Monte Lima, a Tallán Community in Late Intermediate Period Chira Valley, Perú

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Monte Lima is one of five large Late Intermediate sites in the lower Chira Valley described by Richardson et al. (1990) as representing a surge in local complexity resulting from Sicán and Chimú expansion to the far north coast. In 2023, we conducted preliminary excavations across this multicomponent site to establish chronology, better understand stratigraphy and preservation, and begin to explore the roles of state conquest and interregional exchange in shaping local social and political organization. Fieldwork and visits to local community museums revealed that local Tallán ceramics and architectural elements were abundant at Monte Lima. Most of what we know about the Tallán culture comes from colonial period records of their language, their interactions with Pizarro’s invading forces, and their politically powerful women, called capullanas. Little archaeological literature so far has explicitly addressed the Tallán. In this paper, we report on our first steps toward recognizing Tallán presence at Monte Lima and characterizing local interactions with the powerful states and trade networks of the Late Intermediate Period Andes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39375.0