Archaeology

Through analysis of zooarchaeological remains from two occupations at the site of Carrizales, we examine how an indigenous Peruvian maritime community responded to imperial interventions in their daily lives in the late sixteenth century. Following their forced resettlement into a planned reducción village, and amidst demographic decline and tribute extraction, Carrizales’s residents significantly changed how they put food on the table, pursuing less time-intensive strategies of food collec-tion and incorporating Eurasian animals into their diets. These results illustrate the dynamism of relations between imperial political economies and domestic life and the efficacy of indigenous survival strategies.

State expansion brings cultural change or persistence, and foodways reveal how status and identity result from these events. We examine diet choices and food service at two large villages in the Inka imperial heartland (Cuzco, Peru). Yunkaray was occupied during the time of early Inka expansion (eleventh to fifteenth centuries), whereas Cheqoq housed a late imperial (fifteenth to sixteenth centuries) multiethnic retainer population serving the Inka nobility. We use faunal remains and ceramic assemblages to reveal the uneven process of “Inkanization” and find that migrated retainer laborers had greater affinities with Inka practices than early Inka marriage partners.

This study explores the politics of indigenous foodways in early colonial Peru, examining the processes by which indigenous households adapted to demographic stress, resettlement, and evangelization in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries CE.We examine faunal and botanical data from two planned towns (reducciones) located in Peru’s Zaña Valley—Carrizales and Mocupe Viejo. Inter- and intra-site comparison of food procurement and diet reveal different strategies and timing in the ways that Eurasian products were incorporated into native foodways, suggesting that while Old World animal domesticates were rapidly integrated into the indigenous diet, plant domesticates tied to the Iberian palate were not as readily adopted.

The papers in this special issue arise from the Status and Identity in the Imperial Andes session held at the 2017 meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Vancouver, Canada. That session focused on the role of status and power in shaping colonial interactions and identities throughout the Andes during the fifteenth to seventeenth century CE. The papers in this issue examine how Inka and colonial period individuals (indigenous, African, mestizo, etc.) selectively incorporated or rejected Imperial goods, and how differing levels of access to these goods may have influenced social status, health, and relationships with imperial actors.

Es frecuente, en los estudios sobre arqueología de unidades domésticas, identificar viviendas a través de la contextualización de arquitectura superficial. Sin embargo, ¿cuáles son las herramientas disponibles ante la ausencia o pobre preservación de contextos arquitectónicos con valor arqueológico? Este artículo aborda tal interrogante a raíz de nuestras investigaciones conducidas en Cheqoq, sitio arqueológico de filiación inka ubicado al noroeste del Cuzco, en el distrito de Maras. Mediante el análisis paleobotánico, arqueozoológico y de microlascas líticas recuperadas, por flotación y zarandeo, en muestras de suelo, se pretende identificar y definir contextos domésticos ante la ausencia de arquitectura. Se presentan cálculos de frecuencia, porcentajes y ubicuidad con el propósito de exponer los beneficios y limitaciones para este tipo de análisis y sus resultados. Por consiguiente, este estudio proporciona un modelo que permite identificar contextos domésticos en otros sitios de la región donde exista ausencia de evidencia arquitectónica. Palabras clave: Cuzco, Horizonte Tardío, período inka, arqueología doméstica, flotación y muestreo de suelo, microarqueología.

Frequently, archaeological studies of domestic units include the identification of dwellings through the contextualization of surface architecture. However, what are the tools available in the absence and/or poor preservation of architectural contexts with archaeological value? The present article covers this question as a result of our investigations conducted within the Inka archaeological site of Cheqoq, located northwest of Cuzco, in the district of Maras. With recovery through flotation and dry screening, we analyze paleobotanical, archaeozoological and lithic micro-artifacts to identify and define domestic contexts in the absence of architecture. Frequency, percentages and ubiquity calculations are presented in order to explain the benefits and limitations of this type of analysis and its results. Consequently, the present study provides a model that allows us to identify domestic contexts in other places in the region where there is an absence of architectural evidence.

This study presents the results of in situ portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) analyses of surface soils at the site of Trapiche Itapalluni, a Spanish colonial silver refinery located 15 km southwest of Puno, Peru in the western Lake Titicaca Basin (4000 masl). Although the benefits of pXRF analysis are well known, such as its wide availability and rapid, non-destructive nature, there has been little applicability of this technique at colonial metallurgical sites in the high-altitude Andes. The results of our analysis confirmed the introduction of the patio process
technique of silver refining from Mexico to the Puno Bay, and further clarified areas of intense metallurgical production, including local Andean adaptations. This study highlights the advantages of in situ pXRF analysis of surface soils at industrial archaeology sites, especially in marginal and high-altitude environments such as the southern Andes.

Portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) spectroscopy is commonly used for testing toxic levels of heavy metals in modern industrial waste sites, and it has seen growing applicability in the context of archaeological survey and soils. In this study, we present the results of our pXRF analysis of surface soils at a historic silver refinery located near Puno, Peru, in the western Lake Titicaca Basin. The results of our analysis identified hazardous levels of antimony (Sb), arsenic (As), mercury (Hg), and lead (Pb) in excavation soils, necessitating the relocation of planned excavation units and the use of personal protective equipment. This study highlights the advantages of rapid, in situ pXRF analysis of surface soils in contaminated industrial archaeology sites to assess potential harm to human health.