The Incorporation of the Chicama Valley into the Southern Moche Polity (AD 200 – 900): A Preliminary Biodistance Assessment

Summary

Nascent state formation is often purported involved the incorporation of nonlocal peoples, this question still remains unresolved for the southern Moche (AD 200 – 900) polity thought to be centered at the Pyramids at Moche site. Some archaeologists (Castillo and Uceda 2010) that the southern Moche state's expansion began following the incorporation of the Cao Viejo polity within the Chicama Valley to the north. Further, a recently published reevaluation of radiocarbon dates for Moche ceramics associated with the traditional five phase Moche ceramic sequence suggests that Moche III phase ceramics originated in the Moche Valley and later appear in the Chicama Valley to the north, concomitant with the proposed expansion of the southern Moche polity. This study reports biodistance analyses for recently collected genetically influenced tooth trait data from both the Pyramids at Moche and Cao Viejo sites to put this hypothesis to the test. The broader implications of the results are discussed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage