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Articles 1 - 9 of 9
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Landscape Setting As Medium Of Communication At Chavín De Huántar, Peru, Daniel A. Contreras
Landscape Setting As Medium Of Communication At Chavín De Huántar, Peru, Daniel A. Contreras
Daniel A. Contreras
The Central Andean ceremonial centre of Chavín de Huántar is situated in a dramatic, mountainous and dynamic environment high on the eastern slope of the Peruvian Andes, yet the site's landscape setting has remained in the shadow of its monumental architecture, complex lithic art and highly elaborated material culture. Nevertheless, that dynamic landscape setting was an integral part of the site's significance as a ceremonial centre and may be read as evidence of the capacity, worldview and message of the site's builders. First, Chavín's setting is evidence of capacity, demonstrating the considerable degree of labour mobilization and organization, as well …
(Re)Constructing The Sacred: Landscape Geoarchaeology At Chavín De Huántar, Peru, Daniel A. Contreras
(Re)Constructing The Sacred: Landscape Geoarchaeology At Chavín De Huántar, Peru, Daniel A. Contreras
Daniel A. Contreras
Chavín de Huántar is a first millennium B.C.E. Central Andean ceremonial center set in a steep mountainous landscape that is at once dynamic and, traditional Andean belief systems would suggest, sacred and animate. Landscape geoarchaeology at the site serves to examine both of these factors, characterizing the site’s dynamic environment while also examining the ways in which Chavín’s inhabitants interacted with their fraught surroundings. Using mapping of geomorphic hazards, the character and chronology of the site’s construction and expansion, and ethnohistoric information on the relationships of indigenous Andean peoples to their environments, I discuss ways of examining this interaction. Landscape …
La Cronología De Chavín De Huántar Y Sus Implicancias Para El Periodo Formativo, John W. Rick, Christian Mesia, Daniel A. Contreras, Silvia R. Kembel, Rosa M. Rick, Matthew Sayre, John Wolf
La Cronología De Chavín De Huántar Y Sus Implicancias Para El Periodo Formativo, John W. Rick, Christian Mesia, Daniel A. Contreras, Silvia R. Kembel, Rosa M. Rick, Matthew Sayre, John Wolf
Daniel A. Contreras
Chavín de Huantar es uno de los sitios fundamentales para entender el Periodo Formativo en los Andes centrales. Ironicamente, a pesar de muchas decadas de investigaciones realizadas por docenas de investigadores, su cronologia es todavia debatida e insegura. Este articulo presenta una reseña de la evidencia historica para la cronologia de Chavin, enfatizando la contribucion de los fechados radiocarbonicos calibrados y, de manera breve, revisando los que están temporalmente relacionados con otros sitios formativos. Se analizan, tambien, los numerosos fechados de carbono-14 asociados a ceramica y contextos arquitectonicos conocidos en Chavin derivados de estudios recientes. De hecho, muchos fechados de …
Reconstructing An Engineered Environment In The Central Andes: Landscape Geoarchaeology At Chavín De Huántar, Peru, Daniel A. Contreras
Reconstructing An Engineered Environment In The Central Andes: Landscape Geoarchaeology At Chavín De Huántar, Peru, Daniel A. Contreras
Daniel A. Contreras
Chavín de Huántar, a Formative Period ceremonial center in the Peruvian Central Andes, has been a focus of archaeological research for more than 70 years. Nevertheless, I argue, its extent and character remain incompletely understood. This is a result of a highly active geologic environment, which both influenced human–environment interactions in Chavín’s prehistory and created a substantial taphonomic challenge to archaeological interpretation. The integration of archaeological and geologic data in a site GIS has been used to reconstruct a pre-Chavín landscape and to estimate the scale of geomorphic and anthropogenic landscape change at Chavín. That reconstruction is used to examine …
A Mito-Style Structure At Chavín De Huántar: Dating And Implications, Daniel A. Contreras
A Mito-Style Structure At Chavín De Huántar: Dating And Implications, Daniel A. Contreras
Daniel A. Contreras
