Ancient Wari Empire likely did not cause large shifts in population genetic diversity

The imperial dominance of the ancient Wari Empire at the Huaca Pucllana site in Lima, Peru, was likely not achieved through population replacement, according to a study published June 1, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Guido Valverde from the University of Adelaide, Australia, and colleagues.

Successive pre-Columbian civilizations existed in the central Andes of South America since the pre-ceramic period 5.5 kya, and ancient empires such as the Wari Empire (600 - 1100 AD) may have been important in shaping the region's demographic and cultural profiles. To investigate whether Wari dominance in the Peruvian Central Coast was based on population replacement or cultural diffusion, the authors of the present study sequenced the complete mitochondrial genomes of 34 individuals from the Huaca Pucllana archaeological site in Lima, Peru, who lived before, during, and after the Wari Empire, and assessed how the population's genetic diversity changed over time.

The researchers found that genetic diversity may only have changed subtly over this period, indicating population continuity over time with only minor genetic impact from Wari imperialism. The subtle genetic diversity shift found at this site may not be representative for the entire Wari territory, and more research is needed to characterize the overall influence of the Wari Empire. Nonetheless, the authors suggest that the Wari Empire may have exerted influence in this area through cultural diffusion rather than by replacement of the pre-existing population.

Guido Valverde adds: "The Huaca Pucllana archaeological site in Peru's Central Coast represents a unique transect of three successive cultures - Lima, Wari and Ychsma. The site provides the exceptional opportunity to study a 1000 years of pre-Inca history, including the impact of the Wari imperialist expansion on Peru's Central Coast cities."
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Reference:

Phys.org. 2016. “Ancient Wari Empire likely did not cause large shifts in population genetic diversity”. Phys.org. Posted: June 1, 2016. Available online: http://phys.org/news/2016-06-ancient-wari-empire-large-shifts.html

Evidence of Pre-Columbus Trade Found in Alaska House

Bronze artifacts discovered in a 1,000-year-old house in Alaska suggest trade was occurring between East Asia and the New World centuries before the voyages of Columbus.

Archaeologists found the artifacts at the "Rising Whale" site at Cape Espenberg.

"When you're looking at the site from a little ways away, it looks like a bowhead [whale] coming to the surface," said Owen Mason, a research associate at the University of Colorado, who is part of a team excavating the site.

The new discoveries, combined with other finds made over the past 100 years, suggest trade items and ideas were reaching Alaska from East Asian civilizations well before Christopher Columbus arrived in the Caribbean Sea in 1492 archaeologists said.

"We're seeing the interactions, indirect as they are, with these so-called 'high civilizations' of China, Korea or Yakutia," a region in Russia, Mason said.

Bronze and obsidian

The Rising Whale discoveries include two bronze artifacts, one of which may have originally been used as a buckle or fastener. It has a piece of leather on it that radiocarbon dates to around A.D. 600 (more tests will take place in the future). The other bronze artifact may have been used as a whistle.

Bronze-working had not been developed at this time in Alaska, so archaeologists think the artifacts would have been manufactured inChina, Korea or Yakutia, and made their way to Alaska through trade routes.

Also inside that house, researchers found the remains of obsidian artifacts, which have a chemical signature that indicates the obsidian is from the Anadyr River valley in Russia.

Trade routes

The recent discoveries at the Rising Whale site add to over a century of research that indicates trade routes connected the Bering Strait (including the Alaskan side) with the civilizations that flourished in East Asia before Columbus' time.

In 1913, anthropologist Berthold Laufer published an analysis of texts and artifacts in the journal T'oung Pao in which he found that the Chinese had a great interest in obtaining ivory from narwhals and walruses, acquiring it from people who lived to the northeast of China. Some of the walrus ivory may have come from the Bering Strait, where the animals are found in abundance.

Additionally, a number of researchers have noted similarities in design between the plate armor worn by people in Alaska and that worn in China, Korea, Japan and eastern Mongolia.

For instance, in the 1930s, Smithsonian Institution archaeologist Henry Collins undertook excavations at St. Lawrence Island, off the west coast of Alaska. In his book "The Archaeology of St. Lawrence Island" (Smithsonian, 1937), he wrote that plate armor started appearing on the island around 1,000 years ago. It consisted of overlapping plates made of ivory, bones and sometimes iron.

Plate armor similar to this was developed in several areas of East Asia, including Manchuria (in China), eastern Mongolia and Japan, Collins wrote. The use of plate armor, he said, spread north from these areas, and was eventually introduced to Alaska from across the Bering Strait.

Genetic evidence

Recent genetic research also sheds light on interactions between people from East Asia and the New World. Many scientists say that humans first arrived in the New World around 15,000 years ago by crossing a land bridge that had formed across the Bering Strait. This land bridge was flooded about 10,000 years ago.

However, a recent genetic study suggests there were also movements of people from East Asia to the New World at a later date. Those who lived at the Rising Whale site may be part of what scientists refer to as the "Birnirk" culture, a group of people who lived on both sides of the Bering Strait and used sophisticated skin boats and harpoons to hunt whales.

The genetic study indicates that people from the Birnirk culture are the ancestors of a people called the "Thule," who spread out across the North American arctic as far as Greenland. The Thule, in turn, are ancestors of the modern-day Inuit.

Long before Columbus

The Bering Strait wasn't the only area where interactions between people from the Old World and New World occurred before Columbus' arrival. By 1,000 years ago, the Vikings had explored parts of Canadaand had even established a short-lived settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland.

Research also indicates that, around this time, the Polynesians had reached South America, bringing sweet potatoes back to Polynesia and possibly bringing chickens to South America.

Many other hypotheses have been put forward suggesting that people reached the New World before Columbus. One idea that has received a lot of attention in popular media is that Chinese mariners sailed directly to the New World, although this idea lacks scholarly support.

Mason and his team will present their research on the Rising Whale site at the Canadian Archaeological Association annual meeting in St. John's Newfoundland, Canada, between April 28 and May 2.
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Reference:

Jarus, Owen. 2015. “Evidence of Pre-Columbus Trade Found in Alaska House”. Live Science. Posted: April 16, 2015. Available online: http://www.livescience.com/50506-artifacts-reveal-pre-columbus-trade.html

Anthropologist offers possible explanation for collapse of ancient city of Teotihuacan

Linda Manzanilla, an anthropologist with Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México has published a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offering a possible explanation for the collapse of the early central Mexican city of Teotihuacan—she believes it was due to clashes between groups with differing economic interests.

The ruins of Teotihuacan can be seen today at a location approximately 30 miles northeast of modern Mexico City, and offer testament to the flourishing metropolis that once was home to approximately 125,000 people, making it the most populous city in the pre-Columbia Americas. The city got its start around 100 BCE, but was completely decimated by the eighth century. Why it collapsed has been a subject of debate among historians and anthropologists for several years. In this new effort, Manzanilla suggests it was not drought or invaders that brought down the great city, but internal strife among its inhabitants.

