José M. Capriles

Evaluating the roles of directed breeding and gene-flow in animal domestication

For the last 150 y scholars have focused upon the roles of intentional breeding and genetic isolation as fundamental to understanding the process of animal domestication. This analysis of ethnoarchaeological, archaeological, and genetic data suggests that long-term gene flow between wild and domestic stocks was much more common than previously assumed, and that selective breeding of females was largely absent during the early phases of animal domestication. These findings challenge assumptions about severe genetic bottlenecks during domestication, expectations regarding monophyletic origins, and interpretations of multiple domestications. The findings also raise new questions regarding ways in which behavioral and phenotypic domestication traits were developed and maintained.

TECNOLOGÍA LÍTICA Y ESTRATEGIAS DE SUBSISTENCIA DURANTE LOS PERÍODOS ARCAICO Y FORMATIVO EN EL ALTIPLANO CENTRAL, BOLIVIA

Los cambios producidos en los sistemas de subsistencia de caza-recoleccion al cultivo de plantas y crianza de camelidos constituyen una de las transiciones mas interesantes en la arqueologia del altiplano andino. En este reporte se presentan resultados preliminares del analisis de patrones de asentamiento y materiales liticos recuperados en la region de Iroco, el margen noreste del Lago Uru-Uru, en el altiplano central de Bolivia. Los cambios producidos en los sistemas de asentamiento entre el periodo Arcaico (10.000-3.500 a.p.) y el periodo Formativo (3.500-1.600 a.p.) estan relacionados con cambios en la organizacion economica y patrones de movilidad. Sin embargo, los cambios tecnologicos se encuentran enmarcados en una posible tradicion de utilizacion de recursos y procesos de manufactura aplicados a los materiales liticos.

Integrated Contextual Approaches to Understanding Past Activities Using Plant and Animal Remains from Kala Uyuni, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia

For pragmatic reasons, separate specialists usually analyze plant and animal remains recovered in archeological sites. Animal bones and charred plant remains are the products of very different organisms and tissues, fragment differently, and are identified using very different characters (see Peres, this volume; Wright, this volume). Even so, a primary concern of the Taraco Archaeological Project (TAP) has been to integrate these archaeobiological datasets to better understand aspects of ancient lifeways in the Lake Titicaca Basin of the Andes.

Harsh Environments and the Terminal Pleistocene Peopling of the Andean Highlands

Rademaker et al. (2014) present novel archaeological evidence for contending that, during the terminal Pleistocene (TP), humans were occupying the harsh highlands of southern Peru on a permanent basis. The evidence consists of 19 C dates between 11,400 and 12,400 cal before present (BP) associated with stone tools, features, burned plants, and artiodactyl faunal remains recovered from the Cuncaicha rock shelter (∼4,480 m above sea level) in the Pucuncho basin. Near the rock shelter, two open-air workshops evidence obsidian exploitation from the Alca source, previously identified at Quebrada Jaguay, a TP open-air site on the south coast of Peru (Sandweiss et al. 1998). This research is significant and thought provoking but, as discussed below, merits further contextual and theoretical consideration. Although a robust set of radiocarbon dates supports a TP human presence at Cuncaicha, we are concerned that only bone remains were assayed and that there is no adequate description of the taxa, elements, human modification, and taphonomic history of these remains. Was carnivore gnawing present on the bones? High-altitude rock shelters are preferential lairs for predators such as pumas and foxes, implying that not all bones necessarily represent a human presence and chronology. It is also unclear why carbonized plant materials reported from hearths were not directly dated. In our opinion, the few artifacts and informal features reported from Cuncaicha are insufficient to substantiate an intense or year-round occupation. A diverse and complete lithic reduction sequence comes from the surface of the workshops and not from the occupied rock shelter, where only a portion of the sequence traditionally associated with permanent subsistence and related activities is represented.

MOBILE COMMUNITIES AND PASTORALIST LANDSCAPES DURING THE FORMATIVE PERIOD IN THE CENTRAL ALTIPLANO OF BOLIVIA

camelids (llamas and alpacas) is considered a major landmark in Andean prehistory (Bonavia 2008; Browman 2008; Dransart 2002; Mengoni-Gonalons and Yacobaccio 2006; Wheeler 1995). Through specialized herding strategies, Andean societies enhanced their adaptation to high-altitude montane arid and semiarid environments and developed significant traditions of food production, textile manufacture, and inter-regional exchange. Although anthropologists have addressed many aspects of Andean pastoralism, there are still a number of unanswered questions regarding the origins of early MOBILE COMMUNITIES AND PASTORALIST LANDSCAPES DURING THE FORMATIVE PERIOD IN THE CENTRAL ALTIPLANO OF BOLIVIA

Hunter-Gatherer Mobility Strategies in the High Andes of Northern Chile during the Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene Transition (ca. 11,500–9500 CAL B.P.)

