Anthro 475
ANCIENT SOUTH AMERICA

Spring 2008 Syllabus Instructor: Dr. Karen Olsen Bruhns Science 385 Voice mail: 338-1435 E-mail: kbruhns@sfsu.edu Office hours: TuTh 3:30-4:30 PM and by appointment Required Texts: Silverman, Helaine, editor, 2004 Andean Archaeology. Blackwell Studies in Global Archaeology. Blackwell Publishing. Google Earth Please download Google Earth if you ave not already, and find western South America. In addition to the main text I have assigned a series of articles which may be downloaded from the Internet as well as a number of WWW sites. These readings are not optional; this is merely in the interests of economy. Many of these are on Mike Ruggeri’s Ancient Andes page. You should go to the on-line syllabus and bookmark this as its URL is enormous: In addition to the main text I have assigned a series of articles which may be downloaded from the Internet as well as a number of WWW sites. These readings are not optional; this is merely in the interests of economy. Your economy.. Many of these are on Mike Ruggeri’s Ancient Andes page. You should go to the on-line syllabus and bookmark this as its URL is enormous: Mike Ruggieri's page with links to most of the assigned sites . This course is an introduction to the history of the continent of South America from ca. 12,000 BC to ca. AD 1520. South America is still the least-known continent to most Americans, Europeans, Asians and Africans, a place which seldom graces the news programs and papers of the rest of the world except in contexts of horrible accidents, worse revolutions, or narcotics cartels. Before the 16th century AD, however, the continent was the scene of some 10,000 years of independent cultural development and the cultures and civilizations of South American were at least the equal of any produced in Eurasia or Africa. Because of modern history as well as ancient history this course will focus on cultural developments in the western third of the continent: the region of the Andean mountain chain with its adjacent coastal plains and mountainous eastern forests. Events here will be related to those in the rest of the continent when there is sufficient information to do so. Class work will consist of lectures, visuals (slides, films), assigned reading, and three exams: a map quiz (for which a map will be provided and for which practice maps are available in the on-line materials), a midterm, and a final examination. The latter two will be written in format (short answers, identifications, essays). You will need a bluebook and a pen for each exam. Outline of Lectures, by Topic 1. Introductory remarks: introduction to the world's least known continent. Discussion of nature of historic and archaeological record, beliefs about death and physical anthropology. Reading: Silverman, Chapter 1 (article by Silverman). Google Earth: cruise the Andean Pacific coast to get a good feeling for the highly distinctive Peruvian ecosystems. Handouts: Major River Valleys of Peru (keep this where you can quickly access it during class); a summary chronology of Western South America. 2. Chronology and Geography: how time is dealt with in a situation of only archaeological dating, chronological schemes. The physical setting: what South American did and did not offer to the first immigrants and their descendants (slide tour to accompany reading). Reading: Silverman, Chapter 1 (article by Silverman). Google Earth: cruise the Andean Pacific coast to get a good feeling for the highly distinctive Peruvian ecosystems. Handouts: Major River Valleys of Peru (keep this where you can quickly access it during class); a summary chronology of Western South America. Film: "Secrets of the Incas" (AV# 87152). Bridges are built, rock is cut, and a crazed newage from the Midwest attempts to show that the real Secret of the Incas was that they worked stone with the help of aluminum tea trays. 3. The First Peoples: the Paleoindian migrations to the South American continent, how they got there, what they came with, what was there for them? Problems of the Earliest Ever in Brazil and of Paleoindian studies in general. Reading: Silverman chapter 2 (article by Tom Dillehay). Google Earth: Take a look at the region of Quito, Ecuador, the north coast valleys, the Atacama Desert and its oases and adjacent very high mountains, and then cruise down to Puerto Montt and look at the region where the earliest Americans yet known lived. Handout: Summary of Paleoindian sites. 4. Settling Down: The Archaic and Preceramic, nature of early economies, the first agriculture, the general dislike of human ingenuity by art historians and European-trained archaeologists as an unfortunately potent force in popular hypotheses. The Chinchorro, elaborate funerary rituals in an Archaic setting. Reading: A> HREF="http://www.hallofmaat.com/modules.php?name=Articles&file=article&sid=85 " Michael E. Moseley “The Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization: An Evolving Hypothesis”. /A> An interview with Bernard Arriaza, the Chilean scholar working on Chinchorro is at and another discussion of the Chinchorro phenomenon Films: “ “Mummies of Chile”, “The Road of the Souls” (an Aymara made film concerning the theft of their ancestors by a San Francisco art dealer). Handouts: Some important cultivated plants and domestic animals of South America, recipe for chicha. 