Manzanilla is basing her claims on her examination of parts of the ruins, along with an analysis of human remains and other artifacts that have been found in the area. She suggests that because of volcanic eruptions in the first and fourth centuries, people were forced to move from the southern basin, and wound up in Teotihuacan, which resulted in a mix of ethnicities. Activity markers, nutritional patterns, isotopes and ancient DNA analysis showed that the immigrants (some of whom brought specialized skills along with them) tended to live on the outskirts of the city in different neighborhoods and were given specific jobs by businessmen that helped to bolster the economy. But it also led to rivalries between the neighborhoods. As time passed, she believes that tensions arose between wealthy businessmen, neighborhood leaders and those that were part of the government. The tension was increased, she claims, by the government insisting on retaining control of all natural resources. Eventually, that tension boiled over and the result was an angry mob of people burning down major parts (administration and ritual buildings) of the city and trashing sculptures and other iconic structures, and eventually to total collapse of the city.

She reports that thus far, no evidence of a foreign invasion of any type has been found.
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Reference:

Yirka, Bob. 2015. “Anthropologist offers possible explanation for collapse of ancient city of Teotihuacan”. Phys.Org. Posted: March 17, 2015. Available online: http://phys.org/news/2015-03-anthropologist-explanation-collapse-ancient-city.html

Study finds significant facial variation in pre-Columbian South America

A team of anthropology researchers has found significant differences in facial features between all seven pre-Columbian peoples they evaluated from what is now Peru - disproving a longstanding perception that these groups were physically homogenous. The finding may lead scholars to revisit any hypotheses about human migration patterns that rested on the idea that there was little skeletal variation in pre-Columbian South America.

Skeletal variation is a prominent area of research in New World bioarchaeology, because it can help us understand the origins and migration patterns of various pre-Columbian groups through the Americas.

"However, for a long time, the conventional wisdom was that there was very little variation prior to European contact," says Ann Ross, a forensic anthropologist at NC State University and co-author of a paper describing the new work. "Our work shows that there was actually significant variation." The research team also included anthropologists from the University of Oregon and Tulane University.

The recently-published findings may affect a lot of hypotheses regarding New World anthropology. For decades, research on pre-Columbian peoples used one sample of 110 individuals to represent the skull variation - including the facial features - of all South American peoples. But that representative sample consisted solely of individuals from the Yauyos people - a civilization that existed in the central Peruvian highlands.

"And our work shows that the Yauyos had facial features that were very different even from other peoples in the same region," Ross says. "This raises questions about any hypothesis that rests in part on the use of the Yauyos sample as being representative of all South America."

The researchers evaluated facial measurements of 507 skulls from seven different groups that have been clearly defined by archaeological evidence: the Yauyos, Ancon, Cajamarca, Jahuay, Makatampu, Malabrigo, and Pacatnamu peoples. These societies existed at various points between A.D. 1 and A.D. 1470.

Ross collected facial measurements of the Ancon, Cajamarca, and Makatampu remains. John Verano, an anthropologist at Tulane, collected measurements of the Jahuay, Malabrigo, and Pacatnamu remains. For the Yauyos, the researchers used measurements made by W.W. Howells in 1973.

The researchers found that each of these groups displayed distinct facial characteristics.

The researchers also plotted the sites where each group's remains were found. Using this information, they determined that geographical distance was a factor in facial differences between groups.

In other words, the farther apart two groups were, the less they looked alike.

"We've now collected samples from across Latin America - and those we've already published on can be viewed in a publicly available database," Ross says. "Our publications so far have focused on variation in specific regions. Next we want to compare variation across Latin America, to see if we can identify patterns that suggest biological relationships, which could be indicative of migration patterns."
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Reference:

EurekAlert. 2015. “Study finds significant facial variation in pre-Columbian South America”. EurekAlert. Posted: March 5, 2015. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-03/ncsu-sfs030515.php

Rubbish dig casts new light on pre-Columbian village

This last summer, Tony Boudreaux picked up a shovel and traveled back – way back – in time.

Boudreaux, an archaeologist who teaches at East Carolina University, along with a student team, was on a job excavating near Town Creek Indian Mound in Montgomery County.

They had just shoveled 2 feet of top soil from a series of 10 foot-by-10 foot squares – “making that dirt fly,” as Boudreaux put it.

Suddenly the soil color changed. The team members abandoned their spades, picked up masons’ trowels and got down on their hands and knees to slowly scrape away slivers of soil.

Right away, this new layer of undisturbed soil gave up its secrets: Dozens of dark, circular stains. The archaeologist and his students realized they were seeing the remains of buildings. The stained soil circles were post holes from long-gone buildings, and from disposal pits.

An ancient person’s trash is an archaeologist’s treasure. Boudreaux and his team found shards of pottery, pressed with designs. A broken stone from an ancient game called “chunkey.” Stone tools. And a tiny, blackened corncob, the remains of someone’s dinner about 800 years ago. “I was first person to lay eyes on this, along with student team, since AD 1200,” Boudreaux recalled, still marveling.

Not just ceremonial center

Town Creek Indian Mound site – today a grassy mound with re-created buildings and a stockade, open to visitors – has been excavated countless times, revealing tools, building foundations and human remains. The mound was built, one basketful of earth at a time, sometime around AD 1250 by people whose name for themselves is lost to time. Archaeologists call them the Pee Dee, after the nearby river. Like their mound-building counterparts in other southeastern states during what’s known as the Mississippian Period, the Pee Dee operated in complex societies. But new evidence shows Town Creek isn’t the place scientists once imagined it to be.

“Early on, the interpretation of the site was strictly as a ceremonial center, inhabited by maybe two or three priests year-round,” said Rich Thompson, Town Creek site manager. “Then once a year during … a green corn celebration, people from around would be invited in. Tony’s work has shown there was just way too much activity out there for it to be a cut-off-from-the-rest-of-the-world type of place. It was difficult to break away from that early story because that’s the story it’s been for decades.”

What Boudreaux discovered is that the land at Town Creek State Historic Site has been occupied, on and off, since the Ice Age, and that for a long time, the site wasn’t a set-apart, sacred center – it was a busy, thriving community. Boudreaux’s mapping of the soil stains shows too many buildings for the site to have been mostly vacant. And items like the charred corncob show the site was full of everyday life.

“Early on, when the Mississippian community was first founded, there seemed to be a village of at least 10 houses, maybe more,” Boudreaux said. “There was no mound yet. There were public buildings in the area where the mound would be built.”

In the homes at Town Creek, when people died, they were buried in the floor of the house. But then, after the mound was constructed, something changed.

“Parts of the place appear to become a full-time graveyard,” Boudreaux said. “At least four of these houses were kind of transformed into four cemeteries.” All told, more than 500 people were buried at Town Creek.

As the area filled with the bodies of the dead, the mound appears to have become a place visited on ceremonial occasions.

“Mounds were kind of symbols in a cosmic sense,” Boudreaux said. Mounds “were associated most often with community leaders, and mounds were … like a county seat. That’s the place where the ancestors live, where the chief is on the mound performing ceremonial activities that will help keep the universe spinning.”

