Monumental Afterlives of Chavín Mountains at Chawin Punta and Kunturay in Pasco, Peru

Summary

This is an abstract from the "After the Feline Cult: Social Dynamics and Cultural Reinvention after Chavín" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The breakdown of Chavín interregional networks at the end of the Early Horizon had variable outcomes for high-altitude ceremonial centers in the Central Andes of Pasco, Peru. Within the Chaupihuaranga Canyon, neighboring mountaintop monuments have distinct sociohistorical trajectories that complicate temporal arguments about the post-Chavín abandonment and resettlement of sites at the end of the Early Horizon and beginning of the Early Intermediate period. This paper employs a novel chronological framework of “monumental eras” to track the periodic shifts in how past people engaged with the already ancient stone heritage atop canyon ridges. In light of the vitality and agency of stone in Andean ontologies, this paper recounts the long lives of monumental mountaintops to illustrate how their changing relationships with humans forged new social organizations during the late first millennium BCE and early first millennium CE. Excavations at Kunturay reveal that its platform building episodes continued during the late first millennium BCE long after monumental construction had ceased at Chawin Punta. By the second century CE, people had resettled Chawin Punta and built houses atop its sunken circular plaza, marking a major change in humanity’s relationship with mountain worship at this sacred site.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• After the Feline Cult: Social Dynamics and Cultural Reinvention after Chavín   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38540.0