Wari (Other Keyword)
1-25 (26 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The site of Sonay in the Camana Valley of southern coastal Peru was originally identified as a Wari-affiliated site, based on the close architectural similarities of its major structure to other Wari imperial sites. The two original radiocarbon dates from below the structure suggested an occupation at the very end of the Middle Horizon, long after it is...
Cajamarca during the Middle Horizon: Excavations at El Palacio site (2016)
In this paper we present the excavation data from the El Palacio site, a supposed administrative center of the Wari Empire, to consider interaction between the Cajamarca culture and other areas. Kaolin ceramics are an important characteristic of the Cajamarca culture and present a tradition as long as 1600 years, but at the same time indicate gradual changes during 5 phases. El Palacio site corresponds to the period from the Middle Cajamarca Phase B, C, to the first part of the Late Cajamarca...
Ceramic Differences at the Household/Neighborhood Level at Cerro Mejía: Evidence of a Possible Multiethnic "Mitmaqkuna" Community on the Southern Frontier of the Wari Empire (2017)
This poster will present the results of the analysis of household ceramic assemblages from the slopes of the secondary Wari center Cerro Mejía in the Moquegua Valley. The slopes of Cerro Mejía are divided into distinct domestic neighborhoods by fieldstone walls. Based on differences between these neighborhoods observed during excavations it has been hypothesized that this site was a multiethnic community similar to Inca mitmaqkuna with local inhabitants from throughout the region and possibly...
Craft Production at Cerro Baúl: Unattached Specialization on the Wari Frontier (2017)
This paper presents preliminary analysis and interpretations of a craft production space located within a single residential patio group on the summit of Cerro Baúl, located in the Moquegua Valley of Peru on the Wari- Tiwanaku frontier. Excavations in a patio group located close to a Tiwanaku temple exposed a dense artifact midden which included obsidian points and debitage, shell and lithic beads, burnt ceramics, and bone. Evidence of subfloor offerings, marked by multiple cuy internments in...
Dress Codes: Color Patterning in Wari Tapestry-Woven Tunics (2016)
Artistically elaborate tapestry-woven tunics were the raiment of rulers and other esteemed elites of the ancient Andean Wari civilization (AD 600-1000). The tunics’ figurative iconography is well known: drawn from a limited repertoire that often relates to the Wari state’s official religious cult, it almost always comprises a single type of motif that repeats many times in different orientations and color combinations (color blocks) across each tunic’s gridded body. Less legible and recognized...
Epidemiological Crisis with Imperial Collapse? Investigating the Osteological Evidence for Bacterial Infections among post-Wari Communities in the Peruvian Andes (2016)
The socio-political decline of the Wari Empire and a severe drought ca. AD 1000/1100 led to significant changes in health among those who lived in the former imperial core. The political turmoil, social upheaval, and prolonged drought coalesced to create poor community health. Infectious disease appears to have been an aspect of morbidity that dramatically changed relative to the preceding era of Wari rule. Here we examine the skeletal evidence for bacterial infections among post-Wari...
The Expression of Human Identity on Wari Faceneck Vessels (2015)
For the Wari civilization of the ancient Andes, the production and distribution of prestigious ceramics painted with religious and secular iconography likely functioned as a type of materialized ideology that contributed to the Wari agenda of imperial expansion. One particular ceramic form favored by the Wari was the faceneck vessel: a tall-necked globular vessel with a human face sculpted onto the base of the neck. These anthropomorphic vessels have been found in elite tombs and offering...
From Bedrock to Biface: An Examination of Wari Lithic Technology within the Moquegua Valley of Southern Peru (2015)
This research investigates lithic artifacts, and debitage recovered from Middle Horizon (A.D. 550 – 1000) households in the Moquegua Valley, Peru to assess models of Wari state expansion and polity interaction. While lithic technology, in the form of formal and informal flake tools, are present throughout complex societies, they are traditionally overlooked by archaeologists and result in few published studies. This study examines two Wari sites (Cerro Baul and Cerro Mejia) in the upper Moquegua...
