The People of the Land and the People of the Sea: Tracing Residence and Relationships between Littoral and Chaupiyunga Populations in the Moche Valley during the Early Intermediate Period

Summary

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

Exploring mobility and inter-community relationships has been an important area of research in the Precolumbian Andes since Rostworowski first argued for economic and ethnic divisions between communities of fishers and farmers on the Peruvian north coast. To address this issue in the Moche Valley, we examined Viru period (150 BC–AD 500) dental remains of 12 individuals recovered from Huanchaco Bay and 10 individuals excavated from Cerro Oreja, on the western edge of the chaupiyunga. Ratios of 87Sr/86Sr, 206Pb/204Pb, 207Pb/204Pb, 208Pb/204Pb and δ18O were characterized in enamel carbonate to estimate residential origin and mobility. Preliminary analyses suggest that strontium and lead isotopes significantly discriminate between littoral and upland residence in the Moche Valley, while δ18O values are characterized by some overlap between the regions. Furthermore, individuals recovered from Cerro Oreja show a wider range of 87Sr/86Sr and δ18O values, possibly indicating greater mobility in the chaupiyunga compared to the coast. This finding is further supported by analysis of dental non-metric traits, which indicate greater homogeneity among the littoral populations of the Moche Valley. Variability in Cerro Oreja’s Viru period population may be attributed the chaupiyunga’s status as location of interaction between the coast and the sierra.

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): 37605.0