Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T19:56:53.051Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Determining Site Function: A North Peruvian Coastal Example

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Robert R. Kautz  and
Richard W. Keatinge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It has long been recognized that certain macro and microanalyses of soil and midden constituents can aid archaeologists in determining the strategy and evolution of subsistence activities as well as in dealing with questions of site function and intra-site variability. Applied to the site of Medaños la Joyada (El 102) located in the Moche valley on the north coast of Peru, these techniques: (1) shed light on a subsistence strategy characterized by plant cultivation and the exploitation of marine resources found associated with the phenomena referred to as “sunken gardens” (Parsons 1968; Rowe 1969; Moseley 1969; Parsons and Psuty 1975); (2) provide comparative information for the data collected by Parsons and Psuty (1975) in their excavation of sunken garden sites located in the Chilca valley on the central coast of Peru; and (3) call into question the utility of the “small site methodology” as outlined by Moseley and Mackey (1972).

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , January 1977 , pp. 86 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baudin, Louis 1955 Daily life in Peru under the last Incas. George Allen & Unwin, London.Google Scholar
Begler, E. B., and Keatinge, R. W. 1975 Theoretical goals and methodological realities: problems in the reconstruction of subsistence economies, MS.Google Scholar
Cieza de Leon, Pedro 1959 The Incas, edited by Von Hagen, V.. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Edwards, Clinton R. 1965 Aboriginal watercraft on the Pacific Coast of South America. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Faegri, Knut, and Iversen, Johs 1964 Textbook of pollen analysis. Munksgaard, Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Garcilaso de la Vega (El Inca) 1961 The Incas: the royal commentaries of the Incas. Orion Press, New York.Google Scholar
Griffis, Shelia 1971 Excavation and analysis of midden material from Cerro la Virgen, Moche Valley, Peru. Unpublished B.A. thesis, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Hill, James N. 1970 Broken K Pueblo: prehistoric social organization in the American Southwest. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Keatinge, Richard W. 1973 Chimu ceramics from the Moche valley, Peru: a computer application to sedation. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Department of Anthropology, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Keatinge, Richard W. 1975 Urban settlement systems and rural sustaining communities: an example from Chan Chan's hinterland. Journal of Field Archaeology 2:215–27.Google Scholar
Kendall, Ann 1973 Everyday life of the Incas. B. T. Batsford, London.Google Scholar
Lechtman, H., and Moseley, M. E. 1975 The scoria at Chan Chan: non-metallurgical deposits. Nawpa Pacha 10-12:135–70.Google Scholar
MacNeish, Richard S. 1958 Preliminary archaeological investigations in the Sierra de Tamaulipas, Mexico. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 48, pt. 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Paul S. 1963 The last 10,000 years: a fossil pollen record of the American Southwest. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Martin, Paul S., and Byers, William 1965 Pollen and archaeology at Wetherill Mesa. In Contributions of the Weatherill Mesa archaeological project, edited by Osborne, Douglas and Katz, Bernard S., pp. 122–35. Society for American Archaeology, Memoir 19.Google Scholar
Mehringer, P. J. Jr., 1967 Pollen analysis of the Tule Springs area, Nevada. Nevada State Museum Anthropological Papers 13(3): 130–200.Google Scholar
Moseley, M. Edward 1969 Assessing ihe archaeological significance of mahamaes. American Antiquity 34:485–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moseley, M. E., and Mackey, C. J. 1972 Peruvian settlement pattern studies and small site methodology. American Antiquity 37:67–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parsons, Jeffrey R. 1968 The archaeological significance of mahamaes cultivation on the coast of Peru. American Antiquity 33:80–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parsons, J. R., and Psuty, N. P. 1975 Sunken fields and prehispanic subsistence on the Peruvian coast. American Antiquity 40:259–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allison C., Paulsen 1974 The thorny oyster and the voice of God: Spondylus and Strombus in Andean prehistory. American Antiquity 39:597–607.Google Scholar
Rowe, John H. 1946 Inca culture at the time of the Spanish Conquest. In Handbook of South American Indians, Volume 2, edited by Steward, Julian H., pp. 183–330. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 143.Google Scholar
Rowe, John H. 1969 The sunken gardens of the Peruvian coast. American Antiquity 34:320–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seddon, Brian 1967 The lacustrine environment in relation to macrophytic vegetation. In Quaternary Paleoecology, edited by Cushing, E. J. and Wright, H. E. Jr.,pp. 205–15. Yale University Press, New Haven.Google Scholar
Taltasse, P. 1963 Groundwater resources of the Peruvian coastal desert. Arid Zone Newsletter 20:8–13.Google Scholar
Towle, Margaret A. 1961 The ethnobotany of Pre-Columbian Peru. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Uphof, J. C. Th. 1968 Dictionary of economic plants. Verlag Von J. Cramer, New York.Google Scholar
von Reis Altschul, Siri 1973 Drugs and foods from little known plants. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willey, Gordon R. 1953 Prehistoric settlement patterns in the Viru Valley, Peru. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 155.Google Scholar