Continuities and Discontinuities in a Thousand Year Old Fishing Village on Huanchaco Bay, North Coast of Peru: The Pampa la Cruz Case

Summary

Traditionally, Andean archaeologists label residential settlements as "Salinar" or "Moche" and automatically assumed they "belong" to a particular society/culture. Since 2010, I have been excavating multiple sites around Huanchaco bay, located in the littoral of the Moche Valley, North Coast of Peru. One particularity of this coastline is that there is still an active group of fishermen exploiting the sea resources using traditional technology. The continuity between the earliest occupation identified in this area (B.C. 1500-1200) and the present day fishermen is giving us a new perspective for exploring the social, economic and ideological trajectories of the Huanchaco community. In short, instead of framing archaeological occupations as Salinar or Moche, I propose a "Huanchaco identity" created over time by their economic and ideological relationship with the ocean. To explore this possibility, I present the case of Pampa la Cruz, first occupied around B.C. 350/300 and abandoned roughly at 650/700 A.D. This occupation lasted for more than one thousand years in which this domestic settlement experienced several changes but also continuities in spatial organization and material culture. This paper presents the history of a fishing community and their co-existence with major social, political and ideological movements through time.

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): 20599