Arsenic concentrations in milk from cows exposed to waters with high levels of arsenic in localities on the north coast of Peru

Between AD 100 and 800, the Moche culture emerged on the north coast of Peru. Diverse debates surround the nature of Moche territorial and political centralization, sociopolitical identities, and the internal social diversity of Moche society. Here we address some of these issues in a biodistance study based on phenotypic variation of inherited dental traits within and between 36 individuals in the royal tombs of Sipán (Lambayeque valley), Úcupe (Zaña valley), and Dos Cabezas (Jequetepeque valley). Metric and nonmetric dental trait data were analyzed using hierarchical cluster and R-matrix analyses. The results independently indicate that the highest-level Sipán and Dos Cabezas lords likely represented different endogamous kin groups, while limited gene flow occurred between groups of Moche lower nobility between the Lambayeque and Jequetepeque regions. Although biology and material cultural link the Lord of Úcupe to Dos Cabezas, many objects in his tomb demonstrate his participation the world of the Sipán elites. These Moche lords were, on some levels, bioculturally interconnected. Nonetheless, the data broadly lend support to a “many Moches” model of sociopolitical structure, further casting doubt on earlier one-dimensional visions of a centralized hegemonic Moche polity.

Download Full-text

GALLINAZO, VICÚS, AND MOCHE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPLEX SOCIETIES ALONG THE NORTH COAST OF PERU

Gallinazo ◽

10.2307/j.ctvdjrqbs.21 ◽

2009 ◽

pp. 223-232 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Luis Jaime Castillo Butters

Keyword(s):

North Coast ◽

Complex Societies ◽

The North ◽

North Coast Of Peru

Download Full-text

The Use and Construction History of Huaca Prieta, North Coast of Peru

Maritime Communities of the Ancient Andes ◽

10.5744/florida/9780813066141.003.0004 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 101-128

Author(s):

Tom D. Dillehay

Keyword(s):

Late Pleistocene ◽

North Coast ◽

Marine Resources ◽

Human Presence ◽

Social Correlates ◽

The North ◽

History Of ◽

Chicama Valley ◽

North Coast Of Peru

Chapter 4 summarizes the construction, subsistence, and social correlates of Huaca Prieta, a mound site in the lower Chicama Valley on the north coast of Peru, from the earliest evidence of human presence in the Late Pleistocene (ca. 12,500 14C BP) through abandonment at 3,800 14C BP. Marine resources were important throughout the sequence, which saw an early advent of agriculture and increasing population, complexity, and monumentality.

Download Full-text

Life, Death, and Burial of Children on the North Coast of Peru

Children and Childhood in Bioarchaeology ◽

10.5744/florida/9780813056807.003.0005 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 126-170

Author(s):

Haagen D. Klaus

Keyword(s):

18Th Century ◽

North Coast ◽

Hispanic Children ◽

Contextual Data ◽

Spanish Conquest ◽

Cultural Perception ◽

The North ◽

Blood Sacrifice ◽

Health Burdens ◽

North Coast Of Peru

This chapter examines bioarchaeological data funerary patterns, and other contextual data derived from a sample of nearly 900 subadults who lived and died in the Lambayeque region of Peru's north coast from A.D. 900 to 1750. Paralleling various ethnohistoric perspectives, stark paleodemographic under-representation of the young in cemeteries and the preference for children as blood sacrifice victims points to the possibility that late pre-Hispanic Lambayeque childhoods involved meanings, symbolisms, and identities radically different from that of adults. Pre-Hispanic childhood may have been a liminal state, bridging supernatural and human realms. Following the Spanish conquest, indigenous experiences of childhood changed radically. Multiple skeletal indicators show that, when compared to pre-Hispanic children, many Colonial children bore much greater health burdens. Practices of childcare also changed, as millennia-old cradle boarding practices ceased rapidly in some areas. Alterations of childcare and inclusion of children into Colonial cemeteries indicates distinct changes in the cultural perception of childhood. However, the differential mortuary treatment of various children suggests that the young were still somehow distinct, as probably conceptualized in a hybrid Euro-Andean framework into the mid-18th century.

Download Full-text

Exploring the Technology and Meaning behind Early Ceramic Figurines from the Casma Valley, Peru

Ceramics of Ancient America ◽

10.5744/florida/9780813056067.003.0004 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 99-130

Author(s):

Shelia Pozorski ◽

Thomas Pozorski

Keyword(s):

New World ◽

Initial Period ◽

North Coast ◽

Andean Archaeology ◽

The North ◽

Early Ceramic ◽

North Coast Of Peru ◽

Stone Carvings ◽

The Temple

The Sechín Alto Polity, centered in the Casma Valley on the north coast of Peru, constructed the largest mound structures in the New World during the Initial Period (2100–1000 B.C.). The polity united at least six inland sites and three coastal satellites into a political and economically cooperative unit within which different sites and different monumental structures had distinct, but complementary, functions. Prominent among the artifacts that define the Sechín Alto Polity are ceramic figurines. Examples are consistently from domestic or residential contexts; most (more than 350 fragments) were recovered from Sechín Alto site, the polity capital, where they were likely manufactured. Iconography within Andean archaeology of the figurines connects them with warrior figures and victims depicted in the Cerro Sechín stone carvings and by extension with anthropomorphic friezes that adorn the temple mound of Moxeke within the Sechín Alto Polity. These data suggest that the Casma figurines may represent distinct groups of people who in turn reflected sacred vs. secular aspects of Casma Valley society.

Download Full-text