Moche (Other Keyword)
1-25 (33 Records)
For decades north coast specialists worked within a paradigm that viewed the Moche as an expansionist state. Moche fine ware was regarded as a reliable indicator for dating this polity's imperialism over its neighbours, an idea that traces its roots to the Virú Valley Project of the 1940s. Extensive recent field research has led many to question this colonial model, however, and to propose other, more fragmented, geopolitical scenarios. This shift has both undermined the universal usefulness of...
Anura in Moche Iconography (2015)
The topic of this work is the anura, i.e. frogs and toads, in Moche iconography. Its primary aim is to establish if the anura were, in Moche cosmovision, associated with rains and agricultural fertility. During the early stages of this project, I gathered data and interpretations about the anura, while at the later stage, I built upon these findings to establish a classification system for these amphibians. The objectives of the classification are: first, to create a comprehensive database of...
An approach to the tombs and rituals in Area 49 in San José de Moro. (2015)
San José de Moro (SJM) is one of the most important Moche cemeteries studied in the North Coast of Peru. It is recognized by the presence of several elite tombs and strong evidence of rituals that took place along these burials. SJM also has a proper style of potter manufacture which is easily differentiated from southern styles. It is important to mention that the Moche society was divided in those who inhabited the north and south areas of their territory. In this context, during the last...
Climate Change and Moche Politics: A View from the Northern Chicama Valley, Peru (2017)
In this paper I will discuss the different lines of evidence pertaining to detecting El Niño and La Niña events at the site of Licapa II and surrounding Northern Chicama Valley. Flood deposits, dune encroachments episodes, malacological data, canal destruction and rebuilding events, and radiocarbon evidence are used as proxies to help understand the intensity and timing of ENSO events. I compare evidence from Licapa II to other sites inside and outside the Chicama Valley to highlight the...
Common Meals, Noble Feasts: An Archaeological Investigation of Moche Food and Cuisine in the Jequetepeque Valley, Peru (2016)
In the North Coast of Peru, relatively little is known about the majority of the population that supported the lifestyles of the elite. In this paper, I discuss the concept of a Moche cuisine through a study of the foodways of both elite and commoner classes, drawing on archaeobotanical data from a feasting preparation area located in the elite cemetery of San José de Moro and from a humble household situated near the base of the fortified hilltop settlement of Cerro Chepén. Cuisine can be...
Drinking power: Moche tombs as sites of subjectification (2015)
In the ethnohistoric record of the Andes, the bodies of the dead feature as key material objects through which living rulers claimed power over people and territory, especially irrigated land. This was true for the highland Inka, and also for coastal societies such as Chimu. In the archaeological record for earlier societies such as Moche, we see evidence for a similar complex of practices involving tombs, entombed bodies, and associated artifacts and offerings. These mortuary assemblages were...
Emotions Underground: Facial Expression in the Andean Past through the Portrait Vessels (Huacos Retratos, a Heterodox Approach to the Emotions of the Past) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The critical role of emotions in any social framework is a problematic element to address from the archaeological record. The nuances of nonverbal communication preceded articulated language and the production of any other communication record in the human species. Behavioral studies, supported by neuroanatomical registration, allow the detailed...
Faces of the Feast: The Spatial Organization of Face-Neck Jars in the Jequetepeque Valley, Peru. (2017)
Chicha was consumed in large quantities during social gatherings and feasting events at a number of ceremonial locales including hinterland sites, in the Jequetepeque River Valley, Peru, during the Late Moche. Face-neck jars were used in the brewing and serving of corn beer and depict supernaturals and elite lords with elaborate headdresses and earspools. This research showed the degree to which face-neck jars were standardized in manufacture and design and how this may have contributed to the...
First Insights into the Life of Menocucho: Results of the Archaeological Excavations at Huaca Menocucho, Peru (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, the authors will present the results of their first excavation season at Huaca Menocucho, in the Moche Valley on the north coast of Peru, exposing the political, religious, and economic activities carried out by the people who lived at the site. This excavation revealed the site was first occupied during the Initial period (1800–500 BC),...
