Craft Production at Cerro Baúl: Unattached Specialization on the Wari Frontier

Summary

This paper presents preliminary analysis and interpretations of a craft production space located within a single residential patio group on the summit of Cerro Baúl, located in the Moquegua Valley of Peru on the Wari- Tiwanaku frontier. Excavations in a patio group located close to a Tiwanaku temple exposed a dense artifact midden which included obsidian points and debitage, shell and lithic beads, burnt ceramics, and bone. Evidence of subfloor offerings, marked by multiple cuy internments in the western half of one of the rooms, reflect religious ritual in the dedication of the space. The discovery of such a diverse artifact scatter has led us to revise our initial interpretations of the space as an obsidian workshop to a more generalized craft production space with potential ties to ritual components within the Wari empire.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15476