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.

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.

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

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.

Ancient pre-Columbian Peru, Bolivia and Mesoamerica

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles R. Ortloff
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Initial Period ◽  
North Coast ◽  
Middle Horizon ◽  
Canal Irrigation ◽  
Late Intermediate Period ◽  
Intermediate Period ◽  
The North ◽  
Early Horizon ◽  
The Many

Irrigation agriculture is a transformational technology used to secure high food yields from undeveloped lands. Specific to ancient South America, the Chimú Empire occupied the north coast of Peru from the Chillon to the Lambeyeque Valleys (Figure 1.1.1) from800 to 1450 CE (Late Intermediate Period (LIP)) and carried canal reclamation far beyond modern limits by applying hydraulics concepts unknown to Western science until the beginning of the 20th century. The narrative that follows examines hydraulic engineering and water management developments and strategies during the many centuries of agricultural development in the Chimú heartland of the Moche River Basin. The story examines how Chimú engineers and planners managed to greatly expand the agricultural output of valleys under their control by employing advanced canal irrigation technologies and the economic and political circumstances under which large-scale reclamation projects took place. The following time period conventions are used in the discussion that follow: Preceramic and Formative Period (3000–1800 BCE) Initial Period (IP) 1800–900 BCE Early Horizon (EH) 900–200 BCE Early Intermediate Period (EIP) 200 BCE–600 CE Middle Horizon (MH) 600–1000 CE Late Intermediate Period (LIP) 1000–1476 CE Late Horizon (LH) 1476–1534 CE. Chimú political power and state development was concentrated in Peruvian north coast valleys. Each valley contained an intermittent river supplied by seasonal rainfall runoff/glacial melt water from the adjacent eastern highlands. Over millennia, silts carried by the rivers from highland sources formed gently sloping alluvial valleys with fertile desert soils suitable for agriculture. An arid environment tied the Chimú economy to intravalley irrigation networks supplied from these rivers; these systems were supplemented by massive intervalley canals of great length that transported water between river valleys, thus opening vast stretches of intervalley lands to farming. The Chimú accomplishments and achievements in desert environment agricultural technologies brought canal-based water management and irrigation technology to its zenith among ancient South American civilizations, with practically all coastal cultivatable intervalley and intravalley lands reachable by canals brought under cultivation.

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.

Prehistoric Llama Breeding and Herding on the North Coast of Peru

1985 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melody Shimada ◽  
Izumi Shimada
Keyword(s):  
North Coast ◽  
Published Data ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Middle Horizon ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
The North ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Early Horizon ◽  
Range Of Functions ◽  
North Coast Of Peru

There is no clear-cut consensus or reliable body of published data in the Andean literature indicating whether llamas were bred and herded on the prehistoric North Coast of Peru or periodically imported from the highlands. Based on four lines of evidence—ethnographic, archaeozoological, physiological, and ethnohistoric—we argue that llamas (and perhaps even alpacas) were successfully bred and maintained on the North Coast from the early Middle Horizon (ca. A.D. 600) and perhaps since the Early Horizon. More specifically, we discuss population structure, representation of body parts, climatic and dietary adaptability, and abundance of coastal forage. Both llamas and alpacas are physiologically well-adapted for the coastal environment and can efficiently process a wide range of forage. By the Middle Horizon, domestic camelids served a wide range of functions including transport, sacrifice, tools, and meat. Species identification, coastal herd management, effects of disease vectors, and other related issues are also discussed.

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 Hunchback, the Contortionist, the Man with the Stolen Identity, and the One Who Will Be Born in the Afterlife

2020 ◽  
pp. 152-169
Author(s):  
Wiesław Więckowski ◽  
Miłosz Giersz ◽  
Roberto Pimentel Nita
Keyword(s):  
Archaeological Site ◽  
North Coast ◽  
The North ◽  
Early Horizon ◽  
The One ◽  
North Coast Of Peru ◽  
Northern Sector

During the 2010 and 2012 excavation seasons, a Polish-Peruvian team excavated a small elevated mound—the remains of a platform—located in the northern sector of Castillo de Huarmey archaeological site, unearthing relics of stone architecture and a number of burials dated to the latter part of the Early Horizon (ca. 800–100 BC). Although the entire cemetery has not been excavated, the burial pattern that emerges from burials known to date is fairly clear and seems to be consistent with that of other Early Horizon sites from the north coast of Peru. Within the group of burials from Huarmey, four are rather atypical; they differ from the overall burial pattern in terms of body arrangement, as well as the presence of possible pre-and post-depositional alterations to the remains. Two skeletons of adult individuals were deposited in a completely different manner from the others, and two children were also buried in a rather unusual way. This chapter presents these four deviant burials, describes their context, and offers possible interpretations regarding the reasons for these atypical depositions using iconographic and archaeological analogies.

Maritime Communities and Coastal Andean Urbanization

2020 ◽  
pp. 165-187
Author(s):  
Matthew Helmer
Keyword(s):  
Food Production ◽  
North Coast ◽  
The North ◽  
Important Crop ◽  
Early Horizon ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
First Millennium Bc ◽  
North Coast Of Peru

Chapter 6 discusses the Early Horizon, first millennium BC site of Samanco (450 to 150 cal BC), near the shore in the Nepeña valley on the north coast of Peru. Fishing and shellfishing were important, as was agriculture, with maize as the most important crop. Samanco was a food production center supplying inland polities with subsistence goods from the sea and from fields in the Nepeña delta. Trade in local, utilitarian goods was a defining feature of Samanco identity.

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.

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