INTERREGIONAL OBSIDIAN EXCHANGE DURING THE LATE INITIAL PERIOD AND EARLY HORIZON: NEW PERSPECTIVES FROM CAMPANAYUQ RUMI, PERU

Campanayuq Rumi is a large civic-ceremonial center located in the south-central highlands of Peru. Founded in the late Initial Period (1100–800 BC), Campanayuq Rumi became an important center within the Chavín Interaction Sphere in the Early Horizon (ca. 800–400 BC). In particular, Campanayuq Rumi is significant because of its geographical proximity to Quispisisa, the most important and widely circulated obsidian source during the Early Horizon. Portable X-ray florescence (pXRF) was used to geochemically source a sample of 370 obsidian artifacts from Campanayuq Rumi. Though obsidian from Quispisisa dominates the assemblage throughout the site's history, diachronic analysis indicates that the diversity of obsidian sources increases markedly in the Campanayuq II Phase (700–450 BC). The pXRF data lead us to conclude that Campanayuq Rumi was the locus of obsidian distribution to other locations in highland and coastal Peru within the Chavín Interaction Sphere, and functioned as a regional center of worship and interaction.

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Micro X-ray Fluorescence Study of Late Pre-Hispanic Ceramics from the Western Slopes of the South Central Andes Region in the Arica y Parinacota Region, Chile: A New Methodological Approach

Applied Spectroscopy ◽

10.1177/0003702816654153 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 70 (10) ◽

pp. 1759-1769 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Samuel Flewett ◽

Thibault Saintenoy ◽

Marcela Sepúlveda ◽

Edward Fabian Mosso ◽

Carolina Robles ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Standard Procedure ◽

Methodological Approach ◽

The South ◽

X Ray ◽

Mineral Inclusions ◽

South Central ◽

Map Processing ◽

Clay Matrix ◽

Classification Tool

Archeological ceramic paste material typically consists of a mix of a clay matrix and various millimeter and sub-millimeter sized mineral inclusions. Micro X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is a standard compositional classification tool and in this work we propose and demonstrate an improved fluorescence map processing protocol where the mineral inclusions are automatically separated from the clay matrix to allow independent statistical analysis of the two parts. Application of this protocol allowed us to enhance the discrimination between different ceramic shards compared with the standard procedure of working with only the spatially averaged elemental concentrations. Using the new protocol, we performed an initial compositional classification of a set of 83 ceramic shards from the western slopes of the south central Andean region in the Arica y Parinacota region (Chile). Comparing the classifications obtained using the new versus the old (average concentrations only) protocols, we found that some samples were erroneously classified with the old protocol. From an archaeological perspective, a broad and heterogeneous regional sample set was used in this experimental study due to the fact that this was the first such analysis to be performed on ceramics from this region. This allowed a general overview to be obtained, however further work on more specific sample sets will be necessary to extract concrete archaeological conclusions.

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