Recovering Social and Political Structures on the Precolumbian North Coast of Peru

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Dedication, Collaboration, and Vision, Part II: Papers in Honor of Tom D. Dillehay" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

It has been several decades since archaeologists first recognized that information about prehistoric social and political structures of precolumbian societies could be recovered by careful and appropriate archeological survey and excavation. Careful observation and recording made latter recognition of structures related to social and political organization possible as well. Recent archaeological work in the last decades has provided additional confirmation. Reports initially focused on the final millennium before the arrival of the Europeans. More recently, careful recovery and recording of archaeological data by archaeologists such as Mackey, Shimada, and the Pozorskis, to mention only a few, has shed light on the later cultures. The final reports on the early hunters and gatherers of the heads of the coastal valleys on the excavations at Huaca Prieta by Dillehay, Shimada, Mackey, and others confirmed that many such structures could be traced back to the early preceramic period and earlier. Further research now indicates that the evidence for these structures is both earlier and abundant if it is recognized. It is clear from the North Coast case that archaeologists must include familiarity with the organization of social groups in this area gained initially from Spanish accounts and ethnographic reports in their research designs.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Dedication, Collaboration, and Vision, Part II: Papers in Honor of Tom D. Dillehay   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36665.0