Papers by mark aldenderfer
HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific r... more HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.
Some people are said to have a special affinity with certain species of animals and have the abil... more Some people are said to have a special affinity with certain species of animals and have the ability to understand their feelings and even what they think. These people are known as whisperers, and among the best known of these are horse, dog, cat, and even ghost, whisperers. Alright, the latter is the title of a now-cancelled television show, but I hope you get the point. Some people just understand animals and yes, things. So, I think Jerry Moore is a landscapewhisperer. I mean this with all respect so please let me explain. He understands landscapes at a deeply personal level and shows a remarkable ability to describe them and their cultural nuances to people who might otherwise find them wholly alien. Incidence of Travel: Recent Travels in Ancient South America amply displays his whispering abilities. Moore has had a long and distinguished career as an academic archaeologist. He is broadly interested in South American prehistory, has published widely in the journals of the field, edited one of the premier regional journals (Ñawpa Pacha) and has authored a very important (and successful) textbook-A Prehistory of South America: Ancient Cultural Diversity on the Least Known Continent (2014). In this book, however, he forgoes a purely academic or technical presentation and swerves personal, adopting a narrative style. The result is a mélange of his experiences, aspects of his career, and his finely-honed insights into the past. He clearly defines his vision for the book: "…(it) is about journeys and what I have learned in the course of travel about the archaeology of
PLOS ONE, 2015
Settlement size predicts extreme variation in the rates and magnitudes of many social and ecologi... more Settlement size predicts extreme variation in the rates and magnitudes of many social and ecological processes in human societies. Yet, the factors that drive human settlement-size variation remain poorly understood. Size variation among economically integrated settlements tends to be heavy tailed such that the smallest settlements are extremely common and the largest settlements extremely large and rare. The upper tail of this size distribution is often formalized mathematically as a power-law function. Explanations for this scaling structure in human settlement systems tend to emphasize complex socioeconomic processes including agriculture, manufacturing, and warfare-behaviors that tend to differentially nucleate and disperse populations hierarchically among settlements. But, the degree to which heavy-tailed settlement-size variation requires such complex behaviors remains unclear. By examining the settlement patterns of eight prehistoric New World hunter-gatherer settlement systems spanning three distinct environmental contexts, this analysis explores the degree to which heavy-tailed settlement-size scaling depends on the aforementioned socioeconomic complexities. Surprisingly, the analysis finds that power-law models offer plausible and parsimonious statistical descriptions of prehistoric hunter-gatherer settlement-size variation. This finding reveals that incipient forms of hierarchical settlement structure may have preceded socioeconomic complexity in human societies and points to a need for additional research to explicate how mobile foragers came to exhibit settlement patterns that are more commonly associated with hierarchical organization. We propose that hunter-gatherer mobility with preferential attachment to previously occupied locations may account for the observed structure in site-size variation.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2008
Artifacts of cold-hammered native gold have been discovered in a secure and undisturbed Terminal ... more Artifacts of cold-hammered native gold have been discovered in a secure and undisturbed Terminal Archaic burial context at Jiskairumoko, a multicomponent Late Archaic–Early Formative period site in the southwestern Lake Titicaca basin, Peru. The burial dates to 3776 to 3690 carbon-14 years before the present (2155 to 1936 calendar years B.C.), making this the earliest worked gold recovered to date not only from the Andes, but from the Americas as well. This discovery lends support to the hypothesis that the earliest metalworking in the Andes was experimentation with native gold. The presence of gold in a society of low-level food producers undergoing social and economic transformations coincident with the onset of sedentary life is an indicator of possible early social inequality and aggrandizing behavior and further shows that hereditary elites and a societal capacity to create significant agricultural surpluses are not requisite for the emergence of metalworking traditions.
Journal of Archaeological Science, 2007
Chemical sourcing is becoming an increasingly important component of archaeological investigation... more Chemical sourcing is becoming an increasingly important component of archaeological investigation. Instruments used for elemental analysis generally must be operated in a controlled laboratory environment. Further, many methods require destruction of a small portion of the objects under investigation. These facts inhibit the application of chemical sourcing studies in a number of research contexts. Use of portable nondestructive instruments would resolve these issues. Sixty-eight obsidian artifacts from the site of Jiskairumoko, in southern Peru ´, were examined by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) and portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (PXRF). Results were compared for consistency in terms of source determination and individual element concentrations. Both instruments determined that the same sixty-six artifacts derived from the Chivay obsidian source and both identified the same two artifacts that could not be assigned to source. Individual element comparisons showed significant differences, but these can be resolved through instrument cross calibration, and differences had no bearing on source identification. PXRF was found suitable for determining obsidian sources in southern Peru ´and for identifying specimens that require more sensitive analytical methods such as, instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA). Regular use of Chivay at Jiskairumoko suggests consistent trade relationships developed during the Archaic.
