Rise of Native Lordships at Pashash, ad 200–600, Ancash, Peru

… Papers of the American Anthropological Association, 2004

The Early Horizon type site of Chavín de Huántar, located in the north-central Andes of modern Peru, is distinguished by a long sequence of construction, as well as outstanding features such as abundant lithic art, use of cut stone in construction, a complex of underground gallery systems, and exceptional alteration of local land forms. This chapter explores the implications of these characteristics for the evolution of power and authority at this site across the later Initial Period and Early Horizon (approximately 1300 to 600 B.C.). Particular attention is focused on the concepts of power and authority in relation to religious belief systems and the intrinsic factors that might have connected the site's characteristics to a developing system for convincing populations to increasingly accept the dominance of a priestly leadership. These characteristics argue that not only were the emerging authorities at Chavín exceptionally creative in their manipulation of the human mind through landscape, architecture, images, sound, light, and the use of psychoactive drugs but also that this apparent highly planned ritual context demonstrates the very intentional and conscious strategies employed in the transformation of early politico-religious organization.

2012

There is a long tradition in archaeology that focuses on the study of societal intermediate groups as a way to understand how broad regional political transformations intermingle with different local settings. This dissertation explores this topic at the rural Lima Culture site of Lote B (Cerro Manchay) in the Lurin Valley. This site was occupied from the Early Intermediate to Middle Horizon period (circa 500–700 CE), a time of dramatic regional change. My research identifiyed the main power strategies at work in the site, the constituent factors of these power strategies and how they were re-arrange by Lote B inhabitants at the start of the Middle Horizon period. The analysis has illuminated the transformation of power strategies of Lote B inhabitant in both domestic and monumental context. In order to develop a better understanding of Lote B inhabitants’ political strategies, test pits in midden deposits, complemented with limited broad excavations inside the architecture were und...

Data presented here are the product of three field season of mapping and excavation at the site of Sillustani, the foremost necropolis and pilgrimage center of the Colla ethnic group (Figure 1). Extending into Laguna Umayo, Sillustani contains dozens of stone burial towers and thousands of semi-subterranean tombs. De la Vega and Stanish (2002) argue that with the collapse of Tiwanaku at AD1000, that Sillustani became the most prominent pilgrimage center in the Titicaca Basin, yet very little is known about the site or the people buried there. While colonial documents describe the Colla as a highly centralized kingdom, previous archaeological investigations in this region demonstrate an almost complete dearth of evidence for social hierarchy (Arkush 2011). Research at Sillustani, by contrast, supports an intermediate model of Colla sociopolitical organization which focuses on power sharing. Furthermore, my research

This dissertation is an archaeological study of statecraft in the Virú Valley, Peru, during the Early Intermediate Period (ca. 400 B.C. – A.D. 800). Virú was the subject of an influential research program in the 1940s (the Virú Valley Project), which produced important datasets for studying early complex societies in the region. But recent work has begun to upend many of the original conclusions, pointing to the need for a thorough review of the chronological foundation on which they rested, and calling for the re-analysis of ancient settlement patterns and infrastructure projects as proxies of the increasing centralization of authority during this key period of Andean prehistory. The starting point for this research is Gordon Willey’s (1953) settlement pattern study and James Ford’s (1949) ceramic seriation—what I call the Ford-Willey sequence. These were seminal works but their conclusions are no longer entirely tenable. The first part of this dissertation re-analyses and updates Ford’s work. It is concluded that corporate and domestic ware ceramics are fundamentally different classes of object that developed along separate timescales and should not be seriated together, that the Virú Valley sequence shows far more continuity than the Ford-Willey sequence indicated, and that the period from ca. 400 B.C. – A.D. 750 should be considered a single cultural sequence—Virú—with an Early, Middle, and Late phase. This updated cultural sequence for Virú provides a more reliable scheme for dating settlement patterns than was previously available. The second part of this dissertation explores Early and Middle Virú statecraft by mapping sites using satellite photography and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) software. It is concluded that the valley was unified into a single polity with its capital at the Gallinazo Group during the Middle Virú Period, and that this polity sponsored a program of infrastructure building to materialize its power and to develop political authority over valley. Appendices are available as supplementary files from http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/2687/. A kmz file of all sites is also available.

Estudios Latinoamericanos, 2015

Since 2002 the Culebras Valley has been the focus of an extensive archaeological surface survey and limited excavations in selected sites carried out by Polish and Peruvian scholars. Over one hundred previously unknown archaeological sites have been recorded so far, and tentative interpretations of their chronology, functions and settlement patterns have been suggested. In this article, we report results of the nine field seasons and discuss their implications. We employ fieldwork data from the archaeological sites of the Culebras Valley to reconstruct settlement patterns, subsistence and craft production, focusing on post-Middle Horizon components, as well as the impact of Chimú and Inca cultures on local pre Hispanic societies.

2014

This chapter presents excavation data from two archaeological sites, El Palacio and Paredones, located in the Department of Cajamarca in the northern sierra of Peru, a geographic area of social dynamism during the Middle Horizon. The presence of the large-scale site of El Palacio — a Wari administrative center — would suggest that the valley came under direct Wari imperial control in a manner similar to that known under the Inca during the Late Horizon. Yet at the same time, there are chullpas at the contemporary site of Paredones that are associated with ceramics related to the Tiwanaku style. This complex situation during the Middle Horizon, on the one hand, presupposes the existence of multiple cultural groups living in the Cajamarca region. On the other hand, the Cajamarca culture has local roots that are demonstrated in the production of its kaolin ceramics that are found throughout a wide area of the Wari realm. For these reasons, the cultural changes during the Middle Horizon...

2014

This dissertation explores the pre-Columbian occupation at Cerro Castillo, a coastal settlement in the Nepena Valley, Peru. The study examines the site’s internal organisation as well as its relationship with regional cultural phenomena during its most important period of occupation (circa AD 600-1000). Characterising the Moche presence at the site is one of the main subjects of this investigation. Moche was one of the grandest civilisations that developed in the pre-Columbian Andes, dating from circa AD 100 to 850. Its high levels of complexity are materially expressed in the archaeological remains of urban centres, monumental temples, irrigation systems, funerary practices and fi nely made artefacts. This work builds on decades of previous research to assess the nature of Moche at Cerro Castillo questioning uni-directional approaches to cultural interaction, social complexity and the secondary role attributed to small to mid-scale communities in their own development and in the re...