The Hall of the Braided Serpents (La Sala de las Serpientes Trenzadas): New Discoveries on Pañamarca’s Moche Plaza (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Paisajes Arqueológicos de Pañamarca: Findings from the 2018–2023 Field Seasons" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Excavations in 2023 revealed a previously unexcavated structure in the southern corner of the Moche plaza at Pañamarca. Here we present our findings related to this building, which contains large, well-preserved pillars with anthropomorphized snakes on all facades and the life-sized painting of a Moche...
Identifying Use and Consumption Patterns through a Quantitative, Qualitative, and Comparative Analysis of Mollusks at Huaca Menocucho, Moche Valley Peru (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Excavations at Huaca Menocucho in the Moche Valley, Peru, revealed occupation sequences from the Initial period to the Middle Horizon with large amounts of malacological remains. Quantitative, qualitative, and comparative analyses are being conducted to interpret the role of gastropods, bivalves, and other mollusks at the site. A quantitative analysis will...
The Incorporation of the Chicama Valley into the Southern Moche Polity (AD 200 – 900): A Preliminary Biodistance Assessment (2016)
Nascent state formation is often purported involved the incorporation of nonlocal peoples, this question still remains unresolved for the southern Moche (AD 200 – 900) polity thought to be centered at the Pyramids at Moche site. Some archaeologists (Castillo and Uceda 2010) that the southern Moche state's expansion began following the incorporation of the Cao Viejo polity within the Chicama Valley to the north. Further, a recently published reevaluation of radiocarbon dates for Moche ceramics...
Is it a Priestess? Preliminary analysis of the excavations of a Late Moche Chamber Tomb from San Jose de Moro, North Coast of Peru (2015)
San Jose de Moro, located in the North Coast of Peru, is a well-known ceremonial site where ritual practices were held over a span of 1000 years. This, in relation with the burial of high rank individuals whom are believed to have performed important roles within the Moche society, especially during the Late Moche Period, places this site as one of high importance for the understanding of the Moche society along its region. This paper will present the results of excavations held in 2013, when we...
Linking Chronology, Culture History, and Culture Process in Moche Studies. (2015)
Revised chronologies affect our interpretations of cultural phenomena more than vice versa. This paper explores these issues in relation to the Moche. New dates suggest that the Moche phenomenon occurred later and ended later than previously thought and this is linked to a number of key issues in Andean culture history. The collapse of the Larco ceramic sequence is linked to the undermining of the concept of the Moche state and affects our concept of "Moche," in general. Particular attention...
Meat, Transport, Fertilizer, and Meaning: Considering the Role of Camelids and Ritual in Moche Food Production (2018)
Camelids (i.e., llamas and alpacas) were domesticated in the Andean region of South America over 6000 years ago. Since then, camelids have occupied a place of central importance in Andean lifeways over the longue dureé. Nevertheless, while camelid pastoralism in the landscape of the highland Andes has been well documented ethnographically, ethnohistorically, and archaeologically, the intimate relationship between people and camelids in the Andean coastal valleys is less understood. In this...
Memento Mori: Scalar reference, architectonic persistence and the continuity of ritual memory at Huaca Colorada, Jequetepeque Valley, Peru (2017)
This paper examines the temporal dimensions underwriting relationships linking humans, architectural representations and the meaningful places they reference in past Andean life-worlds. I argue that for the Moche of the North Coast of Peru, acts of symbolic compression and miniaturization served to reanimate specific times, known ceremonial locales, and the social identities created and reaffirmed in these places. The ritual efficacy of architectural simulacra rests in their mimetic power to...
Ontologies of Water on Peru's North Coast (2016)
The power of water is all-important in the long history of Peru’s North Coast: the arid environment, the transformative effects of irrigation, and the devastating force of the ENSO (El Niño) ecological phenomenon. Archaeological theorizing about North Coast societies has often focused on the shaping force of water; this paper suggests bringing emergent thinking about the human/nonhuman relationship to bear on this topic. Twentieth century Western science saw water as something to control through...
