Huaca del Loro: A Wari Colony in Coastal Nasca

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Developments through Time on the South Coast of Peru: In Memory of Patrick Carmichael" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Excavations at the site of Huaca del Loro in the Las Trancas Valley of the Nasca drainage have uncovered a Wari settlement, a cemetery with hybrid Nasca/Wari practices, and a large habitation area possibly for local support personnel. In the Wari sector, ground-penetrating radar (GPR) identified subsurface rectilinear architecture similar to that found at other Wari sites, and a large round structure. Excavations were focused in this sector to expose the architecture and it was determined that the rectilinear architecture is a Wari style compound, and that the round structure is a D-shaped temple (one of the first identified in coastal Peru). Material culture associated with the Wari architecture consists of local Loro ceramics, Wari style offerings, and limited amounts of Wari imperial ceramics. In the cemetery, a Nasca style “trophy” head individual was excavated from a looted multiple-individual tomb, suggesting local control over important cultural behavior. In the large habitation area, excavations uncovered *quincha (cane) architecture in the local style along with Loro ceramics, suggesting this area was occupied by local people although future excavations are necessary to assess the nature of this sector.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Developments through Time on the South Coast of Peru: In Memory of Patrick Carmichael   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32523