Where was Chachapoyas? A view from the South

Summary

To answer the query "what was Chachapoyas?" we must think in terms of time, space and identity. Chachapoyas scholars have encountered documentary and/or archaeological evidence of a mosaic of social identities, all undergoing transformations during successive pre-Inca, Inca, and Colonial times within a truly vast Andean region. In this paper, I consider notions of Chachapoyas internal and external boundaries as they have been conceived in the southern area where I conduct my research. Chachapoyas scholars usually make reference to ethnohistorian Waldemar Espinoza’s 1967 map of "Grupos Étnicos" and/or the map drawn by Langlois ca. 1940. Neither scholar provides detailed justifications for border placements. Scholars concur that differences in material patterning indicate the existence of a poorly understood boundary that once separated Chachapoyas into northern and southern sub-regions, and perhaps justified the Inca’s creation of northern and southern Inca administrative units (or hunos). The meanings underlying these differences require explanation, as these "halves" do share material attributes. My research suggests that wholesale inclusion of the southern area under the "Chachapoyas" label inhibits understanding of cultural developments at important sites like Gran Pajatén. Here I examine when, where, and perhaps why some boundaries may, or may not have functioned in southern Chachapoyas.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• What was Chachapoyas?: Towards a cultural geography of the northeastern Peruvian Andes   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage