The Ethnogenesis of Pescador Identity

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 Early Horizon Site of Huaca de los Reyes: Societal Implications

American Antiquity ◽

10.2307/279663 ◽

1980 ◽

Vol 45 (1) ◽

pp. 100-110 ◽

Cited By ~ 22

Author(s):

Thomas Pozorski

Keyword(s):

Initial Period ◽

Societal Implications ◽

North Coast ◽

Early Date ◽

Moche Valley ◽

The North ◽

The People ◽

Early Horizon ◽

Architectural Planning ◽

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.

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

10.1017/laq.2018.46 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 29 (4) ◽

pp. 696-717 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

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 ◽

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.

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.

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

10.2307/972222 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 13 (4) ◽

pp. 371-400 ◽

Cited By ~ 68

Author(s):

Brian R. Billman

Keyword(s):

Political Development ◽

Archaeological Sites ◽

North Coast ◽

Arid Environments ◽

Irrigation Systems ◽

Moche Valley ◽

The North ◽

State Evaluation ◽

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 SOCIAL DYNAMICS AND ECONOMIC INTERACTIONS OF THE HOUSEHOLDS AT GRAMALOTE, A SMALL-SCALE RESIDENTIAL SETTLEMENT DURING THE SECOND MILLENNIUM BC ON THE NORTH COAST OF PERU

10.1017/laq.2018.10 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 29 (3) ◽

pp. 532-551 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Gabriel Prieto

Keyword(s):

Social Dynamics ◽

Extended Family ◽

Initial Period ◽

North Coast ◽

Small Scale ◽

Economic Activities ◽

Economic Productivity ◽

The North ◽

The Social ◽

Economic Interactions

Excavations at the small-scale domestic settlement of Gramalote between 2010 and 2014 allowed the exploration of the social dynamics and economic interactions in the second millennium BC on the Peruvian North Coast. Detailed excavations and materials recovered during the intervention contribute a unique opportunity to explore domestic aspects of early settlements in the Andes. This study presents new data on the public sectors of Gramalote's settlement, house-to-house differences, and evidence that the extended family was a unit of economic productivity and collective action. This analysis assesses the degree of overlap, and lack thereof, in the economic activities of each house during the Initial Period (1500–1200 cal BC). A new model for social and economic interactions is proposed, with the aim of exploring alternative models from the bottom-up perspective for the emergence and consolidation of social complexity in the Central Andean Region.

Population Centers of the Rimac Valley of Peru

American Antiquity ◽

10.2307/277563 ◽

1954 ◽

Vol 20 (2) ◽

pp. 130-148 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Louis M. Stumer

Keyword(s):

Sea Level ◽

North Coast ◽

Central Coast ◽

Easy Task ◽

The North ◽

Atypical Features ◽

Peruvian Coast ◽

Northern Peru ◽

This Article is intended less as a descriptive piece on the archaeology of the Rimac Valley than it is as a single-valley application of various conclusions reached by Richard P. Schaedel in his Major Ceremonial and Population Centers in Northern Peru (1951). Schaedel, in a broad synthetic study of major ruins on the North Coast of Peru, comes to several interesting conclusions on the “urban revolution” in that region. The author, who was already engaged in a survey of the Rimac, with the focus on the coastal cultures from sea level to the 1000-meter line, felt impelled to shift the emphasis of his survey from straight description to a Central Coast application of Schaedel's North Coast findings. This was a fairly easy task, as the sites were already being analyzed both architecturally and ceramically.The Rimac, the “valley of Lima,” presents sufficient of both typical and atypical features of a Peruvian coastal valley to make the application of Schaedel's theories to a single valley at least fairly indicative of their validity for the entire Peruvian coast.

Early Watertable Farming on the North Coast of Peru

American Antiquity ◽

10.2307/279195 ◽

1979 ◽

Vol 44 (1) ◽

pp. 138-144 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Michael West

Keyword(s):

The Other ◽

North Coast ◽

Intermediate Period ◽

The North ◽

Early Intermediate Period ◽

Northern Peru ◽

Field Systems ◽

An archaeological example of simple watertable farming dating to the beginning of the Early Intermediate period in the Viru Valley, northern Peru, is reported. This technique was deployed by functionally differentiated segments of a single community, one stressing fishing and the other farming. Analyses of pollens indicate that Zea, Leguminosae, and Solonaceae were grown in two separate field systems.

Determining Site Function: A North Peruvian Coastal Example

American Antiquity ◽

10.2307/279464 ◽

1977 ◽

Vol 42 (1) ◽

pp. 86-97 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

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).

A Comment on the Breeding and Herding of Llamas and Alpacas on the North Coast of Peru

American Antiquity ◽

10.2307/281392 ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 52 (4) ◽

pp. 832-835 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Theresa Lange Topic ◽

Thomas H. McGreevy ◽

John R. Topic

Keyword(s):

High Altitude ◽

Coastal Environment ◽

North Coast ◽

Long Distance ◽

Exchange Networks ◽

Southern Peru ◽

The North ◽

Self Sufficiency ◽

Northern Peru ◽

In presenting a case for the viability of llamas on the desert coast of northern Peru in prehispanic times, Shimada and Shimada (1985) suggest that alpacas might also have been adapted to the coastal environment. Alpacas are primarily wool producers however, best adapted to the high altitude pasturelands of central and southern Peru. Wool yarn used in coastal textiles, it is argued, was imported from the highlands. While coastal llama herding is an aspect of regional self-sufficiency, alpaca wool yarn was important in the long distance exchange networks which, in later Andean prehistory, distributed rare materials and products for elite consumption.

A Chimu-Inka Ceramic-Manufacturing Center from the North Coast of Peru

10.2307/971591 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 30-54 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Christopher B. Donnan

Keyword(s):

Division Of Labor ◽

North Coast ◽

Large Sample ◽

The North ◽

Large Numbers ◽

Northern Peru ◽

Jequetepeque Valley ◽

Ceramic Manufacturing ◽

A Chimú-Inka ceramic-manufacturing center, dating ca. A.D. 1470-1532, has been located in the Jequetepeque Valley of northern Peru. An analysis of a large sample of molds and over-fired sherds from the site indicates that the potters produced both local and Inka-derived forms—primarily mold-made utility wares. Since Inka aryballoid bottles were produced here, their production, and presumably their use, was more akin to utility wares for commoners than to ceremonial/administrative ware for the elite. Although there were numerous potters involved in the production of large numbers of vessels, the production was not organized with strict division of labor, but rather with each individual potter working on most stages of production.