Synopses & Reviews
Life and Death at Paloma, when published in 1989, was the first in-depth treatment of burials from a preagricultural South American village. It remains a valuable resource used by students and scholars of Andean archaeology. Jeffrey Quilter analyzes the life of Paloma's people during the transition from a hunting-gathering-fishing way of life to a more sedentary horticultural society and offers a study of preceramic Peruvian life through his analysis of this site's graves and their contents.
About the Author
Jeffrey Quilter is the author of Cobble Circles and Standing Stones (Iowa 2004), coeditor of Gold and Power in Ancient Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia and Narrative Threads: Accounting and Recounting in Andean Khipu, and director of Pre-Columbian Studies and curator of the Pre-Columbian Collection at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, D.C.
Table of Contents
Contents Foreword, by Robert A. Benfer Acknowledgments Preface 1. Climate, Chronology, and Culture in Early Peru 2. The Site of Paloma 3. The Archaeological Discoveries at Paloma 4. Quantitative Analyses of the Paloma Burials 5. Discussion of Paloma Mortuary Practices 6. Paloma and Preceramic Cultural History and Processes Appendix 1. Burial Illustrations and Data Appendix 2. Supplementary Tables References Cited Index