Assigned Session: FS 3.232: Highland–lowland connections and interactions
Ancient Subsistence Technologies in an Andean/Amazonian Transition Zone
Abstract ID: 3.10480 | Accepted as Talk | Talk/Oral | TBA | TBA
Lauren Pratt (0)
Lauren Pratt ((0) University of California, Los Angeles, A210, 308 Charles E Young Dr N, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, 90024, Los Angeles, CA, US)
(0) University of California, Los Angeles, A210, 308 Charles E Young Dr N, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, 90024, Los Angeles, CA, US
As new archaeological strategies are rapidly growing our understanding of the Amazonian past, there is increasing interest in the influence of the world’s largest rainforest and its inhabitants on the cultures of the Andean highlands—and vice versa. Although lowland plants and animals are found in highland sites by at least 7,000 years ago (a period known as the Preceramic), very few direct archaeological data are available from transition zones believed to have played an important role in the transmission of people, goods, and ideas between the highlands and lowlands during this time. In this paper, I report on a range of subsistence activities, including the introduction of lowland domesticates, documented at the Muyuksha site during and following the Preceramic Period. Located in the tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF) of northern Peru’s eastern Andes, this mid-altitude site (2544 meters above sea level) is set in the heart of a proposed zone of highland-lowland cultural transmission. These results offer an initial window into the mechanisms of the dispersal of lowland foods into the Andean highlands and suggest new hypotheses for ancient human-environment interactions in the tropical montane cloud forest.
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