Determining Site Function: A North Peruvian Coastal Example

1977 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert R. Kautz ◽  
Richard W. Keatinge
Keyword(s):  
North Coast ◽  
Marine Resources ◽  
Moche Valley ◽  
The North ◽  
Plant Cultivation ◽  
Site Function ◽  
Subsistence Activities ◽  
North Coast Of Peru ◽  
Comparative Information ◽  
Shed Light

It has long been recognized that certain macro and microanalyses of soil and midden constituents can aid archaeologists in determining the strategy and evolution of subsistence activities as well as in dealing with questions of site function and intra-site variability. Applied to the site of Medaños la Joyada (El 102) located in the Moche valley on the north coast of Peru, these techniques: (1) shed light on a subsistence strategy characterized by plant cultivation and the exploitation of marine resources found associated with the phenomena referred to as “sunken gardens” (Parsons 1968; Rowe 1969; Moseley 1969; Parsons and Psuty 1975); (2) provide comparative information for the data collected by Parsons and Psuty (1975) in their excavation of sunken garden sites located in the Chilca valley on the central coast of Peru; and (3) call into question the utility of the “small site methodology” as outlined by Moseley and Mackey (1972).

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

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.

scholarly journals Irrigation and the Origins of the Southern Moche State on the North Coast of Peru

2002 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 371-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian R. Billman
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
North Coast ◽  
Arid Environments ◽  
Irrigation Systems ◽  
Moche Valley ◽  
The North ◽  
State Evaluation ◽  
North Coast Of Peru

In this paper, I examine the role that irrigation played in the formation of the Southern Moche state in the Moche Valley, Peru. Specifically, I attempt to test Wittfogel and Steward's hydraulic model, which postulates that in certain arid environments, the managerial requirements of construction and maintenance of irrigation systems played a crucial role in the formation of centralized polities. I formulate and evaluate four hypotheses concerning the role of irrigation systems in the Moche Valley. Those hypotheses are then evaluated using settlement pattern data drawn from two surveys that cover the entire coastal section of the valley and provide information on 910 archaeological sites. Based on those data, I present a sequence of political development for the valley from the formation of the first autonomous village in the Late Preceramic period (2500–1800 B. C.) to the zenith of the Southern Moche state. Evaluation of the four hypotheses indicates that the managerial requirements of irrigation were relatively unimportant; rather, warfare, highland-coastal interaction, and political control of irrigation systems created opportunities for leaders to form a highly centralized, territorially expansive state sometime between A. D. 200 and 700.

The Ethnogenesis of Pescador Identity

2020 ◽  
pp. 247-264
Author(s):  
Richard C. Sutter ◽  
Gabriel Prieto
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Genetic Relationship ◽  
Initial Period ◽  
North Coast ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Moche Valley ◽  
The North ◽  
Northern Peru ◽  
Dental Traits ◽  
North Coast Of Peru

Chapter 9 discusses ethnogenesis on the north coast of Peru from the perspective of bioarchaeology at the Initial Period site of Pampa Gramalote (1500–1200 cal B.C./3450–1350 cal BP) in the Moche valley in northern Peru. The authors examine the genetic relationship between fishing and contemporary, nearby populations using dental traits. They conclude that Gramalote contrasts sharply with preceding maritime populations of the Peruvian Preceramic Period and exchanged mates with farming populations in the adjacent valley. Ethnic identity here is not coterminous with genetics but rather a result of shared economic activities.

The Meaning within Moche Masks

2020 ◽  
pp. 180-212
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
North Coast ◽  
The North ◽  
Ritual Action ◽  
The World ◽  
Jequetepeque Valley ◽  
North Coast Of Peru ◽  
Shed Light

In this chapter, the author examines the remains of broken ceramic masks recovered in feasting middens at the Moche ceremonial center of Huaca Colorada (AD 650–900) in the southern Jequetepeque Valley of the North Coast of Peru. One objective of the chapter is to demonstrate that Moche masking traditions varied in terms of the rites and social context in which they were employed. The ceramic masks depicting Moche powerful beings became deeply meaningful and engines of semiosis in their own right within specific frames of ritual action. Those masks shed light on Moche theories of being and the workings of the world (i.e., “ontology”). Their iconography suggests they were worn by officiants who reenacted heroic myths and stories of creation in rites that promoted agricultural bounty, life, and fertility.

scholarly journals Statecraft and expansionary dynamics: A Virú outpost at Huaca Prieta, Chicama Valley, Peru

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (41) ◽  
pp. E6016-E6025 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-François Millaire ◽  
Gabriel Prieto ◽  
Flannery Surette ◽  
Elsa M. Redmond ◽  
Charles S. Spencer
Keyword(s):  
North Coast ◽  
Territorial Expansion ◽  
Moche Valley ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Regional Control ◽  
Delegation Of Authority ◽  
The North ◽  
Potential Case ◽  
Chicama Valley ◽  
North Coast Of Peru

Interpolity interaction and regional control were central features of all early state societies, taking the form of trade—embedded in political processes to varying degrees—or interregional conquest strategies meant to expand the polity’s control or influence over neighboring territories. Cross-cultural analyses of early statecraft suggest that territorial expansion was an integral part of the process of primary state formation, closely associated with the delegation of authority to subordinate administrators and the construction of core outposts of the state in foreign territories. We report here on a potential case of a core outpost, associated with the early Virú state, at the site of Huaca Prieta in the Chicama Valley, located 75 km north of the Virú state heartland on the north coast of Peru. This site is discussed in the context of other possible Virú outposts in the Moche Valley, Pampa La Cruz, and Huaca Las Estrellas, and as part of a broader reflection on expansionary dynamics and statecraft.

The Early Horizon Site of Huaca de los Reyes: Societal Implications

1980 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Pozorski
Keyword(s):  
Initial Period ◽  
Societal Implications ◽  
North Coast ◽  
Early Date ◽  
Moche Valley ◽  
The North ◽  
The People ◽  
Early Horizon ◽  
Architectural Planning ◽  
North Coast Of Peru

From 1973 to 1974, investigations were carried out at a series of Initial Period and Early Horizon sites known as the Caballo Muerto complex, located in the Moche Valley on the North Coast of Peru. One site, Huaca de los Reyes, contains numerous adobe friezes that are noted both for their wide variety and early date. The amount of labor investment and the degree of architectural planning of the site strongly imply ranked societal divisions of the people responsible for its construction. Differential frieze distribution also supports this contention.

Huaynuná, a Late Cotton Preceramic Site on the North Coast of Peru

1990 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Pozorski ◽  
Shelia Pozorski
Keyword(s):  
North Coast ◽  
The North ◽  
North Coast Of Peru

BIOLOGICAL DISTANCE PATTERNS AMONG THE NORTHERN MOCHE LORDS: DENTAL PHENOTYPES AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN ANCIENT PERU

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 696-717 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haagen D. Klaus ◽  
Walter Alva ◽  
Steve Bourget ◽  
Luis Chero
Keyword(s):  
Hierarchical Cluster ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
North Coast ◽  
Biological Distance ◽  
R Matrix ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
The North ◽  
Limited Gene Flow ◽  
Dental Traits ◽  
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.

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