Rooms, Houses, and Neighborhoods: Drone-mapping and GIS Analyses of the Household Architecture at Cerro la Virgen, Moche Valley, Peru (AD 1100–1470)

Summary

Here we explore the spatial patterning of the Small Irregular Agglutinated Residences (SIAR) at the Chimú town of Cerro la Virgen (1100–1470 AD) in the Moche Valley, Peru. Few examples of "Andean Households" are as enigmatic and iconic as SIAR, which were closely associated with the florescence of the Chimú Empire. Large barrios consisting of SIAR architecture are found at the Chan Chan (the Chimu capital) and at all Chimu provincial centers throughout the empire. Cerro la Virgen once lay in the rural hinterland of Chan Chan at the distal end of a vast system of state fields, which are believed to have supported royal activities at Chan Chan. At the site, well-preserved residential architecture covers 14 ha. We created a 3-D rendering of all the SAIR architecture at the site by processing aerial drone photography. Recent SAIR excavations at the site were used to identify room types, which were then employed in a quantitative analysis of household and community spatial patterning. As a result, we were able to identify household units, household clusters, and neighborhoods. Based on this study, we propose new quantitative methods for analyzing households, communities, and neighborhoods in the Andes and other regions.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21296