Exclusionary activities

Remember the corncob? It turns out it was probably an example of one of the more democratic meals eaten at the site. Not all foods were considered so common.

“At Town Creek, we get some sense of the exclusionary activities that were going on at the mound,” Boudreaux said. “Buildings that were on the mound had passenger pigeon bones. You have what appears to be a special food. You’ve read accounts of these passenger pigeons … and it seems probably anybody could have gone out and gotten passenger pigeons and eaten them. But if you look at the distribution of these remains … there were social ideas about who could and couldn’t eat them.”

Understanding the way the community at Town Creek shifted from active village to a place of ceremony and status with a temple-topped mound will take time and more research, Boudreaux said. There’s much more to excavate, and the newly cleaned artifacts will need to be cataloged. Boudreaux hopes to entice an expert in ancient plant material to study the plant remains the team found. And he’ll plot out post holes using a GIS computer system to determine the locations of the long-gone buildings.

The new discoveries about Town Creek’s dynamic nature are important, and not just to better explain the mysteries of the mound, said Stephen Davis, associate director of the Research Laboratories of Archaeology at UNC Chapel Hill, which has archived most of the thousands of Town Creek artifacts.

“For North Carolina, history as it’s taught goes back to Roanoke, but the bulk of human history in North Carolina relates to Native Americans,” Davis said. The archaeological work at Town Creek, he said, is “giving a voice to a segment of the population that’s been under-represented in the narrative of our past.”
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Veverka, Amber. 2015. “Rubbish dig casts new light on pre-Columbian village”. News Observer. Posted: November 16, 2014. Available online: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/11/16/4315800_excavated-rubbish-at-ncs-town.html?rh=1http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/11/16/4315800_excavated-rubbish-at-ncs-town.html

Chilean Mummies Reveal Signs of Arsenic Poisoning

People of numerous pre-Columbian civilizations in northern Chile, including the Incas and the Chinchorro culture, suffered from chronic arsenic poisoning due to their consumption of contaminated water, new research suggests.

Previous analyses showed high concentrations of arsenic in the hair samples of mummies from both highland and coastal cultures in the region. However, researchers weren't able to determine whether the people had ingested arsenic or if the toxic element in the soil had diffused into the mummies' hair after they were buried.

In the new study, scientists used a range of high-tech methods to analyze hair samples from a 1,000- to 1,500-year-old mummy from the Tarapacá Valley in Chile's Atacama Desert. They determined the high concentration of arsenic in the mummy's hair came from drinking arsenic-laced water and, possibly, eating plants irrigated with the toxic water.

"In Chile, you have these sediments that are rich in arsenic because of copper-mining activities in the highlands," which expose arsenic and other pollutants, said lead study author Ioanna Kakoulli, an archaeological scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. "When it rains, the arsenic can leach out into the rivers."

Analyzing hair

In fields ranging from forensics to archaeology, hair is widely used to gain insight into the lives of modern and past peoples. Unlike other biological samples, such as bone and skin tissue that change over time, hair remains stable after it forms (keratinizes). This feature, along with hair's steady growth rate, means that it can provide a chronological record of the substances that previously circulated in the blood.

In the past, scientists have analyzed the hair samples of the mummies from the pre-Columbian populations that lived in Chile's Atacama Desert between A.D.
500 and 1450. The remains showed patterns of chronic poisoning, which some researchers have suspected was due to these populations' consumption of water contaminated with arsenic. But the methods didn't allow them to determine how the arsenic got into the mummies' hair.

"They didn't map where the arsenic is precipitated on the hair — they just took it and dissolved it," Kakoulli told Live Science. With this technique, you cannot tell if the arsenic wound up in the hair externally, or if it was ingested and traveled through the bloodstream first, she said.

To learn more about the possible arsenic poisoning of the ancient people from northern Chile, Kakoulli and her colleagues looked at a naturally preserved mummythat was buried in the TR40-A cemetery in the Tarapacá Valley of the Atacama Desert. Using portable techniques that were noninvasive and nondestructive, they imaged and analyzed the mummy's skin, clothes and hair, as well as the soil encrusting the mummy.

As expected, the team detected arsenic in the mummy's hair and in the soil. They also discovered skin conditions indicative of arsenic poisoning. Though these findings were suggestive of arsenic ingestion, they weren't definitive, so the researchers collected hair samples to analyze further in the lab.

Finding the source

Kakoulli and her colleagues imaged the hair samples with a very-high-resolution scanning electron microscope. They also subjected the samples to various tests with the synchrotron light source — a large particle accelerator that analyzes materials with intense, focused X-ray beams — at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, allowing them to map the distribution of the elements and minerals in the hair.

Their tests revealed a uniform, radial distribution of arsenic in the hair. If the hair had been contaminated from arsenic in the soil, the toxic element would have only coated the surface, Kakoulli said. Comparisons of the arsenic in the soil and hair also showed the soil contained much lower concentrations of the element.

Furthermore, the dominant form of arsenic in the hair was a type called arsenic III, while the inorganic arsenic in surface water and groundwateris mostly arsenic V. Studies have suggested that the body "biotransforms" ingested arsenic into arsenic III.

"The results are consistent with modern epidemiological studies of arsenic poisoning by ingestion," Kakoulli said, adding that the technological approach used in the study could prove useful to forensic investigations and toxicity assessments in archaeology.

The team is now using the same approach to see if the ancient people of the Tarapacá Valley used certain hallucinogens, as some individuals were buried with exotic Amazonian seeds and various hallucinogenic paraphernalia. If the people buried with the items didn't use the hallucinogens, it would suggest they were shaman or doctors who used the hallucinogenic plants to aid other people, the researchers said.

"It then becomes a question about the level of interaction they had with the people of the Amazon, because the seeds aren't from Chile," Kakoulli said. "They would've had to have known the properties of the seeds and where to get them."
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References:

Castro, Joseph. 2014. “Chilean Mummies Reveal Signs of Arsenic Poisoning”. Live Science. Posted: April 15, 2014. Available online: http://www.livescience.com/44838-chilean-mummies-show-arsenic-poisoning.html

Wari, Predecessors of the Inca, Used Restraint to Reshape Human Landscape

The Wari, a complex civilization that preceded the Inca empire in pre-Columbia America, didn't rule solely by pillage, plunder and iron-fisted bureaucracy, a Dartmouth study finds. Instead, they started out by creating loosely administered colonies to expand trade, provide land for settlers and tap natural resources across much of the central Andes.

The results, which appear in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, shed new light on how early states evolved into empires in the region that became the Inca imperial heartland.

The study is the first large-scale look at the settlement patterns and power of the Wari civilization, which flourished from about AD 600-1000 in the Andean highlands, well before the Inca empire's 15th century rise. Relatively little is known about the Wari -- there are no historical documents and archaeologists are still debating their power and statecraft. Many scholars think the Wari established strong centralized control -- economic, political, cultural and military -- like their Inca successors to govern the majority of the far-flung populations living across the central Andes. But the Dartmouth study suggests that while the Wari had significant administrative power, they did not successfully transition most colonies into directly ruled provinces.

