Ceramic Petrography and Early Intermediate Period Interaction in the Moche Valley, Peru: Current Understanding and Future Research

Summary

Understanding the spatial distribution of pottery styles in combination with pottery composition and raw materials availability can help illuminate networks of interaction among groups at a regional scale. My research focuses on distinct pottery styles of the middle and upper Moche valley that had wide distribution during the Gallinazo and Early Moche phases. The pottery assemblage from three large, high status households at Cerro León (AD 60 to 350, 2 sigma cal.) in the middle Moche valley demonstrated that imported highland pottery was integral to particular activities, especially feasting, spinning, and certain daily food processing and storage activities. However Cerro León’s relationship to contemporary sites in the valley during this dynamic period remains unexplored. The data presented in this paper represent initial efforts to understand the composition of stylistically similar pottery assemblages from eight sites in the upper middle Moche valley. Context and contemporaneity must be confirmed, but preliminary results indicate broad technological similarities with possible differences in paste composition that may indicate local variation in manufacture.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Recent Research and a Chronological Reevaluation of the Viru-Moche-Chicama Valleys

Keywords

Spatial Coverage