Via ScienceDaily: A new and astonishing chapter has been added to North American prehistory in regards to the first hunters and their hunt for the now extinct giant mammoth-like creatures -- the mastodons. [...] This new study concludes that the first-known hunters in North America can now be dated back at least 14,000 years.
This Friday the PUCP Humanities department will pay homage to linguist Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino, with a round table and the presentation of the book Estudios sobre lenguas andinas y amazónicas. Homenaje a Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino. Cerrón-Palomino's colleague Willem Adelaar has been appointed by the same university to an honorary professorship for his work on Andean linguistics.
Wednesday, 30 November, 2011 to Thursday, 1 December, 2011
The third Conference of the European Network for the Study of Andean Languages (Red Europea para el Estudio de las Lenguas Andinas, REELA) will be held at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.
There is no particular theme other than any research on Andean languages. The opening morning, though, will provide a general survey of Andean linguistics, as presented by a number of leading specialists in the field. For further details, please see the call for papers and other sections of this website.
Tuesday, 25 October, 2011 to Saturday, 29 October, 2011
The 35th Annual Geographic Names Conference of the Council of Geographic Names Authorities (COGNA) is devoted to 'Geographic Names of Indigenous Peoples and other Geographic Names Issues.'
"Did the civilization behind Machu Picchu really fail to develop a written language?" A nice article about research into the quipu, the Andean knotted cords used to encode information, and whether these constitute only a mnemonic device, or something closer to actual writing:
Through ScienceDaily: A new study by Baylor University geology researchers shows that Native Americans' land use nearly a century ago produced a widespread impact on the eastern North American landscape and floodplain development several hundred years prior to the arrival of major European settlements.
Yesterday's issue of Science reports on finds on California's Northern Channel Islands pointing to early seafaring and a diversified maritime economy of West Coast Paleoindians:
Three archaeological sites on California’s Channel Islands show that Paleoindians relied heavily on marine resources. The Paleocoastal sites, dated between ~12,200 and 11,200 years ago, contain numerous stemmed projectile points and crescents associated with a variety of marine and aquatic faunal remains. At site CA-SRI-512 on Santa Rosa Island, Paleocoastal peoples used such tools to capture geese, cormorants, and other birds, along with marine mammals and finfish. At Cardwell Bluffs on San Miguel Island, Paleocoastal peoples collected local chert cobbles, worked them into bifaces and projectile points, and discarded thousands of marine shells. With bifacial technologies similar to those seen in Western Pluvial Lakes Tradition assemblages of western North America, the sites provide evidence for seafaring and island colonization by Paleoindians with a diversified maritime economy.
This Friday the PUCP Humanities department will pay 
