Early sedentary settlement in Ecuador made headlines among New World archaeologists in the 1950s ... more Early sedentary settlement in Ecuador made headlines among New World archaeologists in the 1950s and 1960s with the discovery of the Valdivia culture (Meggers et al. 1965). More than 6000 years old (in calibrated radiocarbonyears), exhibiting comparatively well-made, distinctively decorated ceramics, and associated with relatively large, deep sites in the tropical lowlands of South America, Valdivia was anomalous in the generally accepted cultural historical schemes of the time. Early manifestations of sedentism and ceramics were expected in highland Mexico or in the arid mountains and coast of the Central Andes; yet Valdivia antedated (and still antedates) evidence of such developments in both areas by more than 1000 years. Shortly after the discovery of Valdivia a settlement of similar age and character was excavated in the moist tropics of northern Colombia (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1965), and sedentary settlement in the upper Amazon was shown to extend back to at least the beginning of the second millennium B.C. (Lathrap 1970). Clearly, notions of cultural developments in the American tropics needed revision. The nature and antiquity of settlement has been borne out by subsequent research in all three areas. In northern Colombia the ceramic sequence has been extended to 6700 B.P. and on the lower Amazon pottery is more than a millennium older (Oyuela-Caycedo 1987, 1990; Raymond 1987; Roosevelt et al. 1991).
Chili peppers ( Capsicum spp.) are widely cultivated food plants that arose in the Americas and a... more Chili peppers ( Capsicum spp.) are widely cultivated food plants that arose in the Americas and are now incorporated into cuisines worldwide. Here, we report a genus-specific starch morphotype that provides a means to identify chili peppers from archaeological contexts and trace both their domestication and dispersal. These starch microfossils have been found at seven sites dating from 6000 years before present to European contact and ranging from the Bahamas to southern Peru. The starch grain assemblages demonstrate that maize and chilies occurred together as an ancient and widespread Neotropical plant food complex that predates pottery in some regions.
OMPOSING a foreword for a volume honoring Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff is both an honor and an occas... more OMPOSING a foreword for a volume honoring Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff is both an honor and an occasion for reflection and sadness. After a first gettogether nearly thirty-five years ago in his office at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, of whose Department of Anthropology he had then just become chair, we met only sporadically. Regrettably this was so especially after 1971, when I moved from Los Angeles to the State University of New York at Albany. Thereafter I missed him almost every time he visited UCLA, where he had become closely associated with the Latin American Center and its longtime director, Johannes Wilbert. But every get-together-including the last one a few months before his untimely death-was over lunch with Wilbert, his good friend and mine (and, incidentally, my mentor in graduate school and since) at the UCLA Faculty Center. Perhaps his death of a heart attack was not untimely but, if death can ever be that, fortunate, for it spared him a more protracted and painful death from cancer of the bladder. Like many other colleagues in the field of shamanic studies, I owe him more than I can ever express. He was an inspiring scholar and colleague; the depth and breadth of his knowledge and insights never failed to amaze. To me personally the viii enormous. Gerardo became a research member of the new Instituto Colombiano de Antropologfa (1953-1960). In 1963, he and Alicia created the first Department of Anthropology in Colombia at the Universidad de Los Andes where he became chairman (1963-1969). In 197 4, Gerardo became Adjunct Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California at Los Angeles, where occasionally he gave lectures and taught classes. The enormous contribution that Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff made to science has been recognized internationally on several occasions. In 1976 he was made a Foreign Associate Member of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States; in 1983, a Member of the Academia Real Espanola de Ciencias; and in 1989, a Fellow of the Linnean Society. He was also awarded, in 1975, the Thomas H. Huxley medal by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. As well, in 1983 he became a Founding Member of the Third World Academy of Sciences. Preface The archaeology and anthropology of Colombia and Latin American have lost a brilliant scholar. Gerardo, however, has left behind a rich legacy of academic achievement and inspiration, as this book demonstrates. The imprint of his scholarly influence can be seen not only in his own students and followers in Colombia but also in the students of Donald Lathrap, five of whom are contributors to this volume. Reichel and Lathrap were friends and colleagues, and admired each other's research. Reichel at times sent students to study with Lathrap at the University of Illinois and in turn helped facilitate the field research ofLathrap's students. Lathrap, the Great Caiman, as his students affectionately referred to him, died in 1990. Now Reichel, the Great Jaguar of the neotropics, has followed his friend, the Great Caiman, but their discoveries, ideas, and teachings live on.
