continuity and variability of the mortuary customs pattern in the central area between the middle ceramic and final formativ period (original) (raw)
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The Late Archaic period occupation at Carrizal, Peru
Contributions in science, 1997
Recent archaeological research at a Late Archaic period (5000-3500 B.P.) component of the site of Carrizal on the far south coast of Peru reveals evidence of domestic terraces located on hill slopes overlooking a shell midden. The pattern of domestic terraces overlooking a midden area is similar to that documented at Quiani on the coast of northern Chile and to Kilometer 4, a site located on the coast approximately 7 km south of Carrizal. A burial excavated at Carrizal is similar to burials documented from Quiani, from Kilometer 4, and from other Late Archaic and Early Formative period sites in the coastal south-central Andes. The Carrizal site probably represents a basic settlement type of the Late Archaic period on the south-central Andean coast, which is associated with the mortuary complex sometimes called Quiani. It is proposed that this type of site may represent early sedentary villages of Late Archaic peoples. RESUMEN. Recientes investigaciones arqueologicas en un sitio del periodo Arcaico Tardio (5000-3500 A.P.) en Carrizal, en la costa del extremo sur del Peru, han revelado evidencias de terrazas domesticas ubicadas en las colinas proximas a un conchal. El patron de terrazas domesticas con vista hacia una zona de conchal es similar a lo que se ha encontrado en Quiani, en la costa norte de Chile; asi como en Kilometro 4, un sitio ubicado en la costa aproximadamente 7 km al sur de Carrizal. Un entierro excavado en Carrizal es parecido a los entierros documentados en Quiani, Kilometro 4, y en otros sitios de los periodos Arcaico Tardio y Formativo Temprano en la costa sur central Andina. El sitio de Carrizal puede representar un tipo basico de asentamiento humano del periodo Arcaico Tardio en los Andes sur centrales, asociado con el complejo mortuario conocido como Quiani. Se plantea que este tipo de sitios puede representar asentamientos tempranos sedentarios del periodo Arcaico Tardio.
Latin American Antiquity
The Late Intermediate period in the south-central Andes is known for the widespread use of open sepulchres called chullpas by descent-based ayllus to claim rights to resources and express idealized notions of how society should be organized. Chullpas, however, were rarer on the coast, with the dead often buried individually in closed tombs. This article documents conditions under which these closed tombs were used at the site of Quilcapampa on the coastal plain of southern Peru, allowing an exploration into the ways that funerary traditions were employed to both reflect and generate community affiliation, ideals about sociopolitical organization, and land rights. After a long hiatus, the site was reoccupied and quickly expanded through local population aggregation and highland migrations. An ayllu organization that made ancestral claims to specific resources was poorly suited to these conditions, and the site's inhabitants instead seem to have organized themselves around the ruins of Quilcapampa's earlier occupation. In describing what happened in Quilcapampa, we highlight the need for a better understanding of the myriad ways that Andean peoples used mortuary customs to structure the lives of the living during a period of population movements and climate change. El período intermedio tardío en los Andes centro-sur es conocido por el uso generalizado de monumentos funerarios llamados chullpas, por los ayllus, basados en la ascendencia, para reclamar derechos sobre los recursos y expresar creencias idealizadas de cómo debería organizarse la sociedad. Las chullpas, sin embargo, eran inusuales en la costa, los muertos eran enterrados individualmente en tumbas cerradas. Este artículo documenta las circunstancias bajo las cuales se utilizaron estos últimos tipos de tumbas en el sitio de Quilcapampa, en la llanura costera del sur del Perú, permitiendo la exploración de las formas en que se emplearon las tradiciones funerarias para reflejar y generar afiliación comunitaria, ideales sobre la organización sociopolítica