Excavations west of the monumental core at Chavín de Huántar, Peru in 2005 revealed a well- preserved plastered structure with a central circular hearth, in the style of the Mito Architectural Tradition. This find challenges standard definitions of both the Mito Tradition and Chavín itself. I discuss the material remains and associated radiocarbon dates from this feature, and use these new data to re- assess Chavín’s involvement in interregional networks and its relationship to earlier ceremonial centers in the Central Andean highlands. Excavaciones al oeste del núcleo monumental de Chavín de Huántar, Perú en 2005 expusieron una estructura enlucida con …
Reconstructing Landscape At Chavin De Huantar, Peru : A Gis-Based Approach, Daniel A. Contreras
Reconstructing Landscape At Chavin De Huantar, Peru : A Gis-Based Approach, Daniel A. Contreras
Daniel A. Contreras
The landscape around the prehistoric Peruvian ceremonial center of Chavin de Huantar has undergone extensive geomorphic and anthropogenic change since the beginning of monumental construction at the site in approximately 1200 BCE. Archaeological and geomorphic stratigraphy from the site and its near periphery provide the data necessary to characterize these changes in detail. This paper reports on the use of GIS-based interpolation tools to approximate a complex prehistoric land surface using unevenly scattered point data. Such an interpolated surface serves as the basis for the reconstruction of the pre- Chavin landscape and assessment of landscape change contemporary with the site.
Implications Of The Fluvial History Of The Wacheqsa River For Hydrologic Engineering And Water Use At Chavín De Huántar, Peru, Daniel A. Contreras, David K. Keefer
Implications Of The Fluvial History Of The Wacheqsa River For Hydrologic Engineering And Water Use At Chavín De Huántar, Peru, Daniel A. Contreras, David K. Keefer
Daniel A. Contreras
Channeling of water through a variety of architectural features represents a significant engineering investment at the first millennium B.C. ceremonial center of Chavín de Huántar in the Peruvian Central Andes. The site contains extensive evidence of the manipulation of water, apparently for diverse purposes. The present configuration of the two local rivers, however, keeps available water approximately 9m below the highest level of water-bearing infrastructure in the site. Geomorphic and archaeological investigation of the fluvial history of the Wacheqsa River has revealed evidence that the Chavín-era configuration of the Wacheqsa River was different. A substantially higher water level, likely the …
Geomorfología Y Paisaje En Chavín De Huántar, Daniel A. Contreras
Geomorfología Y Paisaje En Chavín De Huántar, Daniel A. Contreras
Daniel A. Contreras
El sitio arqueológico de Chavín de Huántar tiene varias décadas como enfoque de investigaciones arqueológicas, pero a pesar de casi 70 años de trabajo formal en arqueología su extensión y carácter siguen entendidos de forma incompleta. Este se debe al carácter del paisaje del sitio—o sea, su geomorfología. En este capitulo describo la geomorfologia del sitio arqueologico y sus alrededores, y planteo unas ideas preliminares con respeto al su importancia para los habitantes. The archaeological site of Chavín de Huántar has been a focus of archaeological research for several decades, but in spite of almost 70 years of formal archaeological …
Sociopolitical And Geomorphologic Dynamics At Chavín De Huántar, Peru, Daniel A. Contreras
Sociopolitical And Geomorphologic Dynamics At Chavín De Huántar, Peru, Daniel A. Contreras
Daniel A. Contreras
The research presented here links questions of human-environment interaction and emergent sociopolitical complexity in the context of the Central Andean Formative Period, at the early monumental center of Chavín de Huántar. Recent work in the monumental core of Chavín has focused more on architecture than environment, leading to the development of a model of “built authority” at Chavín—a vision of monumental construction and ritual practice at the site as part of a carefully designed elite project of naturalizing social inequality and elite authority. My work links this local approach to sociopolitical dynamics at Chavín with broad-based approaches to Andean human-environment …