[Aztlan] Two Andean seminars to be given by Mark Aldenderfer in England

[michael ruggeri]

Dear All,

Please note two Andean seminars to be given by Mark Aldenderfer,  
editor of Current Anthropology and formerly of Latin American  
Antiquity, whose team recently excavated the oldest known gold  
artifacts in the Americas, as reported in PNAS 105:13. Prof.  
Aldenderfer's two talks will set these finds in the broader context of  
the origins of agriculture and settled communities in the Titicaca  
Basin over a period roughly equivalent to the Early Neolithic of the  
Old World.  Here, in the high Andes some 4,000m above sea-level, the  
potato, llama and the 'pseudo-cereal' quinoa were first domesticated.   
The two talks will range from plant microfossil evidence to long- 
distance trade in gold and obsidian.    One seminar will be at the  
British Museum on  Thursday 12th and the next at Cambridge University  
on Friday 13th March - short abstracts and more details re. location  
and time for these talks are given below.  These seminars were kindly  
facilitated and organised by David Beresford-Jones, Paul Heggarty,  
Trisha Biers, Colin McEwan and Julia Zumstein.




Thursday 12th March at 5 pm.  at The British Museum — East Residence  
Meeting Room
(For those of us without keys to the inner-sanctums of the BM, we are  
to meet just inside the British Museum Great Court at 5pm promptly to  
be accompanied to the East Residence)

The Americas Section of the AOA department at the British Museum  
invite you to a talk by Prof. Mark Aldenderfer

Abstract

Artefacts 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 south-western 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 behaviour, and further shows that hereditary elites and a  
societal capacity to create significant agricultural surpluses are not  
requisite for the emergence of metalworking traditions.

If you have any questions about the British Museum seminar please  
email Julia Zumstein: JZumstein at thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

******************************************

Friday 13th March  at  1.15 p.m.  in the McDonald Institute for  
Archaeological Research, Downing St. (Cambridge University)  -   
Seminar Room (ground floor)

The Cambridge Americas Archaeology Group invites you to a keynote  
seminar by Prof. Mark Aldenderfer.

Abstract

Most textbooks begin their presentation of the prehistory of the  
Titicaca Basin at 1500 bce, traditionally seen as the start of the  
Early Formative, a period roughly equivalent to the Early Neolithic of  
the Old World. Villages appear ex nihilo and little consideration of  
the social and environmental context attends the discussion of their  
appearance. More than a decade of research in the basin, however, has  
dramatically changed this perspective. Surveys in the Rio Ilave and  
Rio Ramis drainages, excavations at key sites, most notably  
Jiskairumoko, recently completed analyses of macro-and-microbotanical  
remains, and regional scale paleo-environmental reconstructions have  
shed new light on the critical time period of 3200-1400 bce, and have  
provided my research team with the data to build a coherent model of  
the origins of village life in the basin. I will outline the model in  
this presentation, and will discuss our new data on the domestication  
of Chenopodium quinoa, Solanum spp., and the roles played by the long- 
distance trade of gold and obsidian in the formation of these villages.

In the evening following the talk, you are welcome to join Prof.  
Aldenderfer and the Americas Archaeology Group for drinks at the Eagle  
from 5.30 p.m.

If you have any questions about the Cambridge seminar please email  
Trisha Biers at: tmb40 at cam.ac.uk

-- 
Dr.  Bill Sillar
Institute of Archaeology,
University College London,
31-34 Gordon Square,
London  WC1H 0PY
ENGLAND

Ph: (0)20 7679 1538
Fax: (0)20 7383 2572