Luis Barreda Murillo's Excavations at Huanuco Pampa, 1965 (original) (raw)

How Did Huanuco Pampa Become a Ruin? From Thriving Settlement to Disappearing Walls

Perspectives on the Inca

This paper discusses the forces and events that reduced a city to crumbling walls. Huanuco Pampa, a large provincial Inca installation, was largely abandoned during the Spanish conquest. Warfare, quarrying, treasure hunting, extirpation of idolatry, ranching and farming, and archaeological excavation and reconstruction destroyed much of its physical integrity. Today Huanuco Pampa once again functions as a ceremonial center.

Rethinking the Huatabampo Archaeological

The KIVA, 2023

The Huatabampo tradition was first defined by Gordon Ekholm, in 1938, and refers to those sites in the coastal plain in northern Sinaloa and southern Sonora lacking architecture but containing well-manufactured plain ceramics with complex shapes. Recent investigations in the region are helping to refine the chronology, geographical extension, cultural attributes, and ethnicity. With 20 radiocarbon dates, we can place this tradition as spanning from 200 BC to AD 1450. The maximum geographical extension ranges from the Middle Rio Yaqui in the north to the Rio San Lorenzo in Sinaloa. The associated sites of this complex are represented by dispersed houses, indicative of ranchería-type settlements, funerary mounds, shell middens, and petroglyph sites. At about AD 1150, Aztatlán pottery and other commodities from southern Sinaloa were incorporated mostly as mortuary offerings. We also provide evidence that the Huatabampo archaeological tradition is a local culture representing the occupation of the Cahitan-speaking groups, Yoremem/Mayos and Yoemem/Yaquis, of the coastal plain.

Rebuilding the Inca Past

Presents photos of John Murra's reconstruction of the archaeological site of Huanuco Pampa in Peru.

Excavations in Canchaje, Huarochiri: The Unfinished Project of the Inka

Huarochiri, located in the highlands of Lima (Peru) has been known to Andean researchers for years as the location of the famous Huarochiri Manuscript. Archaeologically, however, not much work has been done in the last thirty years after the first archaeological surveys (Spalding 1984). Our work in the site of Canchaje, located in the district of Lahuaytambo, has given us first hand data from a Late Horizon site, closely associated with the Qhapaq Ñan. We propose this complex was built under inka direction by local people and that it was abandoned before it was completely occupied.

Tawantinsuyu. The frontiers of the Inca Empire

The archaeology of Latin America contains many unique features, both in focus and approach. This pioneering and comprehensive survey is the first overview of current themes in Latin American archaeology written solely by scholars native to the region, making their collective expertise available to an English-speaking audience. The contributors cover the most significant issues in the archaeology of Latin America, such as the domestication of camelids, the emergence of urban society in Mesoamerica, the frontier of the Inca empire, and the relatively little known archaeology of the Amazon basin. Further subjects covered include hunter-gatherer studies, the political implications of the history of archaeology in Brazil, and the French theoretical influence on the region. The book also presents an account of Latin American social archaeology, probably the region's best-known theoretical product. written solely by academics native to the region, and it makes their collected expertise available to an English-speaking audience for the firsttime. The contributors cover the most significant issues in the archaeology of Latin America, such as the domestication of camelids, the emergence of urban society in Mesoamerica, the frontier of the Inca empire, and the relatively little known archaeology of the Amazon basin.