Shapes of Power: Rectangular Tombs and Societal Identities at Yaracachi Cemetery, Moquegua, Peru

Summary

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

Humans have a variety of means of coping with the inevitability of death that is expressed in material culture. To interpret burials as the material remains of ritualistic processes, multiple variables need to be assessed, such as the construction, location, spatial distribution of graves, and associated grave goods. Two types of tombs were uncovered at the Yaracachi cemetery in Moquegua, Peru; round tombs and rectangular tombs. Rectangular tombs were atypical in the Andes during the Late Intermediate Period (1100-1400 CE). For this project, I plotted graves based on shape and elaboration to discern spatial patterns and assessed the types and numbers of associated cultural materials to consider ethnic affiliations and social status. I analyzed grave data from approximately 22% of the 1300+ tombs. Rectangular-shaped graves account for ten percent of the graves examined and have a higher average number of grave goods and metal artifacts than round tombs, which suggests that these graves display a higher socio-economic status of the interred individuals. Rectangular graves occur in clusters, which may indicate an association between these individuals, perhaps based on social status or ethnicity. The rarity of rectangular graves at Yaracachi and throughout the Andes suggests that these are high-status graves.

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): 41516.0