In an earlier article in this journal D. W. Gade implicated mucocutaneous leishmaniasis, a parasi... more In an earlier article in this journal D. W. Gade implicated mucocutaneous leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease, as a major factor deterring the Inca settlement of the Peruvian jungle. A review of the medical, ecological, archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence shows that this was not the case. Leishmaniasis was not associated with the jungle by the Incas, and so could not have been a deterrent to settlement of that zone. Furthermore, archaeological evidence indicates that the Incas did settle the wet tropical valleys of the eastern Andes more extensively, and permanently, than previously believed. The pattern of Inca occupation and utilization of the jungle is best understood in terms of their political economy and of ancient modes of adaptation to their vertical landscape.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2008
The study of maize ( Zea mays L.) domestication has advanced from questions of its origins to the... more The study of maize ( Zea mays L.) domestication has advanced from questions of its origins to the study—and debate—of its dietary role and the timing of its dispersal from Mexico. Because the investigation of maize's spread is hampered by poor preservation of macrobotanical remains in the Neotropics, research has focused on microbotanical remains whose contexts are often dated by association, leading some to question the dates assigned. Furthermore, some scholars have argued that maize was not introduced to southwestern Ecuador until ≈4150–3850 calendar years before the present (cal B.P.), that it was used first and foremost as a fermented beverage in ceremonial contexts, and that it was not important in everyday subsistence, challenging previous studies based on maize starch and phytoliths. To further investigate these questions, we analyzed every-day cooking vessels, food-processing implements, and sediments for starch and phytoliths from an archaeological site in southwestern...
Early sedentary settlement in Ecuador made headlines among New World archaeologists in the 1950s ... more Early sedentary settlement in Ecuador made headlines among New World archaeologists in the 1950s and 1960s with the discovery of the Valdivia culture (Meggers et al. 1965). More than 6000 years old (in calibrated radiocarbonyears), exhibiting comparatively well-made, distinctively decorated ceramics, and associated with relatively large, deep sites in the tropical lowlands of South America, Valdivia was anomalous in the generally accepted cultural historical schemes of the time. Early manifestations of sedentism and ceramics were expected in highland Mexico or in the arid mountains and coast of the Central Andes; yet Valdivia antedated (and still antedates) evidence of such developments in both areas by more than 1000 years. Shortly after the discovery of Valdivia a settlement of similar age and character was excavated in the moist tropics of northern Colombia (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1965), and sedentary settlement in the upper Amazon was shown to extend back to at least the beginning of the second millennium B.C. (Lathrap 1970). Clearly, notions of cultural developments in the American tropics needed revision. The nature and antiquity of settlement has been borne out by subsequent research in all three areas. In northern Colombia the ceramic sequence has been extended to 6700 B.P. and on the lower Amazon pottery is more than a millennium older (Oyuela-Caycedo 1987, 1990; Raymond 1987; Roosevelt et al. 1991).
Chili peppers ( Capsicum spp.) are widely cultivated food plants that arose in the Americas and a... more Chili peppers ( Capsicum spp.) are widely cultivated food plants that arose in the Americas and are now incorporated into cuisines worldwide. Here, we report a genus-specific starch morphotype that provides a means to identify chili peppers from archaeological contexts and trace both their domestication and dispersal. These starch microfossils have been found at seven sites dating from 6000 years before present to European contact and ranging from the Bahamas to southern Peru. The starch grain assemblages demonstrate that maize and chilies occurred together as an ancient and widespread Neotropical plant food complex that predates pottery in some regions.
