Making Andean Houses: A Comparative Case Study

Summary

Dwellings occupy a unique space in human lives, places where multiple trajectories of ‘Culture’ and ‘Nature’ intersect. Not merely shelters, dwellings often incorporate subtle aspects of social life and world view while being literally structured by the capacities of raw materials and construction techniques. Rather than a passive reflection of human intention or social existence, dwellings result from making—to use Tim Ingold’s notion, a perspective placing "the maker from the outset as participant in a world of active materials" in which the maker intervenes "in worldly processes that are already going on and which give rise to the forms of the living world." Methodologically, ‘making’ is "read longitudinally, as a confluence of forces and materials, rather than laterally, as a transposition from image to object." Further, the transformations of ancient dwellings into archaeological features and contexts engage with additional modes of ‘making’ as houses become sites. I apply these concepts to two different classes of late prehispanic dwellings in coastal Peru—casas de quincha in the Casma Valley and tabique dwellings in the Tumbes Valley—and discuss analytical challenges involved in a comparative study of Andean houses and households.

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): 18787