Child Sacrifice in the Ancient Andes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Blom
Keyword(s):  
Architectural Design ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
The Andes ◽  
Important Means ◽  
Portable Art

While reports of child sacrifice in the ancient Andes are often sensationalized to captivate popular audiences, the study of the practice provides archaeologists with an important means of investigating power and sociopolitical dynamics in antiquity. This chapter discusses the significance of the terms ‘child’ and ‘sacrifice’ in the Andes and examines the evidence of child sacrifice from ancient contexts in Andean regions of modern-day Peru and Bolivia. It considers data on sacrificial practices from dives sources, such as descriptions in ethnohistorical documents, representations in architectural design and portable art, and direct evidence found in the archaeological record. Finally, various approaches to the study of these sacrifices and possible avenues for future analyses are outlined.

Quechua’s Southern Boundary: The Case of Santiago del Estero, Argentina

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELIZABETH DeMARRAIS
Keyword(s):  
Colonial Period ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
The South ◽  
Population Movements ◽  
Southern Boundary ◽  
North West ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
The Andes ◽  
Continued Use

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.

North and South: Hunter-Gatherer Communities in the Andes Mountains in Central Chile

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 487-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis E. Cornejo B. ◽  
Lorena Sanhueza R.
Keyword(s):  
River Valley ◽  
Andes Mountains ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Central Chile ◽  
The Andes ◽  
Social Units ◽  
North And South ◽  
Chilean Andes

AbstractOne of the most serious limitations in studies of prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies based on the archaeological record has been the difficulty of establishing distinctions among groups that inhabited a given area at the same time. This article suggests that, at least during a period ranging from 3000 B.C. to A.D. 1000, the Central Chilean Andes, specifically the Maipo River Valley, was occupied by two groups of hunter-gatherers that were distinct enough for us to propose that they were actually two different social units.

Living Lithics: ethnoarchaeology in Highland Papua New Guinea

Antiquity ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 77 (297) ◽  
pp. 555-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Sillitoe ◽  
Karen Hardy
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Joint Work ◽  
Men And Women

This paper represents the joint work of two very different specialists. The fieldwork was undertaken by Sillitoe as part of his ethnographic research in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the interpretative work was done by an archaeologist, Hardy. The work described here represents some of the last direct evidence from users of stone tools. It shows how procurement, manufacture, use, storage and the relative roles of men and women in the process was dependant on what other materials were available – material often sadly elusive in the archaeological record. Discard did not reflect use, but was often guided by the thoughtful wish to avoid cut feet.

scholarly journals Tracing the Materiality of Feathers in Stone Age North-Eastern Europe

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-46
Author(s):  
Kristiina Mannermaa ◽  
Tuija Kirkinen
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Microscopic Analysis ◽  
Soil Samples ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
The World ◽  
Traditional Societies ◽  
Mesolithic Period

The use of feathers in ritual costumes and everyday clothing is well described in ethnographic sources throughout the world. From the same sources we know that bird wings and feathers were loaded with meaning in traditional societies worldwide. However, direct archaeological evidence of prehistoric use of feathers is still extremely scarce. Hence, feathers belong to the ‘missing majority’: items that are absent from the archaeological record but which we can assume to have been of importance. Here we present microscopic analysis of soil samples from hunter-gatherer burial contexts which reveal the first direct evidence of the use of feathers in the Mesolithic period of north-eastern Europe.

The communication of architectural design analysis in residential design guidance: legibility, commodity and design

2020 ◽  
Vol 91 (5) ◽  
pp. 489-513
Author(s):  
Leo Moreton
Keyword(s):  
Architectural Design ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
Visual Appearance ◽  
Architectural Analysis ◽  
Residential Design ◽  
New Development ◽  
Important Means ◽  
Visual Impact ◽  
Epistemological Analysis ◽  
Design Guidance

This article will propose new approaches to the representation of architectural design principles, in residential design guidance. The visual appearance of new development is key in its successful integration of new housing in historic environments, providing an important means of analysis for planning departments and client users and establishing key information for developers regarding local-authority expectations and the contextualisation of proposed schemes. An epistemological analysis of content in 98 currently accessible guides identified a need for a more concise and accessible approach to architectural analysis. This figure is representative of a majority of residential design guides in England. A greater understanding of the visual impact of architectural design decisions is key in ensuring the continuity of the built environment. This research is more widely significant in terms of consolidating architectural design approaches in design guidance, as many authorities and bodies have adopted similar approaches globally.

scholarly journals A Multi-Agent Mah Jong Playing System: Towards Real-Time Recognition of Graphic Units in Graphic Representations

10.14311/416 ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Achten ◽  
J. Jessurun
Keyword(s):  
Architectural Design ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Multi Agent System ◽  
Multi Agent Systems ◽  
Search Activity ◽  
Agent System ◽  
Agent Systems ◽  
Graphic Representations ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Important Means

