The Initial Period from the Perspective of the Casma Valley on the Northern Peruvian Coast

Summary

During the Initial Period (2100-1000 B.C.), the largest platform mound in the New World was constructed at Sechin Alto site in the Casma Valley. Measuring 300 m x 250 m x 35 m tall, this mound served as the administrative center for the Sechin Alto Polity which included over a dozen sites, most with monumental architecture. Our current understanding of the Sechin Alto Polity and how it functioned comes from decades of fieldwork by other researchers and by us, and this research is ongoing. This paper takes an historic look at how our knowledge of the Initial Period unfolded within the Casma Valley by examining key turning points in the research there. These include the realization that over a dozen Casma Valley sites are Initial Period in date; the recognition that mounds could have varied functions, including secular ones; the identification of the square-room-unit architectural form as a symbol of polity authority; and the correlation of the square-room-unit module with what appears to be a power symbol within local Initial Period iconography.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Social Complexity in the Central Andean Region: Current Research on the Initial Period and Early Horizon - Part 1

Keywords

Spatial Coverage