Retracing the Relations between Virú-Gallinazo Communities, Early Intermediate Period, Northern Coast of Peru: Recent Contributions from Ceramic Technology and Petrography

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Scaling Potting Networks: Recent Contributions from Ceramic Petrography " session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Until recently, it was thought that during the Early Intermediate Period on the northern coast of Peru, the Virú-Gallinazo populations only coexisted for a short time with the Mochicas. Recent archaeological operations in the Virú Valley now reveal that in this region they developed without interruption from 200 BC to AD 700. Nevertheless, the relationship between this core zone and the Virú-Gallinazo communities settled in the adjacent valleys is still poorly known. The comparative technological analysis of the ceramic recovered in Virú-Gallinazo contexts from the Virú, Moche, Chicama, and Lambayeque valleys provides new insights on this matter. The aim of this research is to identify all the steps of the operative chain, by combining the analysis of marks left by potters, visible on surfaces and sections, and the petrographic analysis of paste. The results demonstrate how these groups are embedded in the same learning networks, and thus belong to the same community of practice. They also show how these populations, by settling in different regions, have preserved their traditions while adapting certain practices. In particular, we discuss how potters have modified their strategies for acquiring raw materials and adopted new practices through contact with contemporary groups in their new region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Scaling Potting Networks: Recent Contributions from Ceramic Petrography   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32781