Huaca del Loro: A Wari Colony in Coastal Nasca (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Developments through Time on the South Coast of Peru: In Memory of Patrick Carmichael" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Excavations at the site of Huaca del Loro in the Las Trancas Valley of the Nasca drainage have uncovered a Wari settlement, a cemetery with hybrid Nasca/Wari practices, and a large habitation area possibly for local support personnel. In the Wari sector, ground-penetrating radar (GPR) identified...
Investigations of Nasca-Wari Interaction and Imperial Expansion during the Middle Horizon: A View from the Las Trancas Valley, Nasca, Peru. (2015)
During the Middle Horizon (AD 750-1000) the Wari Empire established at least three colonies (Pacheco, Pataraya, and Inkawasi) in the Nasca Valley and its tributaries. Archaeological survey of the Southern Nasca Region conducted by Katharina Schreiber and students in previous decades observed dramatic changes to the local settlement patterns during this period (Edwards 2010, Schreiber 1999). The number and size of habitation sites in the Nasca and Taruga Valleys decreased but increased in the Las...
Landscapes of Violence: Trophy Head Production and Interpersonal Violence during the Wari era in the Middle Majes Valley, Arequipa, Peru (2015)
The Middle Horizon (600 - 1000 AD) is known as a period of increased social hierarchization, changing mortuary customs, and high rates of interpersonal violence in many regions of the prehistoric Peruvian Andes. This project compares rates and types of violent practices (antemortem, peri-mortem, and postmortem violent dismemberment) between the northern and southern sectors at the recently excavated Middle Horizon cemetery site of Uraca in the middle Majes Valley to skeletal data from the early...
The Middle Horizon Period at Ancón: A Reassessment (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancón, Peru represents one of the largest pre-Colombian cemeteries in the Andes. Discoveries of more than three thousand burials spanning the length of Andean history cement Ancón’s continuous role as an important location to commemorate the dead. Less clear, however, is whether Ancón supported a concurrent residential population throughout this time,...
Nasca-Wari Interaction and Imperial Expansion during the Middle Horizon: Excavations at Zorropata, Nasca, Peru (2016)
The Middle Horizon (AD 750-1000) was a tumultuous time in the Nasca region, located on the south coast of Peru. The highland-centered Wari Empire established at least three colonies (Pacheco, Pataraya, and Inkawasi) in the Nasca Valley and its tributaries (Edwards 2010). Local settlement patterns changed drastically in response (Edwards 2010, Schreiber 1999). The number and size of habitation sites in the Nasca and Taruga Valleys decreased but increased in the Las Trancas Valley, away from and...
An Obsidian Stone Tool Workshop at Cerro Baúl?: Wari Provincial Craft Production and Political Economy (2016)
Here we present a preliminary chaîne opératoire analysis of obsidian stone tools and associated debitage recovered from a single architectural compound at the site of Cerro Baúl. As the only known direct interaction sphere of the prehispanic Wari and Tiwanaku empires, research at Cerro Baúl in the Moquegua Valley, Peru offers a rare perspective of colonial encounters and intertwined political economies. During the 2015 excavation season we exposed a dense midden context consisting of various...
Partnerships for Patrimony: A Community-based Approach to Sustainable Archaeological Protection (2016)
This paper will discuss preliminary research related to the complex, contemporary archaeological identities built around the site of Huari, capital of the first Andean Empire, where archaeological remains are of national value and yet contemporary native identities retain a negative connotation in the national imaginary. The project applies an ethnographic method referred to as ‘community-based participatory research’ (Sonya Atalay 2012), which has an initial goal of revealing local campesino...
A Preliminary Comparison of Paleoethnobotanical Remains from Cerro Baul and Cerro Mejia in the Upper Moquegua Valley, Peru (2015)
This paper presents preliminary analysis of macrobotanical remains from the Middle Horizon Wari Imperial sites in the Upper Moquegua Valley, Peru. Plant remains from the sites Cerro Baúl and Cerro Mejía are compared to begin contracting a baseline for Wari residential subsistence at the colony, and the greater Empire. Additionally, paleoethnobotanical remains from the sites are compared to further develop archaeological interpretations of Wari social practices surrounding food. SAA 2015...
