ANDEAN PAST

Volume 9
2009

Editors

MONICA BARNES
Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History

and

DANIEL H. SANDWEISS
University of Maine

Graphics Editor

DAVID FLEMING

Associate Editor

RUTH ANNE PHILLIPS

With a special contribution by

HEATHER LECHTMAN
and
FREDA YANCY WOLF DE ROMERO

Editorial Advisory Board

RICHARD L. BURGER
Yale University

THOMAS F. LYNCH
Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History
and Texas A&M University

MICHAEL E. MOSELEY
University of Florida

JAMES B. RICHARDSON III

University of Pittsburgh
 Copyright 2009 by the Cornell University Latin American Studies Program

ISSN 1055-08756

ANDEAN PAST is a peer-reviewed, numbered publication series dedicated to research in the

archaeology and ethnohistory of Western South America. Current research reports, obituaries, and
autobiographies are subject to editorial review only. Although Andean Past focuses on precolumbian
times, it includes articles on the colonial period that enhance understanding of indigenous cultures
before 1492. ANDEAN PAST encourages data-based submissions, contributions to the history of
Andean archaeology, papers grounded in environmental archaeology, fresh interpretations supported
by accompanying data, interim and field reports, and the publication of short documents. We
emphasize high quality grayscale photographs and black-and-white line illustrations.

The Cornell Latin American Studies Program is the publishing institution for ANDEAN PAST.
Copyright for Andean Past resides with Cornell LASP on behalf of the editors unless a specific
portion, for example, an illustration, is noted as copyrighted by another party. Authors may re-
publish their Andean Past articles, obituaries, or reports, in English or in translation, in print, or in
electronic format, provided that at least one year has elapsed since the original publication in Andean
Past as defined by the date on the Editors Preface, that prior publication in Andean Past is indicated
in the republication, that Cornell LASPs copyright is acknowledged, and that the editors of Andean
Past are notified of the republication. If a portion of an article is copyrighted by a third party, authors
must request specific written permission from that party to republish. This includes on-line postings
in electronic format.

Orders should be addressed to: Latin American Studies Program, 190 Uris Hall, Cornell University,
Ithaca, New York 14853, U.S.A.; telephone (607) 255-3345, fax (607) 255-8989, email:
jc949@einaudi.cornell.edu

Inquiries and manuscripts submitted for future volumes should be sent to:

Monica Barnes
377 Rector Place, Apartment 3C
New York, New York 10280

Telephone (212) 945-0535, cell phone (917) 992-5880, e-mail: monica@andeanpast.org

Cover: Workmen restore the Hunuco Pampa ushnu platform as directed by John Victor Murra and
Gordon Hadden (1966). Photograph courtesy of the Anthropology Division, American Museum of Natural
History.
 ANDEAN PAST
Volume 9
2009

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editors Preface by Monica Barnes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v-xii

SPECIAL MEMORIAL SECTION:

JOHN VICTOR MURRA - INTELLECTUAL, SCHOLAR, TEACHER, AND MENTOR

John Victor Murra (August 24, 1916 - October 16, 2006): An Interpretative Biography
by Monica Barnes with a Bibliography of Works by and about John Victor Murra
compiled by David Block and Monica Barnes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-63

John Victor Murra: A Mentor to Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65-85

Introduction by Heather Lechtman and Freda Yancy Wolf de Romero . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Anthropology Is My Village by Heather Lechtman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66-68

Mentors as Intellectual Parents by Freda Yancy Wolf de Romero . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69-72

An Extraordinary Teacher Who Taught All the Time by Patricia Netherly . . . . . 72-73

Kicking Off a New Perspective in Ethnohistory by Ana Mara Lorandi . . . . . . . . 73-75

The Ability to Bestow Confidence and Stimulate New Ideas by Victoria Castro . 75-77

The Green Patchwork Paper by Rolena Adorno . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77-79

Do Anthropology the Way Poets Write Poetry by Inge Maria Harman . . . . . . . . 80-82

Eight Thousand Solutions to the Same Problem by Silvia Palomeque . . . . . . . . . 82-85

Kinsmen Resurrected: John Victor Murra and the History of Anthropology

by Frank Solomon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87-102

GENERAL CONTENT

Costanza Di Capua Di Capua (December 17, 1912 - May 5, 2008)

by Karen Olsen Bruhns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103-107

Reconstruction of the Burial Offering at Punkur

in the Nepea Valley of Perus North-Central Coast by Vctor Falcn Huayta . . . . . . 109-129
An Analysis of the Isabelita Rock Engraving and Its Archaeological Context,
Callejn de Huaylas, Peru by Vctor Manuel Ponte Rosalino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131-175

Strange Harvest: A Discussion of Sacrifice and Missing Body Parts

on the North Coast of Peru by Catherine M. Gaither, Jonathan Bethard,
Jonathan Kent, Vctor Vsquez Snchez, Teresa Rosales Tham, and Richard Busch . . . 177-194

A Design Analysis of Moche Fineline Sherds from the Archaeological Site of Galindo,
Moche Valley, Peru by Gregory D. Lockard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195-228

More than Meets the Eye: A Study of Two Nasca Motifs by Ana Nieves . . . . . . . . . . 229-247

Early Cotton Network Knotted in Colored Patterns by Grace Katterman . . . . . . . . . . 249-275

Climate, Agricultural Strategies, and Sustainability in the Precolumbian Andes

by Charles R. Ortloff and Michael E. Moseley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277-304

Experiences with the Institute of Andean Research 1941-42 and 1946 by Gordon R. Willey.
With an Introduction by Richard E. Daggett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305-316

CURRENT RESEARCH

Archaeological Investigations at Antumpa (Jujuy): Contributions to the Characterization of

the Early Ceramic Period in the Humahuaca Region by Juan B. Leoni . . . . . . . . . . . . 317-322

San Pedro de Atacama by Carolina Agero, Mauricio Uribe, and Carlos Carrasco . . . . 323-328

Tarapac Region by Mauricio Uribe, Leonor Adn, Carolina Agero,

Cora Moragas, and Flora Viches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329-335

New Archaeological and Rock Art Projects in Bolivia by Matthias Strecker,

Freddy Taboada, and Claudia Rivera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336-339

Exchange at Chavn de Huntar: Insights from Shell Data

by Matthew P. Sayre and Natali Luisa Lpez Aldave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340-345

La Forteleza at Ollantaytambo by J. Lee Hollowell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346-351

Addresses of Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353-354

Advice to Contributors to Andean Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355-357

 EDITORS PREFACE
Shortly before his death in 2002 I persuaded
Gordon R. Willey to write his reminiscences of
doing field-work in Peru under the auspices of
the Institute for Andean Research, an umbrella
organization founded in 1936. Over the years
the IAR has served to co-ordinate Latin Ameri-
can field research among major universities and
museums. In its early days it provided a North
American institutional base for Perus Julio C.
Tello who, in turn, helped to build an interface
between North American archaeologists and
Peruvian entities. The IAR collected and ad-
ministered funds from both federal and private
sources. It has published or co-published a
number of important volumes including Tellos
Paracas (1959, 1979), John Hyslops Incawasi,
the New Cuzco . . . (1985), and Nispa Ninchis, an
interview of John Victor Murra (2000).
I saw Willeys essay as a companion to the
institutional histories we published in Andean
Past 6 (2001), Richard E. Daggetts The North-
east Conference on Andean Archaeology and
Ethnohistory: The First Eighteen Years and
David L. Browmans The Origins and the First
25 Years (1973-1997) of the Midwestern Con-
ference on Andean and Amazonian Archaeol-
ogy and Ethnohistory. When Gordon Willey
responded to my request by telephone he star-
tled me by saying, We were all spies, you
know. I had heard rumors in Peru in the 1970s
but never expected a confession! This was the
first of a short series of letters and phone calls
which I really value. Colleagues have assured me
that Willey was joking. Indeed, the suggestion
that archaeologists may have provided any sort
of information to the United States government
at any time is hotly contested, whatever the role
of Nelson Rockefeller in obtaining federal
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009): v-xii.
funding for the archaeological expeditions of the
1940s.
Gordon Willey was quite conscientious
about fulfilling my request, sending me his
manuscript a few weeks before his final hospital-
ization. Because he sensed that time was short,
he asked me to write or commission an intro-
duction. Richard E. Daggett, who has been
reconstructing the history of the Institute of
Andean Research in connection with his de-
tailed biography of Julio C. Tello, graciously
accepted the invitation to put Willeys recollec-
tions in context. For additional biographical
information on Willey, see his obituary by
Michael E. Moseley in Andean Past 8 and the
references therein.
One of our Andean Past foci is environmen-
tal archaeology. Here we present Climate,
Agricultural Strategies and Sustainability in the
Precolumbian Andes by Charles R. Ortloff
and Michael E. Moseley. This is a broad inter-
pretation of the interaction of changing climate
and precolumbian water management technol-
ogy in the development and decline of Andean
cultures and states. The authors synthesize the
innovations and adjustments that often permit-
ted Andean societies to maintain agricultural
productivity in the face of widely varying water
supplies from decade to decade and century to
century. They argue that the very presence of
large-scale, complex, and labor-intensive sys-
tems is direct evidence for cultural memory of
both extreme weather events and long-term
climatic shifts, as well as a range of possible
strategies for coping with them. They propose a
vulnerability index to quantify the relative
stability or fragility of various agricultural tech-
nologies. They explain why coastal societies are
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
more vulnerable to prolonged drought than
highland societies, suggesting a mechanism
underlying the long-term shifts of power from
the coastal valleys to the highlands, and back to
the coast. Some of their observations on An-
dean water regimes were presented in a prelimi-
nary form in The Miraflores El Nio Disaster:
Convergent Catastrophes and Prehistoric Agrar-
ian Change in Southern Peru by Dennis R.
Satterlee, Michael E. Moseley, David K. Keefer,
and Jorge E. Tapia A., Andean Past 6 (2001). In
Andean Past 9 there is a much fuller exposition.
This brings to mind one of the advantages of
a stable editorship. From volume to volume, we
can develop themes as research emerges. Adso
of Melk remarks in Umberto Ecos novel, The
Name of the Rose, Until then I had thought
each book spoke of the things, human or divine,
that lie outside books. Now I realized that not
infrequently books speak of books: it is as if they
spoke among themselves. Certainly, the issues
of Andean Past talk with one another. Volume 9
contains two independent but interrelated
articles on Formative iconography, An Analysis
of the Isabelita Rock Engraving and Its Archae-
ological Context, Callejn de Huaylas, Peru by
Vctor M. Ponte R. and Reconstruction of the
Burial Offering at Punkur in the Nepea Valley
of Perus North-Central Coast by Vctor
Falcn Huayta.
The Isabelita Rock is an important petro-
glyph. Formative objects in general, and rock art
in particular, are often presented without con-
text. Fortunately, Ponte, who conducted ar-
chaeological investigations from 1997 to 1999
near Perus La Pierina gold mine, is able to
present this important work as it is embedded in
the archaeology of its region, and by so doing,
adds to the corpus of early Andean art.
While Vctor Ponte introduces a recently
discovered work of Formative art to the
archaeological community, Vctor Falcn writes
- vi
of the recovery of one of the very first pieces of
such art to have been discovered by archaeolo-
gists. In 1933 Julio C. Tello excavated at Pun-
kur, a major early religious site in the Nepea
Valley on Perus north coast. Among the spec-
tacular finds were a large painted mud relief of
a supernatural feline and a burial offering that
yielded, in addition to the remains of a woman,
some very fine ritual objects including an en-
graved stone mortar and pestle, and a huaylla-
quepa or trumpet made from an engraved Strom-
bus shell. As the political tide turned against
Tello, the Punkur finds were lost. No conserva-
tion was done at the site for many years, with
the result that the feline relief and other archi-
tectural features were not preserved. The pre-
cious small finds also disappeared, although
hope remained that they would someday be
located.
Falcn and his colleagues have made consid-
erable progress on the re-assembly of the Pun-
kur artifacts. They discovered the huayllaquepa
in a museum storehouse. The physical presence
of an object which could be examined for the
first time in decades, along with study of the
Tello archives, led to a plausible reconstruction
of the burial offering sequence. This is impor-
tant because many authors, including Ponte in
this volume, incorporate the Punkur artifacts in
their analyses.
Attentive long-time readers of Andean Past
will see that Falcns paper sets up a dialogue
not only with Pontes, but with papers by Rich-
ard E. Daggett and by Henning Bischof in earlier
volumes of our journal. In Andean Past 8 (2007),
Daggett wrote of Tellos so-called Lost Years,
the early 1930s when Tello, in spite of his fame
and accomplishments, or perhaps because of
them, was removed as Director of the Museo de
Arqueologa Peruana. Although the early 1930s
were as difficult for Tello as they were for much
of the rest of the world, Tello did not give up.
He continued to be a very active field worker,
vii -
and Punkur was only one of his many projects
during that time. Daggett revealed the political
conditions that beset Tello.
Daggett began his serial biography of Julio C.
Tello with our very first volume. In Andean Past
1 (1987) Daggett wrote of Reconstructing the
Evidence for Cerro Blanco and Punkur.
Daggetts description of the shell trumpet is
necessarily vague, given that it had never been
properly published before its apparent disappear-
ance; however, Daggett did describe the murals
and sculpture in some detail.
Likewise, in his important article, Toward
the Definition of Pre- and Early Chavn Art
Styles in Peru, published in Andean Past 4
(1994), Bischof could not incorporate the
iconography of the Punkur shell trumpet into
his analysis because of its unpublished and
missing status. Finally, more than twenty years
after Andean Past first discussed the Punkur
finds, we have a full description of the Strombus
ritual instrument and its archaeological context.
Breakthroughs like that make our years of
editing very satisfying.
The Andean coast is one of the very few
regions of the world where textile art can sur-
vive for centuries, even millennia. Weaving,
embroidery, and continuous looping techniques
are all well developed there. In this volume
Grace Katterman, some of whose work on
important, unique, and contextualized pre-
columbian textiles has already appeared in our
series, presents some extraordinary fish-nets in
Early Cotton Network Knotted in Colored
Patterns . These were found in a cache near
the dry mouth of the Ica River. They are so
large that conservation had to be done in a
swimming pool! Katterman illustrates them,
explains how they were made and used, dis-
cusses their iconography, and draws our atten-
tion to parallels in museum collections.
Barnes: Editors Preface
In a variety of prehispanic and colonial
funerary contexts it is not unusual to find
human heads and other body parts interred with
a principal burial. Of course for every severed
foot or hand found in such a burial, there must
be, or have been, a body missing those compo-
nents. In Strange Harvest: A Discussion of
Sacrifice and Missing Body Parts on the North
Coast of Peru Catherine Gaither, Jonathan
Bethard, Jonathan Kent, Vctor Vsquez
Snchez, Teresa Rosales Tham, and Richard
Busch discuss such a body, a male adolescent or
child found at the Santa Rita B site in Perus
Chao Valley. This individual is missing many
parts, but what was left of him was articulated at
the time of burial. The authors suggest that he
was a sacrificial victim whose body parts were
harvested at or around the time of death for use
elsewhere.
Body parts, specifically eyes, are also con-
sidered in Ana Nieves paper, More than
Meets the Eye: A Study of Signs in Nasca Art.
Nieves points out that when an intact vessel is
viewed, a wrap-around depiction can be seen
only partially at any one moment and from any
one position. To see the whole figure the pot
must be rotated. From certain points of view
motifs which are almost lost in the complexity of
roll-out drawings became more obvious, and,
therefore, seemingly more important. One of
these is the eye-navel. In her paper Nieves
explores this motifs connections to plant
growth, fertility, and death.
Gregory D. Lockard also deals with the
problem of complex motifs seen only in frag-
ments. In A Design Analysis of Moche Fineline
Sherds from the Archaeological Site of Galindo,
Moche Valley, Peru Lockard tackles a problem
important to field archaeologists, but less appre-
ciated by museum scholars; most of the ceramics
recovered from good archaeological contexts
come to us in the form of individual sherds. In
the case of Moche fineline ceramics we know
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
that the designs carried by these sherds were
once components of larger scenes. How can one
make a solid analysis on the basis of fragments?
Lockard presents a model for doing so.
This issue contains memorials to the lives
and work of two Andeanists who died in the
fullness of years. The first is a special section
devoted to John Victor Murra, professor emeri-
tus at Cornell University (the publisher of
Andean Past). The second is an obituary of Cos-
tanza Di Capua by Karen Olsen Bruhns. In
many ways the experiences of Murra and Di
Capua ran in parallel. Both were born European
Jews whose lives were seriously disrupted by the
anti-Semitism and violence of the mid-twenti-
eth century. Both used immigration as a means
of coping with their problems.
In 1938 dictator Benito Mussolini stripped
Italian Jews of their civil rights. Costanzas
cousin, Alberto Di Capua had settled in Ecua-
dor and, in 1940, she married him by proxy and
joined him in Quito. Although she had to adjust
to an environment very different from her
beloved Rome, Doa Costanza became an
exemplary wife and mother, citizen of her new
country, and a well respected scholar. She was
not part of John Murras circle, but she fulfilled
many of his ideals including independent, cre-
ative scholarship and the founding of institu-
tions so that work could continue. She had a
role in the establishment of the Museo del
Banco Central del Ecuador, of the Quito Phil-
harmonic Orchestra, and of Quitos first Jewish
house of worship.
John Murra came to the United States as a
youth, in part to avoid further incarceration in
Romania because of his Communist political
activities. He volunteered to fight for the Loyal-
ists in the Spanish Civil War. Disqualified by his
war wounds from service in the U.S. military,
and perhaps through the personal intervention
of Nelson Rockefeller, Murra was in Ecuador
- viii
doing archaeological field-work during part of
the Second World War and then performed
intelligence services for the United States Army
stateside while the conflict continued. After
1963, he devoted himself almost exclusively to
Andean anthropological topics. He became one
of the most famous, respected, and influential
scholars in his field.
Here we concentrate on John Murra as a
teacher, writer, and public intellectual. For my
short biography of Murra I conducted archival
research at Vassar College, where he taught
from 1950 to 1951, and, with three year-long
leaves of absence, from 1954 to 1963. I also
studied Murras papers deposited in the Smith-
sonian Anthropological Archives and did fur-
ther archival research at New York Universitys
Tamiment Library, and at the American Mu-
seum of Natural History. In writing this biogra-
phy I drew not only on the extensive documen-
tation by and about John Murra, but upon
discussions with his colleagues, as well as my
own impressions and knowledge of two of the
institutions which provided him a base. I believe
I am the only Andeanist still alive who knew
John Murra personally and also holds degrees
from both Vassar and Cornell. Writing a short
biography of John Murra was a fascinating
project, not in the least because, from the late
1930s until the early twenty-first century, he
was in touch with a large number of both fa-
mous and emerging anthropologists, from A. R.
Radcliffe-Brown and Ruth Benedict, to my
fellow editor Daniel H. Sandweiss, who inher-
ited Murras bibliographical notes on Soviet
ethnography. As is usual with historical re-
search, human memory and documentation are
not always a perfect fit. In trying to resolve
contradictions, I gave precedence to documents,
especially official documents, produced at the
time events occurred.
Although I knew John Murra personally, I
did not know him well. However, there are
ix -
others who did. In particular, many women
remember him as an excellent mentor. Heather
Lechtman, who was one of John Murras stu-
dents at Vassar College in the 1950s, and Freda
Yancy Wolf de Romero, who met Murra in
1963 at the American Ethnological Association
meeting at Cornell University, invited some of
their friends and colleagues to share testimony
about Murras role in their lives. In addition to
contributions by Lechtman and by Wolf, we
have short essays by Patricia Netherly, by Ana
Mara Lorandi, by Victoria Castro, by Rolena
Adorno, by Inge Maria Harman, and by Silvia
Palomeque. Their portraits are varied, yet con-
sistently depict a man utterly without gender
prejudice, who encouraged women to be their
true selves. For many of these women, Murra
was their most important teacher. Castro em-
phasizes Murras power to instill confidence in
others. This is an ability Murra knew he had.
On October 8, 1963 he wrote in his diary,
Since Albacete [headquarters of the Interna-
tional Brigades in the Spanish Civil War] I have
had this skill of provoking confidence from
various groups.
In addition to being an original scholar,
Murra was a perspicacious critic. This is re-
flected in his numerous book and film reviews,
but also in his teaching. While often being
supremely influential, teaching is an activity
that can be quite ephemeral. Lechtman et al.
provide us with a vivid picture of Murras inter-
actions with students. Complementing their
essays, Frank Salomon, John V. Murra Profes-
sor of Anthropology at the University of Wis-
consin, Madison, gives us a sense of Murras
lectures in an essay entitled, Kinsmen Resur-
rected: John Victor Murra and the History of
Anthropology. Salomon reconstructs Murras
views from notes taken during courses offered at
Cornell in the early 1970s. This is a topic upon
which Murra never published directly, which is
a pity because it is clear that he had both insight
and strong opinions on the subject. At Salo-
Barnes: Editors Preface
mons request, we subjected his article to strict
peer review, as well as two levels of editorial
review.
In working on the John Murra section I
realized just how many intellectual kinsmen and
ancestors we anthropologists have. A little field
testing with Andeanist scholars at various stages
of their careers revealed that no one could
identify more than a fraction of the individuals
mentioned in the John Murra section and in
Daggetts introduction to Willeys reminis-
cences. So that these pieces would make sense,
we wrote a series of biographical footnotes. In all
we have almost 150 such notes. Although these
cover only a few overlapping circles within
anthropology and her sister sciences, they reveal
a dazzling intellectual complexity. I have a
renewed respect for those who specialize in the
history of anthropology.
As a graduate student under the influence of
Murra, Salomon undertook a Cornell sponsored
field trip to Ecuador. Among the scholars he
met there was Costanza di Capua. Murra em-
phasized the role of dedicated amateurs in
building national anthropologies and acknowl-
edged the conflicts that developed between cre-
dentialed professionals and those who were self-
trained. Costanza was a model aficionada, be-
ginning with her studies of the baroque art and
architecture of Quito, and continuing with her
major study of figurines, Valdivia Figurines and
Puberty Rituals: An Hypothesis, published in
Andean Past 4 (1994), and with her examina-
tions of trophy heads, precolumbian seals or
stamps, ancient Ecuadorian ceramic iconogra-
phy, and the symbolism associated with the
Virgin Mary.
One of the unique features of Andean Past
obituaries is that we try, in so far as possible, to
publish a complete bibliography of works by and
about the deceased, unless such a list of publica-
tions has already appeared. We go beyond what
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
a reader would find with a casual Google or
JSTOR search and I challenge you, Reader, to
put us to the test. When a scholar dies after a
long career the list can extend to five or six
double-column 10-point pages, as it does with
Edwin Ferdon and Richard Schaedel in Andean
Past 8, and with Frdric-Andr Engel in An- the original Ollantaytambo ushnu occupied a
dean Past 7.
This issue of Andean Past contains an even
longer bibliography of the works of John Murra
compiled by David Block and myself with the
help of colleagues acknowledged in a note
included with that bibliography. Murras bibliog-
raphy presented particular challenges. Not only
did he publish frequently in first-tier North and
Latin American academic journals, he wrote for
a general audience in periodicals including The
Nation and Limas El Comercio. Murra kept his
major work in print by republishing it in a vari-
ety of venues, sometimes in translation, and
sometimes with updates and revisions. Col-
leagues have told us about expected posthu-
mous publications. In his early years Murra
frequently commented on African, Puerto
Rican, and French Caribbean cultures, politics,
and letters. We hope that our bibliography
reflects the full span of his intellect. Although
we worked on it until the moment of going to
press we are certain it is not complete. If you
know of anything we have missed, please let us
know.
In this issue we have another installment of
Current Research Reports, a feature we began
with Andean Past 6 (2000/2001). These short
pieces allow researchers to communicate their
latest findings and conclusions unrestricted by
peer review. This volume includes reports on
the area around San Pedro de Atacama, north-
ern Chile by Carolina Agero, Mauricio Uribe,
and Carlos Carrasco, as well as one on Chiles
Tarapac Region by Mauricio Uribe, Leonor
Adn, Carolina Agero, Cora Moragas, and
Flora Viches. Juan B. Leoni presents his find-
-x
ings on the Early Ceramic Period in the Huma-
huaca region of northwestern Argentina. Lee
Hollowell discusses portals at the Fortaleza/
Templo del Sol of Ollantaytambo in Perus
Urubamba Valley and suggests that the Templo
del Sol is an ushnu. He further postulates that
position at or near the location of the present
church. Matthew P. Sayre and Luisa Lpez
Aldave write about the ways in which data
derived from shells shed light on patterns of
exchange at Chavn de Huntar, a topic related
to Falcns observations on the Punkur finds.
Matthias Strecker, Freddy Taboada, and
Claudia Rivera report on two rock art projects
sponsored by SIARB, the Bolivian Rock Art
Research Society. One is the Vallegrande Pro-
ject in the Department of Santa Cruz that
studies and protects the Paja Colorado Cave
with its complex rock art. The other is the
Betanzos Project in the Department of Potos
where study of the mural art of small caves and
rock shelters is integrated into archaeological
survey.
As I have worked on the past few issues of
Andean Past, it has become apparent to me that
not all scholars have mastered the difficult work
of preparing manuscripts for publication. We
sometimes receive submissions which have real
merit in terms of underlying research, data
reported, and analysis, but have flaws that
would seem fatal to many editors. Among the
most common are inaccurate citations, poor
illustrations, convoluted prose, apparent in-
consistencies, and sometimes even bad spelling
and grammar. For a long time we have served as
a writers workshop via e-mail. We consult
intensively with willing authors, helping them
turn imperfect submissions into fine published
papers. I think this is one of our most important
contributions to Andean studies. We have the
continuing opportunity to help researchers
improve their articles. People whose work first
xi -
appears in Andean Past often go on to build a
solid list of articles.
Except for our Current Research section,
obituaries, and personal recollections such as
Gordon Willeys and Dick Daggetts contribu-
tion to this volume, all Andean Past articles are
subject to strict peer review, as well as two levels
of editorial review. For many reasons I strongly
prefer signed reviews. Thus I am especially
grateful to reviewers Robert Ascher, Galen
Brokaw, David Fleming, Alice Kehoe, and
Kevin Vaughn for allowing us to reveal their
names, facilitating communication with the
authors of submissions. We also appreciate the
important contributions of the anonymous
reviewers who have helped us select papers for
Andean Past 9. We are grateful to Treva Levine
of Cornell Universitys Latin American Studies
Program for her essential work in the printing
and distribution of Andean Past.
Sometimes readers and authors encourage us
to include color illustrations in Andean Past.
While there is no question that faithful color
reproduction increases the informational con-
tent of publications, it also adds greatly to their
costs and may, in any case, be technically impos-
sible. To render color accurately it is necessary
to use glossy fine art paper, a very expensive
proposition. It is also quite demanding of com-
puter memory because color illustration files are
always larger than those of the same object or
scene rendered in greyscale. Furthermore, as
anyone who photographs an object, prints the
photo on a digital printer, and then compares
the print with the original object quickly discov-
ers, it is very difficult to reproduce color without
significant shifts. Only photographs taken with
a standard color scale in view can have their
color rendered accurately. In addition, all
monitors and printers used must be carefully
calibrated to produce standard, numerically
defined colors. Digital cameras and scanners
cannot be calibrated with present technology.
Barnes: Editors Preface
Thus, accurate color reproduction is a daunting
process in museum fine art publication and
would be almost impossible with the material
available to Andean Past. By using greyscale
renditions we signal that color has been ab-
stracted, and the reader is less likely to be led
astray by the subtle, or not-so-subtle, deviations
from the color of the original subject that are
almost inevitably an element of color photo-
graphs. In our layout we separate, for the most
part, black and white text from grayscale. This
allows for better scanning of the print versions
of our articles.1
The editors personally undertake all aspects
of Andean Past from acquisitions, to reviews, to
line editing, to graphic design and layout as our
alumni contribution to Cornell University, and
as a service to our discipline. We are generally
not remunerated for this and met our own
expenses, with the exception of some overhead
provided by the University of Maine, Orono.
The purchase price of Andean Past covers the
printing and distribution only, accomplished by
Cornell Universitys Latin American Studies
Program. We hope readers remember this when
they ask us for costly improvements. Unless they
can identify additional sources of financial
support, they are asking us to increase our
outlay from personal funds. This is not always
possible.
Lately I have felt some external pressure to
transform our journal into an open access inter-
net publication. Readers who advocate that
should understand that there is a good reason
why open access is not called free access.
Under open access models, ultimate costs of
publication are transferred from the consumers
to the producers. In that sense open access
follows the model of advertising and info-
1
To get an optimal scan, set the scanner for black and
white, and scan the text. Change the scanner setting to
grayscale for the photographs and continue.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
mercials. Open access is costly to publishers and
authors and the financial arrangements underly-
ing it are usually complex, sometimes underwrit-
ten by government funding. The economics of
open access are often obscure to scholars affili-
ated with large, well-endowed institutions who
can absorb the expenses of faculty and students.
For example, the costs of maintaining JSTOR
are huge. Independent scholars who must pay
for their own web pages quickly learn the true
costs of posting large amounts of material on the
Internet.
Whenever one makes such Internet postings
one must keep copyright in mind. Andean Past
has one of the most liberal policies among
journals in this respect. Like our peers, we hold
copyright to the journals contents. However,
because we encourage sharing our articles with
monolingual
- xii
Spanish-speaking colleagues, we grant blanket
permission to authors to republish their articles,
in the original or in translation, including on the
Internet, provided one year has passed since the
work was published in Andean Past.
As we send this issue of Andean Past to
press, our tenth volume is in progress. I can
assure readers that it will be another solid, data
based, book length contribution to our field.
However, its exact contents are largely up to
you.
Monica Barnes
1 November 2009
 JOHN VICTOR MURRA (AUGUST 24, 1916 - OCTOBER 16, 2006):
AN INTERPRETATIVE BIOGRAPHY