y el derecho sobre la tierra. Después de una larga pausa, el sitio se volvió a ocupar y rápidamente se expandió mediante la concentración de la población local y las migraciones desde la sierra. Una organización ayllu que hizo reclamos ancestrales a recursos específicos era poco adecuada para estas condiciones, los habitantes del sitio en cambio, se organizaron alrededor de las ruinas de la ocupación anterior de Quilcapampa. Al destacar lo que sucedió en Quilcapampa, esperamos llamar la atención sobre la necesidad de una mejor comprensión de las innumerables formas en que los pueblos andinos utilizaron las costumbres mortuorias para estructurar las vidas de los vivos durante un período de migraciones poblacionales y de cambio climático. Palabras clave: prácticas funerarias, organización social, identidad, plan de asentamiento, Andes
This dissertation investigates how new forms of burial involving the placement of mummies in above-ground sepulchers impacted, and were shaped by, processes of identity formation and political change during the Late Intermediate Period in Peru (A.D. 1100-1450), a time of widespread conflict culminating in Inka conquest. Did mortuary practices intensify political fragmentation by reifying group boundaries, or did they mitigate social turmoil and resource risk by promoting inter-group alliance? This question is addressed through the analysis of human skeletal remains from the Colca Valley. Specifically, this dissertation examines: 1) patterns of cranial vault modification (CVM) to explore if mortuary treatment reinforced social differences marked on the body; 2) heritable traits on the human cranium to test if cemeteries were organized by biological kinship and evaluate scenarios of boundary maintenance via endogamy or alliance formation via inter-marriage; and 3) stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios from bone collagen to reconstruct diet and shed light on subsistence differentiation and resource access. Fifteen radiocarbon dates from human bone and mortar used in tomb construction facilitate the comparison of these data before and after the onset of Inka state formation. Results show that a transformation in social identity was articulated through, rather than apart from, longstanding mortuary traditions. After A.D. 1300, the proportion of the skeletal population exhibiting CVM dramatically increased, signaling an emergent ethnic identity, perhaps in response to encroaching Inka influence. However, modified and unmodified individuals were buried in the same sepulchers, and biodistance analysis of cranial non-metric traits suggests they actually belonged to the same familial groups organized around shared ancestry and burial customs. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios do not reveal marked differences in resource access or subsistence specialization between burial groups, but instead are consistent with a broadly encompassing subsistence economy oriented toward pastoralism. Notably, modified individuals exhibit slightly but significantly greater heterogeneity in dietary protein intake, possibly indicative of increased mobility between ecological and subsistence zones. By integrating multiple lines of bioarchaeological data, this research demonstrates empirically how social difference and intra-community cohesion intersect in daily life and in the ritual practices surrounding death.
Late Prehispanic Social Complexity in the Rapayan Valley, Upper Maranon Drainage, Central...
La Complejidad Social en la Sierra de Ancash, 2006
A. Mantha -Late prehispanic social complexity in the Rapayán Valley, upper Marañón drainage, Central Andes of Peru 122). More subtle architectural elements such as differences in household's size and quality also reflect the existence of social inequalities since powerful individuals have the capacity to invest more labor in their construction (DEMARRAIS 1998: 120). In addition, the presence of storage facilities may directly mirror the control of economical surpluses by a central authority . Finally, data on ritual architecture and evidence of warfare provide information that allows us to understand how ideology and military powers participated actively in the creation and maintenance of social inequalities.
