Browsing by Author "Sepulveda, Marcela"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Camelids from hunter-gatherer contexts of the Dry Puna in the Atacama Desert (Northern Chile): towards understanding human-animal interactions over time
    (2022) Castillo, Camila; Sepulveda, Marcela; Gayo, Eugenia M.; Dufour, Elise; Goepfert, Nicolas; Osorio, Daniela
    The Dry Puna in extreme northern Chile lies between the Andean region's two main camelid domestication centers, a location that makes it particularly important to the study of human-animal relationships. This article presents a first synthesis of the archeozoological analysis of fourteen hunter-gatherer sites in the Andean foothills near Arica (Chile), the preliminary results of stable isotope analyses from two locations, and 35 associated radiocarbon dates. Researchers contrasted this data with other regional studies of lithic materials and rock art paintings. In synthesis, the article recognizes changes in consumption throughout Archean up to the Formative Period. It identifies the use of animals from the same area or with the same foraging pattern in the Puna and explores a "conservative" mobility pattern within the highlands. Finally, the changes in human-camelid interactions portrayed in rock art complement the vision drawn from bone fragment analysis, reflecting the importance of integrating different material and visual registers into discussions of these issues.
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    Independent component analysis (ICA): A statistical approach to the analysis of superimposed rock paintings
    (2021) Cerrillo-Cuenca, Enrique; Sepulveda, Marcela; Guerrero-Bueno, Zaray
    Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is a statistical technique for decomposing information from datasets into maximally independent components. ICA allows the researcher to recover two or more independent signals that appear mixed within the same dataset. This paper shows ICA to be an extremely effective method for separating different colours found in rock paintings into discrete images or components. The comparison between the results of ICA and PCA (Principal Component Analysis) shows that ICA accurately separates panels with more than one type of colour, while PCA achieves a lower degree of separation. This study also shows that in scenes with monochrome depictions, ICA tends to be slightly more effective in separating the pigments from the rock. The ICA method has been applied successfully to several rock art panels from Northern Chile, where the use of diverse types of mineral pigments is common. Two analyses conducted at the Pampa El Muerto 11 site in the Northern Chilean highlands reveal how ICA can contribute to a more compelling interpretation of more intricate panels. The comparison between the results of ICA and PCA (Principal Components Analysis) shows that ICA correctly separates panels with more than one type of pigment, while PCA achieves a lower degree of separation. This study also shows that in scenes with monochrome depictions, ICA tends to be slightly more effective in separating the pigments from the rock. ICA algorithm has been successfully in several rock panels from Northern Chile, where the use of diverse types of mineral pigments is usual. Two panels from the Pampa El Muerto site have been analysed with the technique mentioned above, informing that its application can collaborate on a more compelling interpretation of intricate panels.
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    Making visible the invisible. A microarchaeology approach and an Archaeology of Color perspective for rock art paintings from the southern cone of South America
    (PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD, 2021) Sepulveda, Marcela
    From the literature research review of studies that involved the physicochemical characterization of rock art paintings in Argentina and Chile, we evaluate the impact of this analytic approach in our understanding of these visual and material practices in the southern region of South America. We identify the techniques, protocols and sample preparation, the information obtained, and archaeological questions addressed with these analyses. Consequently, we propose the need for a microarchaeological approach. We stress the materiality and particularities of the rock art practice, as an action performed over continuously altered walls, which forms complex microstratigraphies. Moreover, we highlight the benefits of obtaining comparable results with the use of paintings on different supports and contexts to hold an Archaeology of Color that allows studying not only the meaning, but also understand the exploitation, production, and consumption of color, being the painted rock art one form of the final stage of a complex sequence related to color materials.
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    Polychromy in the Atacama Desert during the Late Intermediate Period (1000-1450 AD): pigments characterization by XRF and VNIR hyperspectral images
    (2023) Sepulveda, Marcela; Ballester, Benjamin; Cabello, Gloria; Gutierrez, Sebastian; Walter, Philippe
    The prehistory of the Atacama Desert in northern Chile has been constructed around certain traditional classes of objects, such as ceramics and lithics, following the Old World and North American standards. As such, color has been relegated to an invisible status, despite its essential visible qualities and color's importance in the region's social, symbolic, economic, and political processes. This article focuses on color and polychromy by studying objects from different funerary sites associated with the end of the regional pre-Columbian chronological sequence (ca. 1000-1500 AD). We present descriptions of the iconography and the symmetry of the motifs of these objects, and the first physicochemical characterization of the mineral paintings obtained using X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and hyperspectral imaging. With four new radiocarbon dates, we establish their chronology, associated in two cases with isotope measurements to evaluate the origin of the leather used. The research reveals a dual and simultaneous practice: while painted motifs demonstrated a visible interregional flow of information, paintings' chemical analysis testifies to a pigment production probably associated with the local exploitation of mineral coloring matter. In contrasting visual and material productions, we explore mineral pigments' social value and role during the late Atacama pre-Columbian period. Using an interdisciplinary approach regarding the materiality of color, we subsequently evaluate the social implications of mineral polychromy in this south-central Andean region.