MONICA BARNES
Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History

BIBLIOGRAPHY BY DAVID BLOCK (University of Texas, Austin)

and MONICA BARNES

John Victor Murra at the 1958 Vassar College graduation. Graduate is Margaret Johnson-Gaddis;
photograph by John Lane Studio, Poughkeepsie, New York, courtesy of Vassar College.

INTRODUCTION many of the problems presented by his perilous

John Murras life spanned the short
twentieth century. He was born during the First
World War and died more than five years after
the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York
and Washington. He personally encountered
times. These included Communism,
McCarthyism, Fascism, war, anti-Semitism, and
immigration. He faced and overcame them with
the tools of armed struggle, psychoanalysis, and
anthropological research, emerging as one of the
most influential Andeanists to date. His major

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009): 1-63.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
contributions to our understanding of how
prehispanic cultures, especially the Inca,
functioned economically, politically, socially,
and ecologically are set out in his doctoral
dissertation (Murra 1956a), and in a long, oft-
republished and re-worked series of short
articles, book chapters, and published com-
ments, usually in venues where peer review was
not a constraint.1 He also made available a good
deal of the documentation supporting his
interpretations (Guaman Poma 1980; Murra
[editor] 1991; Ortiz de Ziga 1967, 1972). His
archaeological work is significant (Murra 1942,
1955f, 1962, 1966a; Murra and Morris 1976;
Thompson and Murra 1966). Indeed, his first
scholarly publication (Collier and Murra 1943),
based in part on his M.A. thesis (Murra 1942),
remains essential to an understanding of Ecua-
dorian prehistory, and was last republished in
2007. The results of his Hunuco Project,
officially called A Study of Provincial Inca
Life, although incompletely reported, never-
theless are a major component of Inca studies.
However, his greatest contribution is probably
the insight that documents, the raw material of
historical reconstructions, could be viewed from
an anthropological perspective and integrated
into research incorporating archaeological evi-
dence. Given that anthropology itself in the
mid-twentieth century was rather a-historical,
with emphasis on a timeless ethnographic
present, this was a stunning breakthrough.2
1
C.f. Lechtman and Wolf, n.d.; Murra 1958a, 1958b,
1960a, 1961b, 1962, 1964a, 1964b, 1966b, 1972a, 1974a,
1974c, 1975a, 1976a, 1978b, 1978c, 1982a, 1982b, 1985a,
1985b, 1985c, 1985d, 1986a, 1987a, 1999, 2002a. For
work by and about John Murra not incorporated into the
text of this obituary see the bibliography that is part of this
special section on the life and work of John Victor Murra.
2
In stating this, I do not wish to diminish the importance
of other scholars who simultaneously and independently
arrived at similar conclusions. In this respect, as in many
others, the works of John H. Rowe and R. Tom Zuidema
are particularly noteworthy. Rowes close and sustained
study of colonial records was an approach strongly en-
-2
Murra discouraged scholars from studying
the Spanish Colonial Period per se. To Murra,
Spains Golden Age was a time of catastrophe
for the indigenous peoples of the Americas. He
felt that intellectual effort in New World ethno-
history should be concentrated on those early
documents by eyewitnesses that could elucidate
prehispanic times. Following the leads of his
Peruvian friends, the novelist, poet, and
anthropologist Jos Mara Arguedas3 and the
historian Mara Rostworowski,4 Murra recog-
nized the importance of visitas, colonial reports
of official inspection tours. Several were
published or republished under his general
direction (Murra [editor] 1964, 1991, Ortiz de
Zuiga 1967, 1972). From the minute details
available in visitas (some make house-by-house
inventories, while others contain information on
regional shrine systems or economic production)
Murra could discern large patterns in Incaic and
early colonial organization.
dorsed by Murra. Although Murra did not share Zuidemas
emphasis on religion, ritual, and symbolism, he respected
Zuidemas scholarship and supported him with positive
grant recommendations.
3
Jos Mara Arguedas Altamirano (1911-1969) is one of
Perus most famous writers in both Spanish and Quechua.
His fiction often explores the clashes between ethnic
groups in early twentieth century Peru. Arguedas was
director of Perus Casa de Cultura during part of the time
John Murra directed field-work at Hunuco. Arguedas
died as a result of his second suicide attempt.
4
Mara Rostworowski Tovar de Diez Canseco (b. 1915)
spent her childhood in Peru, Poland, France, England, and
Belgium. In 1935 she returned to Peru, living on her
fathers hacienda in Hunuco. She took courses taught by
historian Ral Porras Barrenechea at the Universidad
Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. She has concentrated on
the social, economic, and religious dimensions of the
prehispanic societies of the Peruvian coast. She is a
founder of the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos and the
author of several books of collected essays and numerous
articles.
3-
He was one of the first to appreciate that the
Mestizo Peruvian chronicler and artist Guaman
Poma de Ayala was not a deranged malcontent,
but rather a key reporter and insightful analyst
(Murra 1956a:7). Working with Rolena Adorno
(see Adornos contribution, this volume, pp. 77-
79) and native Quechua speaker Jorge (George)
Urioste,5 Murra produced what has become the
standard transcription of Guaman Pomas Nueva
crnica y buen gobierno (Guaman Poma de Ayala
1980 [c.1616]). His contributions to Andean
ethnohistory are immense.6
Murras best known explanatory framework
is his theory of vertical complementarity
which posits that Andean societies provided for
themselves by managing disparate ecological
niches. The steepness of the Andean terrain
insures that ecological conditions often vary
greatly over relatively short distances. Because
no single ecozone can produce all that is
necessary for subsistence, Andean ethnic groups
and states, according to Murra, maintained
control of various zones, frequently not in the
form of contiguous territory, but rather as strings
of islands in an imagined vertical archi-
5
Jorge L. Urioste was born in Bolivia and is a native
Quechua speaker. He is a Professor Emeritus of
Anthropology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He
has collaborated with a number of people associated with
Cornell University, most notably linguist Donald Sol
(1922-2008), anthropologist Frank Salomon (note 48),
literature specialist Rolena Adorno and John Victor
Murra. Among his important publications are The
Huarochir Manuscript: A Testament of Ancient and Colonial
Andean Religions (with Frank Salomon; 1991) and the
various Murra/Adorno/Urioste editions of Guaman Pomas
Nueva crnica . . .
6
Murra 1946, 1948, 1956a, 1958a, 1958b, 1960a, 1961a,
1961b, 1962, 1964a, 1964b, 1966b, 1967a, 1967b, 1967c,
1967d, 1968a, 1968b, 1970a, 1970b, 1970c, 1972a, 1972b,
1974a, 1974b, 1974c, 1975a, 1976a, 1976c, 1978a, 1978b,
1978c, 1978d, 1979a, 1979c, 1980a, 1981a, 1982b, 1981b,
1982b, 1982c, 1983b, 1984a, 1984b, 1985a, 1985b, 1985c,
1985a, 1986a, 1986b, 1987a, 1987b, 1987c, 1988a, 1988b,
1989a, 1991a, 1991b, 1992, 1998, 1999, 2002a, 2002b.
Barnes: John V. Murra
pelago. Thus, high altitude grasslands could
produce meat and animal fibers. At slightly
lower altitudes just below the upper limit for
plant cultivation tubers such as potatoes, oca,
and ulluco were grown. Other crops, including
quinoa, maize, beans, chilli peppers, lupines,
cotton, coca, and fruit were planted at still lower
altitudes. Establishments in the tropical forests
on the eastern slopes of the Andes yielded
wood, feathers, and other forest products while
fish, seafood, and aquatic plants were obtained
from lakes and the ocean, and salt and guano
were collected where they occurred. Different
forms of land tenure and exchange are possible
under such conditions, but Murra postulated
that ethnic groups and polities controlled or
shared at least some non-contiguous territory in
each important zone. Murra also made
significant contributions to our understanding of
the role of craft production and state-sponsored
settlement practices under the Incas (Murra
1958b, 1978c, 1982b).
POLITICS, BUT NOT AS USUAL
John Victor Murra was born Isak Lipschitz
in Odessa, Ukraine, then part of imperial Russia.
Murras father was raised in a Jewish orphanage
after his own father had died. Murras mother
was a visually impaired teenager when she
married. Although both his parents were
Romanian Jews, Murra did not have a
particularly religious upbringing. Murras father
was anti-clerical due to his experiences in the
orphanage. Nevertheless, Murra celebrated his
Bar Mitzvah as a boy and in his later years he
expressed a belief in God and Gods
intervention in his life.
Murra spent the greater part of his
childhood in Bucharest, Romania. During
Murras early years Ukraine was a violent place
as the First World War morphed there into the
Ukranian War of Independence which blazed
from 1917 until 1921. Although his father was
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
one of eight children, Murra was not close to
family members. Exceptions were his only
sibling, his sister, physicist Beatrice [Ata] Lip-
schitz Iosifescu, who later translated and
compiled Murras dissertation and other works,
creating a volume in Romanian published in
1987 (see Murra 1956a), and his fathers
younger brother, who played a key role in
Murras life. Although Murra often expressed
negative feelings towards his mother, they
remained in contact until her death in August
1980.
As a teenager, Murras passions were soccer,
books, and politics (Castro et al. 2000:22-23).
His father insisted that he study modern
languages at the Lyce Georghe Lazer in
Bucharest and with private tutors. Before the
age of eighteen, in addition to Romanian and
Russian, Murra had mastered French, English,
and German. Later, while a soldier in the
Spanish Civil War, he acquired fluency in
Spanish. There is no evidence that Murra
studied ancient languages such as Latin or
Greek, but he apparently knew enough Hebrew
to read from the Torah at his Bar Mitzvah. He
later expressed regret that he was unable to
acquire proficiency in Quechua. Murras father
also required him to apprentice in Romanian
and Yugoslavian paper factories. This gave
Murra some familiarity with the Croatian
language, and arguably his first anthropological
experiences as he interacted with workers who
were members of various ethnic groups (Murra
in Rowe 1984:635).
Not a sufficiently talented athlete to play
sports professionally, Murra remained involved
with soccer by publishing reports on matches in
Dimineata, a Romanian newspaper. By age 16 his
involvement with Communism and the Social
Democratic movement, although legal, had cost
him jail time and expulsion from his lyce (Cas-
-4
tro et al. 2000:17). Nevertheless, he passed his
baccalaureate exams in 1933.7
Murra must also have suffered from the
virulent prejudice against Jews which was
common in Romania during the 1920s and 30s.
The Ministry of the Interior organized and
financed university anti-Semitic groups like the
Legion of Michael the Archangel which became
the fascist Iron Guard. In December 1927, when
Murra was eleven years old, the Legion carried
out a pogrom that destroyed thirteen synagogues
and their Torahs. Jews were beaten and
humiliated and throughout the 1930s the
situation of the Romanian Jews became in-
creasingly desperate as Nazi influence grew.
To extricate him from a difficult situation,
Murras father sent him to Chicago in December
1934, to live with his youngest paternal uncle, a
professional double bass player (ibid). Although
Murras initial residence in Chicago was one of
the accidents of his life, the academic
connections he forged there influenced him
during his entire career. In Chicago Murra
perfected his English and enrolled as an
undergraduate at the University of Chicago,
with advanced standing, and he began to study
social sciences. In 1936 he obtained his A.B. in
Sociology and married Virginia Miller, a fellow
student-militant.
Murras teachers at Chicago included such
famous figures as A.R. Radcliffe-Brown,8 Fred
7
A European baccalaureate is a formal educational
qualification generally more advanced and specialized
than an American high school diploma, but less advanced
than an American bachelors degree. It is intended as
preparation for university studies.
8
Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown (1881-1955) was a
prominent English social anthropologist who contributed
greatly to an understanding of small, non-Western
societies. He studied at Cambridge University, conducted
extensive field-work in the Andaman Islands and Western
5-
Eggan,9 Harry Hoijer10 (ibid: 28), R. Redfield,11
Australia, and then taught at the University of Chicago
from 1931 to 1937. Two of his best-known books, The
Andaman Islanders (1922), and The Social Organization of
Australian Tribes (1931) are based on his field-work. In
books such as A Natural Science of Society (1957), and in
numerous articles, he set out his views of so-called primi-
tive societies as phenomena.
9
Frederick Russell Eggan (1906-1991) received a Ph.B
(1927) and Masters Degree (1928) in psychology from the
University of Chicago. He then became an anthropology
student of A.R. Radcliffe-Brown (note 8) and Fay-Cooper
Cole (Note 12) at Chicago, receiving a Ph.D. in 1933.
Eggan first taught at the University of Chicago in 1935,
became the Harold H. Swift Distinguished Professor there
in 1962, and retired from Chicago in 1974. He was a
member of the National Academy of Sciences and a
President of the American Anthropological Association.
In his work he combined the principles of British socio-
cultural anthropology with the historical approach of
Franz Boas and applied them to the study of American
Indian tribes, especially the Hopi, and to the Tinguian, a
group in the Philippine highlands also studied by Fay-
Cooper Cole. He developed an approach called con-
trolled comparison. Among his works are The Kinship
System and Social Organization of the Western Pueblos
(1933), Lewis Henry Morgan and the Future of the American
Indian (1965), and The American Indian . . . (1966). For an
interview see Ernest L. Schuskys Fred Eggan: Anthropol-
ogist Full Circle published in The American Ethnologist
(1969). Several obituaries of Eggan have been published,
including one by one by Alfonso Narvaez (The New York
Times, May 9, 1991), one by Nathalie F. S. Woodbury
(Anthropology News, September 1991), and another by
Aram A. Yengoyan (Asian Studies, 1991).
10
Harry Hoijer (1904-1976) was an anthropological
linguist who studied American Indian languages including
Athabaskan and the now-extinct Tonkawa isolate. He
taught at the University of Chicago as a temporary
instructor from 1931 until 1940. He was the co-author,
with Ralph Beals, of An Introduction to Anthropology
(1953) and the author of articles in journals including
American Anthropologist, Language, and International
Journal of American Linguistics, among others. For bio-
graphical information on Hoijer see Harry Hoijer, 1904-
1976 by Ralph L. Beals, published in American Anthropol-
ogist (1977).
11
Robert Redfield (1897-1958) received his A.B. from
Barnes: John V. Murra
and Fay-Cooper Cole 12 (Redfield and Cole
1947). Cole became one of Murras strongest
advocates. For his part, Murra always expressed
respect for Cole (Murra in Rowe 1984:636), in
particular crediting Cole with introducing him
to ethnohistory through the Jesuit Relations,
annual accounts sent to the General, or head of
the Jesuits, about mission conditions in the
Mississippi drainage and in other parts of the
the University of Chicago in 1920 and a J.D. from its law
school in 1921. After work as an ambulance driver in
World War I, a brief stint in law practice, and a trip to
Mexico in 1923, he began his anthropological career as a
student of Fay-Cooper Coles at the University of Chicago.
In 1927 he was hired as an instructor in anthropology by
the University of Chicago and, in 1928, he received his
doctorate in anthropology and was appointed an assistant
professor, the start of a successful career as a teacher and
administrator. His published studies of Mexican communi-
ties include Tepotzln, (1930), Chan Kom (with Alfonso
Villa-Rojas, 1934), and The Folk Culture of Yucatan
(1941). His major books also include The Primitive World
and its Transformations (1953), The Little Community
(1955), and Peasant Society and Culture (1956), among
others. For an obituary see Robert Redfield, 1897-1958
by Fay-Cooper Cole and Fred Eggan, published in Ameri-
can Anthropologist (1959).
12
Fay-Cooper Cole (1881-1961) was an expert on the
peoples and cultures of Malaysia and the Philippines, and
one of the developers of twentieth century American
archaeology. Cole graduated from Northwestern Univer-
sity in 1903. He obtained a doctorate from Columbia
University in 1914. This was based on work among the
Tinguian that he did under the auspices of the Field
Museum. He is the author of The Wild Tribes of the Davao
District, Mindanao (1913), based on field-work performed
with his wife in 1910-12, and of Traditions of the Tinguian
(1915) among whom he and his wife did field-work in
1907-1908, as well as The Peoples of Malaysia (1945). The
Coles last ethnographic expedition was to Indonesia in
1922-23. In 1924 Cole was appointed an assistant profes-
sor in the University of Chicagos Department of Sociol-
ogy and Anthropology where he had a long and distin-
guished career. During the 1930s he conducted an
archaeological survey of Illinois in which Murra partici-
pated. He published Kincaid, a Prehistoric Illinois Metropolis
(1951), and Rediscovering Illinois . . . (with Thorne Duel,
1937). For an obituary see Fay-Cooper Cole by Fred
Eggan, published in American Anthropologist (1963).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
world where the order worked. Murra also
appreciated the Illinois field school that Cole
operated for many years because it helped to
build Americanist vocations (Frank Salomon,
personal communication, 9 November 2008).
In Chicago Murra re-established contacts
with Communist youth groups and demon-
strated against war and racial segregation
(Anon. 1947b; Redfield and Cole 1947). In
November 1936 he was recruited to fight
Fascism in the Spanish Civil War. His passage
to France was paid with Communist funds and
his military identification document was issued
on 14 April 1937 (Lechtman, this volume, p.
66). In contrast to many Second World War
veterans of both sides who had experienced
heavy combat and were reluctant to mention
their participation, for the rest of his life Murra
proudly listed his service as an infantry corporal,
in the 58th Battalion, 15th Brigade of the Spanish
Republican Army on his curriculum vitae as part
of his employment history. Nevertheless,
privately he admitted that he considered his
time in Spain to have been unsuccessful. On 15
October 1963 Murra wrote in his diary, Think
of conversation with Tabb and Iraqui (sic) at
Genoa when I refused to volunteer a second
time. I told them that as far as my personal goals
were concerned, Spain had been a failure. I
suppose what I meant by that was that I had not
become heroic, masculine, a man different from
what my mother wanted. Nevertheless, Murra
was able to cope with military life, make useful
contributions, face battle, and win affection and
respect, as Murras friend, fellow combatant,
and journalist Harry Fisher (1911-2003) makes
clear in Comrades (1998).
Murra summarized his experiences by
stating, Yo soy graduado de la guerra civil espa-
ola, no de la Universidad de Chicago (Castro
et al. 2000:29).13 It was during the Civil War
13
I am a graduate of the Spanish Civil War, not of the
-6
that he took his adult name and had his first
adult experiences. Isak Lipschitz acquired the
permanent nom de guerre John Victor Murra.
John (or Johnny as he was known when he was
young) was chosen for its qualities as a
straightforward American name, Victor in
anticipation of a successful struggle, and Murra
because it is close to the Romanian word for
mulberry. That was Johnnys nickname when he
was a boy, because of his large, dark eyes. At the
time it was common for immigrants and
travelers in the United States to adopt such
strong and plain masculine names. For example,
the famous French photographer, Henri Cartier-
Bresson, often called himself Hank Carter when
in the U.S.
Initially Murra arranged food and lodging in
southern France for international volunteers
seeking to infiltrate Spain. Soon he was trans-
lating for American, British, and Canadian
commissars and for Slavic officers and soldiers.
Then he was in active combat. He was seriously
wounded and paralyzed for a time. The resulting
limp stayed with him for the rest of his life. He
spent most of the first half of 1939 in notorious
French internment camps near Perpignan, but
eventually managed to return to Chicago,
assisted by his teachers there, arriving back in
the United States on June 3, 1939 (Anon.
1947a). It was during his time translating that
Murra became disillusioned with Communism,
having had direct experience of the secret
meetings, true policies, and extreme cruelty of
its leaders. In this he was far ahead of his times
because the Soviet Union itself did not fully
acknowledge its own history until the 1980s.
Although Murra did not set down specifics in
his published works, Harry Fisher was more
forthcoming in Comrades. In any event, by the
end of the Spanish Civil War, John Murras
political problems had worsened.
University of Chicago (translation by the author).
7-
Back in Chicago, Murra resumed his studies
as a scholarship student,14 doing course work
from 1939 to 1941. In addition to translating
the Jesuit Relations, Murra worked as a waiter,
a house painter, and a washer of archaeological
ceramics to supplement his scholarships and
keep body and soul together. In the summer of
1940 he had his first archaeological experience,
at Coles Illinois field school. One of his
contemporaries was Richard S. [Scotty]
MacNeish, who later became famous for his
studies of the transition to agriculture in the
New World, leading archaeological projects in
Mexicos Tamaulipas State and in the Tehuacn
Valley of Puebla state as well as in Perus Aya-
cucho Department. Murra often cited
MacNeishs work as offering support for his own
ideas.
Meanwhile, Romania had adopted a fascist
constitution on February 12, 1938, making it
impossible for Murra, a recent anti-fascist
fighter, to return there. In addition, during the
course of the Second World War, tens of
thousands of Romanian Jews were massacred,
although most survived. Murras mother and
sister were among that majority. Romania did
not become a Communist country until 1947
and, in any case, Murra was no longer an
advocate of that form of government. His sister,
however, joined the Communist party.
Normally it would have been easy for Murra,
as the spouse of an American, to have claimed
United States citizenship. However, Murras
Communist connections stood in his way even
with the official sponsorship of Fay-Cooper
Cole. Cole, in addition to being a well-known
Chicago educator, was a member of a powerful
New York family (Cooper family file, Brooklyn
14
Letter from Fay-Cooper Cole to Duran Ballen,
Ecua2dorian Consul to the United States, August 8, 1941,
National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institu-
tion, John Victor Murra Papers, hereinafter Murra, NAA.
Barnes: John V. Murra
