116 research outputs found
Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Early Human Settlement of the High-Altitude Pucuncho Basin, Southern Peruvian Andes
No full textUnder the direction of Dr. Daniel Sandweiss, Mr. Kurt Rademaker will collect data for his doctoral dissertation research. His project focuses on determining the timing of early human occupation in the Andes Mountains. Human settlement of Earth\u27s high-altitude mountains and plateaus is among the most recent of our species\u27 bio-geographic expansions. Current anthropological models emphasize the physiographic and biological challenges inherent to these extreme environments to explain a lack of pre-11,000 year-old archaeological evidence above 3500 m elevation in the Andes and on the high Tibetan Plateau. However few archaeological studies targeting hunter-gatherer sites have been conducted in these areas.This interdisciplinary project\u27s primary objectives are to better understand the timing, environmental setting, and adaptations involved in human settlement of the high Andes of southern Peru. Rademaker\u27s investigations so far have led to the discovery of early archaeological sites in the Pucuncho Basin, a wetland oasis ringed by glaciated volcanoes and situated at ~4500 m (~14,760 ft) elevation. One of these sites, Cuncaicha rockshelter, has yielded preliminary radiocarbon dates that indicate an initial settlement of this high-altitude area between 12,400 and 11,800 years ago. These dates establish Cuncaicha as one of the oldest known directly-dated archaeological sites in the Andes Mountains and the highest ice-age site yet discovered anywhere in the world.The final laboratory phase of this dissertation project, to be funded by NSF, will significantly strengthen the preliminary chronological data from Cuncaicha shelter and provide information on the development of local habitats important to Andean animals and people for successful colonization of high-altitude zones. Rademaker will obtain additional radiocarbon dates for the Cuncaicha rockshelter site and the nearby Rio Blanco geologic section. These archaeological and paleoecologic data will be directly comparable with local glacial geologic records, and these comparisons will shed light on links between late ice-age climatic change, the formation of Andean habitats, and early human settlement of extreme high-altitude environments. This project will have several broad impacts. By conducting pretreatment of samples at the University of Arizona accelerator mass spectrometry lab, Rademaker will receive valuable training in archaeological scientific methodology. Completion of this dissertation project will yield numerous peer-reviewed journal publications and ultimately lead to publication of an edited volume for a more general audience. The project team has given, and will continue to give, guest lectures at Peruvian and North American universities, in addition to presenting scientific results at professional meetings at home and abroad. Since 2005 this project has provided limited temporary economic benefits to some local inhabitants of the Pucuncho Basin who have assisted in surveys and excavation and provided related support for the project team. The team has brought medicine, vitamins, and educational materials for the school children in Pucuncho\u27s three villages and worked to instill a conservation ethic about archaeological remains in the region. Continued scientific work in the Pucuncho area, which will build upon this Ph.D. dissertation project, will undoubtedly reinforce this ethic and yield additional valuable information on climatic change, ecology, and human prehistory
Archaeolinguistics of the languages of the Andes
No full textThis chapter discusses aspects of the prehistoric language dynamics of the Andes of South America. Featuring more than one hundred languages that belong to more than thirty distinct lineages, including a high number of isolates, the linguistic landscape of the Andes is fractal and complex, and diversity was likely even higher in pre-Columbian times. Our approach departs from observations on the language geography of the Andes on the regional level. We believe that patterns at this scale reflect qualitatively similar linguistic and demographic processes which also had occurred earlier in prehistory, often repeatedly. The language geography and language dynamics of the Andes articulate with research in archaeology and molecular anthropology that in many cases attest to similar processes, allowing us to conceive of the interface between linguistics, archaeology, and molecular anthropology in new ways beyond language expansion and its non-linguistic correlates
Retrodeformation techniques and 3D morphometric analysis of an early holocene South American skull (Cuncaicha, Peru)
No full textAs a consequence of the taphonomic history, many fossils and relevant specimens present missing parts and post-depositional alterations. For that reason, in spite of the great effort invested in their recovery and preservation during the archaeological excavations, they are left out from the morphometric analysis. Therefore, they cannot be used for discussing human variability and evolutionary processes. This is especially the case for South America, where the early Holocene specimens are scarce, and some of them are incomplete and/or present some changes as a result of post-depositional alterations. We present here the first virtual reconstruction of an early Holocene South American skull that was recovered from the excavations at Cuncaicha rock shelter in the south of Peru (9240-8770 calibrated years BP) [1]. The skull is composed of 20 fragments that were scanned in the Paleoanthropology Department at the University of Tübingen. A virtual anatomical reconstruction was conducted by using Avizo and including skull
