From the Paracas Culture to the Inca Empire: Recent Archaeological Research in the Chincha Valley, Peru

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 "From the Paracas Culture to the Inca Empire: Recent Archaeological Research in the Chincha Valley, Peru," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Chincha Valley, located 200 km south of Lima, is an ideal environment for studying the development of nonstate groups and the interactions between complex polities. Previous archaeological and historical research reveals a rich history of occupation in Chincha by various societies, including the Paracas culture (ca. 800–200 BC), Chincha Kingdom, and the Inca Empire. Such works demonstrate dense Paracas settlement, paint the Chincha Kingdom as a centralized Late Intermediate Period (LIP, AD 1000–1476) polity, and support a model of an Inca-Chincha alliance, a rare type of political relationship brokered during the Late Horizon (AD 1476–1532). Our intensive, interdisciplinary research over the last six years provides abundant data that substantially enhance our understanding of the Paracas, Chincha, and Inca occupations of the south coast. This session will present these results, highlighting the strategies used to construct nonstate groups and the dynamics between expansionist states and complex polities in this area.

Other Keywords
Mortuary archaeology • Andes: Late Horizon • Mortuary Analysis • Survey • Ceramic Analysis • Andes: Late Intermediate • Andes: Formative • bioarchaeology • Architecture • Chronology

Geographic Keywords
Republic of Peru (Country) • Republic of Panama (Country) • Republic of Colombia (Country) • Netherlands Antilles (Country) • Aruba (Country) • Republic of Ecuador (Country) • Republic of Chile (Country) • South America (Continent) • South America: Andes • South America

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  • Documents (9)
Documents
  • Buried Sites in the Chincha Valley Floodplain (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Charles Stanish.

    This is an abstract from the "From the Paracas Culture to the Inca Empire: Recent Archaeological Research in the Chincha Valley, Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Peruvian coastal valley of Chincha is the largest in the south coast of Peru. Research by our team since 2011 has discovered and excavated a number of archaeological sites that date from 3200–1000 BP. The data from this research provide exciting data to test models of early social...

  • Chincha Mercantilism: A Preliminary Investigation into Chincha Valley Economic Organization during the Late Intermediate Period and Late Horizon (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Larios. Jacob Bongers. Jordan Dalton. Jo Osborn. Camille Weinberg.

    This is an abstract from the "From the Paracas Culture to the Inca Empire: Recent Archaeological Research in the Chincha Valley, Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Chincha Kingdom is widely recognized as one of the few cases in which 10,000 merchants are said to have existed in the Late Horizon non-market Inca economy. This paper seeks to investigate Chincha economic organization by analyzing the distribution of pottery from various sites in...

  • The Chincha Valley, Peru: Analyzing Its Settlement Patterns and Urban Centers (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jordan Dalton.

    This is an abstract from the "From the Paracas Culture to the Inca Empire: Recent Archaeological Research in the Chincha Valley, Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of settlement systems is an important component in archaeologists’ efforts to understand how valley-wide or multi-valley polities change over time. Settlement studies often rely on site size, site location, site layout, and site chronologies to determine the changing...

  • Chincha-Inka Mortuary Traditions at Jahuay, Quebrada de Topará (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jo Osborn. Brittany Hundman. Camille Weinberg. Kelita Perez.

    This is an abstract from the "From the Paracas Culture to the Inca Empire: Recent Archaeological Research in the Chincha Valley, Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The site of Jahuay, located 20 km north of the Chincha Valley, was first occupied during the Early Horizon as a commoner fishing community. In later eras, it was reoccupied by the Chincha and Inka, possibly as a tambo. During the 2017 and 2018 field seasons, the Proyecto de...

  • Fardos Funerarios de los Antiguos Paracas en el Valle Medio de Chincha, Costa Sur del Peru (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Juliana Gómez. Henry Tantaleán.

    This is an abstract from the "From the Paracas Culture to the Inca Empire: Recent Archaeological Research in the Chincha Valley, Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Este trabajo presenta los resultados del análisis bioarqueológico realizado a ocho fardos funerarios del periodo Paracas Tardío (400-200 BCE) relacionados con el estilo cavernas que fueron recuperados en el Cerro del Gentil, valle de Chincha. Los fardos funerarios asociados a este...

  • Local Mortuary Practice and Inca Imperial Conquest in the Middle Chincha Valley, Peru (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jacob Bongers.

    This is an abstract from the "From the Paracas Culture to the Inca Empire: Recent Archaeological Research in the Chincha Valley, Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. I investigate the relationship between local mortuary practice and imperial conquest in the middle Chincha Valley of Peru, a landscape that was incorporated into the Inca Empire in the 15th century. Indigenous groups developed strategies for dealing with invasive imperial control. One...

  • Pozuelo: The Earliest Ceramic from Chincha Valley (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Henry Tantaleán. Alexis Rodríguez. Irving Aragonez. Boris Orccosupa. José Román.

    This is an abstract from the "From the Paracas Culture to the Inca Empire: Recent Archaeological Research in the Chincha Valley, Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Nuestras recientes excavaciones arqueológicas en el valle de Chincha fueron realizadas en el sitio arqueológico de Pozuelo descubierto por Lanning y Wallace en la década de 1960. Desde entonces, Pozuelo ha sido citado como el sitio que contuvo a la cerámica más temprana del valle de...

  • Subsistence and Exchange in the Chincha Valley (Peru) Using Portable X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Christine Bergmann.

    This is an abstract from the "From the Paracas Culture to the Inca Empire: Recent Archaeological Research in the Chincha Valley, Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Chincha Valley was one of the most productive regions on the southern coast of Peru, yet little is known about the subsistence practices of the pre-Inca communities that existed in the inland valley of Chincha during the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000-1476). The Chinchas formed...

  • The View from the North: Topará and Early Horizon Commoner Lifeways at Jahuay, Quebrada Topará, Peru (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Camille Weinberg. Jo Osborn. Kelita Pérez.

    This is an abstract from the "From the Paracas Culture to the Inca Empire: Recent Archaeological Research in the Chincha Valley, Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Just north of the Chincha Valley, the village site Jahuay at the mouth of the Topará valley offers an opportunity to investigate non-elite lifeways, and specifically the Topará cultural tradition, in the Chincha region during the terminal Early Horizon Period (approximately 250-1...