Mortuary remains within an archaeological context can illuminate the social and political aspects not only of the individual(s) buried, but also of the living who interred them. Although this is so, a consensus has not been reached in regard to the following questions: how can we determine the social identity of the living that interred the dead? What are the implications of the living-dead interaction, and how do mortuary practices alter social memory in order to fit political needs? This thesis constitutes an initial attempt to answer these questions while examining pre-internment mortuary practices, and associated ideologies regarding the afterlife based on data collected during the 2015 field season by members of the Proyecto de Investigación Arqueológica Panquilma (PIAP), under the direction of Dr. Enrique Lopéz-Hurtado, of the Instituto de Estudios de Peruanos Programa de Investigación. This project is centered at the Late Intermediate Period (LIP) to Late Horizon (LH) secondary Ychsma site of Panquilma in the mid-Valley of the Lurín River Valley, Central Coast of Peru. This research aims to determine the time period and significance of a puzzling structure that was excavated at the cemetery’s margin at Panquilma in order to determine the building’s potential role in ancestral veneration practices of the lesser-elites. Upon first glance this structure appeared to have a layout of a household structure but was located near the cemetery, far from the residential center of the site. A wide array and substantial quantities of exotic and/or ritual items such as sheet metal fragments, colorful bird feathers, orpiment, and manuports, as well as Spondylus sp. and Nectandra sp. beads were discovered within this building suggesting non-mundane or non-domestic usages. Was this structure used in the preparation and care of the funerary bundles? Did it house an important figure (e.g., a shaman) in both their life and death? Or did it serve as a workshop for preparing ritual items? In an effort to ascertain the significance of this structure, this thesis examines the aforementioned remains as well as its relative location and the results from portable X-ray Fluorescence (pXRF) analyses of some of the excavated artifacts in order to provide a deeper understanding of mortuary practices at Panquilma and thus the Ychsma’s concept of and interaction with the dead on the Central Coast of Peru. The exact function of this structure cannot be concretely stated, but the diverse lines of evidence present appear to favor the first hypothesis in which this structure functioned as a funerary preparation area, but principally for elite and/or ritually significant bundle(s). This was ascertained due to the numerous exotic and/or ritual artifacts found associated within this Inkaic structure that likely served a ritualistic function in regard to water and agricultural fertility as well as serving as indirect evidence for elite ancestral veneration practices.
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This dissertation focuses on the Cosma Complex, a multi-component archaeological site located at the headwaters of the Nepeña River, on the western slopes of the Cordillera Negra in the modern Department of Ancash, Peru. The overarching goal of this study is to understand not only Cosma’s influence as a religious center within the Nepeña Valley and the surrounding region, but its recurring occupation over a 5000-year time span and its role in religious networks within the valley through its function as a cultural landscape resource or persistent place. The Cosma complex extends over 250 hectares and includes two multi-storied temple mounds, a megalithic hilltop fortress, domestic areas, agricultural terraces, above ground tombs, and carved stonework. The center is geographically located in a propitious locale, 2650 meters above sea level (masl) in a flat mountain basin at the start of the Cosma branch of the Nepeña River. Cosma’s construction in a geographically isolated basin at the headwaters of the valley may have added weight to its status as a ceremonial center, allowing it to function as a pilgrimage center. Through field survey and archaeological excavations as well as the analysis of material remains, this dissertation; (1) reconstructs the site’s occupational sequence, (2) explores its spatial organization and architectural forms through time, and (3) documents associated material remains in order to reconstruct cultural and religious affiliations. These lines of evidence are used to discuss Late Preceramic religious developments, in particular a significant Kotosh-Mito presence. Located in a transitional zone, between the highlands and the coast, the Cosma complex has been interpreted as an important center for studying Late Preceramic architectural styles. Utilizing Cosma as a case-study, this dissertation re-evaluates the criteria previously established for Mito and “pre-Mito” structures, paying attention to localized variations of the tradition, as opposed to chronological markers. Following the Late Preceramic use at the Cosma complex, the mounds again functioned as a stage for ceremonial practice during the Early Horizon Period and Middle Horizon for burial purposes. This dissertation presents this data under the auspice of persistent place and ritual gathering within the basin.
Funerary Places, Kinship and Community: Burials in settlements of the Nasca Valley (Ica, Peru)
World Archaeological Congress, 2022
After our research in the Nasca Valley, from 2005, and the results of C14 series in the region, we propose that the archaeological evidence was characterized by a diachrony of settlements that reaches from the first millennium BCE to c. 1450 cal CE. We have evidence of the succession over time of social spaces dedicated to funerary practices in locations that were previously social places for economic and political-ideological activities, including domestic units. This fact entails the continuity of a historical memory that is incorporated into the ideological references of the communities concerning the abandoned enclave, perhaps maintaining property rights and not only the memory and the ideological framework.