The Biology and Mythology of Ancestor Lithification in the Andes

Summary

Throughout human history, many cultures have told stories about people who turned to stone in death. What is the inspiration for these myths? How do they relate to taphonomic processes that affect deceased organisms? This paper addresses these questions in an Andean context by comparing pre-Hispanic narratives of lithification to post-mortem biological processes. In the Andes, tales of lithification focus on ancestors and local heroes, who, in their petrified state, continue to interact with the living by mediating between their descendants and supernatural deities. Ethnographies and ethnohistories describe large upright stones (huancas) and natural stone formations (huacas) who received the same care from their descendants as mummified ancestral remains and contextual evidence has allowed examples of modified and unmodified stone huancas to be identified in the archaeological record. The equivalency in the treatment of huancas and mummified ancestors raises interesting questions regarding the conceptual relationship between stone and the dead. One possible explanation argues Andean people were motivated to create this association by the desire to transfer qualities of stone (durability) to their ancestors. However, processes of lithification (fossilization) are not purely abstract mythologies. Could Andean beliefs regarding lithification also represent a compressed and abstracted interpretation of taphonomic processes?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22538