UPPER COLCA

UPPER COLCA ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH PROJECT
Arequipa, Peru

EXAMPLES OF TABLES FROM THE REGIONAL OBSIDIAN GIS

The regional obsidian Geographical Information System (GIS) is an ArcGIS 9 geodatabase consisting of two tables with spatial features (Points features) and one non-spatial table. All spatial data has been reprojected to conform with the WGS84 datum and includes the best available locational data. The GIS is currently limited to the central and south-central Andes but it has been designed to expand to include data from throughout the Andes.

The SOURCES spatial feature includes Point locations on major obsidian sources from published sources or GPS coordinates. The table is as follows. So far the SOURCES table has 7 sources.
Source_ID Source Elev SpatialSrc Loc_Qual Descript Reference
1 Alca 3405 GPS Good aka Umasca, Cusco Source Burger 1998, Jennings & Glascock 2002

The SITES spatial feature consists of Point locations for all sites in the region where obsidian was recovered and sourced. Each site has been assigned a permanent ID number in this system. There are about 160 sites in the table. The SITE table is as follows

Site_ID Site ElevSRTM SpatialSrc Loc_Qual Descript Reference Exc_Surfac uncalBP_ca PreCeram_E PreCeram_L Initial EH_E EH_L EIP MH_E MH_L LIP LH Temp_Conf Region Country
2 Wilkawain 3069 1:100,000 scale of Huaraz med., regional DigPeru dataset MH tomb Bennett, 1944, p. 30-31; Burger and Asaro 1977, p. 29 exc MH 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 Ancash, Huaraz, Huaraz Peru

The SAMPLES non-spatial feature is a flat table in a 1:many relationship with the SITE spatial feature. The SiteID field is the linking field between the two tables for queries and map labeling. There are about 350 samples in the table so far, most of which are aggregated because that is what is reported in the literature. The SAMPLES table is as follows.
SiteID Site SampleID Phase Temp_Conf Period BPperiod BP1 BP1_err BP2 BP2_err Sample_Typ References Analysis Descript PeriodTot Chivay Chivay2 Alca Alca2 Quisp Quisp2 Jampa Puzolana AndaA AndaA2 AndaB Chumb Chumb2 Acari Aconcahua Tumuku UyoUyo SoraSora Rare3 Rare4 Rare7 Rare8 Rare9 NewMH NewType Rare_RB77 Unknown_KF Unclas_RB7 Unclas_B00 Unclas_B77 Unkn1_MG94 Unkn2_MG94 NoGrp_MG94 BA LA LU ND SM U YB CE CO CS EU FE HF RB SB SC SR TA TB TH ZN ZR AL CL DY K MN NA NB TI Y
110 Asana KF 01 Preceram E/M 1 PreCer EM 10000-5000BP or 10500-3800BC 9400 0 6000 0 Flakes Aldenderfer 1998, pp. 81, 157, 163, 209, 268; 1999, pp. 383-384; Frye, Aldenderfer, Glascock 1998 NAA 6900BC 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000 0.00000000000

Key to the Table Fields

SiteID: A number series I came up with to tie the database tables together.

SpatialSrc: Literature or Pers Comm source of spatial location.

LocQuality: Best = post-processGPS, Good=GPS, Med.= nearest town, Bad = nearest province.

Reference: Literature or Pers Comm ref to sourcing, site excavation, or anything else related to the site.

SampleID: Lab analysis ID number is preserved, when it is provided.

Temp_Conf: Temporal Confidence. 1 = excellent temporal control, 0 = unknown or vague temporal control.

BP1 + BP1_err: oldest uncalibrated radiocarbon date (and error) associated with this specific sample provenience.

BP2 + BP2_err: youngest uncalibrated radiocarbon date (and error) associated with this specific sample provenience.

Phase: the finest available provenience and temporal phase from excavated samples. Surface collected samples should read "Surface" here and have a 0 in the Temp_Conf field.

Period: This category is included to facilitate analysis and map labelling. Groupings that were prevalent in the majority of the published literature were used. Based largely on Burger, Chavez, and Chavez 2000 and the Menzel and Rowe Ica ceramics Horizons system I used the following dates for the various periods. I realize that these periods don't make a lot of sense in the Titicaca Basin. All BP dates are Uncalibrated, all BC/AD dates are Calibrated. Preceramic and Archaic are used synonymously.

Period BeginsBP EndsBP BeginsBC EndsBC Notes
Preceramic EM (Early/Middle) 10,000BP 5000BP 10,150BC 3900BC Domestication of camelids at ~5000BP
Preceramic LT (Late/Terminal) 5000BP 3750BP 3900BC 2160BC Ceramics
Initial 3750BP 2750BP 2160BC 900BC  
Early Horizon (Early) 2750BP 2500BP 900BC 637BC  
Early Horizon (Late) 25500BP 2050BP 637BC 58BC Chanapata in Cusco

Early Intermediate Period (Early)

 2050BP   58BC    
Early Intermediate Period (Later)   1400BP   AD757  
Middle Horizon 1400BP 1050BP AD757 AD973 Wari in Ica
Late Intermediate Period 1050BP 474BP AD973 AD1476  
Late Horizon 474BP 418BP AD1476 AD1532 Inka in Ica

It is unfortunate that the Early Intermediate Period is not broken up into at least two phases because many important changes occurred in that 800 year time span. I hope to discern early and late EIP in future samples incorporated into the database.

If you have suggestions concerning the structure of this GIS please contact me at nico@umail.ucsb.edu. This page is associated with the GIS description page at the Upper Colca Research Project website.

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