Radar, LiDAR, Drones, and Donkeys: the Evolution of Archaeological Mapping Technologies in the South Central Andes (2017)
In this paper, we review our use of digital technologies to model archaeological landscapes over the past two decades in Peru and Bolivia. We focus on three scales of analysis in four thematic areas that leverage state of the art technology and GIS modeling as a means for understanding the archaeological record. Our scales run from the built environment of local sites and monuments to regional agricultural landscapes to subcontinental interaction spheres. We look thematically at modeling...
Rural Life during and after the Fall of the Wari Empire: A Stable Isotope Analysis of Childhood Diet and Geographical Origins at the Village of Qasa Pampa, Ayacucho, Peru (2017)
Life in a rural village can be vastly different from life in the metropolis, and when an empire collapses the effects can reach even the smallest village. For Qasa Pampa, an agricultural village that was occupied in Wari (ca. 650 – 850 CE) and post-Wari (ca. 1000 – 1200 CE) times and located several kilometers away from the capital of Huari, life for its population may have been quite distinct from their capital counterparts. Stable carbon and oxygen isotope analysis can shed light on the...
Sacrificing SAIS: Ceramic Offerings from Huari, Peru (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ceramic offerings are an essential practice utilized by the Wari empire of the Central Andes throughout the Middle Horizon (AD 600–1000). While well-known for the Conchopata oversize ceramic offering tradition where large, oversized urns and faceneck jars were ritually smashed in civic-ceremonial events and left in situ or interred, this practice has yet...
Sociocultural Changes in Cajamarca Region during the Early Intermediate Period and the Middle Horizon (2017)
In this paper we discuss the chronology of the Cajamarca culture of the Peruvian Northern Highlands to consider the social dynamics during the Early Intermediate Period and the Middle Horizon. We present the excavation data from the two archaeological sites, Complejo Turístico Baños del Inca and El Palacio that correspond to the period from the final part of the Early Cajamarca Phase to the Middle Cajamarca Phase. The Cajamarca culture during the Middle Cajamarca Phase A (A.D. 600-750) presents...
A Study of Incised Designs within a Wari D-Shaped Temple Complex (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Almost 100 Years since Julio C. Tello: Research at Huaca del Loro, Nasca, Peru" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. With the discovery of a Wari D-Shaped temple and other adjacent architectural structures in 2019, the 2022 field season at Huaca del Loro focused on excavation of the temple complex. Well preserved mud plaster still remained on many of the walls and floors of the structures. Examination of the walls in the...
Technique and Style in textiles from the Cerro de Oro site (2015)
This paper focuses on the analysis the textile material obtained in three areas (one funeral and two domestic) investigated within the archaeological site located in Cerro de Oro Cañete Valley. This research is embedded within the framework of the Cerro de Oro Archaeological Project, which is working on this archaeological site since 2012 which has among its objectives to determine the cultural affiliation of the site, especially its relationship with the Wari phenomenon. The material has been...
Untangling Wari Colonization, Trade, and Administration in Coastal Arequipa from the Site of Quilcapampa, Siguas Valley. (2017)
The seventh century AD marked a period of great social change in the coastal valleys of Arequipa, Perú. During this time, an increase in violence, population growth, and social complexity was met with foreign influences from the Wari state of the central highlands. While scholars have long asserted that Arequipa fell under Wari control at this time, the evidence for direct state control has never been demonstrated conclusively in the region. This presentation reports the results of our...
Wari Ceramic Production in the Heartland and Provinces (2016)
Between 500 and 600 AD, the first expansive state of the central highlands of Peru emerged in the Ayacucho Basin. This state, known as Wari after its capital city located in the same region, established far flung colonies covering much of the mountainous region of modern day Peru. Research in the heartland sites of Conchopata and Wari and in the provincial sites of Cerros Baul and Mejia have yielded new insights into the economic production of the early imperial state, including significant new...
Wari funerary contexts: An elite funerary chamber in Cerro de Oro, Cañete Valley (2015)
Evidence of looted tombs from Conchopata and Huari -the capital of Wari- have allowed archaeologists to identify up to three formal types of funerary structures. Researchers also point out that variants of these types of funerary enclosures identified at both sites might have held local chiefs and provincial governors. Evidence of such elite Wari funerary contexts has also been found in Espítiru Pampa, in the high jungle of Vilcabamba, and Batan Urqo, in Cusco, among others. Although the...