Early "Guañape" Ceramics from the North Coast of Peru: New Data from Gramalote (Moche Valley) and Huaca Prieta (Chicama Valley)

Summary

The problem of the introduction or adoption of the ceramic technology in the Central Andes is still an open debate. Earlier efforts have identified that ceramic vessels in the Moche and Chicama valleys were already in use around 1600-1500 B.C. Current research support the fact that the Second millennium is tentatively the period when domestic wares became popular in this region. New data from the Gramalote and Huaca Prieta sites support this view, suggesting that there seems to be formal differences between the ceramic vessels in the range of 1600/1500 to 1200/1000 B.C. and the so called “Cupisnique” cultural complex (1000/800 to 400/200 B.C.). In this paper the authors proposed that there is an early ceramic tradition in the North Coast of Peru, specifically in the Chao/Viru – Chicama region between 1600-1200 B.C. which is well represented in littoral sites associated with fishing and gardening/farming activities. Are these formal differences only part of fishing settlements or did they share similarities with other contemporary settlements? This paper is a first attempt to systematically characterize an early ceramic tradition of the Peruvian North Coast.

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

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