Publications

The South Coast of Peru, the location where Peru’s widely used period/horizon relative ceramic chronology was established and where archaeological samples were obtained for the earliest radiocarbon studies, has figured prominently in the development of chronologies in the Central Andes. We examine the current state of chronology in the region with a compilation of 770 published and unpublished radiocarbon dates from ¿60 sites in the Nasca and Ica drainages and on the Paracas Peninsula, spanning a period of approximately 8000 years, to evaluate the relative ceramic chronologies and explore the timing and duration of major cultural changes. Kernel Density Estimate (KDE) summaries of Bayesian phase models demonstrate the following aspects of regional cultural dynamics: the earliest settlements began in the Preceramic ca. 6000 BCE and are found on the coast; the Paracas culture was established ca. 900 BCE and cultural development was first focused in the north and then spread south; a reverse direction of cultural influence is found during the Nasca culture when innovation began in the south and spread north; an early mixture of Late Nasca/local Loro culture is found in Nasca (510–720 CE) followed by the spread of Loro elsewhere and the establishment of intrusive highland Wari colonies that peaked in the mid-9th century CE; and the Late Intermediate Period was variable throughout the region in terms of timing and duration, reflecting a turbulent period. The results of the study reveal strong temporal overlap in the ceramic styles indicating they are not purely sequential and consequently are inadequate as chronological markers on a regional level. The research highlights the potential of radiocarbon evidence to reveal sub-regional temporal heterogeneity and to help us better understand the dynamics of cultural change.

Since 2015, the Stelida Naxos Archaeological Project (SNAP) has excavated a prehistoric site on what today is the northwest coast of Naxos, the largest island of the Cycladic archipelago in the southern Aegean Sea (Greece). Survey and excavations at the site have produced artefacts spanning the Lower Palaeolithic through the Mesolithic periods based on their techno-typological attributes. These discoveries suggest that exploitation of Stelida began as early as the Middle Pleistocene, challenging the long-standing model that the Cyclades were not inhabited until the Early Holocene. Due to the site’s likely temporal depth and the lack of preserved organics, luminescence dating is the most appropriate method to scientifically date this activity. However, luminescence dating in this context is complicated by the site’s complex hillslope formation processes. Experiments upon the Stelida sediments have demonstrated a lack of luminescence sensitivity of quartz at the site. To evaluate the potential for post-depositional mixing of previously acquired dates yielded from a stratigraphic sequence first published in 2019, as well as to evaluate the efficacy of multiple luminescence dating models, we measured and compared different infrared stimulated luminescence [IRSL] measurements on K-feldspars, with IR50 and pIRIR290 multi-grain and pIRIR290 single-grain signals. The single-grain results confirm the multi-grain results and provide additional and more precise information on the site’s depositional and post-depositional events. The results of each approach demonstrate that feldspars were well-bleached, suggesting that in hillslope settings where quartz grains prove difficult to date, IR50 and pIRIR290 multi-grain, and pIRIR290 single-grain signals of feldspars can be used to achieve reliable results. Finally, when considered alongside field and laboratory observations of site stratigraphy, these results suggest that colluvial and aeolian (windblown) deposits at Stelida retain a degree of stratigraphic integrity characterized by minimal post-depositional alteration following their most recent deposition. These support previous estimates of the deposition at the site, the new earliest deter- mination being 233 – 217 thousand years ago [ka], compared to the date of 198.4 ± 14.5 ka published in 2019. These dates represent the earliest – indirect – evidence for open sea crossings in the northern hemisphere, though it remains uncertain as to which species of the genus Homo was responsible for such maritime activity. These results also have implications for the preservation potential of similar deposits across the hillslope, as well as deposits preserved in similar geomorphic settings in Mediterranean landscapes.