Historical Society). Sponsorship was a serious
commitment because it involved a guarantee of
financial support should the immigrant become
indigent. After being twice denied it, Murra was
eventually granted American citizenship in 1950
(Anon. 1947b, 1947c, 1948b, 1948c, 1948d,
1948e, 1949a, 1949b, 1950a, 1950b) although
the issuance of a passport was delayed until
1956 or 1958,15 preventing Murra from traveling
to countries where that document was required.
Murras case achieved national importance,
having been brought to the attention of
President Harry S. Trumans Committee of Civil
Rights, established in 1946 to strengthen and
protect the civil rights of the American people.
It was recommendations of this committee that
led to the racial desegregation of the United
States armed forces. Murras case was studied by
the Committee because it was one of the first in
which prior attachment to Communism was
considered as a possible disqualification for
citizenship.
15
Sources on the date of issue of Murras first passport
vary. Heather Lechtman has a clear memory of Murras
jubilation when he received notification of his passport
while she was still a student at Vassar (Lechtman,
personal communication, 12 November 2008). Lechtman
graduated in 1956. In the interview Murra gave to John
Rowe Murra states that he received his first passport in
1956 (Murra in Rowe 1984:639). However, in Nispa
Ninchis (Castro et al. 2000:52-53) and in an interview
given to Waldo Ansaldi and Fernando Caldern G. first
published in 1989 and republished in 2000, Murra states
that he received his first United States passport in 1958.
A 1956 letter in the NAA from one of Murras attorneys
advises Murra that he could expect a passport shortly. I
have not been able to locate Murras first United States
passport. The fact that he apparently did not travel to
areas where a passport was required until 1958, coupled
with Murras oft-expressed eagerness to return to South
America, makes me think that Murras first United States
passport was issued in 1958.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE ANTI-FASCIST
STRUGGLE - JOHN MURRAS WAR WORK
Ecuador
Although Murras injuries precluded his
enlistment in the United States military forces,16
he put his anthropological education to good use
in war work. From August 28, 1941 through mid-
February 1942,17 he was in Ecuador, participating
in survey and excavations officially directed by
Fay-Cooper Cole with Donald Collier18 of the
Field Museum serving as the Assistant Director
in the field (Collier and Murra 1943:11). It is
unclear if Cole ever visited Ecuador in
connection with this project. Murra held the
formal title of Supervisor. The work was
16
Letter from John V. Murra to Frances Jay, July 9, 1941,
in the archives of the Institute of Andean Research,
Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural
History (hereinafter I.A.R., A.M.N.H.). It is possible that
Nelson Rockefeller personally facilitated Murras draft
exemption (letter from Donald Collier to John Victor
Murra, June 5, 1941, Murra, NAA).
17
Anon. 1947a; Letter from Donald Collier to George C.
Vaillant, February 5, 1942, I.A.R., A.M.N.H.
18
Donald Collier (1911-1995) received his Ph.D. from the
University of Chicago (1954). Anthropological interests
were shared by Collier family members. Donalds father was
United States Commissioner of Indian Affairs. His brother,
John Collier, Jr. (1913-1992) was a noted photographer and
visual anthropologist. In the 1950s John Collier was a
member of the Cornell University Department of Anthro-
pology. The Colliers brother-in-law, Ren DHarnoncourt
directed the Museum of Modern Art (1949-1967).
DHarnoncourt was an expert on Mexican art and ancient
Peruvian textiles. Donalds wife, Malcolm Carr Collier,
published on the Navajo. Don Colliers early archaeological
and ethnological work was in the western United States.
From 1936 he studied land use in the Andes and in 1937
worked with Julio C. Tello in the Casma Valley. His Ph.D.
dissertation was produced as part of his participation in the
Vir Valley Project. As a curator at the Field Museum
Collier organized many important exhibitions. A short
obituary of Collier by Donald Thompson along with a
bibliography of Colliers works appears in the 1996 volume
of American Antiquity.
-8
sponsored by the Institute of Andean Research
(I.A.R.) At the time Nelson Rockefeller19 had
arranged for the I.A.R. to receive its funding
from the United States Department of States
Council of National Defense, Division of
Commercial and Cultural Relations.20 The work
in Ecuador was part of a co-ordinated series of
major sub-projects that were also staged in
Mexico, El Salvador, Cuba, Colombia,
Venezuela, Peru, and Chile. These were
considered part of the national defense,21 the
idea being both to put intelligent, if often
inexperienced, observers into parts of Latin
America suspected to be of interest to the Nazis,
and to improve United States-Latin American
relations. The Ecuador portion was designated
Project 9BEcuador1941-42. Because
Murras United States citizenship application
was pending22 and he did not have a passport as
19
Nelson Aldridge Rockefeller (1908-1979) was a
president of the Museum of Modern Art (1939-1958), the
forty-ninth governor of New York State (1959-1973), and
the forty-fifth vice president of the United States (1974-
1977). He was also a businessman and philanthropist.
Rockefeller promoted economic development and liberal-
ization, as well as North American culture, in Latin
America, while holding important national appointed
offices. He was Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs
(1940-1944), Chairman of the Inter-American Develop-
ment Commission (1940-1947), and Assistant Secretary
of State for Latin American Affairs (1944-45). Rockefeller
believed that by promoting United States culture he could
counter perceived Fascist and Communist influences in
the region. In the 1950s, under President Eisenhower, he
supervised secret C.I.A. operations.
20
Letter from George C. Vaillant to Donald Collier,
February 14, 1941, I.A.R., A.M.N.H.; Collier and Murra
1943:11).
21
Letter from Donald Collier to John Victor Murra, June
5, 1941, NAA; Letter from C.C. Miller, Registrar, Univer-
sity of Chicago to Selective Service Board Number 9, June
16, 1941, Murra, NAA.
22
Letter from Fay-Cooper Cole to Wendell C. Bennett,
April 30, 1941, I.A.R, A.M.N.H.
9-
normally required for admission to Ecuador,23 he
was issued a permit signed by Marshall E.
Dimock, Special Assistant to the Attorney
General in Charge, Immigration and
Nationalization Service, United States Depart-
ment of Justice, which provided permission for
Murra to leave the United States and return
within a year without loss of residence credit
under exemptions provided by Section 307 of the
Nationality Act of 1940.24 In effect, Murra was
not to be penalized for leaving the United States
to undertake work tied to the United States war
effort.
Collier hoped to determine the relationship
of early archaeological material to the Inca
Horizon in the southernmost part of Ecuador and
the cultural connections, if any, to what is now
northern Peru (Collier and Murra 1943: 15).
However, by the time he and Murra arrived in
Ecuador, Peruvian armed forces had invaded that
country, and Colliers first area of interest had
fallen under military occupation. Collier and
Murra adjusted their research plan to conduct
reconnaissance in the southern part of
Chimborazo Province, and in the provinces of
Caar, Azuay, and Loja in order to find stratified
sites. This fit in well with the whole series of
I.A.R. projects whose main goal was to create
linked cultural sequences for prehispanic North
and South America as a whole.25 Radiocarbon
dating had not yet been developed, so the
sequences were to be established through co-
ordinated longitudinal surveys, stratified
23
Information provided by the Consulate General of
Ecuador, New York, 1941, Murra, NAA.
24
Letter from John Victor Murra to United States Immi-
gration Commission, July 10, 1941, Murra, NAA; letter
from Marshall E. Dimock to Fay-Cooper Cole, July 16,
1941, Murra NAA; Letter from Fay-Cooper Cole to George
C. Vaillant, July 18, 1941, I.A.R., A.M.N.H.
25
Letter from George C. Vaillant to Paul Martin, March
14, 1941, I.A.R. A.M.N.H.
Barnes: John V. Murra
excavations, and seriation of artifacts. The
design of the projects assumed that the pre-
hispanic cultures of the Americas were not
isolates, but rather, interconnected, much as
Nelson Rockefeller saw the American republics.
It is stunning to contemplate the scope of
the work that very small, and relatively
inexperienced, teams set out to accomplish over
vast territories in brief spans of time, especially
by comparison with European-sponsored pro-
jects at important sites such as at Pompeii
(Italy), Uruk (Iraq), Knossos (Crete), and
Mucking (England) where large groups of
specialists, workmen, and students established
themselves for decades. At the start of their
Ecuador project, Murra had never been in any
Latin American country. Donald Collier
described his own knowledge of Ecuador to be
too slight to be able to give Murra any useful
suggestions for preparation26 and Collier needed
a translator to function.
September 1941, Murras first full month in
Ecuador, was spent in orientation, including
establishing contacts with local colleagues,
obtaining permissions, and acquiring equipment
and supplies. In October he and Collier spent
ten days (Collier and Murra 1943:16) or, per-
haps, as much as two weeks at the Hacienda
Zula in Chimborazo Province where they
conducted test excavations on the four hundred
square mile paramo ranch.27 That month they
also photographed private archaeological col-
lections in the town of Riobamba. They spent
26
As to whom to make contacts with in Ecuador, what
transportation and other conditions will be there, etc. I
have no knowledgebut you can expect to do some
traveling on mule back; letter from Donald Collier to
John Victor Murra, May 27, 1941, Murra, NAA. A
photograph of Murra on muleback on the Ecuadorian
paramo later became iconic.
27
Letter from Donald Collier to George C. Vaillant,
October 22, 1941, I.A.R., A.M.N.H.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
November doing archaeological surveys of Caar,
Azuay, and Loja Provinces, recording about
twenty sites. They visited Alaus and
photographed private collections in Cuenca.
During December they excavated at three sites
near Caar including Cerro Narro (ibid.: 16-17).
In January 1942 Murra went to Quito for analysis
and write-up. Over forty thousand artifacts,
mostly potsherds, were shipped to the Field
Museum.28 Some of these were apparently shared
with other museums. Although this schedule did
not allow for detailed archaeological research, it
did give Collier and Murra a good strategic
overview of an important portion of the
Ecuadorian highlands. Other Americans, for
example Edwin Nelson Ferdon, were conducting
archaeological operations in other parts of the
country (Lubensky, Andean Past 8).
In the field Collier and Murra were assisted
by Anbal Buitrn Chvez,29 then a 27-year-old
Quito school teacher who received grants from
the U. S. Department of State and the Institute
of International Education to come to the United
States for further training in anthropology during
the 1942-43 academic year. Buitrn also worked
with Don Colliers brother, John Collier, Jr. to
produce The Awakening Valley (1949), a
photographic essay about Otavalo. Buitrn went
on to a career in international development.
Although Murra was disappointed that Buitrn
did not persist with anthropology, Murra became
convinced from his field-work in Ecuador that
the education in anthropology of young Latin
28
Letter from Donald Collier to John Victor Murra,
February 18, 1942, Murra, NAA; Letter from John Victor
Murra to the Honorable Boaz Long, American Minister,
Quito, April 2, 1942, Murra, NAA; Collier and Murra
1943:17.
29
An Archaeological Reconnaissance of the Southern
Ecuadorian HighlandsMemorandum on the Institute of
Andean Research Expedition in Ecuador, August 1941-
January 1942. Quito, January 9, 1942, Donald Collier and
John V. Murra, Murra, NAA; Collier and Murra 1943:11.
- 10
Americans was important. He never lost sight of
that goal.
Murra received his masters degree from the
University of Chicago in 1942 (Anon. 1942).
During the last year of his masters program he
held the University Fellowship awarded to the
highest-ranking member of the graduate student
body.30
Fear and Courage under Fire
During the latter part of 1942 and a portion
of 1943 Murra continued his war work, this time
under John Dollard31 of Yales Human Relations
Institute who was himself employed by the
United States Department of War. Murras task
was to help interview and administer
questionnaires to men who had fought with the
Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil
War. The goal was to understand how men
overcame their fear and developed courage in
combat. A short, stand-alone report of the
results, Fear in Battle, was published by the
United States Armys Infantry Journal in 1944.
Nevertheless, the purportedly leftist slant of the
questionnaires was later cited against Murra in
his citizenship hearings (Anon. 1947b). In any
case, the contacts which Murra maintained and
forged across the country during this research
made him pivotal to the corporate identity of
American Spanish Civil War veterans.
30
Letter from Fay-Cooper Cole to the Honorable S.E.
Duran Ballen, Consul General of Ecuador, August 8,
1941. Murra, NAA; press release, Vassar College Office of
Public Relations, December 1959, John Victor Murra
Faculty File, The Catherine Pelton Durrell 25 Archives
and Special Collections Library, Vassar College (hereafter
the John Victor Murra File, Vassar College).
31
John Dollard (1900-1980), who received his Ph.D.
from the University of Chicago (1931), was a psychologist
and social scientist best known for his studies of race
relations, especially in the American South.
11 -
Siamese Folk Tales and Cultural Values
During the summer of 1943, Murra worked
for the United States Department of War
Information under the supervision of Ruth
Benedict.32 Murra admired Benedict, whom he
considered a true anthropologist, as opposed to
Benedicts friend and putative lover, Margaret
Mead,33 whom Murra characterized as a Sunday
supplement anthropologist. 34 However,
Benedicts death in 1948 precluded a long
association.
Murra interviewed Siamese (as they were
then called) immigrants in the United States,
collecting folk tales. The goal was to discern
belief systems because understanding of these was
deemed desirable in case the United States
acquired responsibility for Siamese territory.
32
Ruth Benedict (1887-1948), a student of Franz Boas,
received her Ph.D. in 1923 and joined the Columbia faculty
with which she was associated until her death. One of her
most famous students there was Margaret Mead (note 33).
Benedict was part of the Culture-Personality school of
anthropology, a movement heavily influenced by psycho-
analysis. She is the author of Patterns of Culture (1934), a
very important book of that school. In it, adapting a model
taken from Friedrich Nietzsche, she argues that various
cultures emphasize particular personality traits. She
presented her most important wartime research as The
Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946), an exploration of
traditional Japanese culture.
33
Margaret Mead (1901-1978) was one of the most
famous anthropologists of all time. She produced a stream
of books and articles for both academic and popular audi-
ences beginning with interpretative accounts of her
Polynesian field-work and continuing with observations on
American popular culture. She is credited with broadening
sexual mores and elucidating the interplay of culture and
personality. She held a variety of teaching posts, and from
1946 to 1969 was Curator of Ethnology at the American
Museum of Natural History. Several book length
biographies of Mead, and of Mead and Benedict together,
are available.
34
Letter from Laura Rand Orthwein to John Victor Murra,
Murra, NAA (n.d., c. 1960).
Barnes: John V. Murra
Murra recognized that cunning and the ability
to deceive others were valued in Siamese
culture, at least as it manifested itself in stories.
Therefore, captives, he advised, could not be
shamed and broken down by calling them
traitors. That would seem a form of praise.
Teaching at the University of Chicago
In the fall of 1943 Murra became an
instructor in Anthropology at the University of
Chicago to fill in for Fred Eggan, who was
serving as Chief of Research for the Philippine
Government in exile and was instructing United
States Service personnel about the cultures of
East Asia. Murra continued to teach in Chicago
until 1946. From 1946 to 1947, he was a Fellow
of the Social Sciences Research Council. In his
Chicago teaching Murra maintained the legacy
of A.R. Radcliffe-Brown by promoting what
Murra perceived as a new anthropological
paradigm developed in the 1920s and 30s by
British and Commonwealth socio-cultural
anthropologists led by Raymond Firth,35 Broni-
35
Sir Raymond Firth (1901-2002) was a New Zealand-
born ethnologist who made distinctions between the ideal
rules of behavior within societies (social structure) and
actual behavior (social organization) and became an
expert in the societies of the Pacific. He pioneered
economic anthropology. His first degree was in economics
from Auckland University College (1921) where he also
earned an M.A. (1922) and a Diploma in Social Science
(1923). His 1927 Ph.D. dissertation from the London
School of Economics is entitled Primitive Economics of the
New Zealand Maori. Among his other famous works are
We the Tikopia (1936) based on field-work he did in the
Solomon Islands in the late 1920s. Firth continued work
with the Tikopia and published at least ten books based
on his observations of their culture. Firth became a
lecturer at the L.S.E. in 1933, was appointed Reader there
in 1935, and succeeded Bronislaw Malinowski as Professor
of Social Anthropology in 1944, remaining there in that
position until 1968. After retirement from the L.S.E. he
took up a number of distinguished visiting professorships,
including one at Cornell University in 1970 and another
at the University of Chicago in 1970-71. An obituary by
Judith Huntsman appears in the American Anthropologist
(2003). His wife, Rosemary Firth, was also a distinguished
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
slaw Malinowski36 and Radcliffe-Brown. This
paradigm emphasized field-work in living
cultures, especially those of Africa and Polynesia.
It also advocated the study of state level
societies, not just small, isolated groups (Murra in
Caldern 2000:254; see also Ansaldi and
Caldern 1989).
THE CARIBBEAN
Once the regular, tenured faculty completed
their wartime assignments, Murra was out of a
job and his life entered a new phase. He was not
able to settle down for almost a decade. With his
citizenship and passport issues unresolved, he was
limited in his travels until 1958 when his first
passport was issued. He worked as an instructor
at the University of Wisconsin in the summer of
1946. From 1947 to 1950 he taught at the
University of Puerto Rico, Ro Piedras, first as an
Assistant Professor and Field Director of
Community Studies, and then as an Associate
Professor and Field Director. Murra supervised
studies of several communities with support from
the Rockefeller Foundation and the University of
social anthropologist.
36
Bronislaw Kasper Malinowski (1884-1942), born
Polish, became one of the most important anthropologists
of the early twentieth century during his British-based
career. He held a doctorate in mathematics and physical
sciences from Jagiellonian University. He went on to study
anthropology at Leipzig University and at the London
School of Economics. He emphasized extensive field-work,
conducted, in his case, in what is now Papua New Guinea,
and among the Trobriand Islanders of the South Pacific. A
pioneer of the participant-observer method which requires
the anthropologist to take an active role in the society he
is studying, Malinowski contributed to our understanding
of non-Western economic systems such as the famous kula
shell exchange ring. Among his works are The Sexual Life of
Savages (1929), Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922),
Coral Gardens and their Magic (1935), Magic, Science, and
Religion . . . (1948), A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term
(1961), and The Dynamics of Culture Change: An Inquiry
into Race Relations in Africa (1967). There are many book
length analyses of Malinowskis life and work.
- 12
Puerto Rico. From 1948 to 1949, working under
the auspices of Julian Stewards37 Peoples of
Puerto Rico Project (1947-1950), Murra did
ethnographic field-work in six communities on
the island (Salomon 2007:793). In the summers
Murra supervised field-work students from Yale
and other United States mainland universities,
working in Jamaica, and in Martinique in 1956
and 1957 under the auspices of The Research
and Training Program for the Study of Man in
the Tropics.38 During the 1950s, drawing upon
this experience, Murra frequently published
(Murra 1951a, 1955b, 1955d, 1955e, 1957a,
1957b, 1959a) and spoke (Gillespie 1950;
Wakefield 1959) on Caribbean issues.
DOCTORAL DISSERTATION
Murra was, by this time, dedicated to
anthropology. He knew that to continue in that
field in a full professional capacity he would
have to obtain a doctorate. Ecuador intrigued
Murra, as did the struggles of peasant
communities and issues of land tenure. Murra
was aware that the Indians of Otavalo had freed
themselves from serfdom by somehow acquiring
the means to purchase the lands they worked.
37
Julian H. Steward (1902-1972) held a B.Sc. in Zoology
from Cornell University (1925). He obtained his doctorate
from the University of California, Berkeley (1929). In
addition to editing the influential Handbook of South
American Indians (1946-1959), Steward conducted field-
work in the American West and exerted considerable
power as an administrator in both government and
academe. He helped to develop the concept of cultural
ecology. He held a variety of prestigious teaching
positions. In his latter career he became interested in
issues of modernization. His biography, Scenes from the
High Desert: Julian Stewards Life and Theory was published
in 2003 by Virginia Kerns.
38
The Research Institute for the Study of Man (R.I.S.M.)
was founded by Vera D. Rubin in 1955. Rubin and her
colleagues brought the methodologies of the social
sciences to the study of rapidly changing societies. The
records of the R.I.S.M. are now in New York Universitys
Bobst Library.
13 -
There were other instances of indigenous
communities liberating themselves in similar
ways. Murra wished to return to Ecuador, base
himself in Otavalo, and use the Otavaleo
experience as his principal example, making
shorter stays in other Andean communities to
study comparable cases. However, Murra was
concerned about growing older without a
doctorate in hand and his passport problems
dragged on.
Murra had become interested in the Inca in
1939-40 when he took a course from Harry
Hoijer on Andean civilizations (Murra 1956a:ii).
As a graduate student he had presented term
papers on Inca social structure and economics.
He, therefore, decided to do a library dissertation
on Tawantinsuyu,39 the Inca polity, working in
the New York Public Library and incorporating
only published evidence. Although Murra seems
to have resented this restriction, his 1956
University of Chicago doctoral dissertation, The
Economic Organization of the Inca State was
immediately recognized as one of the most
