title: Paleoindian settlement of the high-altitude Peruvian Andes.
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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, South Stevens Hall, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469-5773, USA. Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, Schloß Hohentübingen, Burgsteige 11, 72070 Tübingen, Germany. Climate Change Institute, Bryand Global Sciences Center, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469, USA. kurt.rademaker@umit.maine.edu.
authors.forename: Kurt
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rademaker
authors.affiliation: Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory, Department of Physics and School of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
authors.forename: Gregory
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hodgins
authors.affiliation: University of Pennsylvania Museum, 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Moore
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, Earth Sciences Building, Room 806, 844 Campus Place Northwest, Calgary, British Columbia, Canada.
authors.forename: Sonia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zarrillo
authors.affiliation: Institute for Archaeological Sciences, University of Tübingen, Rümelinstrasse 23, 72070 Tübingen, Germany. Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment, University of Tübingen, Rümelinstrasse 23, 72070 Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.affiliation: Climate Change Institute, Bryand Global Sciences Center, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469, USA.
authors.forename: Gordon R M
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Bromley
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, 354 Mansfield Road, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269-1176, USA.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Leach
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago, Behavioral Sciences Building, 1007 West Harrison Street, Chicago, IL 60607-7139, USA.
authors.forename: David A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Reid
authors.affiliation: Arequipa, Peru.
authors.forename: Willy Yépez
authors.initials: WY
authors.lastname: Álvarez
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, South Stevens Hall, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469-5773, USA. Climate Change Institute, Bryand Global Sciences Center, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel H
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Sandweiss
mesh_terms: D000064:Acclimatization; D000531:Altitude; D001106:Archaeology; D016477:Artifacts; D006801:Humans; D010568:Peru