Death after Inka Expansion: Analyses of a Secondary Communal Burial at Las Huacas, Chincha Valley

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.

Mortuary Practices are political acts that are deeply embedded in political and social interactions. Complex N1 at the site of Las Huacas was the location of various burials during the Late Horizon (AD 1470–1532) and, possibly, early colonial period (AD 1532–1570). One such burial, was a large communal ossuary known as Feature 17. Feature 17 contains the remains of at least 42 individuals of various ages and sexes, and many elements show features of secondary mortuary rituals, including crania painted with red pigment, cut marks on bones, and vertebrae associated with reeds. This paper shares details from analyses of human remains, textiles, ceramics, and other artifacts included in the mortuary feature. These analyses shed light on both the individuals whose remains were deposited in Feature 17, as well as the rituals that surrounded their reinternment in Complex N1. The paper concludes by discussing what Feature 17 tells us about the terminal Late Horizon and/or early colonial period mortuary practices, as well as the larger sociopolitical contexts that surrounded the reinternment of these individuals.

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): 32464