Using the Central Andean Chavín Phenomenon as a case study, this paper explores the middle ground between top-down (big data) and bottom-up (Bayesian modeling) approaches to archaeological radiocarbon data. Compiling radiocarbon dates associated with the Chavín Phenomenon addresses questions of chronology, demonstrating that the relevant phases at interacting sites are relatively brief and broadly contemporary. In addition, the definition of a discrete span of time associated with the Chavín ́Phenomenon makes it possible to explore the context for that period of heightened interaction. Juxtaposing that timespan with a compilation of Central Andean radiocarbon dates identifies contemporary non-participatory sites, enabling characterization of the sociopolitical milieu within which the Chavín Phenomenon emerged, flourished, and faded. The identification of that corpus of sites also highlights the importance of a shift in focus from identification of interaction to characterization of interaction. Bottom-up approaches to radiocarbon chronology will be a key element of that effort, while high-level summary of radiocarbon assemblages can identify where additional dating and Bayesian modeling can have the greatest interpretive impact.

We illustrate the way in which landscape taphonomy predictably complicates “dates-as-data” approaches, propose and demonstrate a new method of empirically based correction, and explore the interpretive ramifications of ignoring or correcting for taphonomic bias.

A wealth of remotely sensed data has accumulated over the past several decades and now constitutes an analytical resource primed for archaeological applications. To date, remotely sensed big data (RSBD) analytics in archaeology have focused on filling spatial gaps in the distribution of sites and features, characterizing environmental landscapes, and monitoring cultural heritage sites. The scientific promise of these data to expand our understanding of past human-environment interactions has not been fully realized. Limitations of data access, sufficient analytical and computational resources, and methodological awareness and education on the appropriate use of RSBD have limited the adoption and widespread use of RSBD in archaeology, despite its ubiquity in the Earth sciences. Google Earth Engine (GEE) is a freely available planetary-scale cloud computing platform that addresses the perennial challenges of data access, analysis, and computing power that are particularly acute among archaeologists aiming to derive insights from RSBD. GEE lowers the barrier to entry for analyzing RSBD, expanding the potential for these data in the automated identification of archaeological features through deep learning; fieldwork planning and archaeological practice; modeling of past environments and environmental variability; and cultural heritage impact and risk assessments. In doing so, it also contributes to open science via increased access, transparency, and reproducibility.

Anatolian obsidian is ubiquitous, but present in only scant amounts, in lithic assemblages recovered from Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) settlements of the southern Levant. These sparse quantities have long been interpreted to indicate down-the-line exchange of obsidian via larger regional exchange systems that underpinned information flow amongst early food- producing societies. Here, we explore these networks in the southern Levant through analyses of obsidian artifacts from the PPNA site of el-Hemmeh, Jordan. EDXRF spectroscopy indicates that the obsidian used at el-Hemmeh originated from East Göllü Dağ in central Anatolia, echoing a pattern observed at other southern Levantine sites. We combine obsidian sourcing data for other PPNA sites in southwest Asia with assemblage structure and techno-typological data, to draw out previously unrecognized regional differences in obsidian consumption patterns. This allows us to argue for the existence of distinct exchange networks connecting the inhabitants of the southern Levant and the Middle Euphrates to Anatolian obsidian sources. We conclude that southern Levantine communities accessed their East Göllü Dağ obsidian via a trans-Lebanon and/or maritime route rather than through contemporary communities in the Middle Euphrates.

, The megalithic pillar sites found around Lake Turkana, Kenya, are monumental cemeteries built approximately 5000 years ago. Their construction coincides with the spread of pastoralism into the region during a period of profound climate change. Early work at the Jarigole pillar site suggested that these places were secondary burial grounds. Subsequent excavations at other pillar sites, however, have revealed planned mortuary cavities for predominantly primary burials, challenging the idea that all pillar sites belonged to a single `Jarigole mortuary tradition’. Here, the authors report new findings from the Jarigole site that resolve long-standing questions about eastern Africa’s earliest monuments and provide insight into the social lives, and deaths, of the region’s first pastoralists.

