Developing a "Mound Literacy" for the Late Archaic Norte Chico Region

Summary

During the Late Archaic Period, dramatic cultural transformations took place along the north central coast of Peru in a region known as the Norte Chico. These changes included a transition from hunting-gathering-fishing to farming, more intense social interaction, new kinds of power relationships between leaders and respondent populations, and the construction of monumental ceremonial architecture—all hallmarks of emergent social complexity. This paper moves beyond questions of why people built monuments and temples to focus on why they built so many. In order to explain the ritual density evident in this early sacred landscape I compare the Late Archaic Norte Chico region to the Mapuche society of south central Chile, who actively constructed ceremonial mounds until the 19th century. By creating a built sacred landscape these mound-building groups forged important connections between the human and natural realms and possibly demarcated territory. Drawing parallels between the Mapuche and the Late Archaic Norte Chico region, I argue that the construction of ceremonial architecture was tied to social relationships reflected in the placement and size of the mounds, plazas, and temples distributed across the landscape. Despite a wide chronological gap, the similarities help develop a “mound literacy” for the Late Archaic Norte Chico region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Powerful Places in the Ancient Andes

Keywords

Spatial Coverage