"The identification of limited Wari state power encourages a focus on colonization practices rather than an interpretation of strong provincial rule," says Professor Alan Covey, the study's lead author. "A 'colonization first' interpretation of early Wari expansion encourages the reconsideration of motivations for expansion, shifting from military conquest and economic exploitation of subject populations to issues such as demographic relief and strategic expansion of trade routes or natural resource access."

The results are based on a systematic inventory of archaeological surveys covering nearly 1,000 square miles and GIS analysis of more than 3,000 archaeological sites in and around Peru's Cusco Valley. The data indicate Wari power did not emanate continuously outward from Pikillacta, a key administrative center whose construction required a huge investment. Instead, the locations of Wari ceramics indicate a more uneven, indirect and limited influence even at the height of their power than traditional interpretations from excavations at Wari sites.
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References:

Science Daily. 2013. “Wari, Predecessors of the Inca, Used Restraint to Reshape Human Landscape”. Science Daily. Posted: October 16, 2013. Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131016123036.htm

Pre-Incan Culture Expanded Through Trade, Not Conquest

Although Christopher Columbus is associated with discovering America, the 15th century explorer actually first set foot upon modern day Haiti and the Dominican Republic. But people were inhabiting both North and South America for thousands of years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

Historians commonly believe that humans first crossed to the Americans from Asia 12,000 years ago. But a new exhibit in Brazil features artifacts dating back as far as 30,000 years ago, 18,000 years earlier than previously believed.

100 items including cave paintings and ceramic art depicting animals, hunting expeditions and even sex scenes of the early Americans are on display in Brasilia, Brazil's capital.

The artifacts were found at the Serra da Capivara national park in Brazil’s northeastern Piaui state, which used to be a popular site for the hunter-gatherer civilization that created the artwork.

"To date, these are the oldest traces of human existence in the Americas," Franco-Brazilian archaeologist Niede Guidon who has headed a mission to carry out large-scale excavation of Piaui's interior since the 1970's told the AFP. "It's difficult to think there exists a site anywhere with a higher concentration of cave art."

In addition to the artwork, Guidon said charcoal remains of structured fires found at the site are among other traces of the Serra dwellers.

Some archaeologists disagree with Guidon that a few burnt flakes are not evidence of man-made fire hearths, but rather the remains of a natural stone formation.

However, Guidon contends the primitive civilization’s cave art provides enough evidence of early human activity.

"When it [cave art] began in Europe and Africa, it did here too," she said.

The paintings date back an estimated 29,000 years.
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References:

Fox News. 2013. “Cave art depicting early Americans’ sex lives suggests people inhabited Americas 18,000 years earlier than believed”. Fox News. Posted: October 14, 2013. Available online: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/10/14/cave-art-depicting-early-americans-sex-lives-suggests-people-inhabited-americas/

New archaeoastronomical alignments found at Machu Picchu

A joint Peruvian-Polish team have examined a previously unexcavated building in the well-preserved Inca retreat of Machu Picchu and found that the structure is astronomically aligned according to Prof. Mariusz Ziółkowski, Head of Pre-Columbian Research Centre at the University of Warsaw.

The team used 3D laser scanners to fully model and survey the building, named “El Mirador” (the vantage point), so as to get precise locations and alignments.

“Despite the difficult terrain we managed to perform 3D laser scans, which we then used to prepare a precise model of this amazing complex.” said Prof. Ziółkowski. Results of preliminary analysis indicate that it is a device used probably by a small group of Inca priests astronomers for precise observations of the position of celestial bodies on the horizon, against the distinctive Yanantin mountain peaks.

The Inca were well-known as astronomers who took careful note of the movements of the heavens in order to plan their agricultural and religious calendars.

Archaeoastronomical significance

The Polish researchers who have been working at Machu Picchu since 2008, have been focusing on the site’s archaeoastronomical significance. They presented their findings at the International Conference of the Societe Europeenne pour l’ Astronomie dans la Culture in Athens in September 2013.

El Mirador, was constructed of well made blocks of stone and was identified in an inaccessible part of the National Park of Machu Picchu by the park director, anthropologist Fernando Astete Victoria, during the prospective – inventory work conducted on the slopes of Mount Huayna Picchu.  He then invited the Polish team to work with the Peruvian team to further investigate the site with the latest technology and so reveal a new alignment pattern unlike the Inca ceremonial complexes with south or west-oriented solstice.

Previous research by the Polish team had demonstrated Intimachay at Machu Picchu was an astronomical observatory far more complex and precise than it has been previously realised.
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References:

Past Horizons. 2013. “New archaeoastronomical alignments found at Machu Picchu”. Past Horizons. Posted: October 8, 2013. Available online: http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/10/2013/new-archaeoastronomical-alignments-found-at-machu-picchu

Cahokia: North America's First City

Cahokia was a city that, at its peak from 1050-1200 A.D., was larger than many European cities, including London. The city encompassed at least 120 mounds and a population between 10,000 and 20,000 people spread out over six square miles (16 square kilometers).

Located across the Mississippi River from modern-day St. Louis, it was the largest pre-Columbian city north of Mexico. The inhabitants of Cahokia did not use a writing system, and researchers today rely heavily on archaeology to interpret it.

Cultural finds from the city include evidence of a popular game called “Chunkey” and a caffeine loaded drink. Artistic finds include stone tablets carved with images (such as a birdman) as well as evidence of sophisticated copper working, including jewelry and headdresses.

The city fell into decline after 1200 A.D., becoming abandoned by 1400. The name “Cahokia” is from an aboriginal people that lived in the area during the 17th century.

Much of the city lies buried under 19th- and 20th-century developments, including a highway and the growth of the city of St. Louis. Over the past few decades, efforts have been made to preserve what remains, with Cahokia’s core now part of a state historic site.

Monks Mound

The most awesome example of architecture at Cahokia is the 100-foot (30-meter) tall “Monks Mound” — the name given to it because a group of Trappist monks lived near it in historic times.

It was built with four terraces, covering about 17 acres (6.8 hectares) at its base, the mound towering over the city. Archaeologists have found giant postholes at the top indicating the presence of what may have been a temple, presumably made of wood, measuring 104 feet (31 meters) by 48 feet (15 meters). Its postholes are over 3 feet (1 meter) in diameter, the building being perhaps 50 feet (15 meters) tall.

Monks Mound, along with a grand plaza and a group of smaller mounds, was walled in with a 2-mile-long (3.2 km) wooden palisade. As many as 20,000 wooden posts were used to construct it.

Woodhenge

To the west of Monks Mound is a series of five circles, each originally made of red cedar wood posts, constructed at different times between 900 and 1100 A.D. They vary in size from 12 to 60 posts, the latest one being the smallest. Archaeologists refer to these structures as a “woodhenge,” a reconstruction of which now exists.

These posts would likely have been used as a calendar of sorts marking the solstices, equinoxes and festivals important to the inhabitants. A priest could have stood on a raised platform in the middle.