El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a periodic disruption of coupled oceanic-atmospheric conditions in the tropical Pacific, which changes global precipitation regimes. One area strongly affected by positive (el Niño) phases is the Pacific Coast of South America. The specific effects of ENSO on Andean ecological communities have received little attention, however. We examine vegetation gross primary productivity (GPP) on Peru’s north coast arid-lands during a recent (2016–2017) el Niño, using a time series of Sentinel 2 imagery. By comparing GPP time-series in three agricultural subregions and three endemic desert vegetation communities, we demonstrate that levels of primary productivity in desert regions during ENSO-positive phases meet or exceed thresholds of adjacent agricultural lands. These results, the first that quantify and spatialize changing GPP between ENSO-neutral and ENSO-positive phases for South American arid-land biomes, both outline the scale and distribution of the el Niño effects on terrestrial ecosystems and highlight the resulting opportunities for human inhabitants. The dramatic changes to endemic vegetation on the normally hyperarid coastal desert of Peru revealed by reconstructed GPP suggest that periodic el Niño precipitation plays a critical role in arid land ecodynamics by enhancing establishment, green growth, and seedbank development. These findings improve our understanding of ENSO’s net effects and highlight the roles of abrupt climate events in the arid land ecology of NW South America.

Some of the earliest archaeological materials radiocarbon-dated were from the Central Andes, and archaeologists from the region were also involved in early efforts at meta-analysis of assemblages of radiocarbon dates and Bayesian chronological modeling. Nevertheless, regional chronological schema still vary surprisingly little from their pre-radiocarbon antecedents. As a result, significant scope for increasing the impact of radiocarbon dates, as well as making their use more robust and transparent, remains. Improved use of radiocarbon dates has the potential to reconfigure Central Andean chronologies, suiting them better to addressing many of the questions that archaeologists wish to ask. With this in mind, I here review the history of use of 14C dating in the archaeology of the Central Andes, before focusing on practical issues that confront archaeologists working in the region as they both employ 14C dates and seek to be informed and critical consumers of published 14C dates and chronologies.

South American arid lands present unique constellations of climatic risk to their human inhabitants, due to volatile events that can create markedly different hydroclimate conditions over interannual–centennial scales. However, a main driver of such volatility – the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) – occurs with semiregular periodicity. Paleoclimatic and archeological evidence indicate not only that the strength and periodicity of ENSO patterns have changed over the late-Holocene, but their impacts were likely recognized, adapted to, and perhaps capitalized upon by agriculturalists employing adaptive risk strategies. We examine relationships over the last 1.3 kyr between ENSO periodicity, ecological transitions, and archeological settlement in Peru’s Chicama Valley through a coupled paleohydroclimate and agroecology model. We reconstruct periods when ENSO-like conditions dominated past hydroclimates and present a quantitative, spatially-explicit analysis of ecological productivity during modern ENSO-positive hydroclimate conditions. We show that archeological settlement patterns are sensitive to these transformations and reflect efforts to capitalize on expanded agroecological niches. Such expanded niches potentially offset the adverse impacts and risks associated with abrupt ENSO climate events. These results suggest archeological communities were aware of ENSO risk and managed productive strategies accordingly, highlighting the importance of a risk calculus that considers the net ecological effects of climate events.

Common assumptions about the ephemeral archaeological signature of pastoralist settlements have limited the application of geophysical techniques in the investigation of past herding societies. Here, the authors present a geophysical survey of Luxmanda, Tanzania, the largest-known settlement documented for the Pastoral Neolithic era in eastern Africa (c. 5000-1200 BP). The results demonstrate the value and potential of fluxgate gradiometry for the identification of magnetic anomalies relating to archaeological features, at a category of site where evidence for habitation was long thought to be undetectable. The study provides comparative data to enable archaeologists to identify loci for future investigations of mobile populations in eastern Africa and elsewhere.

