Excavations at Huaca Soto: 2000 Years of Ritual Reuse at a Paracas Platform Mound, Chincha, Peru

Summary

Huaca Soto is one of the best preserved pre-Columbian platform mounds in the Chincha Valley and perhaps the largest standing example of Paracas monumental architecture on the south coast. Excavation in the huaca’s western-most sunken court in 2014 yielded a sequence of ritual deposition stretching from the Paracas Formative through the Inka Period. While the mound’s substructure and earliest occupation levels are squarely associated with Paracas post-fire resin painted wares and architectural techniques, subsequent offerings in the site’s uppermost sunken court demonstrate Topará, Wari, Chincha, and Inka ritual participation. Deposition of high-value spondylus shell ornaments, hundreds of guinea pigs, dozens of camelids, and standardized serving wares attest to the site’s significance as a major arena for communal events. On the other hand, isolated and idiosyncratic offerings of adobe and copper figurines, appearing in various forms, may represent more ad-hoc depositions left by particular individuals or itinerant visitors. Overall, Huaca Soto brings to light new data on processes of ritual appropriation on Peru’s south coast.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Archaeological Research in the Chincha Valley, Southern Peru

Keywords

Spatial Coverage