The Multiple Uses of Animals in the Ritual Site of Pachacamac, Peru: Results from a Recent Archaeozoological Analysis

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Pachacamac is a major site of the Peruvian central coast, occupied from the fifth to the sixteenth century AD. This presentation will report the results of an ongoing analysis of faunal remains recovered during the 2014, 2016, and 2018 excavation campaigns within the framework of the Ychsma Project (Université libre de Bruxelles). The different buildings excavated, named B3, B4, B15, and E3, are located in the second precinct of the site. They all differ from the well-known Pyramids with Ramps. Among the considerable amount of material studied, several complete animals in a very good state of preservation were discovered. Our study focuses on the last two periods of occupation before the Spanish conquest, namely the Ychsma and Inca periods, highlighting the differences between these and the selection of animals according to their use. It provides preliminary insights into the practice of sacrifice and offerings of animals at the site of Pachacamac, the diet of the inhabitants, and breeding practices, all these topics being the subject of a limited number of studies and therefore not yet well documented for the central coast of Peru.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32978