Query: Archaeology of Panama

title: Direct archaeological evidence for Southwestern Amazonia as an early plant domestication and food production centre
abstract: Southwestern Amazonia is considered an early centre of plant domestication in the New World, but most of the evidence for this hypothesis comes from genetic data since systematic archaeological fieldwork in the area is recent. This paper provides first hand archaeobotanical evidence of food production from early and middle Holocene (ca. 9,000 5000 cal. BP) deposits at Teotonio, an open air site located on a 40 m high bluff on the south bank of the Madeira river. Such evidence includes the presence of local and exotic domesticates such as manioc (Manihot esculenta) squash (Cucurbita sp. and beans (Phaseolus sp. alongside edible fruits such as pequia (Caryocar sp. and guava (Psidium sp. that point to the beginnings of landscape domestication. The results contribute to an ever growing number of studies that posit southwest Amazonia as an important centre for early crop domestication and experimentation, and which highlight the longue duree of human impacts on tropical forest biodiversity around the world.

title: The role of archaeological and cultural historical records in long range coastal fisheries resources management strategies and policies in the Pacific Islands
abstract: The usefulness of conventional fisheries science for long term fisheries management and policies in the resource poor islands of the Pacific is very limited. Fishery managers can, however, make use of such alternative sources of information as archaeological and historical data to develop fishery management initiatives. Most Pacific Islands were settled by humans over the last three millennia, although human settlement in Western Melanesia dates from the late Pleistocene, a period of about 40 millennia. Archaeological studies over the past half century contain information on the long term subsistence exploitation of fish and invertebrates from nearshore coral reefs and lagoons. Molluscs appear to have been a very important food source for early human colonists in the Pacific Islands, but declines in abundance through harvest pressure and environmental changes forced a greater reliance on fin fish capture and on agriculture. There is no firm evidence from the archaeological record to suggest that long term subsistence exploitation of reef fish populations has had any serious negative effects on abundance or structure of reef fish communities. Sources for more recent historical information are also exemplified and briefly examined for their usefulness in assessing the impacts of commercial fishing. It is argued that fishery managers who adopt a data less approach to fishery management could profitably use these sources of information to enrich their assessment of the impacts of various management scenarios.

title: A Possible Gold Pectoral from Panama
abstract: An undecorated gold disk, considered to be a pectoral in an early stage of manufacture, is described. This specimen is from a stone covered grave in the Province of Bocas del Toro and is attributed to the Chiriqui culture. MANY PECTORALS or breastplates have been found in prehistoric graves of Panama. Although some of these are made of materials other than gold, the majority are made of this metal. They vary widely in size and weight; some are decorated and some are undecorated. The first mention of such items of jewelry was the comment by Columbus that the natives along the coast of Veraguas (this includes the Panamanian province now known as Bocas del Toro) wore "espejos de oro" or mirrors of gold. Only decorated pectorals have been illustrated in archaeological publications (Lothrop 1937: 112 29; 1950: 73; MacCurdy 1911: 223 6) However, Bollaert (1860) mentions that he examined several thin gold plates from Chiriqui, and some of these were undecorated. The gold specimen described here  was discovered by a huaquero (grave digger) in the highlands of Bocas del Toro, which is the northernmost province in Panama. It was found in a stone covered grave of the Chiriqui culture, which is represented principally in the Province of Chiriqui on the Pacific side of the Cordillera but extends north and west into Costa Rica. Many of the artifacts from this grave were described earlier (Mitchell 1961) but the gold disk was overlooked. As it is believed to be an unfinished pectoral, and since such specimens have not been previously noted in the literature, it appears to warrant this note. The artifact is of a fine yellow gold and weighs 75.4 grams. It averages 0.4 cm. in thickness, and the diameter ranges from 3.8 to 4.2 cm. There are markings near the edges on each face, and these seem to indicate that hammering had begun. Hammering was the method commonly used in the manufacture of such flat work as pectorals. It is possible, of course, that this is not a pectoral in the initial stage of manufacture but an ingot used for storage of gold or for trading purposes. It does not appear to be a nugget because gold is not often found in nuggets of this size. Its form, relative thinness, and evidence of incipient hammering all suggest that it was intended for eventual use as a pectoral.