reference models from the Andes. As the cranial vault presents a strong alteration resulting in a lateral distortion that affects the whole vault shape, retrodeformation techniques were applied for modeling post-depositional changes [2]. In spite of the large degree of completeness of the skull (approx. 80%), there are some missing parts that were estimated by mirroring them from the opposite preserved side of the skull. This allowed conducting 3D morphometric analysis from the whole skull by comparing it with other early and late Holocene specimens from South America (N=500), by taking into account the symmetric component only. Shape changes were studied by running between-groups Principal Component Analysis. The results are discussed together with a previous 2D morphometric study of the facial variation that allowed establishing associations with specimens from Lagoa Santa in Brazil, supporting previous claims of morphological similarities among the early settlers of the continent [3]. Such craniofacial patterns were interpreted as the retention of some ancestral features among some of the early South American populations
Hinders for Eco-friendly Media Selection
No full textThis study shows that, despite organizations claiming to care for the green environment through documented environmental policies, marketing communication such as advertising media selection does not seem to be much guided by green environmental concerns. Problems with consistency and control thus seem to exist between companies’ ideas/decisions (documented environmental policies) and their actions (advertising media selection), causing the need for justification and/or hypocrisy. This study adds to prior research on the non-use of models in practice by showing that the non-use of models also exists among marketing managers when selecting advertising media for marketing communication purposes. It was found that 64 percent of the marketing managers do not make use of media selection models. In the attempt to investigate differences in the factors guiding media selection between marketing managers who use media selection models (users) and those who do not use any model (non-users), it was found that the users take a medium’s eco-friendly characteristics less into consideration than the non-users. The paper discusses that the use of models can be viewed as attempts for making more rational decisions. The findings thus suggest that rational decision-making (users) may hinder eco-friendly media selection while non-rationality (non-users) may develop more powerful organizational ideologies such as acting responsibly towards the green environment. However, this study points out a link between the use of media selection models, previous experience and rules of thumb, i.e. the users tend to make more use of previous experience and rules of thumb than the non-users. Thus, the author argues that a new approach to model use may be needed and that the media selection should not be too much influenced by the marketing managers’ previous experience and rules of thumb. Otherwise, new factors may be overlooked such as consumers’ increasing concern for the green environment in relation to consumer advertising media attitudes. Previous studies have found that current approaches to marketing planning pay too little attention to the impact of technological advances on changes in consumer media habits. Thereby the risk may exist for focusing on mainly conventional media and not selecting “new media”. The present study seems to contradict these previous findings by showing that the selection of “new media” such as media using the Internet was found among the most selected advertising media by both the users and non-users for the two communication objectives studied, i.e. brand-building and to increase sales. Thus, the results indicate that while the marketing managers adapt their media selection to changes in technological media advances they tend to overlook consumers’ increasing concern for the green environment and the environmental aspect of advertising media. The results also show differences among the marketing managers in their selection of advertising media. At the same time as the non-users tend to be more precise with the recycling of paper, they are more inclined to select paper-based media such as catalogues and brochures than the users. The users on the other hand, tend to select more electronic media such as TV, radio and cinema than the non-users. In the attempt to explain the factors guiding media selection and in particular to what extent the environmental aspect of advertising media is considered, green environmental responsibility attitudes (GERA) of the users and non-users are assessed.Media Selection; Advertising; Green Environment; Marketing Managers; Models; Green Environmental Responsibility Attitude (GERA); Rationality; Non-rationality
Magnesium uit zeewater door electrolyse van gesmolten MgCL2
No full textDocument(en) uit de collectie Chemische Procestechnologie Deel I zie: Rademaker, R., Chemical Process Design 1085DelftChemTechApplied Science