Journal of Archaeological Science, 2006
Simultaneous analysis of relationships between multiple artifact classes is required for characte... more Simultaneous analysis of relationships between multiple artifact classes is required for characterization of many types of activity areas. This paper illustrates improved forms of multivariate visualization, spatial analysis and integration of experimental results that are possible with GIS based photomapping. Techniques are demonstrated through analysis of a hearth associated artifact scatter exposed during excavations of a Late Archaic pithouse at Jiskairumoko, Peru. A multivariate density raster is created and additive color visualization is used for simultaneous display of three artifact distributions. Performing unconstrained clustering in a GIS, space is classified by simultaneous relative density relationships between multiple object types.
Journal of Archaeological Science, 2010
Transparent obsidian artifacts have been reported for the northern Lake Titicaca Basin. Based on ... more Transparent obsidian artifacts have been reported for the northern Lake Titicaca Basin. Based on instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) of these artifacts a distinct chemical group was identified. Yet, the location of the source of transparent obsidian in the southern Andes remained unreported in the archaeological literature. This paper reports on the chemical composition and geographic location of a source of transparent obsidian from the Macusani region of Peru. Through the use of INAA and portable X-ray fluorescence (PXRF) we demonstrate that Macusani obsidian or macusanite comprises (at least) two chemical groups. One of these groups was used for making artifacts during the Archaic Period. Artifacts made of this obsidian were found more than 120 km from the source and yet, one-third of the obsidian artifacts encountered at Macusani were from the non-local source of Chivay which is 215 km to the southwest.
Journal of Archaeological Science, 2011
This paper reports new data on qocha ponds from the Rio PucaraeAzángaro interfluvial zone, northe... more This paper reports new data on qocha ponds from the Rio PucaraeAzángaro interfluvial zone, northern Lake Titicaca Basin, Peru. Qocha are a little known form of Andean agriculture that developed around 800e500 B.C. and remain in use today. Prior estimates suggested that in the study area, there were more than 25,000 qocha. While most Andean sunken beds are excavated to reach groundwater, qocha are rainfed ponds. How these rain-fed ponds functioned has been an open question, but one that is answered in part by research presented in this paper. We suggest that a thick impermeable stratum of clay that was possibly deposited by paleolake "Minchin" created a perched water table that makes rain-fed qocha reservoir agriculture possible. Field geology shows that within the study area, this stratum only exists under Terrace E. Based on this model, we hypothesized that persistently used qocha should only be found on Terrace E. To test this hypothesis we used remotely sensed data to inventory qocha and to determine their distribution by each terrace present. We identified 11,737 qocha. By area 93.77% and by count 94.33% of the qocha are located on Terrace E. These results strongly supported our hypothesis. This case study illustrates that the long term viability of this form of agriculture is made possible by a physical context that is beyond human control.
Science, 2017
The peopling of TibetThe date of the first permanent human occupation of the high Tibetan Plateau... more The peopling of TibetThe date of the first permanent human occupation of the high Tibetan Plateau has been estimated at about 3600 years ago, when agriculture became established. Meyeret al.used several dating techniques to analyze sediments at a high-altitude site (4270 m) where human handprints and footprints have been found. Their analysis indicates occupation of the plateau 7400 years ago and possibly earlier. These dates are consistent with the genetic history of Tibetans and suggest that a permanent preagricultural peopling of the plateau was enabled by the wetter regional climate at that time.Science, this issue p.64
Journal of Field Archaeology, 1998
, except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection w... more , except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights.
Science Advances, Jun 4, 2021
Archaeological surface assemblages composed of lithic scatters comprise a large proportion of the... more Archaeological surface assemblages composed of lithic scatters comprise a large proportion of the archaeological record. Dating such surface artifacts has remained inherently difficult owing to the dynamic nature of Earthsurface processes affecting these assemblages and because no satisfactory chronometric dating technique exists that can be directly applied to constrain the timing of artifact manufacture, discard, and thus human use of the landscape. Here, we present a dating approach based on optically stimulated luminescence (OSL)-OSL rocksurface burial dating-and apply it to a lithic surface scatter in Tibet. We generate OSL burial ages (age-depth profiles) for each artifact, outline the methodological complexities, and consider the artifact burial ages in the context of local-scale Earth-surface dynamics. The oldest age cluster between 5.2 and 5.5 thousand years is likely related to quarrying activities at the site and thus represents the oldest chronometric age constraints for human presence on the south-central Tibetan plateau.
Gimme That Old Time Religion: Rethinking the Role of Religion in the Emergence of Social Inequality
Fundamental Issues in Archaeology, 2010
Even a moment’s reflection on the daily news informs us of the powerful ability of religion to sh... more Even a moment’s reflection on the daily news informs us of the powerful ability of religion to shape and transform the world in which we live, whether it is a war waged for religious purposes or the deliberations of a local school board. But when it comes to thinking about a more distant past, one in which pronounced social inequalities
Uploads
Papers by mark aldenderfer