5. Preceramic civilizations and what do ceramics have to do with it all anyway? The beginnings of complex societies in the Andes: Huaca Prieta and El Paraíso, Caral. and the Norte Chico. Even earlier ceramic traditions in Colombia; the Jomon hypothesis once more debunked, the unlikelihood of the veracity of Brazilian claims to 7th millennium BC; ceramics. Ceramic technologies. Reading: : Silverman Two readings on Caral and the giant mess that occurs when archaeologists get into a big fight. Caral: The Cradle of American Civilization Showdown at the OK Caral A great site concerning the mummy of an ancient Peruvian weaver now at Cornell University. Film “Peruvian Weaving: A Continuous Warp for 5000 Years” AV #82401 6. The first Andean civilizations Tthe Kotosh Religious Tradition, Cerro Sechín and the beginning of institutionalized warfare, Chavín and its origin, Paracas, burial sites and polychromy. Reading: Silverman chapters 4 and 5 (articles by Rodrigues Kemble and John Fritz, .DiLeonardis and Lau.; Google Earth: Now is your time to cruise the Callejón de Huaylas and the Callejón de los Conchucos, where Chavín de Huántar lies. Check out Kotosh on the upper Huallaga River. This is John Rowe’s classic paper on Chavín art. Read it to understand the conventions of this style and to recognize some of its major monuments. You do not have to know the architectural sequence (work done this year has modified this sequence considerably) Stanford archaeologists find a cache of shell trumpets of the sort still used in Peru A virtual tour of the Chavín de Huántar Ignore the "questions for discussion") A nice site with lots of pictures of Paracas pots and textiles. Get a good look at this really spectacular style of art Handouts: Summary of sites of the Peruvian Initial Period and Early Horizon and the North Andean Formative, Paracas Cavernas and Necropolis burials . 7. The all star cultures of the central Andes: Moche, Nazca, and their neighbors. Moche culture and iconography; Nazca art and ritual. Reading : Silverman chapter 6 and 7, articles by Bawden and Boytner; Google Earth: take a good look at Moche from above and then cruise one of the rivers of the río Grande de Nazca system to see the enormous amount of looting that had taken place. Donnan and McClelland’s delineation of the Burial Theme. A very important paper; read it carefully. This is a nice set of pictures of Moche and of the murals on the Huaca de la Luna. The captions are a bit silly, but OK. The same guy on the Sipan Museum. Lots of gold! Handouts: The Sacrifice or Presentation Scene in Moche art; Plants in Nazca pottery. Film: “Discovering the Moche” AV #82267 8. The first military empires: Pucara, Tiahuanaco and Huari. Reading: Silverman chapter 8 (article by Cook), 9 (article by Isbell and Vranich) and 10 (article by Janusek); Google Earth: please roar up the Andes chain to the Altiplano and take a look at Pucara (north end of the lake) and Tiahuanaco (south end). Then do a brush up of northern Chile, the Atacama Desert and the mountains between it and the Altiplano; now go and take a look at Pachacamac, just to the south of Lima. Pukara: the other kingdom in the Altiplano Antonio Rafael de la Cova again, nice pictures of Tiahuanaco and Huari style stuff. /A> I usually avoid museum pages like the plague, but this one has a nice, succinct, discussion of Tiahuanaco Izumi Shimada’s Pachacamac project. Please read the sections “Settings”, “Objectives”, and “Photos and Maps” Dr. Patricia Knobloch on Huari and its art style. Good chronology too. Handout: The Middle Horizon in Peru and Bolivia (and a bit of Ecuador) Optional: A site with great pictures is run by Helsinki University. The archaeologists just found an amazing Tiahuanaco offering on Pariti Island in Lake Titicaca. It' worth a visit for the painted chullpas and fancy pots. And finally, a very interesting site on high tech mapping and the historic period Ychsma culture at Pachacamac has been put up by the Belgian-Peruvian team involved. 9. Kingdoms, Chiefdoms, and Empires: Sicán, Chimor and the Manteño, the Spondylus trade and the romance of the raft, the rise of the Inca. Reading: Silverman Chapters 11( article by Conlee et al), 12 (article by Hiltunen and McEwan), and 13 (article by D’Altroy and Schreiber). Google Earth: back up to Moche to take a look at Chan Chan, to Lambayeque to look at Sicán and then look at the coast of Ecuador, especially the area around the Gulf of Guayaquil, Isla Puná and north to Isla de la Plata. Then take a look at Cuzco, the Inca capital, the area around Cuenca, Ecuador , where their northern capital was, and then at Quito...the Fortress of Rumicucho is just north of Quito, about half a mile north of the Equator. The huge line of fortresses that the Inca took over in their push north is very visible. Izumi Shimada talks briefly about the unlooted tomb at Sicán. and then he finds the first fancy tumi knife ever encountered by an archaeologist . Adriana von Hagen discusses the Chachapoya in an interesting article./A> Eew, gross. A mass sacrifice.< /A> Some Chimú artifact pictures This is a series of Inca sites with pictures and brief discussions (Ruggeri’s page has lots and lots of site pages, but many of them are from tour companies or government tourist agencies and are not written by professionals and hence are a bit off): Tambo Machay Pisac And everyone’s favorite Inca site: Machu Picchu Handouts: Dynastic lists for Chimor and Lambayeque, Map of downtown Chanchan., Selected Inca words, the Sapa Incas, their Coyas and their works. Film: “Frozen in Heaven” AV #89039 The Harvard quipu (khipu) project: The site for the on-line edition of Guaman Poma de Ayala’s illustrated book on the Incas. That’s where all those cool drawings come from. 10. The future of the continent: is there one? Here is a list of the legislation prohibiting the trade in Latin American antiquities. FYI Dates to Remember The map quiz will be held on February 5, 2008. A map will be provided . The midterm is scheduled for Tuesday, March18, 2008 during class meeting. The final examination will be held on Thursday, May 22, 2005, 10:45-1:15. You will need a bluebook for each exam. Other Useful Dates The last day to add a class is February 8. The last day to drop a class is February 20. The last day to opt for the CR/NCR option is March 19 Spring recess is March 24-28 The last day of instruction is May 15. Please, if you have a problem and are going to have to reschedule a test; inform me in advance. A grade of I cannot be given as the instructor is leaving SFSU at the end of the semester and heading south. She will not be back. This means you must finish the course this semester because the chances of its being offered again in the near future are non-existent. Back