OMPOSING a foreword for a volume honoring Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff is both an honor and an occas... more OMPOSING a foreword for a volume honoring Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff is both an honor and an occasion for reflection and sadness. After a first gettogether nearly thirty-five years ago in his office at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, of whose Department of Anthropology he had then just become chair, we met only sporadically. Regrettably this was so especially after 1971, when I moved from Los Angeles to the State University of New York at Albany. Thereafter I missed him almost every time he visited UCLA, where he had become closely associated with the Latin American Center and its longtime director, Johannes Wilbert. But every get-together-including the last one a few months before his untimely death-was over lunch with Wilbert, his good friend and mine (and, incidentally, my mentor in graduate school and since) at the UCLA Faculty Center. Perhaps his death of a heart attack was not untimely but, if death can ever be that, fortunate, for it spared him a more protracted and painful death from cancer of the bladder. Like many other colleagues in the field of shamanic studies, I owe him more than I can ever express. He was an inspiring scholar and colleague; the depth and breadth of his knowledge and insights never failed to amaze. To me personally the viii enormous. Gerardo became a research member of the new Instituto Colombiano de Antropologfa (1953-1960). In 1963, he and Alicia created the first Department of Anthropology in Colombia at the Universidad de Los Andes where he became chairman (1963-1969). In 197 4, Gerardo became Adjunct Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California at Los Angeles, where occasionally he gave lectures and taught classes. The enormous contribution that Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff made to science has been recognized internationally on several occasions. In 1976 he was made a Foreign Associate Member of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States; in 1983, a Member of the Academia Real Espanola de Ciencias; and in 1989, a Fellow of the Linnean Society. He was also awarded, in 1975, the Thomas H. Huxley medal by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. As well, in 1983 he became a Founding Member of the Third World Academy of Sciences. Preface The archaeology and anthropology of Colombia and Latin American have lost a brilliant scholar. Gerardo, however, has left behind a rich legacy of academic achievement and inspiration, as this book demonstrates. The imprint of his scholarly influence can be seen not only in his own students and followers in Colombia but also in the students of Donald Lathrap, five of whom are contributors to this volume. Reichel and Lathrap were friends and colleagues, and admired each other's research. Reichel at times sent students to study with Lathrap at the University of Illinois and in turn helped facilitate the field research ofLathrap's students. Lathrap, the Great Caiman, as his students affectionately referred to him, died in 1990. Now Reichel, the Great Jaguar of the neotropics, has followed his friend, the Great Caiman, but their discoveries, ideas, and teachings live on.
In an earlier article in this journal D. W. Gade implicated mucocutaneous leishmaniasis, a parasi... more In an earlier article in this journal D. W. Gade implicated mucocutaneous leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease, as a major factor deterring the Inca settlement of the Peruvian jungle. A review of the medical, ecological, archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence shows that this was not the case. Leishmaniasis was not associated with the jungle by the Incas, and so could not have been a deterrent to settlement of that zone. Furthermore, archaeological evidence indicates that the Incas did settle the wet tropical valleys of the eastern Andes more extensively, and permanently, than previously believed. The pattern of Inca occupation and utilization of the jungle is best understood in terms of their political economy and of ancient modes of adaptation to their vertical landscape.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2008
The study of maize ( Zea mays L.) domestication has advanced from questions of its origins to the... more The study of maize ( Zea mays L.) domestication has advanced from questions of its origins to the study—and debate—of its dietary role and the timing of its dispersal from Mexico. Because the investigation of maize's spread is hampered by poor preservation of macrobotanical remains in the Neotropics, research has focused on microbotanical remains whose contexts are often dated by association, leading some to question the dates assigned. Furthermore, some scholars have argued that maize was not introduced to southwestern Ecuador until ≈4150–3850 calendar years before the present (cal B.P.), that it was used first and foremost as a fermented beverage in ceremonial contexts, and that it was not important in everyday subsistence, challenging previous studies based on maize starch and phytoliths. To further investigate these questions, we analyzed every-day cooking vessels, food-processing implements, and sediments for starch and phytoliths from an archaeological site in southwestern...
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