Proyecto Santa Maria
- Folder Type:
- Project
- Primary Title:
- Proyecto Santa Maria
- Alternate Title: Abbreviation
- PSM
- Summary Description:
- The 'Proyecto Santa Maria' (henceforth, PSM) was devised in 1981 by archaeologists Anthony Ranere, Richard Cooke, and Olga Linares in order to study how specific Pre-Columbian populations adjusted their lifeways in space and time to Neotropical environments. The study area chosen was the watershed of the River Santa María on the mostly seasonally dry Pacific slopes of central Panama (Fig. 1). This river is the largest in this region. It rises in the central cordillera 145 km from its mouth. Its watershed covers 3,315 sqm. km. and comprises five major physiographic and environmental zones: 1) the Central Cordillera (400-1500 m above sea level), 2) the Foothills ranging from 100 to 400 m in elevation with occasional higher peaks but generally more moderate slopes than the Cordillera, 3) the Santiago Plain, an area of Tertiary deposits that provided abundant supplies of lithic raw material, 4) the Old Delta, a wide fan of Recent alluvium, and 5) the Coastal Zone where the Santa María River’s extensive and temporally unstable estuary created a complex inshore environment rich in marine coastal resources. Zone 4 is high-quality agricultural land, now given over mostly to cattle pasture and sugar cane fields. At Spanish contact, several populous and competitive chiefdoms existed here. The environment During the rainy season (on average, late April to early December), the River Santa María runs orange-brown with suspended sediments. In some years, floodwaters overflow seawards along features of earlier stages in the delta's evolution - meander scars, elbows of capture, swamps and larger, probably fossil, main channels (i.e. the Estero Salado and Escotá 'rivers'). During dry months, flow diminishes considerably, exposing dykes and sand bars that hinder upriver travel by watercraft. The delta's position and dynamics are conditioned by the complex interplay of sea level change, surface topography, sediment discharge, tidal energy and the effects of past and present human activities. For the last 3,000 years, the delta has been prograding, in the central section at about one km per 1,000. Today its largely mangrove-fringed coastline lies seaward of a patchwork of estuarine channels, salt marshes (albinas) and low promontories capped with xerophile vegetation. The high tidal range (maximums ~6m) is conducive to the formation of mudflats, havens for estuarine fish, intertidal macroinvertebrates and shorebirds. Larger rocky 'inselbergs' that protrude through the deltaic sediments offer well-drained locales for human settlements. These retain remnants of tropical dry forest. Precipitation is influenced primarily by orography, and wind direction and velocity. Annual rainfall averages 4,000-3,000 mm in the cordillera and foothills above 300m, depending upon local topography, and 1,800-1,000 mm in the plains adjacent to Parita Bay. The lowest figures occur right on the coast between the modern towns of Guararé and Natá. During the dry season, the northerly trade winds that blow perpendicular to the cordillera become adiabatic as they cross the Pacific slopes so that their strength and constancy have a profound desiccating effect on the landscape and vegetation. In the lowlands and foothills, dry seasons are arid (3.5-5 months with scant precipitation except when cold fronts descend as far as central Panama); but at higher elevations, they are mitigated by mists and light rain (bajareque) in some areas. Rainy season precipitation is highest in the foothills and cordillera north-west of a line between Chitra and Santiago. Along the coastal plain and at higher elevations towards the eastern margin of the watershed rainless periods of up to two months can occur, especially when the tropical convergence zone is weakly developed over the Isthmus. A double strategy was applied to the PSM’s surveys: 1) Half kilometer wide transects. Transects were randomly selected in each of the five physiographic zones. They were traversed at intervals of 25m by teams or up to six persons who walked 25 m apart, 250 m out in either direction from the baseline laid out by transit, searching the ground meter by meter. The field conditions were difficult. Long before the advent of GPS and GoogleEarth, search teams oriented themselves with hand-held compasses while walking, guided by maps from Panama’s Instituto Geográfico Tommy Guardia and commercial air photographs, and using the maps’ coordinate system to locate sites. 2) Purposive surveys for increasing the likelihood of discovering sites which would address our major research questions. These included: 1) lithic quarry sources, 2) rock shelters and caves, 3) “inselbergs” and high spots, 4) linear resources, such as the present-day and ancient shorelines, rivers and fossil meanders. Important archaeological sites that were discovered during the PSM include: 1) Cueva de los Vampiros (AD-145). The largest of two rock-shelters located on an inselberg in the high tidal flats of the Santa María River. Evidence for an early Holocene occupation there (~8600 BP) was ratified during excavations made by Canadian archaeologist, Georges Pearson, in 2002-2006. This site provided the first evidence for stratified Paleoindian artifacts in Panama and only the second in Central America (the other being Los Tapiales, Guatemala, a Clovis site). The radiocarbon bracket for the relevant strata (13,500-9000 cal BP) and the spatially scattered tools in and outside the shelter did not allow identifying specific Paleoindian populations, e.g. “Clovis” and “Fish-Tail”. This area of Panama may have been very arid during the Paleoindian period curtailing human activities there. 2) Abrigo Carabalí (SF-9). This rock shelter located at 300 m above sea level recorded a Preceramic occupation bracketed by two radiocarbon dates of 10,480±70 BP (cal BC 10,920-10,010) and 8040±390 BP (cal BC 7950-6080). No Paleoindian artifacts were found there, but flakes show the use of bifacial points. The lithic assemblage is varied and includes a wide variety of scraping and cutting tools. The presence of “edge-ground” cobbles and other grinding implements attests to an agricultural economy, which was established in this region by 8000-6000 cal BP. A light Late Pre-Columbian and Historic occupation are present in the upper strata.
| PID | Type | Title | Metadata | URL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| si_2764902 |  | Proyecto Santa Maria Investigacion Interdisciplinaria sobre las Adaptaciones Humas Precolombinas |
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| si_2774684 | Santiago Transect |
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| si_2774686 | Cordilleran transect |
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