ABSTRACT The high Andes of western South America feature extreme ecological conditions that impose important physiological constraints on humans including high-elevation hypoxia and cold stress. This leads to questions regarding how these environments were colonized by the first waves of humans that reached them during the late Pleistocene. Based on previous research, and aided by human behavioral ecology principles, we assess hunter-gatherer behavioral strategies in the Andean highlands during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. Specifically, we formulate three mobility strategies and their archaeological expectations and test these using technological and subsistence evidence from the six earliest well-dated highland sites in northern Chile. Our results suggest that all of the studied sites were temporarily occupied for hunting, processing animals, and toolkit maintenance. The sites also exhibit shared technological features within a curatorial strategy albeit with different occupation intensities. From this evidence, we infer that the initial occupations of the highlands were logistical and probably facilitated by increased local resource availability during a period of environmental amelioration.

ANÁLISIS TECNO-TIPOLÓGICO DE INSTRUMENTOS LÍTICOS DEL SITIO ARCAICO TEMPRANO IPILLA 2 EN LOS ANDES DE ARICA, CHILE

El estudio de la tecnologia litica en los Andes se inicio con la identificacion tipologica de puntas de proyectil para definir secuencias cronologico-culturales de sociedades de cazadores recolectores. Analisis tecno-tipologicos como el que se presenta en este trabajo, tratan de mostrar que las morfologias de instrumentos liticos no son estaticas pues varian de acuerdo a su uso, mantenimiento y reciclaje. En este estudio, exploramos y caracterizamos la variabilidad morfologica del instrumental litico del sitio Ipilla 2, un campamento abierto del Arcaico Temprano (9.670-9.541 cal. a.p.), ubicado en los Andes de Arica (3.400 msm), norte de Chile. Los resultados sugieren que los instrumentos fueron intensamente mantenidos para extender su vida util, lo que altero los disenos originales. Otro proceso tecnologico incluyo la manufactura secuencial de distintos filos en un mismo instrumento. Estos resultados aportan a la comprension de los modos de vida de las sociedades de cazadores recolectores andinos y muestran que, metodologicamente, las formas tipologicas deben considerarse desde una perspectiva dinamica para convertirse en una herramienta analitica mas eficaz.

Local Management of Andean Wetlands in Sajama National Park, Bolivia

Abstract Andean wetlands or bofedales are commonly used by indigenous communities for livestock production. Decisions regarding management of bofedales involve the active participation of local people and their social institutions. Consequently, any action addressing emerging challenges must be implemented in coordination and agreement with local actors. This decision process requires an understanding of the local socioeconomic and cultural dynamics, especially those related to land and natural resource management. In many Andean communities, the ayllu is the institution that governs decisions on regional land use. However, in the face of increasing challenges such as climate change and population growth, use of the ayllu has declined in favor of individual decision-making. Here we discuss how the Andean camelid herders of Sajama National Park in highland Bolivia rely on both the ayllu and family-level decision-making to manage their pastoralist landscapes, including their bofedales. Using a rights mapping methodology, we describe how water and wetlands are managed, and determine which decisions are taken at the community level and which are made at the family level. We conclude that indigenous collective organization networks are still significant for managing the system at a regional scale and possibly determinant for mitigating risks associated with climate change on sensitive ecosystems such as bofedales.

Mitochondrial DNA haplogroup variation of contemporary mixed South Americans reveals prehistoric displacements linked to archaeologically‐derived culture history

The purpose of this study was to examine South American population structure and prehistoric population displacements prior to the Spanish conquest, utilizing mitochondrial DNA haplogroups of extant mixed populations from Mexico, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile.

Transformations in ritual practice and social interaction on the Tiwanaku periphery

Ritual practices and their associated material paraphernalia played a key role in extending the reach and ideological impact of early states. The discovery of a leather bag containing snuffing tablets and traces of psychoactive substances at Cueva del Chileno in the southern Andes testifies to the adoption of Tiwanaku practices by emergent local elites. Tiwanaku control spread over the whole of the south-central Andes during the Middle Horizon (AD 500–1100) but by the end of the period it had begun to fragment into a series of smaller polities. The bag had been buried by an emergent local elite who chose at this time to relinquish the former Tiwanaku ritual practices that its contents represent.