Ecologies of Ancestors: Examining the Intermateriality of Chachapoya Above-Ground Mortuary Architecture through Wood Anatomy, Geochemistry and Local Land-Based Knowledge in the Amazonian Andes of Peru

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Landscapes of Death: Placemaking and Postmortem Agencies" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

At the cusp between Andes and Amazon, limestone cliffs cloaked in the mist of tropical montane cloud forest house the remains of Chachapoya ancestors. Given their dramatic placement within a fractured and lush environment, the “chullpa” or above-ground mortuary structures of pre-colonial Chachapoya communities have long evoked curiosity and concern among the many who view them from afar. Centering Indigenous frameworks and Andean thought, we demonstrate how the construction of a chullpa is composed of multiple, meaningful entities, acting as a node from which relationships with the ecologies of montane cloud forest radiates from. As such, the Chachapoya chullpa is imbued with both ancestral agency and the vitalities of plant and earthen bodies embedded within its walls, shaping the experiences of human descendants across the landscape. Informed by local land-based and ethnobotanical knowledges, we present the results of our wood anatomy analysis on cores from tree beams preserved in mortuary structures. Further, we discuss the composition of mortar and plaster identified through initial geochemical analyses. Ultimately, the converging vitalities of ancestral, plant, and earthen bodies transcend time: we reveal a multi-site, refined chronology of Chachapoya chullpa construction, demonstrating centuries of this practice which extended long before and after imperial invasions.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Landscapes of Death: Placemaking and Postmortem Agencies

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 50334