Persistence and Material Mnemonics in the Cosma Basin: 5000 Years of Ritual Enactment in the Upper Nepeña River, Peru

Author(s): Kimberly Munro

Year: 2017

Summary

The Cosma Complex is located in the Cordillera Negra at the headwaters of the upper Nepeña River Valley, Ancash Peru. Fieldwork conducted between 2014-2016 documented repeated reconstruction episodes associated with the reuse of monumental ritual architecture originally dated to the Late Preceramic (3000-1800 BCE). By the Early Horizon infant remains and other offerings were placed into earlier architectural contexts as a final capping episode on at least one mound. As settlement patterns shifted, a third mound was constructed along an adjacent ridge-line. Based on the abundance of late pottery styles on the ridges, it appears that the Cosma basin was occupied well into the Late Intermediate Period and into Colonial times. This paper theorizes that Cosma persisted as a small but stable population through the construction, maintenance, and altering re-use of the monumental constructions, which were part of a venerated landscape of regional importance. By exploring questions of persistence, periods of hiatus, and re-occupation, as well as constructs of social memory and perception, I look at how successive generations may have perceived and been influenced by features of the local landscape, in particular the dominating local presence of the ritual mounds.

Cite this Record

Persistence and Material Mnemonics in the Cosma Basin: 5000 Years of Ritual Enactment in the Upper Nepeña River, Peru. Kimberly Munro. Presented at The 81st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Vancouver, British Columbia. 2017 ( tDAR id: 430527)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

min long: -93.691; min lat: -56.945 ; max long: -31.113; max lat: 18.48 ;

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15604