The Diverse Legacies of the Viru Project

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Legacies of Archaeologists in the Andes: Second Symposium, the Institutionalization and Internationalization of Andean Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 1946 a group of North American archaeologists with Andean experience, undertook a program of research in the Viru Valley, designed to supplement Rafael Larco Hoyle’s seriated sequence of ceramic styles based on vessels from graves and purchased collections. The Viru Project research program included systematic settlement survey, analysis of surface ceramic collections and stratigraphic excavation intended to create a cultural history from the advent of ceramics to the Inka occupation. Huaca Prieta, a large preceramic mound in the Chicama Valley was also excavated. The investigations of the Viru Project established the cultural and social background to Larco’s ceramic seriation with few exceptions. The results set a benchmark for future research utilizing multiple archaeological strategies. The close congruence perceived between the Viru results and Larco’s seriation for North Coast ceramics endured for the next 50 years. Revisions have come only in the past 15 years from site-specific investigations of chronology and sociopolitical complexity within the Viru Valley.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• The Legacies of Archaeologists in the Andes: Second Symposium, the Institutionalization and Internationalization of Andean Archaeology

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24139