Wari and the Far Peruvian South Coast: Final Results of Excavations in Quilcapampa

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Wari and the Far Peruvian South Coast: Final Results of Excavations in Quilcapampa," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

From 2014-2016, survey and excavations were conducted in and around the ninth century AD site of Quilcapampa la Antigua in the Sihuas Valley of far southern Peru. The goals of this international research project were to identify the relationship between the site’s founders and the Wari state, as well as to ascertain how the site was connected to local and regional populations. This session brings together material specialists of the project to discuss the final results of our data analyses. In addition, we will discuss Quilcapampa’s position in relation to the networks of trails that surround the pampa, as well as the ritual significance of the particular place where the site was founded. Presentations will detail the architectural, pottery, botanical, and faunal assemblages collected during the project, and relate these data to the various communities and interaction networks that came together at Quilcapampa. Our analyses suggest that Wari-affiliated settlers likely founded the short-lived site, but there is little evidence to suggest that these settlers came to establish an administrative settlement to annex the region into an expanding Wari Empire.