<< Text Pages >> Cuncaicha - Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature in Peru

Submitted by bat400 on Sunday, 26 October 2014  Page Views: 3348

Natural PlacesSite Name: Cuncaicha Alternative Name: Pucuncho Basin
Country: Peru
NOTE: This site is 66.382 km away from the location you searched for.
Type: Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature
Nearest Town: Puno  Nearest Village: Guaqui
Latitude: 16.582S  Longitude: 69.376W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
 no data Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
 no data Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
 2
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Natural Feature in Pucuncho Basin.
Cuncaicha is a rock shelter at 4,480 metres above sea level in the Pucuncho Basin, a 51 square mile area. Charcoal and butchered animal bone provided the earliest dates at 12,800 years ago. An obsidian stone-tool workshop lies below the rockshelter. Artifacts indicate a variety of activities and indication that the site was used for extended periods of time within the year.

At these earliest occupation time periods, the climate would have been cooled and wetter, producing grass for animal herds. Even today, the basin is still used as pasture for llama.

The findings were published in the Oct. 24 2014 edition of the academic journal Science – co-authored by a team of researchers including University of Calgary archaeologist Sonia Zarrillo, and indicate the quick adaptation of humans to the extremes of environment found in the Americas. The earliest substantive evidence of humans in South America is along coastal sites and only 2000 years before Cuncaicha.

Note: World's highest archaeological sites explored in Peruvian Andes. University archaeologist investigates human capacity for survival in extreme environments.
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"Cuncaicha" | Login/Create an Account | 3 News and Comments
  
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Highest Stone Age Campsite Reveals Grit of First Americans by bat400 on Sunday, 26 October 2014
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South America's early migrants reached a remote oasis more than 14,000 feet high.

Paleo-Indian hunters ventured high into the Andes Mountains as early as 12,800 years ago, as much as two thousand years sooner than previously thought.

The finding, reported Thursday in the journal Science, suggests that South America's first inhabitants raced across the continent rather than spreading slowly to its remotest corners.

"It was a land rush, a free-for-all," said study author Kurt Rademaker, an archaeologist at the University of Tubingen in Germany. "People were much more capable and adaptable than we ever thought."

Rademaker discovered evidence of their pioneering abilities high in the arid Peruvian Andes, in a place known today as the Pucuncho Basin. With plenty of water, grass, and vicuñas (a relative of the llama), "it was an oasis in a desert region," he said.

While exploring this alpine oasis, Rademaker found an ancient campsite in a rock alcove, as well as two obsidian quarry sites. A type of volcanic glass, obsidian has long been prized for making sharp-edged tools. It's still used today for surgical scalpels.

Excavation of the sites yielded numerous stone tools, including two "fishtail" arrowheads distinctive to South America's first peoples. Radiocarbon dating of charcoal and animal bones indicated that Paleo-Indian hunters had been using the site as a base camp as early as 12,800 years ago.

Vicuñas and llamas, rather than obsidian, likely attracted hunters to the higher altitudes of the Andes, Rademaker said. Even today, people herd llamas across the 51 square mile (132 square kilometers) Pucuncho Basin.

Most likely the ancient hunters traveled seasonally to the base camp, staying there from March through November while they hunted llamas and deer.

For more, see National Geographic.
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University of Calgary News Release: High Altitude sites in Peruvian Andes by bat400 on Sunday, 26 October 2014
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Research conducted at the highest-altitude Pleistocene archaeological sites yet identified in the world sheds new light on the capacity of humans to survive in extreme environments.

The findings, to be published in the Oct. 24 edition of the academic journal Science – co-authored by a team of researchers including University of Calgary archaeologist Sonia Zarrillo – were taken from sites in the Pucuncho Basin, located in the Southern Peruvian Andes.

The primary site, Cuncaicha is a rock shelter at 4,480 metres above sea level, with a stone-tool workshop below it. There is also a Pucuncho workshop site where stone tools were made at 4,355 metres above sea level. Climatic conditions in both sites are harsh, with factors including low-oxygen, extreme cold and high levels of solar radiation making life in the region a challenge for any humans. And yet, the findings indicate that people were living in these high altitude zones for extended periods of time. Cuncaicha was occupied about 12.4 to 11.5 thousand years ago while the Pucuncho workshop site dates to around 12.8 to 11.5 thousand years ago.

"We don't know if people were living there year round, but we strongly suspect they were not just going there to hunt for a few days, then leaving," says Zarrillo. "There were possibly even families living at these sites, because we've found evidence of a whole range of activities."

Archaeological evidence found at Cuncaicha includes signs of habitation such as human skull fragments, animal remains and stone tools. "Hunters passing through an area will take the meat back to campsites and leave the carcass in the field," says Zarrillo. "In Cuncaicha we found remains representing whole animals, indicating they were living close to where the animals were killed. And the types of stone tools we've found are not only hunting tools but also scraping tools used for processing hides to make things like clothing, bags or blankets."

A popular scientific theory about high altitude colonization suggests that people cannot live in high altitudes until genetic adaptation occurs, like the sort we find in Andean people today. Andeans have genetically adapted to their high altitude environment, Zarrillo notes. Key differences in the Andean people include a higher metabolic rate, larger lung capacity and higher hemoglobin concentrations then the average person, all of which allow them to overcome a lack of oxygen.

"Was this adaptation present 12,400 years ago? We don't know for certain," says Zarrillo. "What we're demonstrating is that these people either already developed that adaptation, or, it was possible for them to live in these altitudes for extended periods of time regardless. Finding this out is one of the goals of our future research." Zarrillo believes that other sites in the region have the potential for further ground breaking revelations, in part because they're incredibly well preserved.

For more, see Science Newsline
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'Science' article: Paleoindian settlement of the high-altitude Peruvian Andes by bat400 on Sunday, 26 October 2014
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Abstract:

Study of human adaptation to extreme environments is important for understanding our cultural and genetic capacity for survival. The Pucuncho Basin in the southern Peruvian Andes contains the highest-altitude Pleistocene archaeological sites yet identified in the world, about 900 meters above confidently dated contemporary sites. The Pucuncho workshop site [4355 meters above sea level (masl)] includes two fishtail projectile points, which date to about 12.8 to 11.5 thousand years ago (ka). Cuncaicha rock shelter (4480 masl) has a robust, well-preserved, and well-dated occupation sequence spanning the past 12.4 thousand years (ky), with 21 dates older than 11.5 ka. Our results demonstrate that despite cold temperatures and low-oxygen conditions, hunter-gatherers colonized extreme high-altitude Andean environments in the Terminal Pleistocene, within about 2 ky of the initial entry of humans to South America.

Paleoindian settlement of the high-altitude Peruvian Andes, Kurt Rademaker, Gregory Hodgins, Katherine Moore, Sonia Zarrillo, Christopher Miller, Gordon R. M. Bromley, Peter Leach, David A. Reid, Willy Yépez Álvarez,and Daniel H. Sandweiss, Science 24 October 2014: 466-469. [DOI:10.1126/science.1258260]
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