Explaining the factors that influence past dietary variation is critically important for understanding changes in subsistence, health, and status in past societies; yet systematic studies comparing possible driving factors remain scarce. Here we compile the largest dataset of past diet derived from stable isotope $δ$13C‰ and $δ$15N‰ values in the Americas to quantitatively evaluate the impact of 7000 years of climatic and demographic change on dietary variation in the Central Andes. Specifically, we couple paleoclimatic data from a general circulation model with estimates of relative past population inferred from archaeologically derived radiocarbon dates to assess the influence of climate and population on spatiotemporal dietary variation using an ensemble machine learning model capable of accounting for interactions among predictors. Results reveal that climate and population strongly predict diet (80% of $δ$15N‰ and 66% of $δ$13C‰) and that Central Andean diets correlate much more strongly with local climatic conditions than regional population size, indicating that the past 7000 years of dietary change was influenced more by climatic than socio-demographic processes. Visually, the temporal pattern suggests decreasing dietary variation across elevation zones during the Late Horizon, raising the possibility that sociopolitical factors overrode the influence of local climatic conditions on diet during that time. The overall findings and approach establish a general framework for understanding the influence of local climate and demography on dietary change across human history.

In eastern Africa, ecologists have found that when mobile pastoralists abandon their temporary encampments, the accumulation of burned animal dung, wood, and other organic waste enriches the concentration of nutrients (e.g., calcium, phosphorous, magnesium) essential to soil health, in comparison to other soils without prior human habitation. These nutrient-enriched soils promote glade development and greater biodiversity. Geoarchaeological research on the time depth of this anthropogenic ``nutrient hotspot’’ phenomenon has demonstrated that soils at several archaeological sites in southern Kenya still remain enriched in these soil macro- and micro- nutrients after several thousand years. However, soil scientists and geoarchaeologists do not yet understand how these anthropogenic soils vary over the extensive geographic conditions of eastern Africa. The discovery of a Pastoral Neolithic site (ca. 3000 BP) at Luxmanda on the Mbulu Plateau, Tanzania, provides an opportunity to examine if similar patterns of nutrient enrichment can be detected in a different geological and climatic zone.In this paper, we use geochemical and sedimentary analyses to determine how archaeological soils at Luxmanda differ from adjacent off-site soils and known archaeological soils in Kenya, as well as from computationally derived soil nutrient models for eastern Africa. Our results indicate that soils derived from anthropogenic sediments and ashy dung are 4 to 16-fold more abundant in soil macro nutrients relative to off-site or modeled values. This pattern fits previous studies’ observations thatelevated macro- and micro-nutrients in soils are strongly correlated with ancient pastoralist habitation sites. We conclude that anthropogenic soils found at Pastoral Neolithic archaeological sites may be a valuable, but unappreciated, soil resource in eastern Africa.

The documentation and analysis of archaeological lithics must navigate a basic tension between examining and recording data on individual artifacts or on aggregates of artifacts. This poses a challenge both for artifact processing and for database construction. We present here an R Shiny solution that enables lithic analysts to enter data for both individual artifacts and aggregates of artifacts while maintaining a robust yet flexible data structure. This takes the form of a browser-based database interface that uses R to query existing data and transform new data as necessary so that users entering data of varying resolutions still produce data structured around individual artifacts. We demonstrate the function and efficacy of this tool (termed the Queryable Artifact Recording Interface [QuARI]) using the example of the Stelida Naxos Archaeological Project (SNAP), which, focused on a Paleolithic and Mesolithic chert quarry, has necessarily confronted challenges of processing and analyzing large quantities of lithic material.

This paper revives a fascinating debate: did a drought start before, during, or after the collapse of the Andean polity of Tiwanaku? Here we present an alternate age model that highlights the real issue: the data from Lake Orurillo, no matter the age model, are too imprecise to address the question. The authors neglect the significance of four-century error ranges (95% probability) for a drought that lasted a single century, according to their estimates. They are content to treat an imprecise correlation between drought and collapse as a causal relationship. Future efforts will require much greater attention to refining both paleoclimate and cultural chronologies, which is a necessary first step in understanding complex episodes of human–environment interaction.

