Variations in Settlement Patterns and Neighborhood Organization in Early Horizon Peru

Summary

This paper examines forms of proto-urban settlements in coastal Ancash, north-central Peru, centered on the Nepeña Valley. During the Early Horizon (800-100 BC), the region witnessed the development of culturally and economically interrelated settlements with varying degrees of architectural density and complexity. Most of these centers were organized around clusters of walled enclosures with duplicate domestic facilities interpreted as multi-functional residential complexes, or compounds. Based on spatial, architectural and excavation data, these compounds are interpreted as major foci of daily activities and interactions, as well as public events housed in patios and plazas at the heart of most compounds. Depending on their scale and complexity, some of the compounds can be considered neighborhoods. In this paper, we explore what the neighborhood concept entails for these groups in terms of sociopolitical organization through a review of Early Horizon excavation and settlement pattern data. Major variables include: "compact" and "dispersed" architectural patterns; ephemeral, generational, and multi-generational architectural scales ; access patterns ; life cycles of compounds ; and material patterns of use. We compare these results with other settlements in the region in order to gain comparative insights into the diversity of residential adaptations during the first millennium BC.

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): 20690