When Archaeology Meets History: Documenting the Conquest and Transition Period at Pachacamac, Peru.

Summary

Traditional accounts of the conquest of Peru are well known and universally accepted: in 1535, Francisco Pizarro – who had arrived two years earlier – decided to create a new capital in the neighbouring Rimac river valley, which would one day become the current city of Lima. In order to achieve this, Pizarro forcibly displaced all the contemporary inhabitants of Pachacamac, leaving this major Inka pilgrimage site completely abandoned.

However, new finds recovered during the 2016 excavations at Pachacamac are raising questions about this traditional view. Several pages of Spanish text written on parchment pages, dating to the 16th Century AD, have been discovered. The pages were found in caches in building B4, and had been deliberately torn up.

It clearly indicates a hitherto unrecognised continuity of occupation and building construction at Pachacamac in the early 16th century. A horseshoe, along with horse and donkey bones, were also unearthed in the same building.

In this paper we discuss the original occupation and use of B4, as well as its transformation in early Colonial times.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15368