Landscapes of Violence: Trophy Head Production and Interpersonal Violence during the Wari era in the Middle Majes Valley, Arequipa, Peru

Summary

The Middle Horizon (600 - 1000 AD) is known as a period of increased social hierarchization, changing mortuary customs, and high rates of interpersonal violence in many regions of the prehistoric Peruvian Andes. This project compares rates and types of violent practices (antemortem, peri-mortem, and postmortem violent dismemberment) between the northern and southern sectors at the recently excavated Middle Horizon cemetery site of Uraca in the middle Majes Valley to skeletal data from the early and late Middle Horizon excavated by Tung in the upper Majes Valley in order to determine whether violence types and rates are different near the ritual center of Toro Muerto than at other mortuary and residential sites in the upper valley. Spatial distributions of violence types and rates from the present project and published data are also explored in order to determine whether local geography predicts the type of violence practiced. Differences observed in violence rates and types can be explained by two alternate hypotheses. The northern and southern sectors at Uraca may have been used for interment during different time periods, or for interment of individuals from different social classes, ethnic identities, or occupational groups.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Mortuary Assemblages from Uraca, an early Wari-era Cemetery in the Majes Valley of Arequipa, Peru   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage