Boris Orccosupa, Henry Tantaleán y Charles Stanish

In this article, we discuss the discovery of an important ceramics sample in the Topará style, systematically excavated at the Pozuelo archaeological site, in the lower Chincha valley, Peru. Our ceramographic analysis allows us to identify the typological and decorative characteristics of the Topará style in the region. Drawing on this ceramographic and contextual data, we clarify how this style came to be present at the Pozuelo site and distributed throughout the Chincha Valley. Finally, we offer some reflections on its dispersion along the Peruvian prehispanic southern coast.

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Noa Corcoran-Tadd

Recent archaeological field work in Tacna (Peru) has investigated the long-term landscape history of the Sama Valley. Located between the research hotspots of Moquegua and Arica, the valley has long been overlooked. At the same time, it is well positioned to offer new insights into debates about mobility, environment, and the transforming political economies of the Late Prehispanic and historic periods. This article presents an initial analysis of recent data on the long-term patterns of connectivity that articulated the Sama drainage with neighboring valleys and wider networks. Based on a combination of remote sensing and intensive pedestrian survey data, it is possible to trace multiple routes through the inter-valley desert pampas that border the middle and lower Sama Valley. The results highlight the utility of intensive survey methods in marginal intervalley landscapes and reveal a complex palimpsest of routes and ephemeral sites relating to regional and inter-regional mobility during the Late Prehispanic and historical periods.

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Lorena Sanhueza, Itaci Correa, Fernanada Falabella, Flavio Ardiles, Brandi L. MacDonald y Michael D. Glascock

Pre-Hispanic societies of the Ceramic Periods in Central Chile have been described in archaeology as low-scale societies. Here we propose that the locality or microregion are relevant spatial scales of analysis to address the economic, social, and political life of these groups. A comparative analysis of two local-scale areas, Angostura and Puangue-Pomaire, reveals that although both areas share a general sequence and a historical process at a regional level, local trajectories differ in terms of temporality, dynamics, and characteristics. The settlement of Early Ceramic groups occurs at a much later date and is less prominent in Puangue-Pomaire, which shows evidence of a much stronger Inca and historical presence. On the other hand, a neutron activation analysis of domestic pottery sherds reveals that some knowledge, such as the sources and/or recipes of pottery raw materials, is shared on a small scale in both cases, but varies according to the characteristics and possibilities of the local landscape, which involves areas of no more than 10 km.

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Mariela E. González, Pablo G. Messineo, Narella Marini y Gustavo G. Politis

At the Laguna de Los Pampas archaeological site located in the Central Pampean Dunefields, eight human burials have been recorded in two sectors of the shallow lake. In this paper, we analyze this record through different lines of evidence. We present the results obtained and discuss the implications of each for interpreting the occupational dynamics of the area by hunter-gatherer groups during the Holocene. Our results indicate evidence of human occupation during the Early and Middle Holocene, with a stronger presence for the latter period; the recorded burial method is primary in all determined cases. On the other hand, the identification of an oblique tabular modification in one individual from the Middle Holocene (~6000 years BP) represents a novel finding since it would be the earliest record of this type of cranial modification for the Pampas region. The analyzed evidence suggests that Laguna de Los Pampas may be the product of periodic reoccupation of the site over time (Early and Middle Holocene), possibly motivated by the presence of outstanding landscape features, such as the lake and the resources it provided.

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