important works of synthesis ever written on
Tawantinsuyu. Murra read and interpreted the
chronicles of the early colonial Andes with a
fresh perspective. Essentially he reconstructed
the Inca economy, elucidating many features
including modes of production, land tenure,
labor arrangements, and the extraordinary value
of cloth. In particular, he was able to determine
that the Incas had a redistributive economy,
reallocating the production of some segments of
society for the benefit of others. In evaluating a
depiction of the Inca by another scholar, Murra
sometimes asked the question, Does it go
39
The earliest known recorded use of a term similar to
Tawantinsuyu, Taguansuyu, was made in 1577 in a
memorial presented to the Viceroy don Francisco de
Toledo. In this context it designated the social and physical
divisions of Cusco, which were projected outwards to
encompass territory within 55 kilometers of that city. This
document was published by Waldimar Espinoza Soriano in
the Bulletin de lInstitut Franais dtudes Andines (1977).
Barnes: John V. Murra
beyond William H. Prescotts 1847 History of the
Conquest of Peru? It is clear that in his own
work, Murra did progress beyond that classic.
Readers of The Economic Organization of the
Inca State have noted that Murras analytic
framework seems to owe something to that of
Karl Polanyis40 studies of non-market
economies (c.f. Van Buren in American
Anthropologist 98[2] 1996; Wachtel 1973) who
was at Columbia University when Murra was
writing his dissertation. Polanyi, Conrad M.
Arensberg, and Henry W. Pearson had not yet
published Trade and Market in the Early Empires
(1957) but they, and their students, were laying
the groundwork for that book in a seminar that
Polanyi and Arensberg41 taught in the early-to-
mid 1950s. In the acknowledgments section of
his dissertation Murra states that he attended
half a dozen meetings of this seminar in 1953-
40
Karl Polanyi (1886-1964) was an economic journalist
and theorist, a democratic socialist, and the founder of
Substantialism, a school of thought which emphasizes the
imbeddedness of economics in the rest of culture. He
obtained a doctor of laws degree from the University of
Budapest (1908) and was called to the Budapest bar in
1912. Polanyi also studied at the University of Kolosvar in
Romania. After World War I he was forced to flee from
Hungary for political reasons. He worked as a newspaper
man in Vienna from 1924 to 1937. The development of
Austrian Fascism forced him to flee once more, first to
London, then to North America. He taught at
Bennington College (1940-1943) and Columbia
University (1947-1953), remaining at Columbia as a
researcher after his formal retirement. His 1944 book, The
Great Transformation, an exploration of the emergence of
modern capitalist economies brought him worldwide fame.
In 1957 he published Trade and Market in Early Empires.
41
Conrad Maynadier Arensberg (1910-1997) studied
complex societies from an anthropological perspective and
was well-known for his research in Ireland and in New
England. He was educated at Harvard College, obtaining
both an A.B. (1931) and a Ph.D from that institution
(1934). Arensberg taught at M.I.T., Brooklyn College,
Barnard College, and Columbia University. An obituary
of Arensberg by Lambros Comitas was published in the
American Anthropologist (2000).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
54 and notes that he found Polanyis studies of
redistributive systems stimulating (Murra 1956a:
iv). However, in Nispa Ninchis, a long interview
of Murra conducted in 1993 and published in
2000, Murra explicitly denies the influence of
Polanyi, except for supplying the term
redistribution, and provides an alternate
chronology, saying that he heard talks by Polanyi
when he, Murra, was working at the U.N., that is
in 1951, (Castro et al. 2000:93; Murra 1951b,
1951c, 1951d, 195e, 1951f, 1951g) and that he
attended two of Polanyis seminars after he had
finished his dissertation, that is, after 1955 or
1956 (ibid.; see also Murra 1981b). Polanyi,
Arensberg, and Pearson, for their part, in the
Preface to Trade and Market in the Early Empires
acknowledge Murra as among those who have
contributed ideas and ideals; moral, intellectual,
and technical assistance(p. xi). Murra was
probably also influenced by Helen Coderes42
now-classic book on the Kwakwakawakw
(Kwakuitl) potlatch, Fighting with Property (1950)
in which she noted that the potlatch had
distributing and redistributing functions not
however properly called trade (p. 20).
Nevertheless, the detailed synthesis in Murras
dissertation of many early sources on the Inca is
certainly his own, and his inferences about Inca
economic practices follow logically from that
synthesis. For many years Murra continued to
develop the ideas presented in his dissertation
and they form the cores of his early articles on
42
Helen Codere (b.1917) earned a B.A. from the
University of Minnesota (1939), and a Ph.D. from
Columbia University (1950). She taught at Columbia and
at the University of Minnesota, joining the Vassar faculty
in 1946. In 1954, on leave from Vassar, she was a visiting
Professor at the University of British Columbia. In 1958 she
was promoted to the rank of Professor. After leaving Vassar
she became a dean at Brandeis and is now Professor
Emeritus there. Her geographical areas of interest include
the Northwest Coast of North America, Iceland, and
Africa, especially Rwanda. She is the author of Fighting with
Property: A Study of Kwakiutl Potlatching and Warfare 1792-
1930 (1950) and Biography of an African Society: Rwanda
1900-1960 . . . (1973).
- 14
Andean cultures. Murra remained a materialist
and a leftist, although he was no longer a
Marxist. The value of studies of non-market
economies was confirmed in 2009 with the
award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Elinor
Ostrom for her work on the cooperative
management of shared resources such as
fisheries(see Science 16 October 2009, p. 374).
FRIENDS AND FAMILY
In 1940 Murra and Virginia Miller
divorced.43 In February 1946 he married
Elizabeth Ann Tommy Sawyer. That marriage
ended formally in a Mexican divorce in 1958. In
1959 Murra met and formed a romantic
association with one of his freshman Vassar
students, the strikingly beautiful debutante
Laura Rand Orthwein.44 Laura, wishing to free
herself of a patronymic, adopted part of Murras
nom de guerre, legally becoming Laura Murra
from 1963. By the late 1960s she had assumed
the name Laura X. As Laura X she became a
well-known feminist writer, editor, and human
rights and anti-Vietnam War activist. In 1968
she founded the Womens History Research
Center in her Berkeley, California home. The
Center developed an outstanding collection of
feminist ephemera. She is now once again
known as Laura Rand Orthwein and is a major
philanthropist in her native St. Louis. In his
diaries Murra referred to Laura as Lilac.
Sometimes he called her his third wife. In his
latter years Murras trusted friend was Judith
Willis, whom he met when she was a secretary
at Cornell.
43
Letter from Elizabeth Ann Tommy Sawyer Murra to
Henry Heineman, July 30, 1948, Murra NAA.
44
Laura Rand Orthwein, personal communication, 4
January, 2009; see also letters from Orthwein to Murra
and from Murra to Orthwein, and photographs of Orth-
wein, Murra NAA.
15 -
Although Murra never formed a nuclear
family of procreation, he filled this gap with many
close and life-long friendships with people
including former students who became col-
leagues, such as Rolena Adorno, Jorge Hidalgo,45
Heather Lechtman (see Lechtmans essay, this
volume, pp. 66-68), Ann Peters,46 Roger Ras-
nake47 and his wife Inge Harman (see Harmans
essay, this volume, pp. 80-82), Frank Salomon
(see Salomons essay, this volume, pp. 87-102),48
45
Jorge Hidalgo Lehued (b. 1942) is a Chilean historian
with an anthropological and international perspective. He
holds a doctorate from the University of London and is
Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanites of the
Universidad de Chile (Santiago). His works emphasize the
role of indigenous communities, especially of the desertic
north, in his reconstructions of Chilean colonial history. A
close colleague of John Murra, Hidalgo is the author of
Historia andina en Chile (2004), a collection of essays, and
an editor of Nispa ninchis/decimos diciendo: Conversaciones
con John Murra (with Victoria Castro and Carlos Aldunate,
2000).
46
Ann Hudson Peters (b. 1955) holds a bachelors degree
in fine arts from Yale University (1979). While studying in
Lima on a traveling fellowship she attended a lecture by
John Murra and, inspired by that experience, went to
Cornell University to obtain her M.A. (1983) and Ph.D.
(1997). Her dissertation is entitled Paracas, Topar, and
Early Nasca: Ethnicity and Society on the South Central
Andean Coast. She has conducted field research in Perus
Pisco Valley and in Northern Chile and archival work with
the materials left by Julio C. Tello. She is the author of
important articles on ancient Andean textiles.
47
Roger Neil Rasnake (b. 1951) received his doctorate in
anthropology from Cornell University (1982). He has done
field-work and ethnohistorical research pertinent to the
Yura, a Quechua-speaking ethnic group of Bolivia. He is
the author of Domination and Cultural Resistance: Authority
and Power Among an Andean People (1988) which empha-
sizes the expression of authority through the fiesta system.
He is an expert in cross-cultural and international educa-
tion.
48
Frank Salomon (b. 1946) is the John V. Murra Professor
of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Among his notable publications are Native Lords of Quito in
the Age of the Incas (1986), The Huarochir Manuscript: A
Testament of Ancient and Colonial Andean Religion (with
Barnes: John V. Murra
Peruvian anthropologist, poet, and novelist Jos
Mara Arguedas, as well as anthropologists and
historians including Carlos Sempat
Assadourian,49 Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrn,50 Ruth
Benedict, Wendell Bennett,51 Thrse Bouysse-
George Urioste, 1991), Los Yumbos, Niguas, y Tsatchila o
Colorados durante la colonia espaola: Etnohistoria del
Noroccidente de Pichincha (1997), and The Cord Keepers:
Khipu and Cultural Life in a Peruvian Village (2004). With
Stewart Schwartz he is the editor of the Cambridge History
of the Native Peoples of the Americas: South America (Prehis-
tory and Conquest) (1999).
49
Carlos Sempat Assadourian was an Argentinian
economic historian who taught in Mexico for many years.
Among his works are El Trfico de esclavos en Crdova
argentina, 1588-1610 . . . (1965), De la conquista a la
independencia (with Guillermo Beato and Jos C. Chiara-
monte, 1972), El sistema de la economa colonial: Mercado
interno, regiones y espacio econmico (1982), and Transi-
ciones hasta el sistema colonial andino (1994).
50
Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrn (1908-1996) held various
positions in Mexico during the mid-20th century, includ-
ing the Mexican sub-secretariate of education, the
directorship of the Instituto Indigenista Interamericano,
and the editorship of Amrica Indgena. Under American
Anthropological Association auspices and with support
from the Wenner Gren and Ford Foundations, he and
John Murra organized two international conferences on
the relationships between research and anthropological
training in the Americas. The 1967 conference was held
in Austria at Burg Wartenstein, the Wenner-Gren
Foundation European Conference Center from 1958 to
1980, and the 1968 one was held in Mexico (John Victor
Murra c.v. Murra, NAA). Aguirre Beltrn contributed
greatly to our understanding of the development of
anthropology in Mexico. He is the author of numerous
works including Formas de gobierno indgena (1953),
Aguirre Beltrn: Obra polmica (1976), Antropologa medica
(1986, 1994), and Crtica antropolgica (1990).
51
Wendell [Wendy] C. Bennett (1905-1953) held Ph.B.
(1927), M.A. (1929) and Ph.D. (1930) degrees from the
University of Chicago. His dissertation is a comparative
study of Polynesian religious structures. In the early 1930s
Bennett worked with Robert M. Zingg among Tarahumara
Indians of northern Mexico. From this project he formu-
lated an understanding that archaeology and ethnology
should be done in tandem when possible. In 1931 he
joined the American Museum of Natural History as
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Cassagne52, Jess Contreras Hernndes,53 ric de
Dampierre,54 Pierre Duviols,55 Gordon D.
Assistant Curator of Ethnology and continued a program of
research in Andean archaeology established by his prede-
cessor, Ronald L. Olsen. Bennett made many major field
trips to the Andes during the 1930s and .40s, excavating at
Tiwanaku and Chiripa, in Bolivia, and in the Vir and
Lambeyeque Valleys, and at the sites of Chavn and Wari
in Peru. He also excavated in Venezuela, Colombia, and
Ecuador. In 1938, after holding a post at the Bishop
Museum in Hawaii, he became an Associate Professor at
the University of Wisconsin and in 1940 moved to Yale. A
short obituary of Bennett by Irving Rouse appears in
American Antiquity (1954). Another by Alfred Kidder II,
and a poem dedicated to Bennett by Eugene Davidson were
published in the American Anthropologist (1954).
52
Thrse Bouysse-Cassagne is a historian and a Director
of Research at the Sorbonne and a member of the Institut
Franais d tudes Andines. She has contributed to our
understanding of the indigenous and Mestizo cultures of
Lake Titicaca, especially in terms of religious syncretism.
She is the author of La identidad Aymara: Aproximacin
histrica, siglos XV-XVI (1987), Lluvias y cenizas: Dos
pachacuti en la historia (1999) and has edited Saberes y
memorias en los Andes (1997) in memory of Thierry Saignes
(see note 66). She is also, with Tristan Platt and Olivia
Harris, an author of QaraqaraCharka: Mallku, inka y rey
en la Provincia de Charcas, siglos XV-XVII; Historia
antropolgica de una confederacin aymara (2006).
53
Jess Contreras Hernndes (b. 1946) is a Spanish
historian. He is the author of Subsistencia, ritual y poder en
los Andes (1985), Identidad tnica y movimientos indios: La
cara india, la cruz de 92 (1988), Los retos de la inmigracin:
Racismo y pluriculturalidad (1994), and La gestin comunal de
recursos: Economa y poder en los sociedades locales de Espaa
y de Amrica Latina (with Marie-Nolle Chamoux, 1996),
among other works.
54
ric de Dampierre (1928-1998) was one of the most
important French sociologists of the generation after the
Second World War and the founder of the Maison Ren-
Ginouvs de lArchologie et Ethnologie, part of the
Universit de Paris and supported by the Centre Nacional
de Recherche Scientifique. He conducted field research in
Central Africa. He was deeply influenced by the two years
he spent at the University of Chicago as a member of the
Committee on Social Thought.
55
Pierre Duviols is a Professor at the Universit de
Provence and Director of Studies at the cole Practique des
- 16
Hadden,56 Olivia Harris,57 John Hyslop (Murra
1994a), Agustn Llagostera,58 Jos Matos Mar,59
Hautes tudes. In 1993-94 he was a scholar at The Getty
Center. He takes an interdisciplinary approach to his
research, combining anthropology and history in the
study of Andean religious culture. His books include
Dioses y hombres de Huarochir (with Jos Mara Arguedas,
1966), La lutte contre les religions autochthones du Prou
colonial: Lextirpation de lidoltrie entre 1535 et 1660
(1971), and Procesos y Visitas de Idolatras: Cajatambo, siglo
XVII (2003).
56
Gordon D. Hadden (b. 1932) was a curator at what is
now the Science Museum of Minnesota. After working at
Hanuco with John Murra and assisting in the reconstruc-
tion there, in 1967 Hadden participated in the reconstruc-
tion of the Ecuadorian Inca site of Ingapirca.
57
Olivia Harris (1943-2009) studied anthropology at the
London School of Economics. At the time of her death
she was a Professor at that institution. Previously she
taught at the University of Londons Goldsmith College
where she co-founded the Anthropology Department. Her
main research area was highland Bolivia. She explored
issues of gender, households, kinship, feminist theory, law,
economic anthropology, symbolism and ritual, as well as
the nature of historical time and change. She was the
author of To Make the Earth Bear Fruit: Essays on Fertility,
Work, and Gender in Highland Bolivia (2000). See note 52
for another of her major published works.
58
Augustn Llagostera Martnez obtained an under-
graduate degree in biology from the Universidad de Chile
(1967), studied archaeology at the Universidad Nacional
San Antonio Abad del Cusco (1973), and obtained his
doctorate in anthropology from the Centro de Investi-
gaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropologa, Mexico
(1984). He is now retired from the Instituto de Investi-
gacin Arqueolgico and the museum in San Pedro de
Atacama. He is a specialist in the early cultures of Chile.
His published works include his doctoral dissertation
Formaciones pescadoras prehispnicas en la costa del Desierto
de Atacama (1984).
59
Jos Matos Mar (b. 1921) was born in Coracora, Aya-
cucho. He studied at the cole Practique des Hautes
tudes de la Universit de Paris and the Universidad
Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (Lima) where he obtained
a doctorate in anthropology (1958). He was Chairman of
the San Marcos Anthropology Department from 1950 to
1969 and Director of the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos
17 -
Craig Morris (Lynch and Barnes, Andean Past 8),
Sidney Mintz,60 Antoinette Molini,61 Pierre
Morlon,62 Franklin Pease,63 Tristan Platt,64
from 1964 to 1984, as well as the Director of the Instituto
Indigenista Interamericano in Mexico City from 1989 to
1995. He was one of Peruvian President Alan Garcias
advisors during his first term (1985-1989) and has held a
number of important posts in his adopted Mexico. Matos
Mar has published more than twenty books including Per
problema (1969), Desborde popular y crisis de estado (1984),
Poblacin y grupos tnicos de Amrica (1994).
60
Sidney Wilfred Mintz (b. 1922), a student of Julian
Steward and Ruth Benedict at Columbia, is an American
anthropologist known both for field-work in the Caribbean
and for historical research on the global commercial roots
of agro-industrial rural society. He taught at Yale (1951-74)
and then helped found the Anthropology Department at
Johns Hopkins. He is the author of Caribbean Transforma-
tions (1974), An Anthropological Approach to the Afro-
American Past (with Richard Price, 1976), and Sweetness
and Power: the Place of Sugar in Modern History (1985),
among many other works.
61
Antoinette Molini (b. 1946) is Research Director at
the Maison Ren-Ginouvs de lArchologie et Ethnologie.
She specializes in the study of traditional Andean societies.
She has conducted field-work in the Cusco region, in the
Chancay Valley, and at Ambana in Bolivia. Currently she
works in Andalucia where she applies Freudian psychology
to the analysis of culture. Among her published works are
La valle sacre des Andes (1982), Mmoire de la tradition
(with Aurore Becquelin, 1993), Le corps de Dieu en ftes
(1996), and Les no-Indiens: Une religion du IIIe millnaire
(with Jacques Galinier, 2006).
62
Pierre Morlon (b. 1948) is an agronomist at the Institut
Nacional de la Recherche Agronomique, France who has
conducted research in Senegal, Peru, and France. His
varied interests include solar energy, the archaeology of
households, and adult literacy in indigenous languages. He
is the editor of Comprendre lagriculture paysanne dans les
andes centrales (1992) and the author of La troublante
histoire de la jachre: Pratiques des cultivateurs, concepts de
lettrs et enjeux sociaux, with F. Sigaut, 2008).
63
Franklin Pease Garca Yrigoyen (1939-1999) was a
Peruvian historian born into a privileged background. He
was educated at the Universidad Pontificia Catlica del
Per in history and law. An obituary of Franklin Pease by
Noble David Cook appears in the Hispanic American
Barnes: John V. Murra
Ruggero Romano,65 Thierry Saignes,66 Ana-
Mara Soldi,67 and Enriqueta Vila Vilar68. Also
Historical Review (2000). Pease published general histories
of Peru and editions of important chroniclers.
64
Tristan Platt (b. 1944), the director of the Centre for
Amerindian Studies and a Reader at the University of St.
Andrews, Fife, Scotland, is an interdisciplinarian who has
done extensive ethnographic, enthnohistorical, and socio-
linguistic work in Andean countries, especially Bolivia. He
has lived with the Macha Ayllu in northern Potos and has
published on peasants and markets, economic space, state
and society, mining, shamanism, and methods of child-
birth, among other broad and varied topics. See note 52
for one of his major recent works.
65
Ruggero Romano (1923-2002) was, for many years,
Director of Studies at the cole dtudes des Sciences
Sociales and was a member of the Annales school of
history which elucidates the social and economic life of
the past through statistics and everyday documents. He
studied the European and Latin American economies
from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. Among his
published works is Conjonctures opposes: La ?Crise du
XVIIe sicle en Europe et en Amerique ibrique (1992).
66
Thierry Saignes was a French historian who
concentrated on the Andes. Among his works are Los
Andes orientales: Historia de un olvido (1985).
67
AnaMara Soldi (1919-2009) studied chemistry at the
Universit di Genoa. A long time resident at the Ocucaje
vineyard in the Ica Valley, Peru, she developed a deep
knowledge of the archaeology of Perus South Coast. She
published Chacras excavadas en el desierto (1979) on the
prehistoric system of sunken field agriculture and edited
Tecnologa en el mundo andino (with Heather Lechtman,
1981). Soldi was a steadfast colleague of Lechtman, Craig
Morris, Murra, and Mara Rostworowski, and, for more
than fifty years, of many other scholars of the Andean
region.
68
Enriqueta Vila Vilar obtained a doctorate from the
Universidad de Sevilla (1972). She is a research professor
of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientficas at
the Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, Seville. She
has concentrated on colonial Spanish America. Among
her works are a series of publications of letters from the
cabildos of Guatemala, Mexico, and Panama and Aspectos
sociales en Amrica colonial: De extranjeros, contrabando, y
esclavos (2001).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
among Murras close friends were his fellow
Spanish Civil War veterans Harry Fischer and
anthropologists ngel Palerm,69 and Elman R.
Service.70 Murra preserved numerous letters to
and from these scholars and others. The bulk are
in the Smithsonian Institutions National
Anthropological Archives, while others are in
the Anthropology Division of the American
Museum of Natural History, and in private
hands. These letters are important not only in
69
ngel Palerm (1917-1980) arrived in Mexico in 1939.
There he studied, and worked as a field assistant for
archaeologist and I.A.R. member Isabel Truesdale Kelly
and became her co-author. He worked for the Pan-Ameri-
can Union/Organization of American States in Washing-
ton, D.C. in their publications program. After leaving the
O.A.S. he spent a year in Peru. He returned to Mexico
where he became a professor at the Escuela Nacional de
Antropologa e Historia and the Universidad Ibero-
americana where he founded the Anthropology Depart-
ment. He founded the Centro de Investigaciones Su-
periores at Mexicos Instituto Nacional de Antropologa y
Historia (now the Centro de Investigacin de Estudios Su-
periores de Antropologa Social), as well as the Anthropol-
ogy Departments of the Universidad Autnoma Ixtapalapa
