Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Chavín de Huántar is an important Middle-Late Formative site (1200–500 BC) of the north-central highlands of Peru, recognized for its precocious worked stone monumental construction, enigmatic architectural forms including subterranean galleries, and extensive stone art that decorated many architectural contexts. The site's primary function was religious, judging from the elaborate development of ritual contexts and material culture. The Programa de Investigación Arqueológica y Conservación en Chavín de Huántar began in 1994, addressing the multidimensional complexity of the site. Its transdisciplinary research marked a significant shift in the generation of knowledge about the emergence of authority in the Andes. Greater understanding of previously known contexts and discovery of new ritual spaces have revealed an iconic tradition marked by both continuity and innovation. Detailed excavations of galleries, including those in the Atrium of the Circular Plaza, have sophisticated understanding of function and organization of the Chavín entity. Across 30 years of fieldwork and analysis a variety of locations in and around the monumental site have been investigated. This session focuses on the Programa’s new knowledge and research perspectives, reevaluating concepts of Andean Formative organization and its complexity, and questioning how or if the Formative was elemental in development of Andean states.

Other Keywords
Andes: Formative • Ritual and Symbolism • Architecture • digital archaeology • Social and Political Organization • Material Culture and Technology • Archaeometry & Materials Analysis • Ideology • Chronology • Dating Techniques

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

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-14 of 14)

  • Documents (14)
Documents
  • Apropiación, síntesis y representación en la etapa Blanco y Negro de Chavín (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Miguel Guillermo Ortiz Mestanza.

    This is an abstract from the "Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. La forma final del sitio de Chavín de Huántar se estableció fundamentalmente en la llamada etapa Blanco y Negro definida por Kembel. Hay allí elementos de la arquitectura y del paisaje que son indicios de algún programa de reestructuración social en clave de una renovada...

  • Archaeoacoustics at Chavín de Huántar: New Evidence for Social Complexity via Sonic Communication Technologies (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Miriam Kolar.

    This is an abstract from the "Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A dynamic, pervasive link between materiality and humans, sound remains an underestimated and deeply misunderstood domain for archaeological study. Archaeoacoustics fieldwork with broad community contributions at Chavín de Huántar since 2008 has enabled the development of new...

  • Chavín and Its Galleries: An Inside View of the Andean Formative Period (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Silvia Rodriguez-Sama.

    This is an abstract from the "Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Understanding the unique gallery system at Chavín de Huántar has been one of the PIACCh’s primary goals over the past 30 years. Research objectives that began in the mid-1990s with the challenge of simply making accurate maps of these internal spaces, evolved to address broader...

  • Chavín de Huántar and the Chronology of the Andean Formative Period in Lima (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Christian Mesia-Montenegro.

    This is an abstract from the "Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper evaluates 113 radiocarbon dates of 11 Formative sites located in Lima and assesses them considering the existing Chavín chronological framework. All dates were modeled using Bayesian statistics through Oxcal to reassess the chronological range of the Formative period in...

  • Consumo de plantas psicoactivas en Chavín de Huántar: Primeras evidencias directas en tubos de hueso en contexto de la Galería 3 (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Veronica Lema. Javier Echeverría. Giuseppe Alva Valverde. Oscar Arias Espinosa. John W. Rick.

    This is an abstract from the "Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. En 2018 el Programa de Investigación Arqueológico y Conservación en Chavín de Huántar excavó la nueva Galería 3 del Atrio de la Plaza Circular, donde fueron reconocidos cuatro eventos deposicionales que consisten en concentraciones de cerámica, carbón, restos óseos y bienes...

  • Daily Life Outside the Monument: Recent Excavations at the La Banda Sector, Chavín de Huántar (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Sayre. Silvana Rosenfeld. Erick Acero.

    This is an abstract from the "Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Chavín de Huántar is a very important Formative period site located in the Conchucos region of north-central Peru. It has unique monumental architecture, which includes a series of buildings with complex galleries and canals, as well as finely crafted stone sculptures. Although...

  • Descifrando las transformaciones y significados en Chavín de Huántar: Un análisis de los marcadores materiales en la Plaza Circular y el atrio (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Erick Acero-Shapiama. John Rick. Rosa Rick. Lisseth Rojas-Pelayo.

    This is an abstract from the "Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A través del tiempo, la Plaza Circular y su atrio en el monumento Chavín de Huántar han tenido mucha importancia. Durante la fase Blanco - Negro, estas áreas, tuvieron pleno funcionamiento y albergaron una diversidad de contextos, donde destaca el descubrimiento de las galerías de la...

  • Eating and Drinking at Chavín de Huántar: What the Microbotanical Evidence Can (and Can’t) Tell Us (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sadie Weber.

    This is an abstract from the "Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the cumulative findings, to date, of ongoing microbotanical analyses carried with the aim of interpreting internal and external interactions from diverse contexts at Chavín de Huántar. Since microbotanical analysis offers us a view into the production and...

  • Faced Façade: New Interpretations of Chavín’s Tenon Heads (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Patricia Lagarde.

    This is an abstract from the "Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The sculptural figures at Chavín de Huántar have long been considered potent symbols of a unified religious tradition across the Andes mountains. Today, Chavín is recognized as a Formative period pilgrimage center located in the highlands of modern-day Peru. It is known for its...

  • Gallery of the Condor: The Earlier End of Chavín’s Underground Structures (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only John Rick. Erick Acero Shapiama. Rosa Rick.

    This is an abstract from the "Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2019 a new gallery was detected by the Programa de Investigación Arqueológico y Conservación en Chavín de Huántar in Chavin’s Building D, which was explored in 2022 and excavated in 2023. Named for a sculptural stone vessel depicting a condor left during gallery closure, the...

  • The Offerings to the Ceremonial Center of Chavín de Huántar: New Perspectives from the Explanada Canals (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Mélanie Ferras Deletré.

    This is an abstract from the "Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ceremonial center of Chavín de Huántar (1200–500 BCE) stands out for its extensive network of hydraulic canals. The excavations carried out by the Chavín de Huántar Archaeological and Conservation Research Program in the Explanada sector allowed these subterranean structures to...

  • Renovación del templo en Chavín de Huántar en el Periodo Formativo Tardío: Una interpretación desde el estudio de los materiales (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Giuseppe Alva Valverde. Óscar Arias Espinoza. Mary Claudia Avila Peltroche.

    This is an abstract from the "Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. En esta presentación expondremos sobre los análisis realizados a los objetos hallados en contextos de ofrendas, asociados a lo que hemos definido como la renovación del templo en Chavín de Huántar, practica ritual realizada durante el Periodo Formativo Tardío (900-450 aC). Los...

  • Searching for the Domestic at Chavín: Integrating 20-Plus years of Archaeology in La Banda (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Daniel Contreras. John Rick. John Wolf. Matt Sayre. Silvana Rosenfeld.

    This is an abstract from the "Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Even after more than a century of research at Chavín de Huántar, two key questions remain about who the ceremonial center was built for and who it was built by. As research attention has largely focused on pilgrims, priests, and peer polities, the labor force and craft specialists...

  • Transiciones en cuerpos y espacios: Acercamiento a las prácticas funerarias desplegadas en Chavín de Huántar a finales del Formativo (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisseth Rojas-Pelayo.

    This is an abstract from the "Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tras el cese del funcionamiento del centro ceremonial de Chavín, el área fue reocupada por los grupos Huarás, Mariash y Callejón, quienes construyeron unidades domésticas en espacios antes considerados como rituales. El punto que llama nuestra atención es la transición entre la...