Turrialba: A Paleo-Indian Quarry and Workshop Site in Eastern Costa Rica

Abstract

Turrialba, a multicomponent quarry and manufacturing site in eastern Costa Rica, has yielded in surface collections 18 fluted points, fragments, and preforms. Both North and South American paleo-Indian point types are represented. Also present are keeled scrapers, end scrapers with lateral spurs, large flake side scrapers, burins, knives, and large blades. Turrialba is as yet undated, but future excavations at the site will be crucial in understanding the diffusion and development of the fluted point tradition in the Americas.

PreColumbian agriculture and forest disturbance in Costa Rica: palaeoecological evidence from two lowland rainforest lakes

“…Preliminary reconnaissance suggested to Kennedy (1968) that the sites were temporary habitation sites of people who relied on tuber agriculture, hunting and fishing. He followed Stone (1956) in regarding maize as a post-Conquest introduction at the lakes and throughout the Atlantic watershed, a position in obvious conflict with the interpretations of Snarskis (1984).…”

“…La Montana sites are vastly outnumbered and outsized by sites from the next archaeological period, the El Bosque period (2250( -1450. Snarskis (1984) proposed that this period represented a timc of explosive population growth in the Atlantic watershed, possibly attributable to the adoption of modified agricultural systems based on the cultivation of maize. Kennedy (1968) examined two archaeological sites near Laguna Bonilla and Laguna Bonillita that contain El Bosque artifacts.…”

“…The earliest excavated site is a palaeo-Indian quarry and manufacturing site located near Turrialba in the upper Rio Reventaz6n valley (Snarskis, 1979). Fluted projectile points, scrapers and other lithic which is characterized by flat, raised-rim griddles identical to the budares that are associated with the processing of bitter manioc at archaeological sites in Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia (Snarskis, 1984). Quintanilla (1990) suggested that early inhabitants were incipient agriculturalists who subsisted on tubers grown in small clearings and on nuts and fruits harvested from the surrounding tropical rainforest.…”

The role of plants in the early human settlement of Northwest South America

“…Broadly speaking, the paleoecological data from Central America suggest the existence of several types of landscapes: montane forest, thorn scrub, savannah, tropical moist forests, etc. (Snarkis, 1979;Bush and Colinvaux, 1990;Piperno and Pearsall, 1998;Ranere, 2008). This situation has been studied in Panama, where the relation between paleoenvironments and archaeological sites has been analyzed in order to suggest subsistence strategies in tropical ecosystems for the earliest settlers of the isthmus (Piperno and Pearsall, 1998;Ranere, 2006).…”

Esbozo sobre el origen, fundamentación y desarrollo de la arqueología del paisaje

“…Esta generó el desarrollo de diversas temáticas de investigación en el contexto nacional, como es el caso de la especialización socioeconómica (Abel-Vidor, 1980), paleoecología (Sánchez, 1986), configuraciones de sociedades tempranas (Acuña, 1983;Snarskis, 1979;Valerio, 2004), relaciones entre asentamientos (Acuña,1987), contactos interregionales (Corrales, 1994;Creamer, 1992;Lange, 1984a;Snarskis, 1984a;Snarskis y Blanco, 1978), patrones de asentamiento regionales (Hurtado de Mendoza, 1984), locales (Drolet, 1986;Fonseca, 1981;Snarskis y Herra, 1980) y áreas de actividad (Solís, 1991).…”