The "Coastal Cajamarca" Style Did Not Come from the Coast

Summary

The "Coastal Cajamarca" style of painted bowls was first documented by Disselhoff in the 1950s at the site of San Jose de Moro (Lower Jequetepeque Valley, Peru). There are two competing hypotheses with regard to the origin of this ceramic style: (1) it originated from the coast or (2) it was produced in the middle valley or chaupiyunga zone, an intermediate area between the coast and the highlands. In this paper I present evidence from the site of Las Varas, located in the Middle Jequetepeque Valley, to support the second hypothesis -- that the "Coastal Cajamarca" style in fact came from the chaupiyunga zone. Identifying the correct "homeland" of this variant of Cajamarca pottery is vital for understanding coast-highland interaction in northern Peru and provides a crucial first step for evaluating John Murra's vertical archipelago model of exchange and colonization as it pertains to the North Central Andes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Continuity and Change in the Peruvian North Highlands: Current Research in the Cajamarca Region

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