The sunrise during the equinox, when it rises to the east, is said to be particularly spectacular from this spot. A post aligns with the front of Monks Mound and the massive structure looks like it “gives birth” to the sun, according to a modern account recorded on the Cahokia Mounds state historic site website.

Human sacrifice

Mound 72 is a 10-foot (3-meter) high structure located less than a half-mile south of Monks Mound. It dates between 1050 and 1150 and holds the remains of 272 people, many of them sacrificed — the largest number of sacrificial victims ever found north of Mexico.

The mound’s archaeology is complicated but several instances of human sacrifice can be made out. In one case 39 men and women were executed “on the spot,” writes archaeologist Timothy Pauketat in his book Cahokia: Ancient America’s Great City on the Mississippi. “It seemed likely the victims had been lined up on the edge of the pit... and clubbed one by one so that their bodies fell sequentially into it.”

In another episode of sacrifice, 52 malnourished women between the ages of 18 and 23 appear to have been sacrificed at the same time, along with a woman in her 30s. In another burial episode, 15 corpses, a mix of men, women and children, were found on wooden stretchers.

Curiously, this burial mound also has the remains of two men who were found buried with 20,000 shell beads, likely the remains of a garment(s). Analysis of their remains indicates that they consumed a large amount of meat, suggesting that they were elite members of Cahokia’s society, the human sacrifices at the mound possibly dedicated to them in some way.

Chunkey

Cahokia supported a rich variety of art and cultural activities. Among them are stones used for a once wildly popular game called “Chunkey.”

Archaeologists cannot be certain what the exact rules were at the time Cahokia thrived. Accounts of the game in the 18th and 19th century tell of a stone disc, called a “chunkey stone,” that would be rolled on a playing field with people throwing giant sticks, larger than themselves, at it, trying to land them as close to the stone as possible. Points would be given depending on how close they came. Gambling on the outcome of this game was common, according to writers.

Pauketat envisions Chunkey being played as a team sport at Cahokia in the plaza beside Monks Mound. In an Archaeology Magazine article he writes that “the chief standing at the summit of the black, packed-earth pyramid raises his arms. In the grand plaza below, a deafening shout erupts from 1,000 gathered souls. Then the crowd divides in two, and both groups run across the plaza, shrieking wildly. Hundreds of spears fly through the air toward a small rolling stone disk...” Spectators would cheer them on, witnessing a great sport that captivated the North American city.
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References:

Jarus, Owen. 2012. "Cahokia: North America's First City". Live Science. Posted: August 27, 2012. Available online: http://www.livescience.com/22737-cahokia.html

Forensic science used to determine who's who in pre-Columbian Peru

Analysis of ancient mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has been used to establish migration and population patterns for American indigenous cultures during the time before Christopher Columbus sailed to the Americas. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Genetics has used more detailed DNA analysis of individuals from Arequipa region to identify the family relationships and burial traditions of ancient Peru. The social unit (ayllu) of Native South Americans is thought to be based on kin relationships. The establishment of ayllu-based communities is also associated with funereal monuments (chullpas) which are thought to be important social sites not only because of their religious importance but because they housed the venerated ayllu's ancestors. Ancestor worship and a belief in a common ancestor, central to the ayllu, still exists in the traditions of the Q'ero community. Researchers from University of Warsaw, in collaboration with Universidad Catolica de Santa Maria, used DNA analysis to reconstruct the family trees of individuals buried in six chullpas near the Coropuna volcano is southern Peru. Despite prior looting, the unique nature of this site, 4000m up the Cora Cora mountain, allowed an extraordinary preservation of human remains and of DNA within both teeth and bone. mtDNA analysis showed that the groups were of Andean origin and indicated a 500 year continuity, up to modern Andeans, without any major impact by European colonisation. The social structure of an aylla was established using Y (male) chromosome and autosomal microsatellites analysis, in conjunction with the mtDNA. Family connections were clearly strongest within each chullpa, since individuals buried in the same chullpa were more closely related than those buried in different chullpas, and all males buried together shared identical Y chromosome profiles. In two of the chullpas several generations of related males were found. This matches current thought that the ancient Andians would swap women between families - so called 'sister exchange' while the men retained the ancestral land. The combinations of DNA analysis used allowed for an unprecedented level of detail in social behaviour to be discerned. In one chullpa three different Y chromosome lineages were found. Comparison of mtDNA within this chullpa suggests that two of the males had the same mother but different fathers, and the third male was related to one of the females, probably a half brother. Mateusz Baca explained, "Our results show that this community of llama and alpaca herders was (genetically) an extended patriarchal society. The use of chullpas as family graves is consistent with the idea of ayllu-based communities based around strong kinship relationships. However, the chullpa with mixed male heritage shows that this social structure could also be flexible and the strict rules governing marriage and family could be intentionally, or unintentionally, relaxed." _______________ References: EurekAlert. 2012. "Forensic science used to determine who's who in pre-Columbian Peru". EurekAlert. Posted: April 22, 2012. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-04/bc-fsu042012.php Notes: 1. Ancient DNA reveals kinship burial patterns of a pre-Columbian Andean community Mateusz Baca, Karolina Doan, Maciej Sobczyk, Anna Stankovic and Piotr Weglenski BMC Genetics (in press) 2. BMC Genetics is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on all aspects of inheritance and variation in individuals and among populations. 3. BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector.

CSIC analyzes gold composition of pre-Columbian treasure

An international project including CSIC, in collaboration with the Museo de America in Madrid, is studying a set of pre-Columbian metallurgic pieces with the latest advances in observational and non-destructive analysis techniques. The initiative aims to have an in-depth knowledge of the processes of making, assembly and usage of nearly 200 pieces from Costa Rica and the archeological complex known as "Quimbaya Treasure," from Colombia.

For this purpose, the objects have been moved from the museum, to two laboratories, where they will be examined with the aid of ion beams generated in a particle accelerator, among other techniques.

CSIC researcher Alicia Perea, explains: "The project's objective is the study of gold, silver and copper alloys, known as tombacs, and their connection to the socio-economic processes of transmission, innovation and technological change in this historical period. In some parts of America, metallurgy of gold had reached levels of technical and artistic excellence, but there is still much research to do on the procedures used".

Archaeometric study

The study of the metallurgic complex will focus on the characterization of objects by means of several observational and non-destructive analysis techniques, such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM-EDS), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) or ion beams techniques (IBA) generated in a particle accelerator. Thus, the experts' team will try to determine the processes of making, assembly and usage of the pieces, as well as the deterioration that may had suffered at the site. Perea adds: "The idea is to make the latest technology available to the service of historical heritage study".

The treasure analysis is being conducted in two research centers. The first, in the Electron Microscopy and Microanalysis Laboratory of CSIC Human and Social Sciences Center, provided with specific technology for energy dispersive microanalysis. The second, in the Center for Microanalysis of Materials of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, since it has a particle accelerator specifically designed for archeological or artistic objects.

