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Jiskaiurmoko is an archaeological site located 54 kilometers (33 miles) south east of Puno, Peru. The site lies at an elevation of 4,115 meters (13,500 feet), in the Aymara community of Jachacachi, adjacent to the Rio Ilave drainage, of the Lake Titicaca Basin, Perú. Occupation of Jiskairumoko spans from the Late Archaic to the Formative.

Contents 1 History of Research 2 Major Results 2.1 Architectural Transitions 2.2 Ritual Preparation Embedded in Domestic Spaces 2.3 Development of Regular Trade Routes 3 Related topics 4 Notes 5 References

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The site's name is a combination of three Aymara words jiska meaning small, iru referring to a type of bunch grass, and moko signifying a small hill. Thus, Jiskairumoko means a small hill with bunch grass. The site was first formally recorded by Mark Aldenderfer in 1995 during a pedestrian survey of the Rio Ilave. The first excavations at the site were conduced in 1995^[1]. Jiskairumoko is the first Archaic open air site excavated in the Lake Titicaca Basin. Under the direction of Aldenderfer, a team from University of California, Santa Barbara including Nathan Craig and Nicholas Tripcevich conducted additional excavations at the site during the Austral winters of 1999-2004. In-field geographic information system (GIS) methods were used in recording exposed surfaces ^[2][3][4]. The site was was plowed by tractor in 2005.

Jiskairumoko plays a significant role in understanding the pre-Columbian history of Andean Peru for several reasons. These include evidence for: architectural transitions, ritual preparation embedded in domestic use areas, and the formation of regular trade routes.

Domestic architecture exposed during excavation currently represents the earliest evidence of reduced residential mobility in the region. Three pithouses and two above ground structures were exposed during excavation. Twenty-five radiocarbon dates show that pithouses occurred early (ca. 3200 cal BC) and above ground prepared floor structures occurred later (ca. 1400 cal BC)^[5]. This change in residential structures is another example of a classic architectural transition observed in many parts of the world^[6][7].

In the sense used by Émile Durkheim, the Late and Terminal Archaic residents of Jiskairumoko exhibited a simple cultural pattern. By this, anthropologists do not mean the residents themselves were simple. Instead, the term indicates that the various components of culture (economic practices, political structures, spiritual practice, etc) were embedded rather than more strongly differentiated. At Jiskairumoko, the earliest pithouse, radiocarbon dated to ca. 3200 cal BC, appears to have served as a place of ritual preparation. Evidence for this comes in the form of thermal processing of ochre for use as a mineral pigment. At Jiskairumoko, these same ochre pigments were found sprinkled at the base of graves found outside some of the other pithouses. While rituals appear to have taken place within the site's oldest pithouse, regular domestic activities were also performed in this dwelling. Therefore, ritual and domestic activities were embedded spatially within the same architecture. During later periods of time in Andean Pre-Columbian history cultures became much more complex, and often ritual architecture is separated from domestic structures.

Sixty eight obsidian tools were recovered from excavations at Jiskairumoko. Elemental characterization of these tools was performed by X-ray fluorescence (XRF), at the Berkeley XRF laboratory ^[8] under the direction of Steven Shackley and by portable XRF by Jeff Speakman and Rachel Popelka-Filcoff from the Archaeometry Laboratory at the University of Missouri Research Reactor MURR ^[9]. This research constitutes the largest sourcing program of Andean Archaic Period obsidian. Results revealed that all but two of the artifacts could be assigned to the Chivay obsidian source. The other two artifacts were assigned to the Alca obsidian source. Both sources are located in the Arequipa Region. The Chivay obsidian source is located in the Colca Canyon, and the Alca obsidian source is located in the Cotahuasi Valley.

• Excavation
• GIS in archaeology

1. ^ Aldenderfer and de la Vega (1996)
2. ^ Craig (2000)
3. ^ Craig and Aldenderfer (2003)
4. ^ Craig (2002)
5. ^ Craig (2005)
6. ^ Flannery (1972)
7. ^ Flannery (2002)
8. ^ Shackley et al. (2004)
9. ^ Craig et al. in press

• Aldenderfer, Mark & Edmundo de la Vega (1996), Informe Preliminar: Excavaciones Arqueológicas a Tres Sitios Arcaicos de la Cuenca del Río Ilave, Sub-región de Puno, Región "Jose Carlos Mariategui", Puno: Report submitted to Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Lima, Peru
• Craig, Nathan (2005), The Formation of Early Settled Villages and the Emergence of Leadership: A Test of Three Theoretical Models in the Rio Ilave, Lake Titicaca Basin, Southern Peru, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California Santa Barbara
• Craig, Nathan (2002), "Recording Large-Scale Archaeological Excavations with GIS: Jiskairumoko--Near Peru's Lake Titicaca", ESRI ArcNews Spring
• Craig, Nathan (2000), "Real Time GIS Construction and Digital Data Recording of the Jiskairumoko, Excavation Perú", Society for American Archaeology Buletin 18(1)
• Craig, Nathan & Mark Adenderfer (2003), "Preliminary Stages in the Development of a Real-Time Digital Data Recording System for Archaeological Excavation Using ArcView GIS 3.1", Journal of GIS in Archaeology 1: 1-22
• Craig, N.; J. Speakman & R. Popelka-Filcoff et al. (in press), "Comparison of XRF and PXRF for analysis of archaeological obsidian from southern Perú", Journal of Archaeological Science
• Flannery, Kent (2002), "The Origins of the Village Revisited: From Nuclear to Extended Households", American Antiquity 67(3): 417-434
• Flannery, Kent (1972), "The Origins of the Village as the Settlement Type in Meso America and the Near East", Man, Settlement, and Urbanism, London: Duckworth
• Shackley, S.; E. Eklund & C. Ogasawara (2004), Source Provenance of Obsidian Artifacts Jiskairumoko (189), Peru, Berkeley: University of California Berkeley Archaeological XRF Laboratory

--Nathancraig 02:17, 6 February 2007 (UTC)