and the Colegio de Michoacn. His major works on
prehispanic irrigation civilizations including Obras hidru-
licas prehispnicas en el sistema lacustre del Valle de Mxico
(1973) are still frequently cited. Among his other notable
works are Antropologa y marxismo (1980) and Historia de la
etnologa: Los precursores (1973). In many ways Palerm
personified Murras ideal of an anthropologist who followed
Marxs advice in founding institutions to insure the contin-
uance of the discipline.
70
Elman R. Service (1915-1996) graduated from the
University of Michigan. He earned his Ph.D. at Columbia
University (1951) and taught there until 1953. He taught
at Michigan from 1953 until 1969 and at the University of
California, Santa Barbara from 1969 until retirement in
1985. Services research included Latin American Indian
ethnology, cultural evolution, and method and theory. He
developed theories on social systems and the rise of the
state. Among his books are Spanish-Guarani Relations in
Early Colonial Paraguay (1954), Tobati: Paraguayan Town
(with Helen S. Service, 1954), A Profile of Primitive Culture
(1958), Profiles in Ethnology (1963), Cultural Evolutionism:
Theory in Practice (1971), Origins of the State and Civiliza-
tion: The Process of Cultural Evolution (1975), and A Century
of Controversy: Ethnological Issues from 1860 to 1960 (1985).
- 18
terms of Murras life and thought, but also for
those of the many well-known anthropologists
who were in communication with Murra over a
span of some seventy years.
VASSAR COLLEGE YEARS
Murra left Puerto Rico and worked as a
lecturer at Brooklyn College during the 1949-50
academic year. In 1950 Murra was hired as a
lecturer in anthropology by Vassar College, then
an academically and socially exclusive insti-
tution emphasizing the liberal arts education of
undergraduate women. Murra was to fill in for
Dorothy Lee who was on leave.71 In the
Department of Economics, Sociology, and
Anthropology he first taught general courses
that had already been established. Murras
intellectual interests made him a good fit in a
department dominated by economics. Likewise,
time spent during the early 1950s in close
contact with an economics faculty probably
helped to shape the orientation of Murras
dissertation which he was preparing at the time.
Murras Vassar courses included the inter-
mediate level Cultural Anthropology, that he
co-taught at first with Helen Codere. This is
described in the 1950-1951 catalogue number of
the Bulletin of Vassar College as a study of
primitive social groups. The nature of culture.
71
Dorothy Demedracapoulou Lee (1906-1975), a Greek
immigrant to the United States, graduated from Vassar
College (1927). She taught there from 1939 until 1953
when she left to teach at the Merrill Parker School in
Detroit which she helped to found, and where she re-
mained until 1959. At Harvard from 1959 to 1961, she
helped to establish the Freshman Seminar Program. She
was married to Vassar philosophy professor Otis Hamilton
Lee. A member of the Culture-Personality school of
anthropology, she specialized in the cultures of American
Indians and in issues concerning women, education, and
family life, as well as in Greek folklore. She is the author
of Freedom and Culture (1959), a collection of her essays.
For an obituary see the April 20, 1975 issue of The New
York Times.
19 -
Social and economic aspects of subsistence,
kinship, and marriage. Murra also taught
advanced courses including Language, Myth,
and Society, which explored concepts and
values as reflected in the language and myth-
ology of different primitive groups. Relative
status of animistic and mechanistic attitudes,
magic and science, knowledge and belief (ibid.).
Murra was sometimes responsible for another
advanced course, Primitive Society which
included Discussion of different approaches to
the study of society. An intensive study of certain
societies with a view to discovering their basic
values and their relation to our own society
(ibid). Cultural Dynamics, the only course
mentioned in the catalogue which specifically
dealt with ancient Peru, was taught by Helen
Codere, until the 1955-56 academic year when
Murra taught it. In a c.v. prepared in the late
1960s Murra stated that he taught an Inca course
at Vassar (c.v. Murra, NAA). Perhaps he is
referring to Cultural Dynamics.
During six months of 1951 Murra worked as
a United Nations Economic Affairs Officer and
Africa Area Specialist in the Trusteeship Di-
vision, helping to resolve issues of African land
tenure and decolonization. Although he had
never been to that continent, he at least had the
advantage of being untainted by colonial
involvements. Also in 1951 he was employed as
a consultant by Stringfellow Barrs72 Foundation
for World Government. His time at the U.N.
proved to be another pivotal experience. In the
72
Stringfellow Barr (1897-1982) was a historian and
president of St. Johns College, Annapolis, Maryland, and
founder and President (1948-1958) of the Foundation for
World Government, as well as a developer of the Great
Books Curriculum. He was an editor of the Virginia Quar-
terly Review (1931-1937). Among his books are The Will of
Zeus . . . (1961) and The Mask of Jove . . . (1966), studies of
ancient Greek and Roman culture, and, with Stella Stan-
dard, The Kitchen Garden Book . . ., a guide to growing and
cooking vegetables. He also published a novel, Purely
Academic (1958). Barr advocated tolerance of Communism.
Barnes: John V. Murra
U.N.s early years it had very high levels of
popular and international governmental sup-
port. Many prominent Africans and Afro-
Americans worked on U.N. sponsored projects
and Murra had the opportunity to come to
know some of them personally, including his
supervisor, Ralph Bunche. 73 Murras
commitment to improved civil rights for Afro-
Americans enhanced his interest in their
ancestral homelands. As with his field-work in
Ecuador, Murra took a brief practical
experience, combined it with the anthropology
courses he had taken from Radcliffe-Brown in
Chicago in 1935 and 1936 and his own
prodigious reading in multiple languages, and
began to present himself as an expert, in this
case on African affairs.74
For a while Murra maintained his active
interest in the Caribbean. In the summer of
1953, accompanied by Tommy Sawyer Murra,
he worked for Sidney Mintz and Yale University
in Jamaica. After their work was completed the
Murras went to Cuba (intending to visit Ernest
Hemingway who proved to be off the island)
and on to Yucatan to visit Maya sites, and then
to Mexico City to visit ngel Palerm (Castro et
al. 2000:42-43). This was Murras first trip to
73
Ralph Johnson Bunche (1903-1971) was an Afro-
American Marxist political scientist, educator, and
diplomat and a holder of the Nobel Peace Prize for his
mediation in Palestine, as well as a recipient of the
presidential Medal of Freedom. He helped to found and
administer the United Nations and was active in the cause
of Afro-American civil rights. Bunche earned a B.A. from
the University of California Los Angeles (1927), and a
masters degree(1928) and doctorate (1934) from Har-
vard. Bunche chaired the department of political science
at Howard University (1928-1950), taught at Harvard
(1950-1952), and was a member of the New York City
Board of Education (1958-1964).
74
Anon. 1951b, 1951c, 1951d, 1951e, 1951f, 1951g,
1954b, 1956c, 1957b, 1960a, 1961b, 1961c, 1961e; Murra
1951b, 1951c, 1951d, 1951e, 1951f, 1951g, 1954a, 1955a,
1955c, 1955g, 1955h, 1956b.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Mexico. At that time it was possible for United
States citizens to go to that country without a
passport.
Murra returned to teaching at Vassar in
1954. Around this time he began to collaborate
with Vassar professor, David Lowenthal, and
other members of the geography, economics,
anthropology, sociology, history, and political
science faculty in teaching Geography 208, an
interdepartmental area study course focusing on
the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. This
course was offered in the spring of 1953, and in
the 1953-1954, and 1954-1955 academic years
according to various catalogue numbers of the
Bulletin of Vassar College.75
During the 1956-57 academic year, Murra
initiated a course at Vassar on The African
Heritage, described in that years catalogue as
A survey of a series of African cultures south of
the Sahara; their history, characteristic social
structures and value systems; the transfer of
African institutions and arts to the New World
and the changes they have undergone in Brazil,
the Caribbean and the United States. Murra
had previously taught a course on Africa in
Chicago in 1944 (Murra in Rowe 1984:841) and
it was in that context that he met Tommy
Sawyer. This course became the basis for other
courses on Africa that Murra taught at the
Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos
(Lima), at the Universidad de Puerto Rico, and
at the Universit de Paris, at Columbia
University, and at the New School for Social
Research (Murra in Rowe 1984:641). Africa
interested Murra in part because he believed that
early twentieth century field studies of that
continents native kingdoms that had not been
75
According to Lowenthals recollection, his collaboration
with Murra began in January, 1953 (David Lowenthal,
personal communication to Heather Lechtman, 11 June
2009). However, this chronology conflicts with c.v.s Murra
prepared in the 1960s (see note 86).
- 20
overthrown until the late nineteenth century
reflected a pre-European, pre-Capitalist, and
preliterate past (Murra in Rowe 1984:641).
However, the extensive international slave
trade had enmeshed African societies with
European, Islamic, and American colonial
economies for centuries.
The version of this course that Murra
presented at Vassar suggested Africa as a possi-
ble home of the human species, and surveyed
the ecology, languages, and biology of that
continent. Topics included East and South
African pastoralism, the lineage, age sets and
their meaning for political organization among
the Masai, Nuer, Nyakyusa, and Zulu, as well as
state formation in East and South Africa as
found among the Nuer, Ankole, Ganda,
Rwanda, Garotse, and Zulu peoples. The matri-
lineal belt of Central Africa was discussed with
the Mayombe-Kongo, Bemla, and Ila cultures as
exemplars. European settlement and its con-
sequences in East and Central Africa was
another broad topic covered using the work of
Godfrey Wilson,76 Monica Hunter Wilson,77
76
Godfrey Wilson (1908-1944) was a British social
anthropologist who studied change in Africa. He received
a degree in classics from Oxford University (1931). He
studied under Bronislaw Malinowski at the London
School of Economics and married Monica Hunter (note
77). In Tanganyika he worked with the Nyakyusa-
Ngonde. He was the first director of the Rhodes-Living-
stone Institute, an anthropological institution in what was
then Northern Rhodesia. With Hunter he wrote The
Analysis of Social Change Based on Observations in Central
Africa (1945). He served in the South African Medical
Corps during World War II and committed suicide while
on active service.
77
Monica Hunter Wilson (1908-1982) was a South
African social anthropologist who conducted field-work
among the Pondo, a Xhosa group. She spoke Xhosa since
childhood and was, for many years Professor of Social
Anthropology at the University of Capetown. Monica
Wilson and her husband Godfrey Wilson were members
of Malinowskis seminar at the London School of Econom-
ics. Her major work is Reaction to Conquest (1936). She is
21 -
Peter Abrahams,78 Julius Lewin,79 and Ellen
Hellmann80 as sources. African law and litigation
also the author of The Analysis of Social Change, Communal
Rituals among the Nyakyusa (1959), Langa: A Study of Social
Groups in an African Township (with Archie Mafeje, 1963),
and the editor of The Oxford History of South Africa (with
Leonard Monteith Thompson, 1969).
78
Peter Abrahams (b. 1919) is a South African novelist.
His books include Mine Boy (1946), Tell Freedom (1954),
and The View from Coyaba (1985), among others.
79
Julius Lewin was a lawyer and Senior Lecturer in Native
Law and Administration at the University of Witwaters-
rand. He was a liberal Jewish opponent of the South
African apartheid regime. He is the author of various books
and pamphlets on race relations and inequality in Africa
including The Colour Bar in the Copper Belt (1941), Studies
in African Native Law (1947), Politics and Law in South
Africa: Essays on Race Relations (1963), and The Struggle for
Racial Equality (1967). Like Murra, Lewin wrote for The
Nation.
80
Ellen Hellmann (1908-1982) was the first woman to
obtain a D.Phil. from the University of Witwatersrand
(1940). Her thesis is entitled Early School Leaving Among
African School Children and the Occupational Opportunities
Open to the African Juveniles. She was a Zionist-Socialist and
the author of numerous studies of race relations in South
Africa including Rooiyard: A Sociological Study of an Urban
Native Slum Yard (1948) based on field-work conducted in
Johannesburg, South Africa in 1933, Handbook of Race
Relations in South Africa (with Leah Abrahams, 1949), The
Application of the Concept of Separate Development to Urban
Areas (1961), The Impact of City Life on Africans (1963),
and Conflict and Progress: Fifty Years of Race Relations in
South Africa . . . (with Henry Lever, 1979). She realized the
importance of combining diachronic studies with function-
alism in order to understand migrant communities.
Barnes: John V. Murra
as seen by Max Gluckman,81 A. L. Epstein,82 J.
B. Danquah,83
81
Max Gluckman (1911-1975) was a South African born
British social anthropologist who had been a Rhodes
Scholar at Oxford University. He was the second director
of the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute (after Godfrey Wil-
son, see note 76) and the first Professor of Social Anthro-
pology at the University of Manchester. He founded the
Manchester School of anthropology which emphasized
case studies. He is the author of Custom and Conflict
(1955), African Traditional Law in Historical Perspective
(1974), and Economy of the Central Barotse Plain (1968),
among other work. He was a Structural-Functionalist, a
Marxist, and active in the African independence struggle.
82
Arnold Leonard (Bill) Epstein (1924-1999) was a
Jewish-British anthropologist who worked in Africa,
particularly in the copper belt of what is now Zambia, as
well as in Melanesia. Educated first in the law, he ob-
tained a doctorate from the University of Manchester.
Early in his career he was a Functionalist, but later he
began to appreciate the role of individual emotions and
representations. He was a member of the Manchester
School of anthropology (see note 81) and, from 1950 to
1955 he was associated with the Rhodes-Livingstone
Institute. He studied issues of urban and rural life, law
courts, trade unionism, black-white relations, and mining.
He is the editor of The Craft of Social Anthropology (1967).
His book, Mantupit: Land, Politics and Change among the
Tolai of New Britain (1967) was a result of his Melanesian
field-work. An interview of Epstein is in Current Anthro-
pology (1997) and an obituary by Moshe Shokeid appears
in the American Anthropologist (2000).
83
Joseph Kwame Kyeretwi Boakye Danquah (1895-
1965) was a Ghanaian statesman, nationalist, and writer.
He was a descendant of Akan royalty. He held a doctorate
from the University of London. Danquah died in a
Ghanaian prison where he had been incarcerated for
political reasons. He is the author of Gold Coast Akan
Laws and Customs and the Akim Abuakwa Constitution
(1928) and Akan Doctrine of God (1944).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
T. O. Elias,84 and Julius Lewin were included in
the course, as was a consideration of West Africa
as a center of plant domestication. The shift to
agriculture practiced by males, and surplus and
redistributive economies in forest and savanna
ecozones were the foci of other lessons. The
West African history of state formation, with
emphasis on the army and warfare, was another
topic with the examples of ancient Ghana and
Timbuktu, as well as the Fulani, Hausa, Ashanti,
Benin, Yoruba, and Dahomey. There was
consideration of the Ewe and Ibo, stateless West
African groups presented from the perspective of
Cheikh Anta Diop.85 Dogon, Nupe, and Nuer
84
Taslim Olawale Elias (1914-1994) was a distinguished
Nigerian jurist and pan-Africanist. He received LL.B.
(1946), LL.M. (1947), Ph.D. (1949), and LL.D. (1962)
degrees from the University of London. He was called to
the bar in Londons Inner Temple in 1947. In 1951, while
holding a UNESCO fellowship, he became a research fellow
and instructor in anthropology at Manchester University.
In 1954 he became a research fellow at Oxford University.
In 1956, as a visiting professor, he was instrumental in
developing an African Studies Department at the
University of Delhi, India. He was a governor of the School
of African and Oriental Studies (London) and a professor
and dean at the University of Lagos. In the late 1950s he
helped to draft Nigerias independence constitution and in
1961-62 the constitution of Congo. He was the first
attorney general of Nigeria, chief justice of the Supreme
Court of Nigeria, and a president of the International Court
of Justice (World Court). He was the author of Nigerian
Land Law and Custom (1951), Groundwork of Nigerian Law
(1954), Makers of Nigerian Law (1956), the Nature of
African Customary Law (1956), and Africa and the
Development of International Law (1972). He valued both
British and traditional African law, believed that law
evolved in tandem with social development, and advocated
hybrid systems. He contributed to the development of
concepts of a non-Eurocentric international law. In his
writings Elias romanticized the medieval African empires of
Songhai and Timbuktu.
85
Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-1986) was a Senegalese
historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician. He
studied pre-colonial African culture and is one of the most
influential African intellectuals of the twentieth century. In
Paris he studied physics under Frdric Joliot-Curie, son-in-
law of Pierre and Marie Curie. Diops 1960 Paris doctoral
- 22
religions and cosmologies rounded out the
course, along with an exploration of the
African heritage in the New World (course
syllabus, Murra, NAA). Although this course
appears to have been a thorough introduction to
African ethnology, human ecology, and ethno-
history, it would be daunting for a scholar with
decades of practical experience in Africa to
attempt such a panorama. For someone with
Murras limited experience, it was a feat of
breathtaking intellectual daring.
Murra remained on the Vassar faculty, with
gaps, until 1963. He taught there in the 1950-51
academic year, and, nominally, from spring of
1954 to 1963.86 Murra often expressed appre-
thesis, first presented in 1951, argues that Pharaonic Egypt
was a black culture. It remains an influential work in the
Black Pride movement. Diops book Nations ngres et
culture (1955) is based on that thesis. He established a
radiocarbon laboratory at the University of Dakar (now
the Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar). Among his
many works are The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or
Reality (1974), The Cultural Unity of Black Africa . . .
(1978), Civilisation ou barbarie: Antropologie sans com-
plaisance (1981), and the chapter on ancient Egypt in the
UNESCO General History of Africa (1981-). Diop de-
nounced racial biases and believed that there were broad
patterns of African cultural unity. He argued that all lan-
guages could develop scientific terminology and translated
Albert Einsteins Theory of Relativity into the Wolof
language, Diops mother tongue.
86
Although Heather Lechtman remembers Murra
teaching at Vassar during her freshman year, 1952-53
(personal communication, 11 December 2008), the
documentary record at Vassar suggests he was not teach-
ing there from fall of 1951 through fall 1953. In a to
whom it may concern letter in Spanish setting out his
professional qualifications and experience, dated 17 June
1964, Murra describes himself as a professor (catedrtico)
on leave (con licencia) from Vassar College when he
worked for the United Nations in 1951 (Hanuco Project
files, Junius B. Bird Laboratory of South American Ar-
chaeology, Anthropology Division, American Museum of
Natural History, hereinafter Hanuco Files, A.M.N.H.).
At the time Murra had been a part-time lecturer whose
contract had not been renewed. Up until the late 1960s,
in a series of dated c.v.s which form part of the Murra
23 -
ciation to Vassar for having supported him at a
time in his life when his Communist background
and citizenship problems increased his diffi-
culties in finding employment. However, by the
time Vassar hired Murra he was already a United
States citizen, and his Vassar contract was
apparently not renewed during the worst years of
McCarthyism. Murra encouraged student
interest in politics from a leftist perspective,
giving his favorites subscriptions to The Nation as
graduation presents (Murra 1958d). These gifts
were well in accord with Vassars liberal political
culture. Concurrently with his work at Vassar
Murra taught at Columbia University in the
spring of 1954-55, at Fordham University in the
summer of 1954, and at the New School for
Social Research in 1958-59. At Columbia he
presented a course on the peoples of the Andes
(Murra 1956a: iv).
In 1958 and 1959, with his passport in hand,
and on leave from Vassar, Murra conducted
ethnological and ethnohistorical work in Peru.
He was joined in Lima by Harriett Davis (now
Harriett Haritos) after her 1959 graduation with
a major in anthropology. Davis had previously
worked with Murra in Martinique in 1957
(Harriett Davis Haritos, personal commu-
nication, 15 June 2009). Davis later obtained a
masters degree in anthropology from Columbia
University. In the 1959-60 academic year Murra
did additional archival research in Lima. During
this period Murra taught a general course, The
Economic Organization of the Inca State, based
on his dissertation87 and an advanced seminar,
Papers in the National Anthropological Archive, Murra
stated that from 1951 through 1953 he worked full-time on
his doctoral dissertation and then resumed teaching at
Vassar in 1954. However, at some point in the late 1960s
he began to list his time at Vassar as continuous from 1951
to 1963 and he omitted the detail that he had first been
hired as an adjunct lecturer.
87
To whom it may concern letter by John V. Murra, 17
June 1964, Hanuco Files, A.M.N.H.
Barnes: John V. Murra
Ethnohistorical Uses of the XVIth Century
Sources on Inca Social and Economic Organ-
ization at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de
San Marcos in Lima.88 Up to this point Murra
had had little opportunity to work with un-
published archival sources himself, although he
saw the potential and had subjected available
published sources to close readings. Attending
his classes were many individuals who later
became famous archaeologists or historians and
close colleagues of Murras, including Duccio
Bonavia,89 Lus Lumbreras,90 Ramiro Matos
88
This is according to typed notes, presumably by John V.
Murra, in the John Victor Murra File, Vassar College.
89
Duccio Bonavia (b. 1935) is an Italian-Peruvian
archaeologist. He has investigated bioarchaeological topics
including the introduction and development of maize in
South America and the domestication of camelids.
Among his books are Arqueologa de Lurn (1965), Ricchata
quellccani: Pinturas murales prehispnicas (1974) published
in English as Mural Painting in Ancient Peru (1985), Los