The Central Bank Museums Foundation of Costa Rica and the Physics Institute of UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) have also participated in the study, which will last three years.

The Quimbaya civilization

The term "Quimbaya" refers to the tribes that occupied the middle Cauca river basin, at the current Colombian Coffee-Growers Axis, around the 16th century, when the Spanish Conquest took place. The same term is used to define the two historical periods of metallurgic production in this region: the Early Quimbaya (between 500 BC and 600 AD) and the Late Quimbaya (until around 1600). CSIC researcher states: "We use the same term despite not being able to establish a line of ethnic continuity between the Quimbaya people of the conquest period and the historical settlement that made gold work their most refined and complex artistic expression".

Perea adds: "These tribes, whose economy was based on agriculture, were organized into small groups of about 200 people. They were led by a chief or cacique, responsible for the redistribution of wealth. The cacique accumulated treasures, expressing his range, and exhibited them to his people. Metallurgy, especially metallurgy of gold, was a technology associated with power".

The most charismatic objects of their metallurgic production are anthropomorphic recipients, where they mixed coca leaf and lime for ceremonial use. The figures depict the images of men and women in ecstatic trance. The researcher concludes: "These same recipients were also used as funerary urns to store the ashes of dead people in burial grounds. Throughout history, these sites have been systematically looted by looters and the pieces have been scattered through antique market".

The set of objects to analyze in this study was found in 1891 and makes up part of two grave goods from Quindio Department, in Colombia. The president of the Republic of Colombia, Carlos Holguín, bought this set in order to present it in the 4th Centenary of the Discovery of America Exhibition in 1892, in Madrid. Eventually, it was donated to the Queen Regent of Spain, María Cristina de Habsburgo y Lorena, in appreciation of her mediation in a border dispute with Venezuela. Currently, the collection belongs to the Museo de América, located in Madrid.
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References:

EurekAlert. 2011. "CSIC analyzes gold composition of pre-Columbian treasure". EurekAlert. Posted: December 12, 2011. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-12/ccsd-cag121211.php

Aztec Maps Put Cortés to Shame

As far as tax collectors in colonial Mexico went, Gonzalo de Salazar, often dubbed "El Gordo," was a pinchpenny. The conquistador-turned-regional-chief demanded steep tributes from his charges living in an area called Tepetlaoxtoc just north of what is now Mexico City. To expose El Gordo's greed, census takers from the Acolhua-Aztecs, a subset of the larger Aztec group, set out to count their own numbers in the mid-1500s and tally the extent of their farmland and hence their tax burden. They did a remarkably good job, a new study suggests. The early surveyors calculated the sizes of their farms with a degree of accuracy likely beyond the means of El Gordo or his cronies.

The Tepetlaoxtoc census, also known as the Codex Vergara, was much more than a simple survey. This paint-on-paper record incorporated icons for every adult and child in the region, as well as detailed maps for at least 386 farms. The surveyors measured the borders around each of these fields and then calculated their areas in square tlalcuahuitls, units equal to roughly 2.5 meters.

Using these records, Clara Garza-Hume, a mathematician at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City, and colleagues went back to the codex to check the Aztecs' math. That was easy for the rectangular-shaped farms but much harder for the more than 200 recorded plots that, although still four-sided, lacked that uniform shape. The Aztecs hadn't yet stumbled upon trigonometry, so their maps failed to record at what angles the farms' borders joined up. Since the exact angles weren't clear from the maps, such odd four-sided shapes could have taken on a number of different forms, Garza-Hume says. "The side lengths remain constant, but you can still wiggle the figure and obtain many different areas."

What the team could do, however, was calculate the wiggle range of possible shapes for each of the fields. And the surveyors "did quite well" in matching those shapes, she says. The Aztecs calculated the sizes of their farms within a 10% error range about 85% of the time, Garza-Hume and her colleagues report online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The few high guesses likely stemmed from reliance on the "surveyor's rule" to compute areas, she adds. This old trick, in which surveyors average out the lengths of a quadrilateral's opposing sides and then multiply them together, is notorious for giving high numbers.

But the Aztecs could just have easily have fudged their measurements, trying to trick their governor out of a few spools of cloth. Luckily, a field near the modern town of Texcoco still vouches for their honesty; this sloping lot contains the remnants of 38 old farms censused in the codex. The boundaries between the individual plots here had long ago eroded away, but Garza-Hume and her colleagues could still make out the larger borders of the region. Using GPS markers, they reckoned that the 38 farms had once taken up about 135,577 square meters, not too far off from the Aztecs' estimate of 124,072 square meters. El Gordo can keep his place in infamy.

Although El Gordo fought against lower taxes, the Codex Vergara did put the Spanish in their place, at least mathematically. Early colonialists were largely clueless when it came to land surveys, rarely knowing for sure where their expansive cattle ranches started or stopped, says Andrew Sluyter, a geographer at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. "Really, you don't get to that kind of map in Mexico ... until the Enlightenment, the 1700s."

Studies like these are important because they show the Mesoamericans' prowess in fields outside of astronomy, says Michael Smith, an archaeologist at Arizona State University, Tempe. Hernán Cortés and his countryman burned library after library in the old Aztec kingdom, leaving few records of day-to-day achievements behind. Still, indigenous Mexicans didn't always use their record-keeping acumen for good, Smith adds. The Aztecs, conquerors themselves, would have needed meticulous notes to squeeze every penny out of their squashed foes.
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References:

Strain, Daniel. 2011. "Aztec Maps Put Cortés to Shame". . Posted: August 29, 2011. Available online: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/08/aztec-maps-put-cortes-to-shame.html

Ancient War Revealed in Discovery of Incan Fortresses

Incan fortresses built some 500 years ago have been discovered along an extinct volcano in northern Ecuador, revealing evidence of a war fought by the Inca just before the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the Andes.

"We're seeing evidence for a pre-Columbian frontier, or borderline, that we think existed between Inca fortresses and Ecuadorian people's fortresses," project director Samuel Connell, of Foothill College in California, told LiveScience.

The team has identified what they think are 20 fortresses built by the Inca and two forts that were built by a people from Ecuador known as the Cayambe. The volcano is called Pambamarca.



The team's research was presented in March at the 76th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA), in Sacramento, Calif.

"We know that there are many, many fortresses throughout northern Ecuador that haven't been identified one way or the other," said Chad Gifford, of Columbia University, who is also a project director.

Spanish folklore?

The discoveries suggest that there is a ring of truth to stories that Spanish chroniclers told when they penetrated into South America during the 16th and 17th centuries.

According to these stories, Incan ruler Huayna Capac sought to conquer the Cayambe. Using a "very powerful army," he was hoping for a quick victory but ended up getting entangled in a 17-year struggle.

"Finding that their forces were not sufficient to face the Inca on an open battlefield, the Cayambes withdrew and made strongholds in a very large fortress that they had," wrote Spanish missionary Bernabe Cobo in the 17th century in his book "History of the Inca Empire" (University of Texas Press, 1983). A translation, by Roland Hamilton, was published in 1983 by the University of Texas Press. "The Inca ordered his men to lay siege to it and bombard it continuously; but the men inside resisted so bravely that they forced the Inca to raise the siege because he had lost so many men."

