Boundaries and Crossroads, Immigrants and Ancestors: Comparing the Post-Chavín Landscapes of the Moche and Virú Chaupiyungas

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Beyond Borders at the End of a Millennium: Life in the Western Andes circa 500–50 BCE" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The centuries following the disintegration of the Chavín interaction sphere (~500/400–200/50 BCE) were experienced in myriad ways throughout the ancient Andes. In the Moche and Virú Valleys in northern Peru, the late Early Horizon (~500–200 BCE) generally saw earlier traditions of large ceremonial centers fade to be replaced by evidence for fortifications, increased social hierarchies, and a boom in regional demography. However, even these generalized patterns were unevenly distributed across and between the landscapes of the valleys themselves. Situated at the highland edge of the coastal river valleys below, the chaupiyungas of the Moche and Virú Valleys witnessed recognizably different trajectories despite occupying similar borderlands in neighboring valleys. In this paper we use two full-coverage survey datasets to compare the post-Chavín landscapes of the Moche and Virú Valley chaupiyungas and explore the many ways in which relationships between neighboring and local groups transformed during the late Early Horizon.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Beyond Borders at the End of a Millennium: Life in the Western Andes circa 500–50 BCE   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38654.0