Gavilanes: Mar, desierto, y osis en la historia del hombre
(1982), and Per, hombre y historia: De los origines al siglo
XV (1991).
90
Lus Guillermo Lumbreras (b. 1936) received both a
bachelors degree and a doctorate from the Universidad
Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. He established Perus first
Social Sciences faculty at Ayacuchos Universidad San
Cristbal de Huamanga during the 1960s and later helped
to establish a similar unit at the Universidad Nacional
Mayor de San Marcos. Among his achievements are the
construction of a cultural-chronological framework for
Peruvian prehistory and the development of social archae-
ology, a Marxist analysis which relates the Andean past to
the political present. He has held many important museum
and teaching posts within and beyond Peru. Among his
main publications are La arqueologa como ciencia social
(1981) and Chavn: Excavaciones arqueolgicas (2007).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Mendieta.91 Franklin Pease, and Mara Rostwo-
rowski. Murra considered Rostworowski to be
the most imaginative Andean scholar in the use
of ethnohistorical records whose earliest work
is full of insights (Murra in Rowe 1984:640). In
Cusco Murra interacted with many exceptional
people including archaeologists Richard Schaedel
(see Dillehay, Andean Past 8) and John Howland
Rowe (see Burger, Andean Past 8), as well as
prominent writer Aldous Huxley (1894-1963).
Huxley was then near the end of his life, but at
the height of his fame and powers, and was
considered by many to be something of a guru.
His extended family, for at least four generations,
had been deeply entwined into the bedrock
supporting Britains literary, scientific,
educational, and religious communities.92 Cuscos
91
Ramiro Matos Mendieta (b. 1937), a native Quechua
speaker, is currently Curator for Latin America at the
Smithsonians National Museum of the American Indian.
He obtained his doctorate in 1962 from Universidad Na-
cional Mayor de San Marcos where he taught from 1970 to
1988 and is now a professor emeritus. Matos has conducted
archaeological and ethnological research in Peru, Ecuador,
Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. Among his publications are
Pumpu: Centro administrativo inka en la Puna de Junn, Per
(1994) and Prehispanic Settlement Patterns in the Upper
Mantaro and Tarma Drainages, Junn, Peru (with Jeffrey
Parsons and Charles Hastings, 2000).
92
One of Aldous Huxleys maternal great grandfathers was
Thomas Arnold (1795-1842), a famous headmaster of
Rugby School. One of his maternal uncles was poet
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888). Another was literary scholar
Tom Arnold (1823-1900). Aldous Huxleys maternal aunt,
Mary Augusta Arnold Ward (1851-1920) became famous
as the novelist Mrs. Humphrey Ward. Aldous Huxleys
paternal grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895)
was Charles Darwins famous defender. His father, Leonard
Huxley (1860-1933), was an educator and biographer.
Aldous Huxleys brother, Julian Huxley (1887-1957), and
half-brother, Andrew Huxley (b. 1917) became famous as
biologists. Another half-brother, jurist David Bruce Huxley
(1915-1992) compiled and revised the laws of Bermuda.
Aldous Huxleys son, Matthew Huxley (1920-2005) was an
educator, epidemiologist, and anthropologist. Author
Elspeth Huxley (1907-1997) was a cousin by marriage.
Among Aldous Huxleys early students were novelist
George Orwell (Eric Blair, 1903-1950) and medieval
- 24
elite was thrilled by Huxleys visit and relished
the opportunity to learn from him. By contrast,
Murra had no such illustrious family
connections, and had not yet fully developed
the expertise that would make him famous.
Nevertheless, Murra undertook to educate an
unwilling Huxley about the Inca (Alita Kelley,
personal communication 19 April 2009).
In 1960 Murra also spent a few weeks in the
Archivo General de Indias in Seville. In 1961 he
taught under Organization of American States
auspices at Mexicos Escuela Nacional de
Antropologa e Historia. From 1961 to 1963 he
taught at Yale as a visiting professor, offering a
course on Andean anthropology. It was at
Vassar, however, that Murra attracted his first
principal students who went on to careers in
anthropology. These include Heather Lechtman
(Vassar class of 1956), then a physics major with
a keen interest in anthropology, and now
Professor of Archaeology and Ancient
Technology and Director of the Center for
Materials Research in Archaeology and
Ethnology (CMRAE) at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (M.I.T.). Immediately
after graduation Lechtman won a Vassar grant
to spend the summer with Murra and Davis in
Martinique, as a participant in the Research
and Training Program for the Study of Man in
the Tropics (Vassar College press release
February 13, 1956).
Another of Murras Vassar students who
went on to a successful career in anthropology is
archaeologist Nan Rothschild, a member of the
Vassar class of 1959.93 At Vassar Rothschild
historian Stephen Runciman (1930-2000).
93
Anita (Nan) Askin Rothschild (b. 1938) was awarded
a doctorate from New York University in 1975. She taught
at Barnard College from 1981 to 2007 and is now director
of Museum Studies at Columbia University. She has done
prehistoric, historic, and ethno-archaeology in New York
City and in New Mexico. She has also worked with
25 -
worked as Murras office assistant for two and a
half years. She recalls him as a charismatic
teacher who treated students as professionals,
encouraging them to attend American Anthro-
pological Association meetings and conduct
field-work. Murra also contributed to anthro-
pology at Vassar by inviting speakers to campus
and organizing an anthropology club called
Ohemaa after a Ghanaian term for queen
mother the woman who sits behind the throne
and advises the king (Rothschild, personal
communication, 19 June 2009). At Vassar Murra
also taught Janet Mathews Fitchen.94
Later, at Cornell, Murras well-known
students included, in addition to Denise
OBrien95 who also studied with him at Vassar,
Javier Alb,96 Rolena Adorno, Martha Anders
museum collections. Among her major works are New York
City Neighborhoods: The Eighteenth Century (1990) and
Prehistoric Dimensions of Status: Gender and Age in Eastern
North America (1991), and Colonial Encounters in a Native
American Landscape: The Spanish and Dutch in North
America (1993). With Eleanor B. Leacock she edited The
Ethnographic Journals of William Duncan Strong, 1927-28
(1994).
94
Janet Mathews Fitchen (d. 1995, age 58) graduated
from Vassar in 1958. She was awarded a Master of Arts by
the University of Illinois at Urbana (1959), and a Ph.D.
from Cornell University (1973). All of her degrees were in
anthropology. Fitchen grew up on a dairy farm in upstate
New York, did field-work with Oscar Lewis in Mexico, and
made major contributions to our understanding of rural
poverty in the United States. At the time of her death she
was the chairwoman of Ithaca Colleges department of
anthropology. She is the author of Poverty in Rural America:
A Case Study (1981) and Endangered Spaces, Enduring
Places: Change, Identity and Survival in Rural America
(1991). An obituary by Wolfgang Saxon was published in
the April 7, 1995 issue of The New York Times.
95
Denise OBrien (d. 2008) obtained an A.B. from Vassar
College (1959) and a Ph.D. from Yale (1969). She was the
editor of Rethinking Womens Roles: Perspectives from the
Pacific (with Sharon F. Tiffany, 1984).
96
Javier Alb (b. 1934) is a Bolivian ethnohistorian,
Barnes: John V. Murra
(Sandweiss, Andean Past 3), informal student
Csar Fonseca,97 Inge Harman, Enrique Meyer,98
Patricia Netherly (see Netherly this volume, pp.
72-73), Roger Rasnake, Frank Salomon, Izumi
Shimada99, and Freda Wolf (see Wolf, this
volume, pp. 69-72).
Quechua and Aymara speaker, and Roman Catholic
priest. Among his many publications are works on bilin-
gual education, politics, ethnic relations, Quechua and
Aymara language and literature, kinship, and aspects of
Bolivian history.
97
Csar Fonseca Martel (1933-1986) obtained a doctor-
ate from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos
(1972) where he taught. He worked with John Murra
informally at the Smithsonian, and at Cornell University,
as well as during the Hunuco Project. He was an eco-
nomic anthropologist who developed John Murras
theories of verticality. From 1968 to 1985 he worked with
his friend Enrique Mayer (see note 98) in Chaupiwaranga,
Caete, Tulumayo, and Paucartambo, Peru, studying
Andean systems of production, forms of exchange, and
economic development. He is the author of Sistemas
agrarios de la cuenca del ro Caete del departamento de Lima
(with Enrique Meyer, 1979) as well as numerous articles
about the Peruvian peasant economy.
98
Enrique Meyer (b. 1944), the son of Jews who fled from
the Nazis, grew up in the Peruvian highlands. He studied
for his undergraduate degree at the London School of
Economics and received his Ph.D. from Cornell University
(1974). He has taught at the Pontificia Universidad
Catlica del Per, and has been head of the Department
of Anthropological Research at the Inter-American Indian
Institute in Mexico City. In 1982 he joined the faculty of
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 1995
he moved to Yale University. His research interests
include Andean agricultural systems and Latin American
peasantry. He is the author of The Articulated Peasant:
Household Economies in the Andes (2001).
99
Izumi Shimada (b. 1948) is a Distinguished Professor
of Anthropology at Southern Illinois University. He holds
a B.A. from Cornell University (1971) and a doctorate
from the University of Arizona (1976). He has excavated
at the Moche site of Pampa Grande. Since 1978 he has
directed the Sicn Archaeological Project and he also
works at Pachacamac. Among his numerous published
works are Pampa Grande and the Moche Culture (1994) and
the edited volume Technologa y la produccin cermica
prehispnica en los andes (1994).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Murras requests for generous leaves from
Vassar became an issue. In 1963 he was awarded
an $89,300 National Science Foundation grant
to direct archaeological, ethnological, and ethno-
historical research on Inca provincial life in the
Hunuco, Peru region. In accord with British
sociocultural anthropologists such as Malinowski
and Radcliffe-Brown, Murra believed that field-
work should be continuous over several years.
When he requested three additional consecutive
years of leave for this research, there was a
parting of the ways. Although Vassar encouraged
faculty and student research, its commitment to
undergraduate education required that faculty
members spent much of their time teaching in
Poughkeepsie. Furthermore, the anthropology
section of the Department of Economics,
Sociology, and Anthropology seems to have been
experiencing some sort of crisis. Helen Codere
who had long taught at Vassar, moved to Bran-
deis, leaving a subdepartment essentially without
faculty. The dozen anthropology courses in the
1963-64 catalogue issue of the Bulletin of Vassar
College were all listed as to be taught by a new
lecturer, African specialist Alexander Alland, or
with the instructors to be announced. Alland
did not remain long at Vassar, although he
continued working in anthropology. It appears
that John Murra left a subdepartment in collapse.
However, Murra never expressed any bitterness
over his years at Vassar. On the contrary, he
seems to have appreciated the colleges support
during a difficult time in his life.
By the late 1960s, after an interim period
presided over by the prehistorian Morton Levine,
the Vassar Anthropology Department, which by
then had separated from Economics, and later
separated from Sociology, stabilized under the
chairmanship of Walter A. Fairservis, Jr.100 who
100
Walter Ashlin Fairservis, Jr. (1921-1994) was an
archaeologist, actor, and playwright who conducted field-
work principally in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Egypt. He
held an A.A. from Chicago (1941), a B.A.(1943), and an
- 26
joined the Vassar faculty in the fall of 1968 and
retired in 1993. The department has prospered
ever since. It now offers over thirty courses
taught by a full-time faculty of seven, plus
visiting professors.
In Peru I once heard a deliciously garbled
account of Murras Vassar years. There a
student, who had no idea I had graduated from
that college, earnestly told me his version of
John Murras struggles to gain a United States
passport. According to this account, Murra was
in trouble with United States authorities
because of his leftist background, but a convent
of very intellectual and liberal nuns took up his
cause and gave him sanctuary. Prior to the late
1960s Vassars all female student body and
somewhat isolated, walled campus with ex-
tensive grounds and neo-Gothic architecture
made it resemble a rural monastery. I couldnt
wait to relate this version of the telephone
game to Murra who was aware of our mutual
connection. When I did he looked baffled at
first, then leaned closer and whispered in a
mock-conspiratorial tone, But its true, you
know! John did have a sense of humor.
PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL
M.A. (1948) from Columbia, as well as an M.A. (1954)
and Ph.D. from Harvard (1958). He began an association
with the American Museum of Natural History in 1941 as
a volunteer. He eventually became the scientific authority
for the Museums Gardner D. Stoat Hall of Asian Peoples.
He taught at Vassar College from 1969 to 1993. As an
actor and the son of an actress, Fairserviss lectures had a
dramatic flair that attracted many students to Anthropol-
ogy. The emergence of civilization in the Old World was
one of his major theoretical interests and he often ex-
plored a speculative archaeology aimed at a mixed reader-
ship. Among his major works are Excavations in the Quetta
Valley, West Pakistan (1956), Archaeological Surveys in the
Zhob and Loralai Districts, West Pakistan (1959), The Roots
of Ancient India . . . (1971), An Experiment in Civilization:
An Experiment in Prehistory (1975), and field reports on his
Hierakonpolis Project, published by Vassar College
(1983). An obituary of Fairservis by Wolfgang Saxon
appeared in the July 16, 1994 issue of The New York Times.
27 -
During the 1950s John Murra functioned as
more than just a teacher at a small college for
women. He was a public intellectual who had
considerable credibility due to his anti-fascist role
in the Spanish Civil War. Murras
anthropological and political interests were
broad. In addition to Andean studies, they
included the evolution of the state in Africa,
patterns of land tenure, decolonization, and
African art.101 He also continued his active
research interest in Puerto Rico and the French
Caribbean, adopting advocacy positions on the
problems encountered by immigrants from these
islands to the United States.102
Fifty or sixty years ago most Puerto Ricans
who settled in New York City struggled with a
physical, social, economic, and cultural en-
vironment drastically different from what they
knew on their home island. Many found
themselves in the slums of Manhattans Spanish
Harlem or the West Side, a situation roman-
ticized by the contemporaneous musical West
Side Story. It is a shock to revisit anthro-
pological examinations such as Up to the Slums
(1958) by Murras friend and colleague Elena
Padilla, or investigative journalism reports like
Dan Wakefields Island in the City (1959) or The
Other Puerto Ricans (Wakefield 1959; see also
Murra 1959a). The photos alone convey the
horror of life in neighborhoods where every day
was a constant struggle against poverty,
discrimination, filth, overcrowding, crime, and
ill-health, the like of which we have not seen in
this country in decades. Murra did what he could
to raise consciousness of these problems without
blaming the victims, even living for a while in
101
Anon. 1956c, 1957b, 1957c, 1960a, 1961b, 1961c,
1961e; Murra 1951b, 1951c, 1951d, 1951e, 1951f, 1951g,
1954a, 1954b, 1955a, 1955h, 1956b, 1964c.
102
Anon. 1957d, 1958; Gillespie 1950; Murra 1951a,
1955b, 1955d, 1957a, 1957b, 1959a.
Barnes: John V. Murra
Spanish Harlem, at 321 East 121st Street103 in a
house that was later destroyed in preparation for
a public housing project. Later he moved to 27
Pierrepont Street, in Brooklyn Heights.104
Murra wrote for a general readership in
national publications, most notably The Nation
(Murra 1954b, 1955a, 1955c, 1955e, 1955g,
1955h, 1958d, 1959a). He also published brief
articles in limited circulation papers such as the
Vassar Miscellany News (Murra 1955b) and the
Vassar Chronicle (Murra 1956c; Murra and
Mercer 1957). During the 1950s and early 1960s
he often spoke to educated general audiences,
most frequently about Africa (Anon. 1956c,
1957b,1960a, 1961b, 1961c, 1961e), Puerto
Rico and the Caribbean (Anon. 1958), and least
frequently about Peru, the Incas, and Andean
culture in general (Anon. 1961f, 1961g). Some-
times, though, Murra expressed impatience with
the use of anthropology to shed light on
contemporary problems. In a comment made to
the Vassar Miscellany News Murra said anthro-
pology is like the case of the man who sold the
bear skin while the bear was still in the forest
(Zahner 1950:3). People expected anthropology
to provide overnight answers to questions
arising in modern nations.
Meanwhile, in 1949, Murra had begun
Freudian psychoanalysis, a process that became
a vital part of his personal identity. In the mid-
twentieth century, psychoanalysis was accepted
by most intellectuals as an important heuristic
system and Murra committed to it fully. Murra
103
Wakefield 1959:82; Memo, September 1950, the
Vassar College Office of Public Relations, John Victor
Murra File, Vassar College.
104
An envelope sent to Murra at that address by Csar
Fonseca and postmarked March 27, 1968 is among the
Hanuco files in the Junius B. Bird Laboratory of South
American Anthropology, Anthropology Division,
American Museum of Natural History, hereinafter Bird
Lab. A.M.N.H..
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
had met one of his future psychoanalysts, Saul B.
Newton105 during the Spanish Civil War (Castro
et al. 2000:33). Newton seems to have influenced
Murra deeply in terms of Murras attitudes
towards both sexual and parent-child
relationships. At Newtons suggestion, starting in
1951 and continuing until 1996, Murra kept
diaries recording his dreams, thoughts, con-
versations, and personal activities. Sometimes
chaotic and impressionistic, sometimes clearly
written, these are intimate and emotionally
charged. They reveal a private personality very
different from that of the confident authority
Murra projected in public. Another of Murras
psychoanalysts was the Chilean Lola Hoffman
who also worked with Murras friend Jos Mara
Arguedas. Murra placed great trust in Hoffman,
crediting her with curing him of a Seconal
(barbiturate sleeping pill) addiction and of
keeping Arguedas alive longer than would
otherwise have been the case. In the early 1950s
Murra also worked with psychoanalyst Leon N.
Goldensohn106 (Murra 1956a:v).
105
Saul B. Newton, n Cohen (d. 1991, age 85) was a
New York psychoanalyst with ties to University of Chicago
radical circles. From its foundation in 1957, until his death,
Newton headed a controversial Manhattan therapeutic
commune, the Sullivan Institute for Research in
Psychoanalysis. Membership in the Institute peaked in the
1970s. Newton taught that family ties were at the root of
most mental illnesses and urged the separation of parents
from young children. He advocated personal liberation
through multiple sexual partners, but denied that he
pressured Institute members into unwelcome relationships.
Newton was, however, an avowed Com-munist, a labor
union organizer, and an opponent of nuclear arms and
power. An obituary of Newton by Bruce Lambert was
published in the December 23, 1991 issue of The New York
Times. The Sullivan Institute/Fourth Wall Community by Amy
B. Siskind is a disillusioned insiders view of Newtons
commune (2003).
106
Leon N. Goldensohn (d. 1961, age 50) was a United
States Army psychologist who assessed the mental health
of Nazi defendants during the Nuremberg Trials. The notes
of his interviews were published as The Nuremberg
Interviews (2004).
- 28
THE HUNUCO PROJECT
Murra conceived the idea for his major field
research, the Inca Provincial Life Project,
better known as the Hunuco Project, early in
his career. According to Murra, Wendell Ben-
nett first drew his attention to Iigo Ortiz de
Zigas 1562 Hunuco Visita (Castro et al.
2000:109). Bennett was both an advocate and
practitioner of interdisciplinary studies that
combined archaeology with ethnography,
geography, botany, history, and other fields of
research. A portion of Ortizs Hunuco Visita as
transcribed by Padre Domingo Angulo, head of
the colonial section of Perus national archive,
had been published between 1920 and 1925 in
the Revista del Archivo Nacional del Per. In
1955-1962 more of this visita appeared in the
same journal, while in 1955-56 Marie Helmer
published the 1549 visita to the Chupachos in
the Travaux de lInstitut Franais dtudes
Andines. Murra was also influenced by the
Annales school of historiography and his friend
Alfred Mtraux107 who, in his general synthetic
work Les Incas (1961) stated that study of
administrative records was often more fruitful
than examination of formal, published
chronicles about the Inca.
107
Alfred Mtraux (1902-1963) was a Swiss-Argentinian
ethnographer and civil rights leader. Educated mainly in
France, he received a doctorate from the Sorbonne
(1928). Mtraux was the founder and first director (1928-
1934) of the Institute of Ethnology at the Universidad de
Tucman, Argentina. From 1941 to 1945 he played an
important role in the production of the Smithsonians
Handbook of South American Indians. Mtraux held a
number of short term teaching posts in the United States,
Latin America, and Europe. He conducted field research
on Easter Island, in Argentina, Peru, Chile, Brazil, Mex-
ico, Haiti, and in Europe immediately after the Second
World War. He worked for the United Nations (1946-
1962). Among his many works are La civilization matrielle
des tribus Tupi-Guarani (1928), Mdecine et vodou en Haiti
(1953), Ethnology of Easter Island (1971), and Les Inca
(1961).
29 -
During the late 1950s Murra had made field
visits to the Hunuco area and knew from
personal observations that late period arch-
aeological sites of many types were abundant
there, and that the great Inca administrative
center of Hunuco Pampa was well preserved.
Murra proposed an integration of several lines of
evidence to create a more advanced inter-
pretation of Inca life. The visitas provided a list of
sites with a variety of functions. These included
villages, shrines, markets, and fortresses, as well
as roads and their way-stations or tambos. In his
successful National Science Foundation appli-
cation Murra expressed the belief that it would
be possible to locate and visit every place
mentioned, excavating a selection.
Archaeological evidence could then be
integrated with the detailed historical accounts.
Because the documents included much economic
data, including information on agricultural
practices, Murra suggested that a botanist be an
integral part of the project. He could observe
contemporary plant use which, Murra believed,
would shed light on past practices.
As project staff, Murra assembled a small
team of American and Peruvian field-workers.
Murra himself conducted the archival and ethno-
graphic research. Donald E. Thompson agreed to
serve as the senior archaeologist. Thompson was
the son of famous Mayanist J. Eric S. Thompson.
John L. Cotter,108 of the United States Park