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    Taguatagua 3: A new late Pleistocene settlement in a highly suitable lacustrine habitat in central Chile (34°S)
    (2024) Labarca, Rafael; Frugone-Alvarez, Matias; Vilches, Liz; Blanco, Jose Francisco; Penaloza, Angela; Godoy-Aguirre, Carolina; Lizama-Catalan, Alvaro; Oyarzo, Cristobal; Tornero, Carlos; Gonzalez-Guarda, Erwin; Delgado, Ayelen; Sepulveda, Marcela; Soto-Huenchuman, Paula
    We present the results of the excavations and analyses of the diverse and exceptional archaeological assemblage of Taguatagua 3, a new late Pleistocene site located in the ancient Tagua Tagua lake in Central Chile (34 degrees S). The anthropogenic context is constrained in a coherently dated stratigraphic deposit which adds new information about the mobility, subsistence strategies, and settlement of the early hunter-gatherers of southern South America. The age model constructed, as well as radiocarbon dates obtained directly from a combustion structure, indicate that the human occupation occurred over a brief time span around 12,440-12,550 cal yr BP. Considering taphonomic, geoarchaeological, lithic, archaeobotanical, and zooarchaeological evidence, as well as the spatial distribution combined with ethnographic data, we interpret Taguatagua 3 as a logistic and temporary camp associated mainly with gomphothere hunting and butchering. Nevertheless, several other activities were carried out here as well, such as hide and/or bone preparation, small vertebrate and plant processing and consumption, and red ochre grinding. Botanical and eggshell remains suggest that the anthropic occupation occurred during the dry season. Considering the contemporaneous sites recorded in the basin, we conclude that the ancient Tagua Tagua lake was a key location along the region's early hunter-gatherer mobility circuits. In this context, it acted as a recurrent hunting/scavenging place during the Late Pleistocene due to its abundant, diverse, and predictable resources.
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    Vivir en la costa: El sitio Cueva La Capilla 1 en el contexto de transición Arcaico-Formativo en el extremo norte de Chile
    (Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Catholic University of Temuco, 2023) Calas, Elisa; Sepulveda, Marcela; Silva-Pinto, Verónica; Alday, Camila; Garcia, Magdalena; Labarca Encina, Rafael Osvaldo; Valenzuela, Jimena; Osorio, Daniela; Valenzuela, Daniela
    El sitio Cueva La Capilla 1 es un contexto clave para entender los procesos de cambio social que vivieron las comunidades cazadoras, recolectoras y pescadoras costeras hacia fines del período Arcaico en la costa exorreica del extremo norte de Chile, Desierto de Atacama. Presentamos el análisis de múltiples evidencias provenientes de excavaciones realizadas a principios de la década 2010 asociadas justamente al lapso temporal de la transición Arcaico-Formativo. A partir de la presencia de materiales relacionados con distintos ámbitos de la vida social de estos grupos, como son la alimentación, tecnología y funebria, discutimos el tipo de actividades desarrolladas en su interior. El origen de los recursos asociados a cada ámbito permite profundizar aspectos vinculados con la movilidad de sus ocupantes e interacción con otras comunidades. En síntesis, con toda la nueva información disponible, incluyendo nuevas dataciones, ampliamos el conjunto de actividades identificadas previamente en el sitio, junto con ahondar en la relevancia de la costa y litoral para las poblaciones locales en el lapso conocido como de transición del Arcaico al Formativo en cuanto a su movilidad y/o redes de interacción con otras poblaciones asentadas en ambientes interiores de la región.
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    Yendegaia Rockshelter, the First Rock Art Site on Tierra del Fuego Island and Social Interaction in Southern Patagonia (South America)
    (2023) Gallardo, Francisco; Cabello, Gloria; Sepulveda, Marcela; Ballester, Benjamin; Fiore, Danae; Prieto, Alfredo
    Through our research at Bahia Yendegaia on the Beagle Channel in southernmost Patagonia-the ancestral territory of the Yagan people-we discovered the first rock art site on Tierra del Fuego Island. The geometric visual images found at Yendegaia Rockshelter present motifs and compositions analogous to those recorded at other sites on the southern archipelago associated with the marine hunter-gatherer tradition. They also show graphic similarities to the rock art paintings attributed to terrestrial hunter-gatherer populations from the Pali Aike volcanic field, located on the north side of the Strait of Magellan in mainland Patagonia. Both, however, display quantitative differences, which suggest that they emerged from different visual traditions but from the same field of graphic solutions. Navigational technology enabled the canoe-faring Fuegian people to have long-distance mobility and to maintain a flow of social information mediated via visual imagery expressed in material forms, such as rock art and expressions of portable art. Ethnohistoric reports suggest a cooperative social interaction more than a competitive one. This cooperative social dynamic would have been necessary for the survival of marine societies in the harsh environmental conditions characteristic of the southern part of south Patagonia.