Ontologies of water: intensities and magnitudes (2017)
Increasingly, the effects of global warming take the form of destructive movements of water, whether vanishing bodies of water that create desertification or floods that damage human habitations and take lives. The extensive archaeological record of the North Coast of Peru offers a place to study long-term human strategies for living with the dangerous and unpredictable movement of water. Despite frequent earthquakes, floods and torrential rains that re-shape land- and sea-scapes, humans...
Ontologías Corpóreas: Transfiguración, ancestralización y "muerte" en el mundo Moche (2016)
En las últimas cuatro décadas decenas de tumbas de élite Moche (200-900 AD) han sido descubiertas a lo largo de la costa norte del Perú, develado importante información sobre la vida física, la identidad y el status de los antiguos Moche. Sin embargo, y paradójicamente, la gran cantidad de datos recuperados contrasta con los pocos intentos de teorizar cómo el cuerpo pudo haber sido construido y conceptualizado por esta sociedad. Integrando la fenomenología de Merleau-Ponty y el perspectivismo...
Performing the Moche Feast: Plants, Ritual Practice, and Spectacle in the North Coast of Peru (2017)
The site of San José de Moro in the Jequetepeque Valley of the North Coast of Peru is renowned for the discovery of several "Priestess" burials containing women interred with the material accoutrements of the goddess figure from the Moche pantheon. As a burial ground for the Moche elite, San José de Moro presents an excellent case study for ritual performance with burial-related ceremonies taking place concurrently with feasting. In this paper, we discuss the plant evidence for large-scale feast...
THE PRESENCE OF THE GALLINAZO COMPONENT DURING THE MIDDLE MOCHE PERIOD IN THE LOWER JEQUETEPEQUE VALLEY (2015)
This work seeks to characterize the presence of the Gallinazo component in the lower Jequetepeque valley during the Middle Moche period through an analysis of funerary contexts from the sites of San José de Moro, Mazanca, Dos Cabezas and Pacatnamú. Using bibliographic sources and excavation data, this project searches for indicators within burial traditions of interaction between two different cultural groups that coexisted spatially on the north coast of Peru. Through an analysis of a number of...
Putting Archaeobotany Under the Microscope: A Case Study for Increased Use of Starch-Grain and Residue Analyses on the North Coast of Peru (2015)
Due to the arid environment and subsequent excellent preservation on the north coast of Peru, evidence obtained from macrobotanical remains here has been the primary sources of information on plant use. However, despite the richness of the macrobotanical record, the combination of arid conditions and the nature of many plants, such as potatoes and beans – which are consumed in their entirety – macrobotanical remains can only tell us so much. In this paper, we discuss some methodological issues...
Putting Archaeobotany Under the Microscope: A Case Study for Increased Use of Starch-Grain and Residue Analyses on the North Coast of Peru
Due to the arid environment and subsequent excellent preservation on the north coast of Peru, evidence obtained from macrobotanical remains here has been the primary sources of information on plant use. However, despite the richness of the macrobotanical record, the combination of arid conditions and the nature of many plants, such as potatoes and beans – which are consumed in their entirety – macrobotanical remains can only tell us so much. In this paper, we discuss some methodological issues...
Putting Archaeobotany Under the Microscope: A Case Study for Increased Use of Starch-Grain Residue Analysis on the North Coast of Peru (2015)
Due to the arid environment and subsequent excellent preservation on the north coast of Peru, evidence obtained from macrobotanical remains here has been the primary sources of information on plant use. However, despite the richness of the macrobotanical record, the combination of arid conditions and the nature of many plants, such as potatoes and beans – which are consumed in their entirety – macrobotanical remains can only tell us so much. In this paper, we discuss some methodological issues...
Putting the Body in its Place: The Intersection of Spatial and Corporal Ontologies at the Late Moche Site of Huaca Colorada, Peru (2016)
The Late Moche ceremonial center of Huaca Colorada (AD 650-850) was distinguished by cycles of ritualized architectural renovation that coincided with human and animal foundation sacrifices. Detailed architectonic analysis of the construction sequence of the ceremonial core in relation to the sacrificial burials incorporated into the structure itself provides interesting insights on Moche ontologies of embodiment, space, and social change. The data strongly suggest that Moche perceived...