A long-recognised characteristic of Crete’s later Bronze Age [BA] state-level society - the `Minoan civilization’of the 2nd millennium cal. BC - was the establishment of socio-economic connections with off-island populations. The nature of these relationships has been interpreted in various ways, from the establishment of overseas colonies to a more mutually beneficial relationship between local political agents and their Cretan partners, not least Knossos. Minoan influence has been documented throughout the southern Aegean in the form of material culture, iconography, metrological systems, and socio-religious practices. It is the latter theme that concerns us here, specifically in the form of ‘peak sanctuaries’, i.e. upland foci of ritual activity associated with settlements and palatial centres throughout Crete, a handful of which are claimed to have been established overseas, on Kythera, Kea, Naxos, Rhodes and possibly Andros. We report here on what we claim to be a new example from Stelida on Naxos.

Although archaeology has become increasingly concerned with engaging diverse publics, and has embraced the internet as a means of facilitating such engagement, attitudes towards Wikipedia have—understandably—been more ambivalent. Nevertheless, we argue here, Wikipedia’s popularity and reach mean that archaeologists should actively engage with the website by adding and improving archaeological content. One way to do this is in the classroom. This paper provides a detailed how-to for instructors interested in having students create new Wikipedia content. We provide a case study in Wikipedia engagement from an advanced undergraduate course on African Archaeology, assess a program (Wiki Education) designed to help, and suggest further avenues for future outreach. We conclude that Wikipedia’s utopian mission aligns with many of the goals of public archaeology, and argue that archaeology has much to gain by engaging with—rather than ignoring or even shunning—Wikipedia.

This paper explores the relationship between past climate and prehistoric Mediterranean agriculture by adapting a process-based dynamic vegetation model to estimate potential agricultural productivity under climate scenarios that characterize the extremes of Mediterranean climate in the Holocene. We adapt LPJmL (the Lund-Potsdam-Jena-managed-land model [Bondeau et al., 2007]), a process-based dynamic vegetation model, to the modeling of potential agricultural productivity in the past. Calibrating this model for past crops and agricultural practices and using a downscaling approach to produce high spatiotemporal resolution paleoclimate data, we produce quantitative estimates of potential yields under past climatic conditions derived from four Holocene climatic extremes (warm/wet, warm/dry, cold/wet, and cold/dry) under two different assumptions (approximate high and low limits) about the intensity of agricultural practice. We here discuss this process with reference to a case study in Provence, examining the methodology and data requirements for modeling past agriculture using LPJmL and considering the implications of the range of variability in potential agricultural productivity under distinct climate conditions. We focus particularly on comparing the range of variability induced by climatic shifts with that achievable through changes in agricultural practices as a means of approaching questions of past vulnerability and resilience.

We present evidence of Middle Pleistocene activity in the central Aegean Basin at the chert extraction and reduction complex of Stelida (Naxos, Greece). Luminescence dating places ~9000 artifacts in a stratigraphic sequence from ~13 to 200 thousand years ago (ka ago). These artifacts include Mousterian products, which arguably provide first evidence for Neanderthals in the region. This dated material attests to a much earlier history of regional exploration than previously believed, opening the possibility of alternative routes into Southeast Europe from Anatolia (and Africa) for (i) hominins, potentially during sea level lowstands (e.g., Marine Isotope Stage 8) permitting terrestrial crossings across the Aegean, and (ii) Homo sapiens of the Early Upper Paleolithic (Aurignacian), conceivably by sea.

