Open Space and Restricted Action: Analysis of Intra-site Networks of Movement at Wimba, in the Northeastern Peruvian Montane Forest

Summary

In an area that has been considered marginal both geographically and in the narrative of South American prehistory, new research shows extensive settlement, landscape modification, and interaction between inhabitants of the eastern slopes of the Andes and their neighbors. The site of Wimba, located in the Amazonas department, in the northeastern Peruvian montaña – the tropical montane forest between the highland Andes and lowland Amazonian rainforest – is one of the best known archaeological sites located at the eastern edge of the Late Intermediate Period (ca. 900-1500 CE) Chachapoyas cultural region. New data collected by the Proyecto Arqueológico Wimba in 2016 sheds light on the site’s construction, duration of occupation, use, and abandonment. Through network analysis of architecture, ceramics, and lithics recovered from both open spaces and structures, this paper will examine how the built environment of Wimba structured movement, ritual, and politics. The paper will also consider the structure of movement throughout the region by comparing Wimba with nearby neighbors. These data reflect the role of Wimba’s inhabitants in local, regional, and interregional sociopolitical organization and intra- and/or inter-regional networks of interaction, roles that created and enacted a society that evades broad categorization as Amazonian or Andean.

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): 15012