title: Note on the Archaeology of Chiriqui
abstract: THE faunal environment of a given region is apt to be reflected in its primitive art, especially when the art is primarily of local origin. The province of Chiriqui, Republic of Panama, affords a good example of this interrelation. Archeologically the most common medium of art expression is pottery. The principal motives in the ceramic art of Chiriqui have been traced to certain animal forms. For example, the armadillo and motives derived from that animal, or parts thereof, are so dominant in one large class of pottery as to justify the name armadillo ware for that par

title: Letter: Archaeology south of the Rio Grande
abstract: I find that the cutting of several paragraphs out of the early part of the published version of my paper 'Archaeology south of the Rio Grande, past and present' (World Archaeology (1981) 13 (2) resulted in a disjointed form of some of the ideas I tried to project. Unquestionably, the broadness of the subject caused the article to exceed by far the length requested by the editors. The two portions that disappeared weakened my point that the understanding of the differences between the archaeologies practiced on either side of the Rio Grande should be sought in the historical process of which the two predominant colonialisms in America, the Anglo Saxon and the Hispanic, are a part. The colonization of Hispano America began at the end of the fifteenth century, reaching its peak in the sixteenth; the corresponding periods for that of Anglo America were the seventeenth century and end of the eighteenth when its Revolution and Independence took place. The bare indication of dates does not suffice to explain the profoundly important historical events that took place over that lapse of time. For the Hispano American motherland it spelled the end of the Reconquest with the fall of Granada, the last of the Moorish redoubts, in 1492. With the discovery of America in the same year, the Reconquest was prolonged on the soil of the New World. Spain, which did not yet exist as a nation, was consolidated under Charles I of Spain and V of Germany. This signified, at the same time, a break with its isolation from Europe, an event that took place when it led the Counter Reformation materially and spiritually while England under Henry the Eighth laid down the foundations of puritanism. Also, parallel with the consolidation of British parliamentarianism, Spain, now joined with Portugal, consolidated royal absolutism. The Renaissance ended and humanism began; rationalism appeared with Descartes, and it was the time of Francis Bacon. Moreover, capitalism and the modern epoch were ushered in. It seems to me that this brief outline of the historical phenomena that establish the variances between the two colonizations is important, since they provide a basis for understanding the processes that determined the history of the Americas. Another excised part of the paper contained an explanation of the term 'Latin America' It was invented by a Colombian, Jose Torres Caicedo, in 1861 as a unifying link for all the recently arisen countries that had formerly been Spanish and Portuguese colonies, in line with the aspiration expressed by Bolivar at the so called Amphictyonic Congress held in Panama in 1826.

title: The earliest archaeological maize (Zea mays L. from highland Mexico: new accelerator mass spectrometry dates and their implications.
abstract: Accelerator mass spectrometry age determinations of maize cobs (Zea mays L. from Guila Naquitz Cave in Oaxaca, Mexico, produced dates of 5,400 carbon 14 years before the present (about 6,250 calendar years ago) making those cobs the oldest in the Americas. Macrofossils and phytoliths characteristic of wild and domesticated Zea fruits are absent from older strata from the site, although Zea pollen has previously been identified from those levels. These results, together with the modern geographical distribution of wild Zea mays, suggest that the cultural practices that led to Zea domestication probably occurred elsewhere in Mexico. Guila Naquitz Cave has now yielded the earliest macrofossil evidence for the domestication of two major American crop plants, squash (Cucurbita pepo) and maize.

