The earliest adobe monumental architecture in the Americas

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (48) ◽  
pp. e2102941118
Author(s):  
Ana Cecilia Mauricio ◽  
Rolf Grieseler ◽  
Andrew R. Heller ◽  
Alice R. Kelley ◽  
Francisco Rumiche ◽  
...  

Adobe bricks, or mud bricks, are construction elements which have defined major architectural traditions in the Andes over thousands of years. From Moche pyramids and the ancient city of Chan Chan in pre-Hispanic times, to Spanish casonas of the colonial period and rural houses in contemporary South America, adobe has been a central component in Andean architecture. Discovery of the remains of an early monumental building constructed primarily of adobes at Los Morteros (lower Chao Valley, north coast of Peru) places the invention of adobe architecture before 5,100 calendar years B.P. The unique composition, internal structure, and chronology of the adobes from Los Morteros show the beginnings of this architectural technique, which is associated with El Niño rainfall and the construction of the earliest adobe monumental building in the Americas. We propose that adobe architecture became a major Andean tradition after a long period of technical evolution and experimentation with both shape and composition.

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (51) ◽  
pp. 32308-32319
Author(s):  
Tiffiny A. Tung ◽  
Tom D. Dillehay ◽  
Robert S. Feranec ◽  
Larisa R. G. DeSantis

We assess diet and economies of middle Holocene (∼7,500 to 4,000 calibrated [cal] B.P.) humans at coexisting mound sites (Huaca Prieta and Paredones) in north coastal Peru and document regular consumption of maize by ∼6,500 to 6,000 cal B.P. and its earliest use as a staple food in this area of the Andes between 5,000 and 4,500 cal B.P. Stable isotope data from enamel carbonates and dentin collagen (childhood diet) and dental microwear texture analysis (adult diet) demonstrate dietary and economic specialization. Previous studies revealed maize and mixed-food refuse at both sites, but this study documents actual food consumption, showing that these communities situated a few hundred meters apart had significantly distinct diets in childhood and adulthood. Huaca Prieta focused on marine resources, although there are some contributions from terrestrial meat. Paredones individuals primarily consumed maize during childhood (up to 70% of the juvenile diet), as shown by δ13C values, apatite-collagen spacing, and discriminant analysis of δ13Ccoll, δ13Ccarb, and δ15N values. Maize was likely used as a weaning food (e.g., gruel and/orchicha—a maize beverage), hinting at the significant role of breastfeeding mothers, weanling infants, and children in the development of maize as a staple crop. Additionally, dental microwear data show Paredones adult diets are high in abrasives, potentially from maize processing. The distinct foodways at these neighboring sites result from and also reflect their social and political distinctions. These differences in food production, distribution, and consumption generated opportunities for exchange, an interaction that bound them together in mutual benefit.


Author(s):  
Jerry Moore

This chapter presents an overview of pre-Inca states in the Andes, describing patterns of statecraft that came before the Inca Empire. The earliest evidence for Andean urbanism and statecraft appeared on the north coast of Peru, where Mochica polities built on earlier processes. A period of local development followed the disintegration of Mochica states, and the Chimú Empire spread across parts of the region in the centuries before Inca incorporation. In the Andean highlands, the Wari and Tiwanaku empires developed their own urban centers and extended administrative centers and enclaves into other highland areas. As archaeologists explore the pre-Inca Andean states more intensively, focusing more attention on peripheral and non-elite contexts, it is clear that these societies used distinct strategies to integrate their core regions and to extend their power more widely.


Philosophy ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 68 (264) ◽  
pp. 127-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony O'Hear

Even today, apologists for modernist and post-modernist architecture frequently appeal to what, following Sir Karl Popper, I will call historicist arguments. Such arguments have a particular poignancy when they are used to justify the replacement of some familiar part of an ancient city with some intentionally untraditional structure; as, for example, when a familiar nineteenth century block of offices in a prime city site is swept away to make room for something supposedly more fitting to the ‘new millennium’, a ‘twentieth century contribution to monumental architecture’, a building ‘of substantial importance to the present age’. Similarly, those architects or consumers of architecture who fail to conform to whatever stylistic demands the age is held to demand are marginalized in many supposedly serious discussions of architecture, and made to feel out of place and out of time.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 45-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Prieto ◽  
Véronique Wright ◽  
Richard L. Burger ◽  
Colin A. Cooke ◽  
Elvira L. Zeballos-Velasquez ◽  
...  

1990 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Pozorski ◽  
Shelia Pozorski

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 696-717 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haagen D. Klaus ◽  
Walter Alva ◽  
Steve Bourget ◽  
Luis Chero

Between AD 100 and 800, the Moche culture emerged on the north coast of Peru. Diverse debates surround the nature of Moche territorial and political centralization, sociopolitical identities, and the internal social diversity of Moche society. Here we address some of these issues in a biodistance study based on phenotypic variation of inherited dental traits within and between 36 individuals in the royal tombs of Sipán (Lambayeque valley), Úcupe (Zaña valley), and Dos Cabezas (Jequetepeque valley). Metric and nonmetric dental trait data were analyzed using hierarchical cluster and R-matrix analyses. The results independently indicate that the highest-level Sipán and Dos Cabezas lords likely represented different endogamous kin groups, while limited gene flow occurred between groups of Moche lower nobility between the Lambayeque and Jequetepeque regions. Although biology and material cultural link the Lord of Úcupe to Dos Cabezas, many objects in his tomb demonstrate his participation the world of the Sipán elites. These Moche lords were, on some levels, bioculturally interconnected. Nonetheless, the data broadly lend support to a “many Moches” model of sociopolitical structure, further casting doubt on earlier one-dimensional visions of a centralized hegemonic Moche polity.


Author(s):  
ELIZABETH DeMARRAIS

This chapter examines the far southern boundary of Quechua's spread throughout the Andes. It argues that Quechua reached north-west Argentina in Inka times and that it was widely used during the colonial period as well. The rationale for this argument is based primarily on evidence for (1) the extent of Inka resettlements in Argentina; (2) the nature of Inka relations with local peoples in the far south; and (3) continued use of Quechua under the Spaniards, as described in the documentary sources. Less clear are the precise population movements that brought Quechua speakers initially to Santiago del Estero, as the archaeological record suggests that the Inka frontier lay higher up the slopes in the provinces of Salta, Jujuy, Tucumán, and Catamarca, where the majority of Inka installations are found. The documents reveal that activities of the Spaniards had further, far-reaching consequences for Quechua's presence in the south Andes, and that ultimately Quechua was replaced in most of north-west Argentina by Spanish.


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