Archaic Period Research in the Río Huenque Valley, Peru

Comparison of XRF and PXRF for analysis of archaeological obsidian from southern Perú

“…This consistent patterning of use suggests the formation of regular trade articulations between the Titicaca Basin and the Chivay source in the Colca Canyon near Arequipa. Temporally sensitive projectile points (Klink and Aldenderfer, 2005) recovered from surface survey (Klink, 2005) and radiocarbon dated excavation in the Ilave (Craig, 2005) and the Island of the Sun (Stanish et al, 2002) show that more regular use of Chivay obsidian emerged in the Titicaca Basin during the end of the Late Archaic and intensified during the Terminal Archaic.…”

Dental evidence for wild tuber processing among Titicaca Basin foragers 7000 ybp

“…Several archaeological surveys have informed inferences about broad‐scale settlement patterns during the Archaic (Cipolla, ; Craig, ; Klink, ; La Favre, ), but excavated cultural features with absolute dates from the Archaic periods are restricted to only five sites including Qillqatani (Aldenderfer, ; Eisentraut, ), Jiskairumoko (Craig, ), Kaillachuro (Craig, ), Muruqulla (Juengst, Chávez, Hutchinson, & Chávez, ), and Soro Mik'aya Patjxa (Haas & Viviano Llave, ). While features from the other four sites date to the Terminal Archaic Period, features from Soro Mik'aya Patjxa (SMP) date to the Middle/Late Archaic transition (7,000 cal.…”

Macusani obsidian from southern Peru: A characterization of its elemental composition with a demonstration of its ancient use

“…This type has a known distribution that is restricted to the Cuzco Basin (Bauer, 2007;Bauer et al, 2007;Klink, 2007) and the northern and eastern parts of the Lake Titicaca Basin. Despite systematic pedestrian survey, this expanding stemmed form has not been encountered in either the Rio Ilave (Aldenderfer and de la Vega, 1996;Klink and Aldenderfer, 1996) or Rio Huenque (Klink, 1998(Klink, , 2005 drainages. XRF004 is a triangular concave base form.…”

“…In August of 2005, Speakman and Popelka-Filcoff used portable X-ray fluorescence (PXRF) to analyze all of the obsidian bifaces and projectile points that had been recovered during pedestrian surveys of the Huenque (Klink, 1998(Klink, , 2005, Ilave (Aldenderfer and de la Vega, 1996;Klink and Aldenderfer, 1996), lower Ramis (Stanish and Plourde, 2000), and Huancané (Stanish and Plourde, 2000) drainages of the Lake Titicaca Basin (Craig et al, 2007). The collection includes two bifacial artifacts from the sites of HU-496 and HU-113 in the Huancané region that were both made from a visually striking transparent natural glass.…”