title: Zooarchaeological and taphonomical study of the white tailed deer (Cervidae: Odocoileus virginianus Zimmerman 1780) at Sitio Sierra, a pre Columbian village in Pacific Cocle province, Panama, with an evaluation of its role in feasts
abstract: The white tailed deer (Cervidae: Odocoileus virginianus) was the most widespread sizeable mammal in the ancient anthropogenic savannahs of the Pacific watershed of Panama. This cursorial, browsing and gregarious species was not only a major component of human diet for several thousand pre contact years but also an iconic mammal imbued with polysemic symbolism. Deer were the most frequently consumed mammal in most pre Columbian refuse deposits, and deer bones and antlers were used to fashion several kinds of implements. Spanish eye witness chroniclers of the years of conquest (1515 1550 CE) refer to cultural proscriptions against eating mammal meat by certain groups in the chiefdoms that bordered Parita Bay on the Pacific coast. Spanish soldiers extolled larders replete with dried and salted deer carcasses. This situation alludes to periodic "feasts" which are considered to be an important mechanism for enhancing social relations and for cementing alliances. We argue that feasting behaviour is identifiable at Sitio Sierra (AG 3) a large village located in the alluvial bottomlands of Cocle province near a major river (Santa Maria) and occupied between about 2200 and 500 cal yr. B.P. The representation of all deer body parts in some refuse piles at this site including complete and articulated remains is predicted correlate of rapid and mass consumption typical of feasting. Deer body parts with high meat values predominate. Young animals were consumed. Most of the observed cut marks on deer bones represent de fleshing. There is little evidence for rodents' gnawing the bones and no evidence of carnivore gnawing. The zooarchaeological data are corroborated by data on ceramic vessels and by physical signs of cooking at the site.

title: Evidence for the control of phytolith formation in Cucurbita fruits by the hard rind (Hr) genetic locus: Archaeological and ecological implications
abstract: Many angiosperms, both monocotyledons and dicotyledons, heavily impregnate their vegetative and reproductive organs with solid particles of silicon dioxide (SiO2) known as opaline phytoliths. The underlying mechanisms accounting for the formation of phytoliths in plants are poorly understood, however. Using wild and domesticated species in the genus Cucurbita along with their F1 and F2 progeny, we have demonstrated that the production of large diagnostic phytoliths in fruit rinds exhibits a one to one correspondence to the lignification of these structures. We propose that phytolith formation in Cucurbita fruits is primarily determined by a dominant genetic locus, called hard rind (Hr) previously shown to code for lignin deposition. If true, this evidence represents a demonstration of genetic control over phytolith production in a dicotyledon and provides considerable support to hypotheses that silica phytoliths constitute another important system of mechanical defense in plants. Our research also identifies Hr as another single locus controlling more than one important phenotypic difference between wild and domesticated plants, and establishes rind tissue cell structure and hardness under the effects of Hr as an important determinant of phytolith morphology. When recovered from pre Columbian archaeological sites, Cucurbita phytoliths represent genetically controlled fossil markers of exploitation and domestication in this important economic genus.

title: On the Use of 3D Electrical Resistivity Tomography to Detect Archaeological Features in La Compania de Jesus Convent, Panama Viejo Site
abstract: 3D electrical resistivity tomography has become an important tool in the evaluation of the archaeological value of Hispanic sites in the tropics. This methodology was applied inside the open space (cloister) of La Compania de Jesus convent, which is one of the most important ancient structures of the Panama Viejo Historic Monumental Complex. In this area, a set of apparent electrical resistivity values was measured along 22 parallel profiles 23.5 m long, separated 1.0 m. 3D inversion of these data resulted in a set of horizontal maps of calculated electrical resistivity values at different depths, showing important electrical anomalies associated with the stone column bases and the limits of the cloister.

title: Comparative Archaeology: The Camel's Nose?
abstract: A Review of The Comparative Archaeology of Complex Societies, edited by Michael E. Smith ( 2012)