Daniel A. Contreras

Quarrying Evidence at the Quispisisa Obsidian Source, Ayacucho, Peru

Artifacts made from Quispisisa obsidian are widely disseminated in the Peruvian Andes, but the geological source of the Quispisisa geochemical type was only recently located in southern Ayacucho. Following the positive identification of the source in 1999 by Richard Burger and colleagues, we found evidence of broad quarrying activities in unexplored portions of the source area. We describe 34 quarry pits, some as large as 80 m across, together with evidence of early- stage lithic reduction at the source. We encountered high concentrations of reduction debris associated with more extensive knapping in two localities, but our preliminary evaluation of surface evidence suggests that much of the material quarried was removed from the area as intact nodules or after minimal reduction at the source area. Los estudios geoquimicos de la obsidiana en los Andes Centrales han demostrado que la gran mayoria de los artefactos prehispanicos hechos de obsidiana se produjeron utilizando materia prima de ocho fuentes, cada una de las cuales es distinta en terminos de composicion geoquimica. De las ocho fuentes, material de Alca, Chivay, y Quispisisa predomina en las colecciones de todas las epocas prehispanicas. El tipo geoquimico de obsidiana llamado Quispisisa ocupa una posicion importante en la historia del Peru prehispanico, pues herramientas hechas de este material se han encontrado en muchos sitios de la costa y sierra de la parte norcentral del pais. Esos sitios se caracterizan por encontrarse dispersos en un amplio marco espacial y temporal, pues algunos se ubican en lugares distantes de la fuente y corresponden a epocas diversas, inclusive, algunas de ellas tan antiguas como el Preceramico Temprano. A pesar de esa importancia evidente, hasta la fecha solo se habia ubicado la fuente, y faltaba cualquier exploracion y registro detallado de los afloramientos de obsidiana y de los rasgos de explotacion humana de la zona. A partir del ano 2007 Tripcevich y Contreras visitaron la fuente ubicada por Richard Burger y sus colegas en la zona de Huanca Sancos, Ayacucho; posteriormente en el ano 2009 los autores, con el apoyo de unas colegas, ampliaban las investigaciones y como producto de ello han revelado que el area geografica que abarca la fuente de obsidiana tipo Quispisisa es mucho mas extensa de lo que se habia pensado. Asimismo, han logrado documentar la existencia de varios rasgos de explotacion de la fuente tales como: pozos de cantera, lascas de reduccion inicial de material, y caminos, los mismos que evidencian la presencia de la actividad de la canteria de obsidiana a una escala unica en los Andes.

Archaeological Approaches to Obsidian Quarries: Investigations at the Quispisisa Source

Prehistoric stone tool quarries can be a source information about past resource exploitation and management, tool production, and labor organization. Research is complicated, however, by the sheer abundance of discarded material and by a dearth of temporally diagnostic evidence. Here we discuss research at stone sources in light of ongoing work at the source of Quispisisa Type obsidian in highland Peru, where exploitation resulted in the excavation of numerous quarry pits and the accumulation of tailings piles and knapping debris. Using this lithic resource as an example, we discuss approaches to stone tool sources, including system-oriented and regional-scale investigations as well as considerations of the social and ritual significance of geological source areas.

(Re)constructing the sacred: landscape geoarchaeology at Chavín de Huántar, Peru

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 geoarchaeology at Chavín reveals the site’s expressed relationship with the sacred, which was a key aspect of the emergence and reification of sociopolitical inequality at the site.