Holocene climate variability in the Mediterranean Basin is often cited as a potential driver of societal change, but the mechanisms of this putative influence are generally little explored. In this paper we integrate two tools – agro-ecosystem modeling of potential agricultural yields and spatial analysis of archaeological settlement pattern data – in order to examine the human consequences of past climatic changes. Focusing on a case study in Provence (France), we adapt an agro-ecosystem model to the modeling of potential agricultural productivity during the Holocene. Calibrating this model for past crops and agricultural practices and using a downscaling approach to produce high spatiotemporal resolution paleoclimate data from a Mediterranean Holocene climate reconstruction, we estimate realistic potential agricultural yields under past climatic conditions. These serve as the basis for spatial analysis of archaeological settlement patterns, in which we examine the changing relationship over time between agricultural productivity and settlement location. Using potential agricultural productivity (PAgP) as a measure of the human consequences of climate changes, we focus on the relative magnitudes of 1) climate-driven shifts in PAgP and 2) the potential increases in productivity realizable through agricultural intensification. Together these offer a means of assessing the scale and mechanisms of the vulnerability and resilience of Holocene inhabitants of Provence to climate change. Our results suggest that settlement patterns were closely tied to PAgP throughout most of the Holocene, with the notable exception of the period from the Middle Bronze Age through the Early Iron Age. This pattern does not appear to be linked to any climatically-driven changes in PAgP, and conversely the most salient changes in PAgP during the Holocene cannot be clearly linked to any changes in settlement pattern. We argue that this constitutes evidence that vulnerability and resilience to climate change are strongly dependent on societal variables.

Assessing the implications of paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental data at temporal and spatial scales that would have directly intersected with human decision-making and activity is a fundamental archaeological challenge. This paper addresses this challenge by presenting a spatial and temporal downscaling method that can provide quantitative high-spatio-temporal-resolution estimates of the local consequences of climatic change. Using a case study in Provence (France) we demonstrate that a centennial-scale Mediterranean-wide model of Holocene climate, in conjunction with modern geospatial and climate data, can be used to generate explicit and solidly-grounded monthly estimates of temper- ature, precipitation, and cloudiness at landscape scales and with annual resolution, enabling consideration of climate variability at human scales and meeting the data requirements of socioecological models focused on human activity. While the results are not reconstructions e that is, particular values are single realizations, consistent with the coarse-grained data but not individually empirically derived nor unique solutions e they provide a more suitable basis for assessing the human consequences of climate change than can coarse-grained data.

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 as expertise, implied by the site’s modified landscape. Second, Chavín’s landscape, considered in its Central Andean context, provides evidence of worldview, demonstrating that landscape setting was a medium of interest for Chavín’s designers. Third, the modified landscape provides evidence of message, allowing exploration of what Chavín’s designers were trying to communicate, and to whom. Focusing on these three aspects in reading Chavín’s landscape suggests that landscape setting was a vital aspect of Central Andean Middle and Late Formative Period (1000–500 bce) ceremonial centres and argues that emergent elites actively exploited landscape setting as a communicative medium and forum for dissemination of ideology, deliberately communicating to multiple audiences.

The logic of using summed radiocarbon (14C) calibrations (cumulative probability density functions for large numbers of calibrated 14C dates) as proxies for past populations rests on the presumption of a proportional relationship between population size and the production, and subsequent preservation, recovery, and analysis, of 14C-datable material. Critiques of this approach have generally focused on the various problems that may undermine the validity of this assumption. \n Here, instead, we presume a perfect correspondence between population size and the quantity of datable material produced at any given time, and explore the question of how well summed 14C calibrations can track demographic changes under such ideal circumstances. We introduce a method of generating a random sample of simulated 14C determinations, from a specified distribution, with variable data densities and measurement errors. In other words, we generate a random sample of 14C dates not from an ideal statistical distribution but rather using a defined population curve to determine the probability distribution from which the calendar dates of the simulated 14C samples are drawn. We generate simulated 14C ages for these samples, calibrate them, and sum those calibrations. We compare the resulting proxy population curve to the known population distribution from which it was generated, to see whether known population fluctuations are unambiguously visible on a proxy curve derived from 14C data sets that are realistic in terms of the number and precision of the 14C determinations included. \n Results highlight 1) the critical role played by the magnitude and duration of any population fluctu- ation, and 2) the importance of sample size, and the reality that the numbers of samples required to detect significant population changes are generally far higher than those available to researchers pro- posing demographic reconstructions on the basis of literature searches for radiocarbon dates. We conclude that even if archaeological 14C data sets could be corrected for taphonomic filters and research biases, demographic signals would be difficult to distinguish from statistical noise in summed probability distributions. We suggest that simulation studies should be integral components of any attempt to reconstruct prehistoric demography from 14C dates.

