Middle Horizon "local" and "exotic" styles in Castillo de Huarmey and Pachacamac: Menzel’s ideas revised

Summary

Recent excavations at Castillo de Huarmey and Pachacamac leave no doubt that the earliest archaeological contexts associated with Middle Horizon in both sites are related to the second half of that period and coincide with the collapse of two main regional political systems on the Peruvian coast: Moche and Lima, respectively. Both systems, consolidated and politically transformed, have overcome adverse climate conditions of the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. In the case of Castillo de Huarmey and Pachacamac, the ceramics of different styles and from various epochs (according to Dorothy Menzel´s terminology) are found within the same stratigraphic contexts. Our analyses show that styles, with "local" and "exotic" characteristics, both were locally produced. Style and technique diversity would be conceived as the result of the presence of workshops with craftsmen of native and foreign origins that could even be involved in the same artifact production. A complex political network capable of moving long-distance specialists and craftsmen, similar mutatis mutandis to the Inca Empire, had to be developed to make the changes described above possible.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• A.D. 600 Cultural and Environmental Transformation in Ancient Peru   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16171