Finally, after many battles, the Inca succeeded in driving the Cayambe out of their strongholds and onto the shores of a lake.

Cobo wrote that "the Inca ordered his men to cut the enemies' throats without pity as they caught them and to throw the bodies into the lake; as a result the water of the lake became so darkened with blood that it was given the name that it has today of Yahuarcocha, which means lake of blood."

Signs of War

The newly discovered Inca fortresses are built out of stone, contain platforms called ushnus, and are located on ridges about 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) above the ground.

The soldiers who lived in them were clearly prepared for battle.

"The site of Quitoloma has well over 100 structures for people living inside," said Connell. "Those structures are filled with Inca weaponry. We find quite a few sling stones stored in these houses as if they were lying in wait for the enemy to attack, or were about to storm down the hill."

The two Cayambe forts, by comparison, are made out of a tough volcanic material called cangahua. They are sizable fortresses with people likely having lived both inside and outside their walls. "There are fewer of them but plenty big," Gifford said.

One of the forts had evidence for a battle with two types of ammunition (sling stones and bola stones) found outside its walls. Both fortifications housed pottery designed using Ecuadorian rather than Incan styles.

More excavation needs to be done to unravel the full story of these fortresses, but so far the team has found no evidence of post-conflict slaughter at the Cayambe sites. "We see the apparent continued settlement in the area, which runs counter to this idea of [a] lake of blood," Connell said.

Cayambe pottery continued to be used in the region, suggesting that their culture carried on, at least on some level. "It could be that some peoples decided after many years of resistance and warfare to simply lay down their arms or become allies with the Inca," Connell said.

There certainly would have been a need for them to become friends.

In the decades after the war, large numbers of Spanish would penetrate into Ecuador and Peru. Smallpox ravaged the local population and the Inca would find themselves fighting an enemy equipped with gunpowder. Against these pressures they fell back, with their last stronghold at Vilcabamba falling in 1572.

The conquest was nothing short of a disaster for people living in Ecuador. When the Spanish took over they built estates called haciendas. The descendents of the Cayambe would be forced to labor for the Spanish, doing work like processing wool. Connell said that they worked in "very severe conditions," sometimes in windowless rooms. A difficult time for a people who, just decades earlier, had fought a war for their freedom.
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References:

Jarus, Owen. 2011. "Ancient War Revealed in Discovery of Incan Fortresses". Live Science. Posted: May 31, 2011. Available online: http://www.livescience.com/14370-incan-fortresses-ecuador-ancient-battles.html

Basketry from Peru's Huaca Prieta

A collection of plant fiber artifacts woven by inhabitants of Huaca Prieta, a pre-Columbian site of the Late Preceramic Period in northern Peru, is making its way to the laboratory of Dr. James Adovasio, director of the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute.

One of the world's leading authorities in the analysis of basketry, textiles, cordage and other plant fiber-derived artifacts in prehistoric societies, Adovasio recently returned from a two-week excursion in Peru, where he analyzed basketry from recent excavations at Huaca Prieta conducted by Vanderbilt University archaeologist Dr. Tom Dillehay.

Archaeological excavations at Huaca Prieta have revealed a complex mound built in several stages from about 7000 to 4800 years ago. This impressive structure is replete with a massive access ramp and numerous burials. The site is thought to represent one of the earliest examples of emerging cultural complexity in South America.

Adovasio, author of the just republished "Basketry Technology: A Guide to Identification and Analysis," said his analysis of the Huaca Prieta artifacts will continue at Mercyhurst in the R. L. Andrews Center for Perishables Analysis. Co-founded by Adovasio and his late wife, R.L. Andrews, the newly renovated lab provides an unprecedented research opportunity for the college's archaeology faculty, undergraduate and graduate students. It will be officially dedicated May 5.

"Mercyhurst's perishable artifact analysis lab is the only lab of this kind in the hemisphere," Adovasio said. "Perishables analysis is a small and relatively arcane specialization. Typically what we have learned about prehistoric civilizations comes from the study of durable materials, like stone and ceramics, when, in fact, 95 percent of what people manufactured prehistorically was made out of perishable materials."

Adovasio will be one of a handful of archaeologists from North America to share his expertise at the "Basketry and Beyond: Constructing Cultures" conference at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, April 14-16. He will deliver the keynote address: "Style, Basketry and Basketmakers Redux: Looking at Individuals through a Perishable Prism."

Two weeks later, Adovasio and Mercyhurst faculty Dr. Ed Jolie, who currently directs the R.L. Andrews lab, will travel to Sante Fe, N.M., to present at a School for Advanced Research (SAR) seminar on "Fiber Perishable Chronologies in the Great Basin of Western North America."

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the seminar unites scientists from both universities and museums with research interests in the prehistory of the Great Basin and dating fiber perishable artifacts in order to better establish regional cultural chronologies. The April 26-28 seminar will enable the group to assess their data, consider future investigations and move toward publication.
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References:

Science Daily. 2011. "Basketry from Peru's Huaca Prieta". Science Daily. Posted: March 23, 2011. Available online: ttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110323145753.htm

The Americas: The old New World

Original civilisations developed in just a select handful of places across the globe. Two of these – the Andes and Mesoamerica – are found in the last continental landmass to be colonised by humanity. From the frozen reaches of Alaska and the Canadian Arctic, across the high grassland plains of North America, through the equatorial tropics and down the spine of the Andes to Patagonia at the uttermost end of the earth, the Americas boast an extraordinary range of landscapes and climates. These presented great challenges to human adaptive capacities and produced some remarkable and ingenious responses. In 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and his party first beheld the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan as if floating on the shimmering waters of Lake Texcoco, in the Basin of Mexico. His incredulous companion Bernal Diaz extolled the vision of this great island metropolis, with its temples, plazas, ordered streets, gardens and causeways, as "surpassing anything to be seen in all of Europe".

Yet successive visitors have been as likely to dismiss America's native population as they have been to praise it. Writing some 300 years after Cortés, Charles Darwin described the Yahgan canoe Indians of Tierra del Fuego as "the most miserable wretches on the face of the earth", living on the very lowest rung of human existence. He would not have been aware that for decades, passing whalers and seal hunters had decimated the colonies of marine mammals upon which the Yahgan depended, introducing contagious disease and alcohol along the way, with devastating consequences.

These wildly divergent accounts have coloured the European imagination to such an extent that pre-Columbian peoples and cultures are still prone to be tagged as primitive and mysterious. Prior to modern archaeological research, the ancient history of the Americas was framed within a greatly foreshortened and unrealistic timescale; only recently have we learned to appreciate that the rise of civilisation on this side of the globe broadly parallels advances elsewhere in the world, albeit with its own distinctive character.

