4)cal AD 590(500–660, 95% probability): the first deposition of Tiwanaku Redwares. These four modeled boundaries anchor an updated Late Formative chronology, which includes the Initial Late Formative phase, a newly identified decorative hiatus between the Middle and Late Formative periods. The models place Qeya and transitional vessels between inflection points 3 and 4 based on regionally consistent stratigraphic sequences. This more precise chronology will enable researchers to explore the trajectories of other contemporary shifts during this crucial period in Lake Titicaca Basin's prehistory.

Isotopic Evidence for Camelid Husbandry During the Formative Period at the Pacopampa Site, Peru

ABSTRACT Camelids were domesticated in the Andean highlands, such as in the puna habitat, and dispersed into lowland areas and the northern Central Andes. As camelids domesticated in a particular region would have had a greater economic benefit than visiting- or hunted wild camelids, it is important to reconstruct the dispersal of camelid husbandry from its initial site throughout the ancient Andean civilisation. We carried out multi-isotope analyses of animal remains recovered from the Pacopampa site to investigate the nature of camelid pastoralism and utilisation. Strontium and oxygen isotope ratios from tooth enamel suggested that camelids in the early Late Formative Period (800–500 BC) were born near the site and remained in the same habitat for up to three years. Although corresponding data for the Middle Formative Period (1200–800 BC) were not available, carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios were statistically different from those of the Late Formative Period, supporting the possibility that the camelids inhabited the highland plateau like puna. It is inferred that in the northern highlands camelids were initially rare and regarded as either tribute or ritual animals, or they were used as pack animals. Camelid husbandry using maize as fodder began during the Late Formative Period at Pacopampa.