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The site above
Tuti extends for over a 1 km with a number of concentrations of
artifacts, which provided a good test of the Arcpad system. The presence
of chert nodules in the creek may be part of the reason for
the size of this site. As we're studying raw stone materials coming
out of a major obsidian source the presence of a site like this one
close to the obsidian source providing a different type of raw material is
especially interesting.
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| We headed up for
our first week of work at the source shortly after it snowed at high
elevations.
The climb up from Chivay is approximately 1200 vertical meters
(3,930') over about 6 km (3.7 miles). It's made particularly tough
because you start at about 3,650m above sea level (12,000') and go up
from there. Luckily we were able to get burros with a driver for about
$3 per animal. This helped us to keep our packs pretty
light!
We came down every 5 to 10 days for weekend time in order to recover,
to shop
for food, and to bathe in the Chivay hotsprings.
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The main reason
for our work up in this area was it is the geological origin
of the Chivay / Cotallaulli
obsidian type. Some of the best nodules we saw came from the an
exposure that was eroding out of a gully exposing a dome in the
northern part of the volcanic depression. This obsidian contains subparallel vertical fractures, so perhaps this precise exposure in the source area doesn't contain the best possible material. However we did find nodules
measuring up to 23 cm in this area.
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| The best obsidian for tool production is found in a oval volcanic depression 2 km across that is known locally as "Maymeja". The eastern rim of Maymeja is visible in the background of this photo.
Cheyla Samuelson, Willy Yepez, Saul Morales and I are surveying areas
not covered by snow during this first week.
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05_maymeja_snow.jpg
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Students
arrived Aug 11 and we were able to cover a lot more ground in our
survey work. Daniel Zimbler, Ross Burley and Brian Finucane helped to
survey North / South across the Maymeja area for the first week. |
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06_maymeja_survey.jpg
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Most of what we
found in the center of the Maymeja area were sites that consisted of lithic
scatters sheltered behind large boulders that served as windbreaks.
Much of my time was spent recording these sites in Arcpad on a Pocket PC with
a GPS connected.
Behind Nevado Ampato (~6250m), Sabacaya and Hualca Hualca are clearly
visible above the Colca.
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Here
is an example of an Arcpad form for a lithic locus (an area
with a higher density of mostly-homogeneous stone artifacts) shown
with 25m contours and a 15m resolution ASTER satellite image in the
background. For more information please see the Notes
from my ArcPad and ArcGIS 8 development work.
We are recording polygons delimiting lithic, ceramic, and
structural loci inside of site boundaries. In our approach a lithic
loci may correspond with prehistoric activity areas, such as a place
where obsidian was worked, and we are mapping them in by walking
polygons around them with a GPS. With subsequent post-processing using
this
GPS approach we can delimit areas with 1-2m of accuracy.
The Arcpad forms customized for this project can quickly record
relevant locus attributes directly into the project GIS, eliminating
the need for paper-based forms. |
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| One of the
most interesting sites was a corral on the north side of Maymeja
that was located in 2001. The corral is covered in primary reduction
flakes. Here the periphery is being mapped using the portable Brunton
and tape method since GPS is not sufficiently accurate for
architecture. |
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A test unit
placed along the southern border of Maymeja produced interesting results. The obsidian quarry is just visible in the
distance. Obsidian quarried above may have
been brought down here for processing.
Chris Lagen joined us beginning
this week.
Click here to see a larger
version of the animated GIF of this test unit being excavated (2 mb). |
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| Another
test unit was placed higher in Maymeja on the debris pile
associated with some kind of ancient quarrying activity. This T.U. had
good stratigraphy and produced many heavy bags of obsidian to
haul out, but few tools and no carbon. Changes in obsidian
processing may be evident in the changes in flake morphology over
time. |
09_quarry_TestUnit2.jpg
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We camped on the
south side of Maymeja in a sheltered windbreak at 4850 m.a.s.l.
(15,900'). Despite the wall
the winds were often punishing. However, the morning and evening views from
camp made it worth it to camp there and we also had a lot more sun
throughout the day than
we would have in more sheltered campsites. Nighttime temperatures got
down to -12.5 deg C (10 deg F) plus windchill, very cold when you're
living outdoors night and day. |
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| A gushing
spring was located about 300m from our camp so despite the dry, ashy
soil and dung rich swamps near us we had abundant clean water to
drink. |
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Daniel and Ross hauling water with positive mental attitude. |
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| Over a
hundred camelids and sheep grazed in the bofedal marshlands of Maymeja during this time of
year. They are guarded by Timoteo and his wife who live in the
estancia (ranch) up there. This llamita was born while we were living
up there. |
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Nevada Coropuna
(~6450m), the highest peak in southern Peru, is visible in the
distance above the Colca Canyon on clear days.
We got very lucky because we had cold and clear weather the whole month
so we were able to work, albeit with a lot of layers on. Snow melts
slowly in Maymeja and a heavy snow would have caused our our
Maymeja work to end early. The day after we left for good (Sept
9) it snowed again -- but we had come down. |
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| The local
herder, Timoteo Valdevia,
agreed to do a pago with us (a ritual offering to the mountain
spirits). We bought most of what we needed in town and one evening
after a long day of work Timoteo came to our camp wanting to do a night pago.
Here he is with an LED headlamp on getting everything prepared, a process that took over an
hour alone. |
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The pago
ingredients included maize, animal fat, coca leaf, various herbs and a llama
fetus, all from the local market. We drank wine and rum; his toasts
included the local mountains, distant Nevados, our project, and the
spirits those who
weren't with us. Everything burned well with all the grease that was
included. Much of the fire was from dry 'lena' a hard mountain moss. |
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| The pago
definitely brought us luck. The next day we found nearly 2 km of an ancient road that leads into Maymeja. The road is
consistently 3-5m wide and
goes right to the large quarry pit Q02002 where we put had Test Unit 2 (see photo
above). |
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One week Willy
and I decided to hike out of Maymeja to the south-east instead of
back down to Chivay. We hiked out to the south and joined a travel
corridor that connects the Colca puna with the Lake
Titicaca area. We found a large site here, right along the ancient
caravan route leading to the Titicaca Basin. We were picked up after 2
days by the others on the highway further west by Orso (see map). |
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| Willy and I
camped near an estancia owned by Tomas. As recently as 10 yrs ago
Tomas would run llama caravans to Cusco and Puno along the same trails
that the obsidian and other goods had certainly moved for thousands of
years. He was very interested in our maps. |
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Many burros were
required to bring down the heavy bags of obsidian artifacts that we
collected. A rough estimate is that it was probably 20 burro loads in
all, weighing perhaps 50 lbs per load. |
