Embodied Deathscapes: Above-Ground Mortuary Structures in the Northeastern Peruvian Andes

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The northeastern slopes of the Peruvian Andes are ruptured by jagged limestone cliffs containing tombs built into caves, ledges, and overhangs. While these tombs vary considerably in structural and stylistic form, ranging from painted sarcophagi to multi-storied mausolea, they have been associated with a single archaeological region defined as Chachapoyas. Pedestrian survey conducted in 2017 and 2018 begins to address the significant quantity and diversity of above-ground tombs. This poster examines survey results to propose that the mapping of above-ground tombs can 1) provide insight into questions of the region’s social and political diversity and 2) develop understanding of how the dead in the Andes structured the landscape of the living. I introduce a preliminary model of a deathscape to explore how above-ground tombs acted to structure the landscape of the living. Through catchment analyses, settlement patterns and viewsheds, the poster visualizes the embodiment of the dead in a lived landscape. Finally, I complement these analyses with the phenomenological experience of moving through a deathscape on both pre-Hispanic and contemporary trail networks in Peru’s northeastern ceja de selva.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23904