Plow Zone Archaeology in a Wari Imperial Center

Summary

The immense size of most Wari Imperial administrative centers has limited the breadth of our understanding of the social, political, ritual and economic activities that may have occurred within these large rectilinear compounds. In order to address these limitations, the 2017 Nasca Headwaters Archaeological Project excavation season at Incawasi attempted to apply a more traditionally North American methodology to six 50x50 meter Wari patio groups in order to draw broad conclusions about the scope of activities at the site. A total of 457 shovel test pits were excavated in a 5x5 meter grid across the site. Incawasi has been heavily damaged by modern cultivation; however, experimental studies have shown that while plowing destroys the stratigraphy at a site the vertical and horizontal movement of artifacts is limited. The implications of this for Incawasi are that shovel test pits provide an ideal methodology to create large area, low-resolution data to understand the activities undertaken within these patio groups. This paper presents the spatial analysis of the finds from the 2017 season at Incawasi in order to highlight the functional use of space in a Wari administrative compound in the Upper Nasca River Valley.

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): 21342