Early Human Settlement of the High-Altitude Pucuncho Basin, Peruvian Andes
No full textThis interdisciplinary thesis presents results from field and laboratory investigations of archaeological sites in a ~150-km coast-highland corridor in southern Peru, aimed at better understanding the Terminal Pleistocene biogeographic expansion of humans into the high-altitude Andes and possible early coast-highland links. I integrated a number of approaches to understand late-glacial landscapes and to locate early hunter- gatherer archaeological sites, including creation of a digital database of archaeological radiocarbon data, geochemical characterization of the Alca obsidian source, quantitative geographic information systems (GIS) predictive modeling, region-level archaeological survey, geophysical surveys, test excavations, and systematic surface collections, and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating of the Cuncaicha rockshelter (4488 m elevation), the highest Pleistocene archaeological site yet discovered in the world. This interdisciplinary work in the high Peruvian Andes has yielded evidence that despite colder temperatures, more extensive glaciers, and low-oxygen conditions, successful human colonization of high-altitude environments began ~12,400-12,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age
Geoarchaeological Investigations of the Waynuna Site and the Alca Obsidian Source, Peru
No full textThis M.S. thesis presents results from field and laboratory investigations of the Alca highland obsidian (volcanic glass) source and Wayñuna, a Preceramic highland archaeological site previously identified close to a geological deposit of Alca obsidian in southern Peru\u27s Cotahuasi Valley. Obsidian artifacts found within Terminal Pleistocene (13,000-11,200) strata at coastal site Quebrada Jaguay (QJ-280) were sourced to the Alca deposit in the Cotahuasi Valley some 155 km distant, suggesting contact between specific coastal and highland locales during the period of earliest settlement of South America. This Quebrada Jaguay-Alca connection suggested that additional, analogous Paleoindian sites should be located near Alca obsidian source deposits. Excavations at Waynuna revealed an intact Terminal Preceramic (ca. 4,000-3,600 cal yr B.P.) occupation, so Wayñuna does not constitute an analogous site to Quebrada Jaguay. This work at Wayñuna, however, offers the first excavated data of a Preceramic settlement in the Cotahuasi Valley, and the analysis of Wayñuna\u27s lithic assemblage reported in this thesis constitutes the first in-depth study of highland Preceramic lithic technology for this region. The Wayñuna assemblage obtained from a limited investigation of a domestic house context is indicative of a systematic and carefull
Coalescence and animal use : examining community building at the multi-ethnic Morton Village site
No full textAcross human history, groups of people have come together, found commonalities, and negotiated their differences in order to form new communities; a process known as coalescence. Until recently, archaeologists have primarily studied this social phenomenon by looking at the large-scale changes that occur, including settlement aggregation and demography. New research has begun to focus on smaller scales of analysis, including aspects of daily life and the role of common behaviors in bringing people together. One such aspect of daily life is food. While previous research has recognized that changes in subsistence systems, such as a need to intensify the production of food to feed larger numbers of people, are commonly part of the coalescence process, little has been done to understand how these changes would affect a community or how a socially charged medium, such as food, may have contributed to ongoing coalescence. In this dissertation, I examine how animal use intersects with the broader process of coalescence through a multidimensional analysis of faunal remains from Morton Village, a site of on-going coalescence in the central Illinois River valley. Specifically, three aspects of animal use during the coalescence process were examined: 1) studying the overall diet as it intersects with the negotiation of everyday life, 2) animal access strategies including foodsharing practices, and 3) the use of animals and animal symbolism in ritual activities as a part of the long-term process of coalescence. These analyses found that the occupants of Morton Village used a diverse range of animal species, avian symbolism, and foodsharing/distribution practices within a variety of social interactions and practices. From this data, I argue that the use of animals played an important role in the coalescence process at Morton Village by assisting in building social relationships that were critical to community formation and maintenance during the coalescence process. This study demonstrates that the study of animal use is a fruitful avenue of research that can reveal several mechanisms for how social relationships are formed and community building processes occurred during coalescence.Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Anthropology, 2022Includes bibliographical reference
Produktie van allylalkohol uit propeen en zuurstof, via allylacetaat
No full textDocument uit de collectie Chemische ProcestechnologieDelftChemTechApplied Science
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