Defensive or Ritual Networks? A Preliminary Geospatial Analysis of Cerro Prieto Espinal in the Jequetepeque Valley, Peru

Summary

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

Mountainsides formed powerful spaces for ritual, defense, and settlement, and Andean communities often considered them the very embodiments of their animate ancestors or wak’as. However, they remain understudied within the North Coast region despite their proliferation during the Late Moche and Late Intermediate Periods. This paper presents a preliminary geospatial analysis (e.g. viewshed) of several major mountains and sites in the Cañoncillo Complex (Huaca Colorada, Tecapa, Jatanca, and Huaca Dos Cruces), located in the southern Jequetepeque Valley of Peru, to understand its possible social, political, and religious relationships. This analysis focuses on Cerro Prieto Espinal (~500 BCE-1470 CE), the primary fortified site at Cañoncillo. We argue that this site played a major strategic and communal role in this complex’s developments and its interactions with the broader landscape of defended mountainsides (e.g. Talambo, Cerro Chepen and the Cajamarca Highlands). Our analysis combines data from Google Earth, military aerial photography, drone imagery and RTK GNSS point sources gathered from our recent 2022 survey and excavation season. Finally, given the powerful nexus of strategic and ritually charged functions and meanings associated with such mountainsides, we look to problematize the interpretive use of GIS in past reconstructions.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36973.0