More than Kindling: Algarrobo Posts and Social Memory on the Peruvian North Coast

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The ancient Moche site of Huaca Colorada (AD 650-850) on the north coast of Peru was the center for elaborate feasting events and rituals of human sacrifice. This ceremonial center has been the focus of intensive archaeological study, yet the spatial distribution of wooden posts within the Moche architectural platforms remains under-analyzed, despite the fact that they constituted prominent and often over-engineered features of Moche archaeology and were made from the venerated algarrobo tree (Prosopis pallida). These wooden posts are a unique feature as they were routinely recycled in later architectural renovations of platforms at Huaca Colorada through a careful process of extraction and re-installation. This contrasts remarkably with the treatment of the surrounding adobe platforms, walls, and floors which were intentionally destroyed, buried, or immolated during each new phase of reconstruction. This paper will examine the endurance of these posts within (and between) Moche ritual spaces and elucidate their possible purpose in the materialization of social memory or their role as metaphorical trees of life that engendered genealogical and cosmic continuity in the face of cyclical time of transience, death, and change.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36526.0