108
John L. Cotter (1911-1999) held a B.A. (1934) and
M.A. (1935) in Anthropology from the University of
Denver and a Ph.D. (1959) from the University of Pennsyl-
vania. Over the course of his life he excavated at a variety
of famous North American sites including the Lindenmeier,
Colorado palaeoindian site; the Clovis, New Mexico type
site; the Bynum Mounds, a Mississippi Hopewell site; the
Emerald Mound temple in Natchez territory; in colonial
Jamestown, Virginia; and in urban Philadelphia. He was the
founder, and the first president, of the Society for Historical
Archaeology. He worked for the National Parks Service
and taught at the University of Pennsylvania and was a
curator at the University Museum there. A short obituary
by John Rose appears in a 1999 issue of Archaeology. An
Barnes: John V. Murra
Service, also joined the team. Robert McKelvey
Bird, then a graduate student at the University
of California, signed on as the botanist, bringing
along his wife, Mary Watson Bird. As a son of
Junius109 and Margaret [Peggy] Bird,110 Robert
Bird had grown up with South American
archaeology. Peter Jenson, a Peace Corps
volunteer with museum experience, ran the lab
for a while. Archaeologists Gordon D. Hadden
and Daniel Shea111 were also part of the team.
anthology of Carters writings, with biographical material
is Witness to the Past: The Life and Works of John L. Cotter
published in 2007 by John L. Cotter (posthumously),
Daniel G. Roberts, and David Gerald Orr.
109
Junius Bolton Bird (1907-1982) was, from 1931, until
his death, Curator of South American Archaeology at the
American Museum of Natural History. His work at Fells
Cave in the south of Chile suggested that all of the
Americas were first occupied quickly and at an early date,
while his Huaca Prieta excavations in the Chicama Valley
of Northern Peru yielded early decorated gourds and
twined textiles. Bird was President of the Society for
American Archaeology (1961) and received the order of
el Sol del Per in 1974. He may have been an inspiration
for the fictional character Indiana Jones. His book Travels
and Archaeology in South Chile was put together after his
death by his colleague John Hyslop. Short biographies by
Hyslop appeared in Natural History (1989) and in Christo-
pher Winters International Dictionary of Anthropologists
(1991) An obituary by Craig Morris was published in the
American Anthropologist (1985).
110
Margaret (Peggy) Lee McKelvey Bird (1909-1996)
graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1931, the same year
she met her future husband Junius Bolton Bird whom she
married in 1934. That summer the newlyweds participated
in an archaeological excavation in Labrador, and then
spent nearly three years in South America, conducting
excavations at Fells Cave, Palliaike Cave, and Mylodon
Cave in southern Chile, among other projects. Peggy Bird
continued to assist her husband in a variety of professional
ways throughout his career.
111
Daniel Shea teaches at the Department of
Anthropology, Beloit College. He earned a MS (1967)
with a thesis entitled The Plaza Complex of Hunuco Viejo
and a Ph.D. (1968) with a dissertation entitled Wari-
Wilka: A Central Andean Oracle Site, both from the
University of Wisconsin, Madison. He currently conducts
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
The Peruvian archaeologists Manuel Chvez
Balln,112 Ramiro Matos Mendieta, Lus Barreda
Murillo,113 and Rogger Ravines114 joined the
project, as well as Peruvian students Csar
Fonseca Martel, Emilio Mendizbal Losack,115
archaeological research in Chiles Atacama Desert.
112
Manuel Chvez Balln (1918-2000) obtained his
doctorate in education from the Universidad Nacional
Mayor de San Marcos. After a few years as a secondary
school instructor he began to teach at the Universidad
Nacional San Antonio Abad del Cusco and at San Marcos.
Chvez Balln accompanied Julio C. Tello on some of his
expeditions, including to the site of Wiaywayna near
Machu Picchu. Inspired by Tello, Chvez Balln became a
self-taught archaeologist dedicated to elucidating and
preserving the cultural heritage of Cusco. In 1952 he led an
expedition to the now famous Qero ayllu in Paucartambo.
He discovered the site of Marcavalle, an Early Horizon site
near Cusco. He is the father of archaeologist Sergio Ch-
vez. Machu Picchus site museum is named for him.
113
Lus Barreda Murillo (1929-2009) held a doctorate in
anthropology and history from the Universidad Nacional de
San Antonio Abad del Cusco. He was an archaeologist who
specialized in the pre-Inca cultures of Perus Departments
of Apurmac, Puno, and Cusco and who held a variety of
important teaching and administrative posts at UNSAAC.
114
Rogger Ravines Snchez (b. 1940) holds a doctorate
from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos and
has also studied at the University of California, Berkeley
and at Harvard. He is a Peruvian archaeologist who has
held a variety of important administrative positions. He is
the editor of Technologa Andina (1978), and the author of
Panorama de la arqueologa andina (1982), Chanchn:
Metropol Chim (1980), La cermica tradicional del Per
(with Fernando Villiger, 1989), Arqueologa prctica (1989),
and 100 aos de arqueologa en el Per (1970), among other
works.
115
Emilio Mendizbal Losack (1922-1979) was an
ethnologist and artist who contributed to our understand-
ing of Peruvian folk art traditions, especially Sarhua
paintings and Ayacucho retablos. Among his publications
are Pacaraos: Una comunidad en la parte alta del Valle de
Chancay (1964), Patrones arquitectnicos inkas (2002), and
Del Sanmarkos al retablo ayacuchano: Dos ensayos pioneros
sobre arte tradicional peruano (2003).
- 30
and Juan M. Ossio Acua,116 and American
Freda Wolf.
According to the outline presented in
Murras N.S.F. proposal, and interim reports
submitted, the first year of the project, to begin
officially on July 1, 1963, was devoted to survey
to identify the installations mentioned by Ortiz
de Ziga, including the great site of Hunuco
Pampa and fortresses noted by Ortiz but not
visited by him. Of special interest was the
market town at Chinchacocha. The extent to
which markets, as opposed to other forms of
state-sponsored or local exchange, functioned in
the Andes remains somewhat unclear, but
Murra addressed this issue in many of his
writings, including his dissertation. In general,
Murras Hunuco-centered work has
contributed a great deal to our understanding of
the economic organization of the Inca state.
The second year of the Hunuco Project was
devoted to ethnological work and to excavation
of selected sites. The third and final year, to end
on July 1, 1966, was designated for analysis and
the preparation of manuscripts for publication
including the republication, with scholarly
commentary, of Hunuco visitas (Ortiz 1967,
1972).
In his interim report to the N.S.F. Murra
expressed some disappointment in the results
achieved by the mid-point of the project. Al-
116
Juan M. Ossio (b.1943) studied history at the Pon-
tificia Universidad Catlica del Per (1960-1965) and
anthropology at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San
Marcos (1963-1966). From the University of Oxford he
obtained a Diploma in Social Anthropology (1967), a
B.Litt. (1970), and D.Phil. (1978). He is a senior professor
at PUCP. He has twice been a Tinker Visiting Professor at
the University of Chicago (1988, 2000). He is the editor
of Ideologa Mesinica del Mundo Andino (1973) and the
author of Los indios del Per (1992), Parentesco, reciprocidad
y jerarqua en los Andes (1992), Las paradojas del Per oficial
(1994), El cdice Mura (2004), and En busca del orden
perdido: La idea de la historia en Felipe Guaman Poma de
Ayala (2008).
31 -
though at the start Murra presumed that a one
hundred percent match would be possible
between installations mentioned by Ortiz and
sites on the ground, Murra and his colleagues
had been able to find and visit only about half of
the places. Murra did feel that the project had
successfully documented the ethnic frontier
between the Yacha, including the site and village
of Cauri, and the Wamali country around the
present settlement of Jess or ucon. Villages in
Yacha territory had been partially excavated. At
Hunuco Pampa Murras team had excavated a
house, as well as storehouses, and they had
examined the sites extensive ceremonial
architecture. They had also made a pottery
sample and followed the Inca highway or Capac
an (Great Road in Quechua) north to the cumspect than one could be in a successful
tambo of Tapataku and south to Tunsucancha.
However, Murra admitted that he had
underestimated both the difficulties of doing
archaeological field-work in a high altitude
location not served by paved roads, and the
suspicion with which Peruvians often regarded
foreign researchers. He said that the time spent
explaining and mending fences limited the
amount of research he was able to accomplish. In
an article published in a 1965 issue of Curator
Peter Jenson is more explicit. He acknowledges
tensions between foreign researchers and local
people, both educated and illiterate. Because the
concept of work done without monetary
recompense was unfamiliar in the area, the
motives of the scientists were widely questioned.
There was a lack of cooperation, attempts at
spying, and a formal accusation of gold theft.
This closely parallels the reception of Charles
Marie de La Condamines survey work in
Ecuador during the 1730s, suggesting that such
reactions were wide-spread and deeply rooted in
the Andes. Murras team attempted to counter
ill-will with gifts of photographs and a series of
community addresses. When it became apparent
that the costs of photo distribution were mount-
ing, Jenson developed an exhibition of four
Barnes: John V. Murra
panels that could be carried by two men or one
horse. This explained the work of the project
and circulated in remote areas.
At the time Murra began his Hunuco field
and archival research his practical experience
with archaeology and the use of unpublished
original documents was limited. He had
attended Fay-Cooper Coles Illinois summer
field school and had participated in Colliers six
month reconnaissance of Ecuador. He had also
done some independent reconnaissance work in
the Hunuco region. He had spent a few weeks
in the Archivo General de Indias, and rather
more time in Lima and Cusco colonial archives.
Privately Murra was considerably more cir-
grant application. On October 8, 1963, en route
to South America, he wrote in his diary . . . I
have no idea even of what could be done in
Per, re Inca, in Hunuco. . . Inexperience and
enthusiasm may have led Murra to promise
more than could possibly have been revealed
through colonial documents and archaeological
remains.
In spite of disappointments and frustrations,
the Hunuco Project, especially Murras pub-
lication and studies of the Hunuco visitas
(Murra 1972a; Murra, editor, 1964; Ortiz 1967,
1972) led him to his most influential
explanatory framework, that of verticality or
the simultaneous access of an ethnic group or
state to various productive ecological niches.
Murra established case studies that he argued
supported his reconstruction. One encompasses
the small ethnic groups of Hunuco, the
Chupaychu and Yacha, each consisting of a few
thousand individuals, who controlled or shared
various resources at some distance from their
population centers. These included pasture
lands, salt works, cotton, maize, and coca fields,
and forests.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Perhaps the most important case is that of
the Lupaca, a large ethnic kingdom with its
population center in the Lake Titicaca Basin but
with outlying colonies in the desert oasis valleys
of what is now northern Chile, as well as in the
tropical forests of the eastern Andean slopes.
Murra also thought that small ethnic groups
centered on the central coast of Peru, as well as
large north coast polities, may have controlled
resources distant from their political and
population centers.
Over the years Murras insights have served
as templates for other studies (c.f. Jorge Hidalgos
2004 collection of articles, Historia andina en
Chile and the Chincha Project [1983-2005]
directed by Heather Lechtman, Lus Lumbreras,
Craig Morris, and Mara Rostworowski). One of
the outstanding Chincha Project participants is
Andean Past editor Daniel H. Sandweiss who
based his doctoral dissertation (Cornell
University 1989) on his Chincha field research.
This dissertation was published in 1992 as The
Archaeology of Chincha Fishermen: Specialization
and Status in Inka Peru in the Carnegie Museum of
Natural History Bulletin.
Several lines of criticism have developed
concerning Murras notions of verticality and
Andean complementarity. One is that a pax
incaica or pax Tiwanaku would have been
necessary for small and vulnerable groups of
individuals to maintain control over valuable
resources far from their major population centers,
a condition that Murra himself ad-mitted (Murra
1979b: 222). Another is that Murra was selective
in the details he chose to include in his models,
ignoring some of the information contained in his
sources and dismissing other sources as
exceptions. Fur-thermore, knowledge of
Andean agro-pastoral technology has developed
since the 1970s. Thanks to the work of William
M. Denevan,117 Clark Erickson,118 Alan L. Kola
117
William M. Denevan (b. 1931) earned his B.A. (1953),
- 32
ta,119 William P. Mitchell,120 Charles R. Ortloff
M.A. (1958), and Ph.D. (1963), all in geography, from the
The University of California, Berkeley. Among his teach-
ers were James Parsons, John H. Rowe, and Carl Sauer.
He is the Carl Sauer Professor Emeritus of the Depart-
ment of Geography of the University of Wisconsin,
Madison. His recent work has offered criticisms of the
pristine myth of American environments before 1492
and his current research includes a history of agriculture
in the Americas. He is the author of The Aboriginal
Cultural Geography of the Llanos de Mojos, of Bolivia (1966),
and Cultivated Landscapes of Native Amazonia and the
Andes: Triumph over the Soil (2001).
118
Clark Lowden Erickson (b. 1954) has an undergradu-
ate degree from the Washington University in St. Louis
(1976) and a doctorate from the University of Illinois
(1988) and is an associate professor in the Department of
Anthropology of the University of Pennsylvania and an
associate curator at the University Museum. He has made
enormous contributions to our geographical, archaeologi-
cal, and practical knowledge of South American agricul-
ture, especially of the raised fields in the Lake Titicaca
region, and of the fields, paths, and other earthworks of
the Bolivian lowlands. He is the editor of Time and
Complexity in Historical Ecology: Studies in the Neotropical
Lowlands (with William Bale, 2006). A biographical
sketch of Erickson by Deborah I. Olszewski was published
in Expedition magazine (2008).
119
Alan L. Kolata (b. 1951) obtained his Ph.D. from
Harvard University (1978). He is the Neukom Family
Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Social
Sciences at the University of Chicago. He leads interdisci-
plinary research projects studying the human ecology of
the Lake Titicaca basin during the past 3000 years. He has
also worked on the north coast of Peru and in Thailand
and Cambodia. He is the author of Valley of the Spirits: A
Journey into the Lost Realm of the Aymara (1996), The
Tiwanuku: Portrait of an Andean Civilization (2003), and
Tiwanuku and its Hinterland (2003).
120
William P. Mitchell (b. 1937) obtained his Ph.D. from
the University of Pittsburgh (1972). He is Professor of
Anthropology and Freed Professor in the Social Sciences
at Monmouth University, Monmouth, New Jersey. He has
made a longitudinal study of the town of Quinoa in Perus
Ayacucho Department, and of Quinoan immigrants to
Lima. He focuses on political economy, peace and war,
human ecology, socio-cultural evolution, and religion. He
is the author of Peasants on the Edge: Crop, Cult, and Crisis
in the Andes (1991), Picturing Faith: A Facsimile Edition of
33 -
and Michael E. Moseley (see Ortloff and
Moseley, this volume, 279-305), among others,
we now understand that altiplano raised fields
and irrigated highland terraces ameliorate micro-
climates and produce a variety of foodstuffs,
albeit with the investment of a fair amount of
labor. The management of concentrated
resources may have been more effective than
that of scattered ones.
Murra also formulated his ideas of settlement
patterns before the rapid native depopulation of
the Andes in the colonial period was fully under-
stood. Demographic collapse provides oppor-
tunities for settlement reorganization and re-
allocation of resources. The patterns observed
during and after drastic population reduction
may not reflect the pre-collapse situation, how-
ever vehemently litigants may have asserted real
or fictional past rights to bolster their claims as
they had supposedly been in an economy where
land purchase was unknown. Because Spanish
law, as applied to the New World, affirmed pre-
conquest land tenure arrangements, claimants
needed to present arguments to Spanish officials
that included claims to tenure extending into the
remote past. The only ethnohistorical accounts
of land use available to Murra, and to subsequent
scholars, come from colonial contexts in which
all participants, Spaniards, Indians, and even
African slaves, are adjusting rapidly to new and
shifting economic realities.
Most of the archaeological work conducted
as part of the Inca Provincial Life Project was
never published. Murra had the archaeologists in
his project turn over their field notes to him. For
many years he kept them in Ithaca, in upstate
New York, but eventually, through Craig Morris,
the Pictographic Catechism in the Huntington Free Library
(with Barbara H. Jaye, 1999), and Voices from the Global
Margin: Confronting Poverty and Inventing New Lives in the
Andes (2006). He is the editor of Irrigation at High Altitudes:
The Social Organization of Water Control Systems in the
Andes (with David Guillet, 1991).
Barnes: John V. Murra
they came to be stored in the Junius B. Bird
Laboratory of South American Archaeology in
the Anthropology Division of the American
Museum of Natural History. Numerous small
excavations were made at Hunuco Pampa, and
those at storehouses were reported in Morris
doctoral dissertation, Storage in Tawantinsuyu
(1967) and in subsequent articles by Morris.
Daniel Sheas 1967 University of Wisconsin
masters thesis, The Plaza Complex of Hunuco
Viejo, and a preliminary article on the same
topic published in 1966 in the Cuadernos de
Investigacin of the Universidad Nacional
Hermilio Valdizn (Hunuco) also report results
of the project. Reconstruction of the most
spectacular architecture at Hunuco Pampa was
also undertaken by the project after its N.S.F.
termination date of July 1, 1966 because the
Peruvian Patronato Nacional de Arqueologa
provided funds for Murras team to rebuild a
portion of the site (see cover, this volume and
illustration, p. 64). John Murra hoped that Craig
Morris would eventually produce a monograph
that fully reported the archaeological aspects of
the Inca Provincial Life Project. However,
Morris continued at Hunuco for many years,
supported by his own major grants, then worked
at the La Centinela site in Perus Chincha
Valley, at Tambo Colorado, in the Ica Valley,
and, briefly, at Cochabamba, Bolivia. He was
not able to completely publish his own
independent work before his death, let alone
that of Murras Hunuco Project. Fortunately,
archaeologists can expect this situation to be
partially remedied soon. Alan Covey, who work-
ed with Morris at the American Museum of
Natural History, has prepared a monograph
drawing on Morris excavations at Hunuco.
However, he did not incorporate materials from
Murras project (R. Alan Covey, personal com-
munication, 20 January 2009). Having seen the
Hunuco field notes left by Murras team, it is
my opinion that a solid regional archaeological
survey report could have been produced.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Murras return to South America marked a
turning point for him. As he explained in a 1989
interview (Ansaldi and Caldern), much of his
life had been accidental up to that point. He was
sent to Chicago because he had an uncle there.
He learned Spanish because his commitment to
the anti-fascist left motivated his presence in
Spain during the Spanish Civil War. He went to
Ecuador in 1941 because he had to earn a living
and the project needed a Spanish-speaker. Legal
difficulties prevented him from returning to
Ecuador for doctoral research in a living
community, so he wrote a library dissertation on
an extinct civilization. Murras continuing need
to support himself financially, his excellent
Spanish and good French, and his citizenship
problems led him to work in Puerto Rico and
Martinique, although he had no special
commitment to the Caribbean. Just as he was
prevented from going to South America, he was
unable to travel to Africa, another continent that
interested him. However, once he obtained his
United States passport and was free to go
anywhere, Murras life came more under his own
conscious direction. From 1958, when he
returned to South America after an absence of
sixteen years, he devoted himself almost
exclusively to Andean topics, albeit with a
comparative perspective.
When Murra was able to travel to
conferences in Africa he had the opportunity to
interact with many European anthropologists,
missionaries, and colonial agents, primarily
British, French, and Belgian, who had decades of
field and administrative experience on that
continent. He also may have met Africans
studying their own cultures, and other scholars
whose university work in the British and French
systems had focused exclusively on Africa. In his
private writings there are hints that Murra
realized that British socio-cultural anthro-
pologists dominated African studies, leaving little
room for someone outside their circle. However,
until the end of his teaching career he continued
- 34
to integrate African material into his classes. He
also encouraged Mesoamerican/ Andean
comparisons (Murra 1977a, 1982e).
Nevertheless, after 1958, with one minor
exception (Murra 1964c), Murra never
published on Africa, Puerto Rico, or the French
Caribbean again except in the context of
comparisons with Andean material. He did,
however, remain for many years both a member
of the International African Institute, and a
fellow of the African Studies Association (c.v.
Murra, NAA). During the Hunuco Project
Murra acquired the deep expertise in Andean
cultures for which he was famous during the
second half of his life. His new focus allowed
him to develop an impressive body of work on
the Inca state, or Tawantinsuyu, as he preferred
to call it.
It was in 1964, during the Hunuco Project,
that Murra met his close associate, Craig Morris,
then a young archaeologist, and another
University of Chicago graduate. Murra and
Morris remained friends for the rest of their
lives. For some time Morris shared with Murra
the responsibility for teaching Andean
archaeology and ethnohistory at Cornell
University. Poignantly, their obituaries appear
side-by-side in the December 2007 issue of the
American Anthropologist. During the 1970s and
.80s, when Morris would commute from New
York City to Ithaca, he would stay in the damp
basement of John Murras house on 515 Dryden
Road near campus, which John Murra occupied
from 1971 (purchase contract, Murra, NAA).
Murras home was a rather dramatic place, with
a sun porch that combined ski lodge furniture
and life-size murals of figures taken from the
early seventeenth century account of the
Peruvian Mestizo chronicler Felipe Guaman
Poma de Ayala painted for him by Freda Wolfs
