Almost 100 Years since Julio C. Tello: Research at Huaca del Loro, Nasca, Peru

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Almost 100 Years since Julio C. Tello: Research at Huaca del Loro, Nasca, Peru" at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The expansion of first-generation empires was a key transformation that impacted societies in a myriad of ways. In the Andes, the Middle Horizon (500–1000 CE) was a time of interregional interaction, influenced by the expansion of the highland Wari. The relationship between the Wari and the coastal Nasca has been debated, especially the role of Huaca del Loro, the largest site during this period. Julio C. Tello (the father of Peruvian archaeology) and his team were the first to investigate the site in 1927, recording rectangular compounds and excavating large collective tombs. William Duncan Strong gave the site its current name in the 1950s and excavated a circular temple, as well as units in the compounds. In the 1980s the circular temple was proposed to have been the result of Huarpa (pre-Wari) expansion. In the 2000s it was suggested that Huaca del Loro was a local settlement of Wari resistance. In this session, we bring together the results of two field seasons at Huaca del Loro that uncovered a Wari D-shaped temple and compounds, indicating the site was a Wari colony with a large residential area. These data broaden our knowledge of the expansion of first-generation empires and local transformations.

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Documents
  • Geospatial Methods at Huaca del Loro (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Tyler Rhoads. Jerod Roberts. Bryan Heisinger. Victoria Roberts.

    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. Throughout the 2019 and 2022 field seasons, geospatial data were collected at Huaca del Loro using a combination of traditional and digital mapping techniques. Sand covers every corner of the site, so in 2019 a ground-penetrating radar was utilized to identify buried structures. This led to the discovery of a...

  • Mummy Bundles Found at Huaca del Loro (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Corina Kellner.

    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. Huaca de Loro in Nasca is an important Wari colony in the Nasca region. Two recent field seasons at the site revealed new information on the relationship between Nasca and Wari during the Middle Horizon (650–1000 CE), such as a D-shaped temple and an associated compound indicative of Wari presence and...

  • One Hundred Years of Research at Huaca del Loro, Nasca, Peru (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina Conlee. Aldo Noriega.

    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. It has been almost 100 years since Julio C. Tello, the father of Peruvian archaeology, and his team first investigated the site of Huaca del Loro in Nasca, Peru. During this time the site has been interpreted as a cemetery, a settlement with both elites and commoners, a possible highland Huarpa site, the...

  • Paleoethnobotanical Analysis at Huaca del Loro: Initial Findings and Interpretations (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Biwer. Heidi Hepburn.

    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. Archaeobotanical data have the ability to speak to myriad issues of human-environment interactions as well as social institutions within societies. Here, I present the initial findings from my analysis of paleoethnobotanical remains at the site of Huaca del Loro, a Wari-affiliated site located in the Nazca...

  • A Study of Incised Designs within a Wari D-Shaped Temple Complex (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Victoria Roberts. Kaylee Henderson. Jerod Roberts.

    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...

  • Wari D-Temples: Inferring Function from Shape, Distribution, and Orientation (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only James Moore.

    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. Emerging evidence increasingly suggests that D-shaped structures were a tool of Wari imperial and cultural expansion throughout the Middle Horizon landscape. Analysis of their construction, geographic distribution, regional context, and specific orientations reveals that their use and purpose was not...