Recent fieldwork concerning the late Preceramic/late Archaic period on the PeruvianNorth-Central Ccoast has revealed the existence of large architectural complexes, which scholars interpret as indicative of social complexity. This article is especially concerned with architectural design as an effective means to define social and political organization at Cerro Lampay. It concludes that there was not a highly formalized hierarchy but that power positions within the community could have been negotiated through ritual practices that included the dual organization of participants. It is highly probable that the residents of the North Central Coast were in constant and intense interaction during the late Archaic, which may have resulted in displays of competitive emulationin ritual settings.

The cultural transformations associated with the Formative period are pivotal for understanding the prehistory of the Americas. Over the last five decades, investigations in southwestern Ecuador have provided an early and robust set of archaeological data relating to Archaic-to-Formative transformations as exemplified by the Las Vegas, Valdivia, Machalilla, and Chorrera archaeological traditions. However, recent archaeological research in adjacent zones of the equatorial Andes indicates that the transformations in southwestern Ecuador were paralleled by coeval but distinct developments. Recent (2006–2007) excavations in the Department of Tumbes, Peru, have documented previously unknown Formative transformations, including the development of substantial domestic architecture during the Archaic (ca. 4700–4330 B.C.E.) and early Formative (ca. 3500–3100 B.C.E.), the shift from elliptical pole-and-thatch dwellings to rectangular wattle-and-daub structures at ca. 900–500 B.C.E., and the construction of public architecture and the establishment of a two-tiered settlement system by ca. 1000–800 B.C.E. These recently discovered archaeological patterns from Tumbes and additional data from southern Ecuador provide the basis for revised comparative perspectives in which southwestern Ecuador is a significant—but no longer the only—vantage point for understanding the evolution of Formative societies in the equatorial Andes.

Recent investigations at mountaintop sites around the Ayacucho Basin in the central Andes have identified a distinctive category of isolated Inca stone-faced platforms. Test excavations of the three-tiered platform at one site, Incapirqa/Waminan, revealed a narrow vertical shaft penetrating from the original surface through the fills to a small basin cut into the underlying andesite bedrock. A carefully arranged deposit of three unusual stones was found in this basin. Early Spanish chroniclers give firsthand accounts of a variety of Inca solar rituals observed in Cuzco in which revered objects were deployed, including some sculpted in stone. The detailed descriptions of these stone objects are corroborated by the excavated finds at Incapirqa/Waminan and offer suggestive analogies for interpreting their context and significance.

Sambaquís (concheros o shell mounds) son construcciones antrópicas que aperecen en la costa brasileña hace aproximada mente 8000 años erguidas a partir de la acumulación formal de valvas de moluscos. En el Estado de Santa Catarina, algunos sitios tienen la particularidad de presentar un depósito ictiológico superior con características estratigráficas y composicionales semejantes al depósito malacológico (conchero) subyacente. La aparición del depósito superior fue tradicionalmente asociada a cambios en la subsistencia de estos grupos, con el reemplazo del consumo de moluscos por peces. Sin embargo, análisis faunísticos indicaron que la pesca siempre fue una actividad de subsistencia predominante. Nuevas interpretaciones del fenómeno sugirieron que la substitución de valvas de molusco por huesos de pescado responde a alteraciones tardías en la funcionalidad de los sitios. En este trabajo, la micromorfología de depósitos arqueológicos fue aplicada como herramienta principal de análisis para descifrar la formación del sitio Jabuticabeira II. A partir de la combinación de estudios geoarqueológicos, microestratigráficos y arqueofaunísticos realizados en ambos depósitos, proponemos un modelo para la formación de este sambaquí como resultado de sucesivos procesos de depositación antrópicos asociados a actividades rituales. Estos procesos envolvieron la quema de materiales, acumulación y re-depositación como diferentes etapas en el ritual funerario del grupo constructor. El origen de los materiales constructivos es discutido desde un abordaje contextual a través de la valorización del papel simbólico que la depositación de residuos tuvo entre estas poblaciones.