Rise of Civilisation

Most researchers agree that it took as many as 50,000 years for the North and South American continents to be populated; we certainly know that the earliest human colonists arrived in Patagonia around 10,000 years or so ago. With global warming following the end of the last ice age, favoured environments fostered the steady growth of settled communities and the gradual transition from hunting and foraging to farming. Just as was the case in the "Old World", some wild plants became highly productive staple crops – the outcome of thousands of years of human selection and breeding. In the South American lowlands these include cassava (which required a sophisticated processing technology) and other tubers, peppers, peanuts, tobacco and cotton. In the South American highlands, domesticated llamas and alpacas supplied vital meat and wool as well as serving as pack animals well adapted to the vertiginous terrain. The native American horse had long been extinct and the horse that we are familiar with from Westerns was only reintroduced in the 16th century by the Spanish. Guinea pigs were another vital source of food – complemented by potatoes, beans and quinoa. In Mesoamerica, maize (teosinte, literally "food of the gods") was all-important, and once separated from its wild progenitor (thus avoiding cross-breeding) it was widely adopted in both Meso and South America, fuelling demographic growth and increasing social complexity. The Maya revered maize and even modelled busts of their young maize god with flowing hair to resemble the silk tassel on an ear of corn.

As in other parts of the globe, competition for the best farmable land and precious water led to the rise of ruling elites who presided over agriculture and craft production. This, in turn, led to the growth of religion and the creation of artworks that reflected both spiritual and political concerns. Thus on Mexico's Gulf Coast from 1200BC onwards, the precocious Olmec culture nurtured the first great art style in Mesoamerica, with monumental sculpted heads of rulers weighing many tonnes. They were followed by the rise of the Maya city-states further south, whose stone reliefs mark key events in the lives of their kings and queens. In highland Mexico, farmers, craftsmen and traders supported the city of Teotihuacan, which housed as many as 200,000 inhabitants by AD600, making it one of the six largest urban centres of its time in the world. Teotihuacan still serves as an example of a model metropolis: a multi-ethnic urban centre fuelled by far-reaching trade networks.

In the Oaxaca Valley, the Mixtec and Zapotec progressively enlarged the site of Monte Alban, with its spectacular temples, tombs and ball courts. Meanwhile, further south, Peru's Pacific north coast spawned an early tradition of great U-shaped ceremonial settlements with monumental architecture and sunken plazas that preceded the introduction of pottery. One of those centres, Caral, has been claimed to be the first urban complex in the Americas.

Ritual and ceremony also left their mark at Chavín de Huántar on the eastern flank of the Andes, in the form of densely intertwined images of animals and birds, reminiscent of Celtic art. Chavín art exerted a seminal influence on Andean culture, and the coastal states of Moche (later Chimu) and Nasca developed innovative but strikingly different art styles. Painted fine-line Moche vessels can be compared with scenes painted on Greek Attic vases, while the bold polychrome aesthetics of Nazca pottery seem to look forward to Picasso's stylised abstraction. The contemporary Wari and Tiwanaku empires of the highlands created more geometric styles rendered on textiles, clay and stone.

Read more on the website.
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References:

McEwan, Colin. 2010. "The Americas: The old New World". Guardian Series: Guides to the ancient world. Posted: November 9, 2010. Available online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/nov/09/ancient-world-the-americas

Pre-Columbian Societies in Amazon May Have Been Much Larger and More Advanced Than Thought

The pre-Columbian Indian societies that once lived in the Amazon rainforests may have been much larger and more advanced than researchers previously realized. Together with Brazilian colleagues, archaeologists from the University of Gothenburg have found the remains of approximately 90 settlements in an area South of the city of Santarém, in the Brazilian part of the Amazon.

"The most surprising thing is that many of these settlements are a long way from rivers, and are located in rainforest areas that extremely sparsely populated today," says Per Stenborg from the Department of Historical Studies, who led the Swedish part of the archaeological investigations in the area over the summer.

Traditionally archaeologists have thought that these inland areas were sparsely populated also before the arrival of the Europeans in the 16th and 17th centuries. One reason for this assumption is that the soils found in the inland generally is quite infertile; another reason is that access to water is poor during dry periods as these areas are situated at long distances from the major watercourses. It has therefore been something of a mystery that the earliest historical account; from Spaniard Francisco de Orellana's journey along the River Amazon in 1541-42, depicted the Amazon as a densely populated region with what the Spanish described as "towns," situated not only along the river itself, but also in the inland.

New Discoveries Could Change Previous Ideas

The current archaeological project in the Santarém area could well change our ideas about the pre-Columbian Amazon. The archaeologists have come across areas of very fertile soil scattered around the otherwise infertile land. These soils, known as "Terra Preta do Indio," or "Amazonian Dark Earth," are not natural, but have been created by humans (that is, they are "anthrosols").

"Just as importantly, we found round depressions in the landscape, some as big as a hundred metres in diameter, by several of the larger settlements," says Stenborg. "These could be the remains of water reservoirs, built to secure water supply during dry periods."

It is therefore possible that the information from de Orellana's journey will be backed up by new archaeological findings, and that the Amerindian populations in this part of the Amazon had developed techniques to overcome the environmental limitations of the Amazonian inlands.

Archaeological Rescue Efforts Are Urgent

The archaeological sites in the Santarém area are rich in artefacts, particularly ceramics. A large and generally unstudied collection of material from the area is held by the Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg. Collected in the 1920s by the Germano-Brazilian researcher Curt Unkel Nimuendajú, the material ended up in the Museum of Ethnography in Gothenburg and is essential for increasing our knowledge of the pre-Columbian Amazon. Brazilian researchers are therefore interested in joint projects, where new field studies are combined with research into the contents of the Museum of World Culture's collections from the same area.

"The Santarém area is presently experiencing intensive exploitation of various forms, including expansion of mechanized agriculture and road construction," says Dr. Denise Schaan at Universidade Federal do Pará. "This means that the area's ancient remains are being rapidly destroyed and archaeological rescue efforts are therefore extremely urgent."

"Our work here is a race against time in order to obtain archaeological field data enabling us to save information about the pre-Columbian societies that once existed in this area, before the archaeological record has been irretrievably lost as a result of the present development," states Brazilian archaeologist Márcio Amaral-Lima at Fundação de Amparo e Desenvolvimento da Pesquisa, in Santarém.

The archaeological investigation forms part of a wider project led by the University of Gothenburg's Per Stenborg, PhD. The project is being carried out in collaboration with Brazilian archaeologists Denise Schaan (Universidade Federal do Pará) and Marcio Amaral-Lima (Fundação de Amparo e Desenvolvimento da Pesquisa, Laboratório de Arqueologia Curt Nimuendaju, Santarém), and is funded by grants from the Stiftelsen för Humanistisk Forskning, the Royal Swedish Society of Sciences and Letters in Gothenburg, Rådman och Fru Ernst Collianders Stiftelse, Stiftelsen Otto och Charlotte Mannheimers fond, and the universities in Pará and Gothenburg.
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References:

2010. "Pre-Columbian Societies in Amazon May Have Been Much Larger and More Advanced Than Thought". Science Daily. Posted: Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101018074612.htm