Violent Ritual and Inter-regional Interaction during the Early Intermediate Period and Early Middle Horizon in the Majes Valley, Arequipa, Peru

Summary

Artifacts from yungas and coastal zones of Arequipa, Peru show varying degrees of integration into the ideological and material networks of prominent neighboring cultures of the Early Intermediate Period (Nasca) and Middle Horizon (Wari). Ongoing research suggests these communities and towns were well-integrated into foreign trading networks, whether through direct interaction with foreign traders or down-the-line exchange. While foreign-produced goods and emulation of foreign goods or architectural cannons can provide circumstantial evidence of inter-regional connectivity, isotopic analysis of human skeletons can offer concrete evidence that non-locals visited, resided in, or were buried in a community. This research synthesizes results of isotopic analysis of human skeletons from the cemetery of Uraca, in the Majes Valley, and describes the artifact assemblage recovered. The data presented will demonstrate that the individuals interred at the site were linked to material and ideological traditions of Nasca and other desert and coastal valleys through mortuary practices and violent trophy-head taking, while there is only limited evidence that they emulated Wari material culture or tapped into Middle Horizon trade networks. The results suggest that Uraca’s interaction with foreigners was ideologically linked to rituals of violence and death, rather than materially linked to economic and subsistence practices.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20459