Feasting landscapes and political economy at the Early Horizon center of Huambacho, Nepeña Valley, Peru

The present contribution examines feasting practices at Huambacho (800–200 cal. B.C.), an Early Horizon elite center of the Nepeña Valley, Department of Ancash, Peru. Feasts are approached as long-term strategies essential to the political economy of human societies. Drawing upon data from public architecture, material culture and food remains, the study closely considers feasts as political actions and investigates the organization and social meaning of these special events. At Huambacho, I contend that the diacritical aspects of feasting practices, such as the use of exclusive spaces and special paraphernalia, contributed to the dual celebration of communal identity and prosperity, and the creation and reproduction of social inequalities. The research highlights the dual centripetal and centrifugal dynamics of Early Horizon feasts and demonstrates the role of the Huambacho center in advertising the success of the local community based on new forms of production and innovative rules of commensal hospitality.     

Museum salvage: A case study of Mesoamerican artifacts in museum collections and on the antiquities market

Abstract

Museum salvage refers to critical studies of museum collections with little or no provenience information that seek to glean useful archaeological information from these artifacts and examine the nature of their origins and possible connections to the illicit antiquities trade and the art market. Our case study focuses on artifacts from Mesoamerica and objects from the ancient capital of Teotihuacan in particular. We take a multi-scalar approach, including a quantitative analysis of Sotheby’s auction records for Mesoamerican items from 1966 to 2010, a survey of Teotihuacan attributed items in U.S. museums, and a more detailed examination of Teotihuacan-style artifacts in the Denver Museum of Nature & Science collections. The study tracks and attempts to explain diachronic patterns in the Mesoamerican antiquities trade, connections to museum collecting practices, and looting behavior. The study illustrates the potential benefits of museum salvage, while also revealing the clear limitations of research on poorly documented archaeological material.     

Publications

Abstract

This article examines the development of urban forms of community organization on the north-central coast of Peru during the 1st millennium b.c. Recent mapping and excavations at the Early Horizon center of Caylán, in the Nepeña Valley, provide insights into the nucleation of human groups at an extensive valley floor complex. The results indicate the establishment of an urban core around cross-cutting avenues, while architectural data point towards the existence of multi-functional residential stone-and-mud walled compounds. The density of the architectural remains combined with the abundance of refuse is indicative of a significant urban population. The Caylán research sheds light on the development of urbanism after the demise of the Chavín sphere of interaction.     

House forms and Recuay culture: Residential compounds at Yayno (Ancash,Peru), a fortified hilltop town,AD 400–800

This article assesses residential architecture at the site of Yayno, Pomabamba, north central highlands of Peru. Mapping and sampling excavations show the primary occupation of the site dates to cal AD 400–800, by groups of the Recuay tradition. The results are described in relation to three forms of local dwellings. Considerable variability characterizes their size, construction quality and contents, although the present evidence suggests their inhabitants were largely coeval and used similar material culture. Also, some of the circular and quadrangular compounds are of monumental character. The imagery of Recuay artworks allows further understanding of the compounds, specifically as mimetic forms of chiefs, both representational and metaphorical. The research concludes that the development of chiefly political centers in the high Andes coincided with strong internal differentiation at the community level, and that Recuay elite practices and monumentalism emerged out of local corporate traditions.     

Prehistory of Native Americans on the Central American Land Bridge: Colonization,Dispersal, and Divergence

The Central American land bridge has served as a passageway for animals and humans moving between North and South America. Nevertheless, after the first waves of human immigration at the end of the Pleistocene, contact between the native peoples who remained on this isthmus and other peoples living in continental areas where civilization ultimately developed, is characterized, according to the field record, by the transfer of crops, technologies, and goods, until ca.1400 BP when speakers of Mesoamerican languages occupied the northwestern edge (Gran Nicoya). The ancestors of modern-day speakers of Chibchan and Chocoan languages underwent social and cultural diversification mostly within the confines of the land bridge. Some Precolumbian residents altered vegetation immediately after first arrival at least 11,000 years ago, and began to add domesticated crops to their subsistence inventory between 9000 and 7000 BP. Maize and manioc (or cassava), domesticated outside the land bridge, were introduced in Preceramic times, early in the period between 7000 and 4500 BP, and gradually dominated regional agriculture as they became more productive, and as human populations increased and spread into virgin areas. Diversity in material culture is visible ca. 6000 BP, and becomes more apparent after the introduction of pottery ca. 4500 BP. By 2000 BP culture areas with distinctive artifact inventories are discernible. Between 2500 and 1300 BP hierarchies among regions, sites, social groups, and individuals point to the establishment of chiefdoms whose elite members came to demand large numbers of costume and sumptuary goods. A few special centers with stone sculptures and low-scale architecture served a social universe larger than the chiefdom, such as clusters of recently fissioned social groups with memories of a common heritage. Social interactions on the land bridge, endowed with productive bottomlands, highland valleys, and coastal habitats, appear always to have been strongest among neighboring groups.