[Aztlan] Andean Interest

[Katherine Reece]

First of all I'd like to say thanks to the moderators for starting the Andean group.  If they would prefer to hold this email until more people join up I will certainly understand.

My primary area of interest in Andean archaeology is the late preceramic, or cotton preceramic, period along the northern coast.  I have some papers that Dr. Shady has published on her work in the Supe Valley, but not nearly enough, I can not find information on what the excavations are discovering at Chupacigaro, Lurihuasi, or Miraya which are the Supe Valley mound centers closest to Caral.  Also I know that Dr. Shady has been excavating at Aspero, but I've seen nothing about what is happening there.  

Dr. Shady made that fantastic discovery at Caral of what may be a quipu which dates to about 2,500 BC which is amazing considering that AFAIK the earliest previously found quipu dated to about 600 AD.  That is quite a leap!  But we've heard nothing since then about any analysis of the artifact.  

Haas and Creamer have been working in the Pativilca and Fortaleza valleys for years but all I've heard from their work is about the problems between them and Dr. Shady over excavation rights and credit. Oh, and they found a really old example of the staff god carved on a gourd, which IIRC, was found in Carreteria.

Anyone else interested in this time frame and area may want to read this article on the Ma'at site written by Dr. Moseley concerning his MFAC:
http://www.hallofmaat.com/modules.php?name=Articles&file=article&sid=85 
(thanks to Dr. Moseley for his permission to have this at Ma'at).

I do have a book published by Dr. Shady several years back, that I had to wire $150 to Peru to purchase (and explain to a very worried Western Union clerk that I wasn't being ripped off in an email scam), it is fairly general but its the best thing I've seen yet on Caral.  

Does anyone have any contacts or recent papers on the late preceramic along the northern coast of Peru?

Thank you,

Kat 
Founder/Director - The Hall of Ma'at
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Amun: Co-Owner/Co-Moderator
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Archaeological Fantasies: How pseudoarchaeology misrepresents the past and misleads the public
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