In architectural design, sketching is an important means to explore the first conceptual developments in the design process. It is necessary to understand the conventions of depiction and encoding in sketches and drawings if we want to support the architect in the sketching activity. The theory of graphic units provides a comprehensive list of conventions of depiction and encoding that are widely used among architects. These graphic units form useful building blocks to understand design drawings. We investigate whether it is possible to build a system that can recognize graphic units. The technology we are looking at is multi-agent systems. It was chosen for the following reasons: agents can specialize in graphic units, a multi-agent system can deal with ambiguity through negotiation and conflict resolution, and multi-agent systems function in dynamically changing environments. Currently there is no general approach or technology available for multi-agent systems. Therefore, in our research we first set out to make such a multi-agent system. In order to keep the complexity low, we first aim to make a system that can do something simple: playing Mah Jong solitary. The Mah Jong solitary system shares the following important features with a multi-agent system that can recognize graphic units: (1) specialized agents for moves; (2) negotiation between agents to establish the best move; (3) a dynamically changing environment; and (4) search activity for more advanced strategies. The paper presents the theoretical basis of graphic units and multi-agents systems, followed by a description of the multi-agent framework and its implementation. A number of systems that can play Mah Jong at various degrees of competence and accordingly degrees of complexity of multi-agent system, are distinguished. Finally, the paper demonstrates how the findings are informative for a system that can recognize graphic units.

scholarly journals Broadening Our Horizons: Towards an Interdisciplinary Prehistory of the Andes

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID BERESFORD-JONES ◽  
PAUL HEGGARTY
Keyword(s):  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Middle Horizon ◽  
Plausible Candidate ◽  
Regional Dialects ◽  
The Andes ◽  
Satisfactory Correlation ◽  
Linguistic Patterns ◽  
Early Horizon ◽  
Founding Principle

This chapter proposes a new and more coherent interdisciplinary prehistory of the Andes, based firstly on a long overdue re-examination of the relationships between the various regional ‘dialects’ within the Quechua language family; and secondly on a more satisfactory correlation with the archaeological record. The founding principle is that language families necessarily reflect past expansive processes, whose traces should also be clear in the archaeological record. It provides a logic by which to assess correspondences between archaeological and linguistic patterns, on the three levels of when, where, and why particular language expansions occurred. In the Andes, the horizons thus offer the most natural explanations for the major Quechua and Aymara dispersals. With the Incas too late for the time-depth of either family, the Wari Middle Horizon emerges as the most plausible candidate for the first major expansion of Quechua, and not (as per traditional linguistic thinking) of the Aymara family, here tentatively associated with the Early Horizon instead.

Linguistics for Archaeologists: a Case-study in the Andes

2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Heggarty
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Linguistic Context ◽  
Previous Issue ◽  
Paradigm Case ◽  
Ideal Case ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Andes

In the previous issue of CAJ, Heggarty (2007) set out how certain key principles and methods of historical linguistics can be exploited to open up another window on the past, from a perspective quite different and complementary to that offered by the archaeological record. Following this up, we turn here to an ideal case-study for exploring how the various patterns in linguistic (pre-)histories can be matched with their most plausible correlates in the archaeological data. Beyond our initial illustration of the Incas we now look further afield, to set the sequence of major civilizations of the Andes into its linguistic context, tracing the expansion trajectories of the main Andean language families further back in time, stage by stage, ultimately to their most plausible original homelands. The linguistic story emerges starkly at odds with assumptions widely held among archaeologists of the region. Indeed we encounter a paradigm case of how only a radical rethinking can reconcile our two disciplines' findings into a single, coherent, holistic prehistory for a human population — in the Andes, a prize now tantalizingly within our reach.

Huaca Salango

2019 ◽  
pp. 49-78
Keyword(s):  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Sacred Sites ◽  
Central Coast ◽  
The Andes ◽  
Human Burials ◽  
Complex Phenomena

Pre-Columbian sacred sites are complex phenomena that present a distinct challenge to rationalism. Accordingly, huaca and other Quechua concepts concerning the sacred not only provide alternative keys to the interpretation of Andean sites of Inca date, but may also be usefully applied to earlier sites that lie beyond the Andes proper. From 600 BC to 600 AD, architecture, human burials and artefact offerings all contributed to the making of a ceremonial complex associated with a natural landform and its spirit owner at Salango, on the central coast of Ecuador. Salango thus allows study both of the different means by which an ancient non-Andean huaca was constructed, and of its various functions. It also shows how the structure, substance and symbolism of individual huacas can provide direct evidence for localized ontologies that need to be understood on their own terms.

Darts, Arrows, and Archaeologists: Distinguishing Dart and Arrow Points in the Archaeological Record

2014 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 162-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon M. Erlandson ◽  
Jack L. Watts ◽  
Nicholas P. Jew
Keyword(s):  
Marine Mammals ◽  
Late Holocene ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Western North America ◽  
Mean Values ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Bow And Arrow ◽  
Point Types ◽  
Santa Rosa Island

AbstractUsing several methods to distinguish dart and arrow points, archaeologists have suggested that the bow and arrow appeared in various parts of the world between ˜65,000 and 1,000 years ago. Hildebrandt and King (2012) proposed a dart-arrow index (DAI) to help differentiate dart and arrow points, rejecting claims that the bow and arrow was introduced to western North America prior to the Late Holocene. We used the DAI and other methods to evaluate ˜11,700-year-old projectile points from Santa Rosa Island, obtaining mean values below the threshold for darts, comparable to several North American arrow point types. We have no direct evidence that these small points were used on darts, arrows, or hand-thrown spears, but faunal associations suggest that they may have served as harpoon tips used on atlatl darts to capture birds, fish, and marine mammals. The DAI and other methods for discriminating between dart and arrow points are based almost exclusively on ethnographic and archaeological specimens from interior regions. Our analysis suggests that such methods should not be applied universally, especially in coastal or other aquatic settings, and that archaeologists should continue to critically assess the antiquity of the bow and arrow and the function of projectile points worldwide.

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