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.

Abstract Attention to human-environment relationships in the Central Andes has a long history. Although the area is not a neat microcosm of the globe, wholly representative of worldwide trends in the archaeology of human–environment interactions, it has been the site of both seminal investigations in archaeology and a substantial body of recent work that investigates themes of broad archaeological relevance. Specifically, central Andean environments have been variously conceived as structuring, modified, and sacred. These approaches to some extent reflect broad trends in archaeology, while also suggesting directions in which the archaeology of human-environment interactions is moving and highlighting archaeology’s relevance to discussions of contemporary human-environment interactions. This article characterizes concepts that are key for describing central Andean environments and considers the ways in which the particular ecology of the Central Andes has informed archaeological research in the region. The example of the central Andes highlights the importance of understanding environments as dynamic, considering both geomorphic and anthropogenic contributors to that dynamism, and examining both ecological (“environment”) and ideological (“landscape”) implications of archaeological landscapes.

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.

The landscape around the prehistoric Peruvian ceremonial center of Chavín de Huántar 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-Chavín landscape and assessment of landscape change contemporary with the site.

Chavín de Huántar es uno de los sitios fundamentales para entender el Periodo Formativo en los Andes centrales. Irónicamente, a pesar de muchas décadas de investigaciones realizadas por docenas de investigadores, su cronología es todavía debatida e insegura. Este artículo presenta una reseña de la evidencia histórica para la cronología de Chavín, enfatizando la contribución de los fecha- dos radiocarbónicos calibrados y, de manera breve, revisando los que están temporalmente relacionados con otros sitios formativos. Se analizan, también, los numerosos fechados de carbono-14 asociados a cerámica y contextos arquitectónicos conocidos en Chavín derivados de estudios recientes. De hecho, muchos fechados de Chavín y sitios relacionados concuerdan en ubicar a la cerámica negra pulida estampada, denominada janabarroide, alrededor de 800-500 a.C. (calib.). La presencia de ocupaciones anteriores y posteriores, documentadas con fechados, ayudan a confirmar este rango temporal para materiales reconocidos del «Horizonte Temprano». En contraste con algunos otros importantes sitios formativos, Chavín deja de funcionar como templo hacia 500 a.C. (calib.), aunque los esfuerzos destinados a las construcciones principales ya estaban disminuyendo, de manera notable, antes de esta época. \n Chavín de Huántar is one of the key sites of the Formative Period in the Central Andes, with many decades of investigations by dozens of investigators, but ironically its chronology is still poorly defined and contested. This article reviews the historical evidence for Chavín chronology, emphasizing an examination of calibrated radiocarbon dates, and summarily reviewing related radio- carbon evidence from approximately contemporary sites. The more voluminous C14 evidence from recent work at Chavín is then examined, particularly focused on dates from known ceramic and architectural contexts. A large number of determinations con- cur, both in and outside of Chavín, in dating stamped polished blackware «janabarroide» ceramics in the range of 800-500 BC in calibrated age. Earlier and later occupations at Chavín are documented, helping confirm this time range for «Early Horizon» materials. Chavín, unlike some other important Formative sites, loses its temple function by around 500 BC calibrated, although major construction seems to have greatly decreased well before that time.