States of Vulnerability: Examining Moche Era Practices of Care in Life and Death

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Bridging Time, Space, and Species: Over 20 Years of Archaeological Insights from the Cañoncillo Complex, Jequetepeque Valley, Peru, Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The way that communities cared for their living and dead holds great potential to elucidate the cosmovision of the Moche. Ritual practices during the Moche period involved human offerings that include women, children, and men at different stages of life. At the Late Moche site of Huaca Colorada, many of the 29 human burials from distinct contexts demonstrate that their involvement in these depositional events was due to their state of vulnerability. We define a “state of vulnerability” as a phase of time when an individual requires greater care due to age, illness, or pregnancy. In this paper, we examine several examples for the way that practices of care create and reinforce ritual significance during phases of renovation and maintenance of the physical and emotional health of the site. Mobilizing frameworks from bioarchaeology of care and socio-emotional theory, we argue that the time required to care for individuals in these vulnerable states while alive sacralized their deaths. The diverse life stages of the burials from Huaca Colorada highlight the varied experiences for communities living at the site and their investment in caring for their loved ones in both life and death.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Bridging Time, Space, and Species: Over 20 Years of Archaeological Insights from the Cañoncillo Complex, Jequetepeque Valley, Peru, Part 1   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38519.0