younger brother. To a large extent Murra lived
with and for his work.
35 -
During the course of the Hunuco Project,
Murra was frequently away from the field sites to
do archival research, to attend conferences, to
consult with psychoanalysts, and to teach. He
taught at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de
San Marcos in Lima as a visiting professor of
ethnology from 1965 to 1966. Murra described
the space and facilities he was given as lavish,
which contrasts with the sad situation of the
university ten or fifteen years later. In 1966, upon
leaving, he was made an honorary professor of
San Marcos (investiture program, Murra, NAA).
In 1965 Murra was a visiting professor of Inca
studies at the Universidad de Chile in Santiago.
When the Hunuco Project ended he was offered
a professorship at the Universidad Nacional Her-
milio Valdizn under the same terms as Peruvian
professors. Murra did not accept this offer.121
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
In 1966-67, after returning from Hunuco,
Murra became the first N.S.F. post-doctoral
associate in anthropology at the Smithsonian
Institution. There he continued his studies of
Huanco and of the Lupaca kingdom of Bolivia.
In 1968, after Allan R. Holmbergs (1909-1966)
untimely death had opened a faculty position,
Murra was hired by Cornell University, from
which he retired in 1982 as a professor emeritus.
Murras situation as Holmbergs successor was
problematic. Holmberg is best known for the
Vicos Project, which he directed. In 1952, with
the cooperation of the Peruvian government,
Cornell began an innovative development pro-
ject in northern Peru that continued for some
fifteen years. For five years the university leased
the highland Vicos Hacienda in the Callejn de
Huaylas, approximately 250 miles from Lima.
There some 1800 Peruvian Indians had been
living in virtual serfdom. The goal was to pro-
121
Letter from Ing. Pedro Jos Cuculiza, Rector,
Universidad Nacional Hermilio Valdizn, Hunuco to John
Victor Murra, 10 August 1966, Hunuco files, A.M.N.H.
Barnes: John V. Murra
mote modernization and equality by converting
Vicos into a semi-autonomous, self-directed
community. This was a truly revolutionary effort
in applied anthropology. The project im-
mediately attracted criticism from both the
political left and right, as well as from the
anthropological profession. In 1963, as part of a
national land reform program, the workers of
Vicos acquired the hacienda. The Vicos Project
had served as a model for the Peace Corps, but
attitudes towards foreign interventions
hardened in the 1960s. The Peace Corps itself
was expelled from Vicos in 1965. Although
Murras friend Jos Mara Arguedas had
supported the Vicos Project, Murra himself had
a far different research agenda, one much more
oriented towards understanding the past than
ameliorating the present, except through moral
encouragement. Nevertheless, assuming Holm-
bergs academic line must have created certain
expectations Murra was unlikely to fulfill. When
I studied at Cornell in the 1980s mention of the
Vicos Project still elicited tense reactions from
some faculty members. Cornell Universitys
Koch Library holds extensive records of this
project.
Murras Cornell teaching of undergraduate
and graduate students was more advanced and
tightly focused than the general instruction in
undergraduate anthropology he had given at
Vassar. During his last year at Cornell, 1981-82,
he offered an ethnohistory course,
Anthropology 418, consisting of two parts
African material, one quarter Andean topics,
and one quarter themes on Siberian
ethnography. The African portion examined the
dynastic and demotic oral traditions of Rwanda,
drawing upon the work of Alexis Kagame,122
122
Father Alexis Kagame (1912-1981) was a Rwandan
historian, ethnologist, philosopher, priest, and intellectual
leader of the Tutsi who articulated their cosmography in
contemporary terms compatible with Christianity. He
came from a family of court historians who converted to
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Jan Vansina,123 Luc de Heusch,124 and Murras
old Vassar colleague, Helen Codere. It also
covered Ashanti administration and military oral
traditions as reported by Kwame Arhin125 and
Ivor Wilks.126 Written sources for the Andes
Roman Catholicism around the time of World War I. His
published works include the multi-volume La divine pasto-
rale (1952-1955), a creation myth and history of the world;
Le code des institutions politiques du Rwanda (1952), a defense
of Tutsi feudalism, and The Bantu-Rwandese Philosophy of
Being (1956). In 1959 the rival Hutu nation violently
overthrew Tutsi hegemony, but Kagame survived the
bloodbath.
123
Jan Vansina (b. 1929) is an historian and anthropolo-
gist specializing in the peoples of Central Africa, especially
in their history before European contact. He is a professor
emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Among
his books are Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodol-
ogy (1965), Kingdoms of the Savannah (1966), Oral Tradition
as History (1985), Living with Africa (1994), Antecedents to
Modern Rwanda: The Nyiginya Kingdom (2004), and How
Societies are Born: Governance in West Africa Before 1600
(2004).
124
Luc de Heusch (b. 1927) is a Belgian ethnographer and
film-maker who studied at the Sorbonne in Paris before
receiving a doctorate in anthropology from the Universit
Libre de Bruxelles (1955). Among his films are Fte chez les
Hamba (1955), an account of daily life and ritual practice
in a village of the Hamba of Kasai; Ruanda: Tableaux dune
fodalit (1956), an historic investigation of Rwandan
society; Sur les traces du Renard Ple (with Jean Rouch and
Germaine Dieterlen, 1983), and Une rpublique devenue folle
(Rwanda 1894-1994) (1996) in addition to films on Belgian
society. From 1955 to 1992 he taught at the Universit
Libre de Bruxelles, as a full professor from 1960.
125
Kwame Arhin is the editor of Ashanti and the Northwest
(with Jack Goody, 1965), Ashanti and the Northeast (1970),
The Life and Work and Kwame Nkrumah (1993), and The
Cape Coast and Elmina Handbook: Past, Present, and Future
(1995) among many other works of a practical nature
dealing with politics, economics, land tenure, and history
of West Africa.
126
Ivor G. Wilks (b.1928) is a British historian and
anthropologist who did field-work in Western Africa (1956-
1996). He taught at the University of Northern Ghana
(1953-1966) and at Northwestern University (1971-1993).
He is the author of The Northern Factor in Ashanti History
- 36
including the accounts by indigenous
chroniclers Guaman Poma de Ayala and Blas
Valera and administrative, census, and litigation
papers were combined with archaeological data.
Siberian military and tribute collecting papers
and scholarly reports in the fields of ethno-
history and ethnology were used in discussions
of ethnogenesis.
Murra also taught a course on the history of
United States anthropology from Schoolcraft to
the death of Benedict which is discussed in
Frank Salomons contribution to this volume. In
addition, Murra taught Anthropology 633,
Andean Research, a course which emphasized
sources other than chronicles. These included a
microfilm of Gonzalez de Cuencas colonial visita
to what is now northern Peru, land and water
court records, quipu transcriptions, visitas,
Quechua oral traditions recorded in the Huaro-
chir manuscript, the chronicle of Guaman
Poma de Ayala, reports by Domingo de Santo
Tomas, better known for his early Quechua-
Spanish dictionary, and by Juan Polo de Onde-
gardo.127
In the 1970s and 1980s Murra drew hun-
dreds of people to his lectures at Johns Hopkins,
at San Marcos, in European cities, and at other
distinguished venues. However, shortly before
retirement he could not always attract even the
four or six students he needed to run his ad-
vanced seminars at Cornell. Perhaps students
were eager to hear him in the relatively anony-
mous context of a large lecture hall, but did not
wish to accept the demands Murra would put
upon them in smaller, more specialized classes.
(1961), Asante in the Nineteenth Century: The Structure and
Evolution of a Political Order (1975), and is an editor of
The History of Ashanti Kings and the Whole Country Itself,
and Other Writings by Otumfuo, Nana Agyeman Prempeh I
(with Adu Boahen et al., 2003).
127
Letter from John V. Murra to Craig Morris, 26 iii 81,
Bird Lab, A.M.N.H.
37 -
I believe that Murra had his biggest impact on
South American audiences. In both his lectures
and his writing he drew upon his extensive
knowledge of general anthropology. Many of the
key works in this field were unavailable to Latin
American scholars both because there were few
Spanish-language editions of the English and
French classics and because Latin American
library resources did not equal those of Europe
and the United States (Murra in Rowe 1984:
646). John Murra, however, had the profound
insights of many great minds informing his
scholarship. Because these insights were not well-
diffused throughout the Spanish-speaking world,
Murras work incorporating them must have
seemed double-dazzling.
Just as at Vassar, Murra took frequent leaves
and many trips of short duration away from
Cornell, incidentally transferring many of his
teaching, counseling, and administrative re-
sponsibilities to other faculty members. In 1970-
71 he taught once again at Yale, replacing his
friend Sidney Mintz who was on leave. Judging
from published student evaluations, this was not
a success. From 1974 on Murra taught at Cornell
only in the autumn semester (Murra in Rowe
1984:646). In 1974-75 he was at the Institute for
Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. For
part of 1975 he was researching Aymara
kingdoms in the Archivo Nacional de Sucre. In
1975-76 he was at the Universit de Paris X
Nanterre with Fulbright support. Simultaneously,
he taught a three-month seminar, Ethnie et tat
dans le monde Andin (Ethnicity and the State
in the Andean World) at the cole des Hautes
tudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. In the spring
of 1976, with Einaudi Foundation support, Murra
lectured in Torino, at the Universidad de Sevilla,
at the Departamento de Antropologa y Etnolo-
ga de Amrica de la Universidad Complutense
(Madrid), at Bonn University, at the London
School of Economics, and at Cambridge
University. During the last weeks of 1976 and
the first weeks of 1977 he visited Bolivia, Lima,
Barnes: John V. Murra
Mexico, and Tokyo.128 By May he was back in
Mexico, at the Centro de Investigaciones Su-
periores of the Mexican Instituto Nacional de
Antropologa e Historia.129 Here he encouraged
scholars to combine the study of Nahuatl
documents with Aztec archaeology.130 In the fall
of that year he was in Seville.131 In the fall of
1978 he was once more in Seville,132 but also
participated in a conference on pramos in
Venezuela (Murra 1979b). In 1978-79 he spent
a total of eight months at the Archivo General
de Indias. In January 1979 he taught at the
Universidad de Antofagasta, Chile, while in
June of that year he was in Paris.133 In the spring
of 1980 he was doing research in Lima under
the auspices of the Instituto de Estudios
Peruanos. In 1981 he was at Johns Hopkins
University.134 John Murras international
presence was vast and the time he spent at his
home base minimal.
Throughout his teaching career, one of John
Murras concerns was the education of Latin
American graduate students. With ngel
Palerm he organized the Comparative Seminar
on MesoAmerica and the Andes in 1972. The
128
Letter from John V. Murra to Craig Morris, 13 Febru-
ary, 1977, Bird Lab, A.M.N.H.
129
Letter from John V. Murra to Craig Morris, 30 May
1977, Bird Lab, A.M.N.H.
130
Letter from John V. Murra to Toribio Meja Xesspe, 9
April 1977, Bird Lab, A.M.N.H.
131
Letter from John V. Murra to Craig Morris, 10 October
1977, Bird Lab, A.M.N.H.
132
Letter from John V. Murra to Craig Morris, 30 October
1978, Bird Lab, A.M.N.H.
133
Letter from John V. Murra to Craig Morris, 4 June
1979, Bird Lab, A.M.N.H.
134
Letter from John V. Murra to Craig Morris, March 26,
1981, Bird Lab, A.M.N.H.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
next year, he established the Lake Titicaca Field
Project with prominent Peruvian archaeologist
and Marxist theorist Lus Lumbreras and support
from the Fulbright Program. Among the
participants were Javier Alb, Mnica Checa,135
Freda Wolf, John Hyslop, Augustn Llagostera,
Elas Mujica,136 Franklin Pease, Marcela Ros,137
Mario Rivera,138 and AnaMara Soldi. The Lake
Titicaca Field Project was the genesis of John
Hyslops Columbia doctoral dissertation, An
Archaeological Investigation of the Lupaqa Kingdom
and its Origins. This, in turn was a first step
towards his 1984 book The Inca Road System
135
There is no biographical information available for
Mnica Checa.
136
Elas Mujica Barreda (b. 1950) has built a distinguished
career in Peruvian archaeology, anthropology, and history.
He participated in a variety of projects that have studied
the suitability and sustainability of traditional agricultural
practices, the ancient Moche, the urban archaeology of
Lima and Arequipa, colonial history, and Quechua folk
tales. He has dedicated himself to the kind of institution-
building advocated by John Murra. Mujca is Vice-Presi-
dent of the Andean Institute of Archeological Studies
(INDEA) and the Deputy Coordinator of the Consortium
for the Sustainable Development of the Andean Eco-region
(CONDESAN), an Advisor for Cultural Heritage of the
Backus Foundation, a member of the Peruvian National
Technical Commission for Cultural Heritage, and a World
Heritage Center Regional Expert for the monitoring of and
regional reporting on the World Heritage in Latin America
and the Caribbean. Among his many published books are
a series of edited volumes on Moche conferences (with
Santiago Uceda), Arqueologa de los valles occidentales del
area centro sur andina (1990), Per andino prehispnico (with
Rafael Varn); La sostenibilidad de los sistemas de produccin
campesina en los Andes (with Jos Lus Rueda, 1997), El
brujo: Huaca Cao, centro ceremonial Moche en el Valle de
Chicama (with Eduardo Hirose Maio, 2007), and Investiga-
ciones en la Huaca de la Luna . . . (with Santiago Uceda and
Ricardo Morales, 2007).
137
Marcela Ros is the wife of Peruvian archaeologist Lus
Guillermo Lumbreras.
138
Mario Rivera is a Chilean archaeologist who received
his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
He teaches at Beloit College.
- 38
(Murra 1994a:2) and the basis of several other
publications.
In 1977 Murra organized the Otoo
andino, a semester-long program at Cornell
which brought together students and established
scholars from both Latin America and the
United States. One of Murras frustrations at
Cornell was that he could not always obtain
admission to graduate studies and fellowships for
Latin American students whom he considered
to possess real talent and personal merit. He
seemed to feel that Cornell was not sufficiently
flexible in matters of formal admission stan-
dards. On the other hand, he sometimes had to
teach students whose presence he had not
personally approved.
LIFE BEYOND CORNELL
Murra remained active for more than a
decade after his retirement from Cornell. In
1982-83 he was a consultant to the Banco
Nacional de Bolivias Museo Nacional de Etno-
grafa in La Paz. In 1983-84 he held a Guggen-
heim Fellowship for research in Spanish
archives, including the Archivo Nacional and
the Academia de Historia, both in Madrid, and
the Archivo de Indias in Seville. Simultaneously
he taught at the Universidad Complutense
(Madrid), and at the Universidad de Sevilla, as
well as at the Institut Catal dAntropologi in
Barcelona. He nevertheless found time to teach
a summer school course at the University of
Chile in 1984 (Castro, this volume). In the next
academic year, 1985-86, he was once again a
visiting professor at Complutense, at the
Universidad de Sevilla, and at the Institut
Catal dAntropologi. In the spring of 1987 he
was the Suntory-Toyota Visiting Professor at the
London School of Economics. In 1987-88 he
conducted research at the Instituto de Antro-
pologa, Buenos Aires and taught as a visiting
professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. In
39 -
1990-91 he was a fellow at the Archivo de Indias.
By then most Civil War wounds had healed.
John Murra liked to tell the story of a chance
encounter he had in a Spanish bar. There he fell
into conversation with a fellow veteran, but was
unsure whether the man had been a former
Nationalist or a former Loyalist. The stranger
broke the ice by dramatically and emotionally
declaring, Whichever side you were on, I was
your comrade! It turned out that this un-
fortunate old soldier meant it literally, not
metaphorically. He had been fighting for one side
when he was captured by the other and made to
fight for it, allowing him the claim that he was a
fellow-in-arms with anybody who had fought in
the Civil War.
During the course of his long life John Murra
received many honors. Perhaps the greatest is
Perus Grand Cross of the Order of the Sun
which he was awarded in 1987. In addition to
being an Honorary Professor of the Universidad
Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Murra was also
an Honorary Professor of the Humanities of the
Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Per. In 1998
San Marcos again honored him with the
academic decoration Honor al Mrito and, on
the same occasion he received an academic
medal from the Universidad Nacional San
Antonio Abad del Cusco (see Lechtmans
contribution, this volume, group photo, p. 68).
Murra was granted an honorary doctorate from
the Universitat de Barcelona in 1993. In 1969 he
presented the Lewis Henry Morgan139 Lectures at
139
Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881) was a lawyer and
pioneering anthropologist. He studied at Union College,
Schenectady, New York. His residence in the Iroquois
territory of upstate New York and contact with his Indian
neighbors allowed him to produce his breakthrough
account of Iroquois political organization, The League of the
Ho-d-No-sau-nee or Iroquois (1851). He discovered the
phenomenon of social kinship systems and systematized
worldwide comparisons of kinship in Systems of Consanguin-
ity and Affinity in the Human Family (1870). He modeled a
Barnes: John V. Murra
the University of Rochester, Rochester, New
York. His series was entitled Reciprocity and
Redistribution in Andean Civilizations. Al-
though these lectures were never published in
Murras lifetime, Heather Lechtman and Freda
Wolf, with a grant from the Reed Foundation,
are transcribing the lecture tapes in preparation
for publication in the Morgan Lecture series of
the University of Chicago (Lechtman, personal
communication, 12 June 2009; Lechtman and
Wolf, n.d.).
At least nine important publications carry
John Murras name as editor.140 He also exerted
his influence by serving on editorial boards
including those of Chungar (Arica, Chile),
Histrica (Lima, from 1976), Historia Boliviana
(Cochabamba), the Revista del Museo Nacional
(Lima), and Runa (Buenos Aires). He was an
Advisory Editor of the Hispanic American
Historical Review (1984-89). He was also a
member of the Advisory Board of the Handbook
of Latin American Studies published by the
Library of Congress.
John Murra was active in many professional
organizations. He was on the Board of the
American Society for Ethnohistory (1962-1969)
and was president (1970-1971). Murra was also
a councilor of the American Ethnological
Society (1961-1964) as well as president (1972-
1973). He was president of the Institute of
universal unilinear sequence of ethnical periods in
Ancient Society . . . (1877) as an attempt to explain the
origin of family formations, political regimes, and econo-
mies. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels read Morgan
towards the end of Marxs life and chose his model as the
cornerstone for Marxist ethnology. Several book length
biographies of Morgan have been published.
140
Arguedas 1996; Guaman Poma de Ayala 1980; Murra,
editor 1964, 1976, 1991; Ortiz de Ziga 1967, 1972;
Revel et al. 1978; Rojas Rabiela and Murra 1999.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Andean Research (1977-1983).141 He was
nominated for the presidency of the American
Anthropological Association in 1982, but not
elected. However, he circulated his campaign
statement widely, considering it to be an
important commentary on the state of
anthropology in the United States (Murra
1982f). He was a founding member of the Institu-
to de Estudios Peruanos and of the Asociacin
Peruana de Antropologa e Historia. He was a
member of the the Socit des Amricanistes de
Paris, of the Instituto Indgenista Interamericano
(Mexico), and the Sociedad Boliviana de Histor-
ia. After his retirement from Cornell John Murra
used the Institute of Andean Research as his sole
institutional affiliation, although he could have
claimed many others.
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON
JOHN VICTOR MURRA
Murras international experiences, combined
with his work in ethnohistory, archaeology, and
ethnography helped him to formulate his holistic
views of anthropology in general, and Andean
studies in particular. To Murra, sub-disciplinary
boundaries were invisible. All sources of
information, as well as most approaches, were
necessary to understand the totality of culture.
However, although Murra maintained an
impeccable personal appearance, he otherwise
showed very little engagement with visual
culture. His dissertation contains no illustrations,
not even maps which would have been helpful to
readers not intimately familiar with the
geography of Peru. Of course, at the time Murra
was writing, he was embedding his arguments in
territory he, himself, had never seen. He
discussed the importance and glories of Inca
textiles, generally without providing any
141
For a short history of the I.A.R. see Daggett, this
volume, pp. 307-314 and J. Alden Masons 1967 pamphlet,
A Brief History of the Institute of Andean Research, Inc. 1937-
1967.
- 40
photographs or line drawings of them. Likewise
architecture, one of the universally
acknowledged accomplishments of Inca
civilization, seems to have interested Murra only
in so far as it functioned economically and
politically. He never published the vast majority
of the plans, drawings, and photographs amassed
by his Inca Provincial Life (Hunuco) Project,
although he must have known that these would
be of great interest to archaeologists. His
seemingly poor ability to visualize restricted his
full apprehension of Andean culture in subtle
ways. It is tempting to make a psychoanalytic
interpretation of this hiatus. Murra, the son of a
nearly blind mother, was limited in his own
visual skills.
Likewise, although Murra respected those
who focused on the religious, ideological, and
symbol systems of the Inca such as Pierre Du-
viols and R. Tom Zuidema,142 by Murras own
142
Reiner Tom Zuidema (b. 1927) began his studies at
the University of Leiden with the intention of joining the
civil service of the former Netherlands Indies (Indonesia).
However, in 1949 the Dutch government recognized the
independence of Indonesia, so Zuidema shifted his focus
to anthropology. From 1951 to 1953 he resided in Spain,
preparing his doctoral dissertation on problems of social
organization in the Inca empire. He then completed three
years of field-work and archival studies in Peru, in the
United States, and at Spains Archivo de Indias. From
1956 to 1964 he was curator of the South American,
North American, and Siberian collections of the State
Museum of Anthropology of the Netherlands. From 1964
to 1967 he taught anthropology at the Universidad de San
Cristbal de Huamanga in Ayacucho, Peru, conducting
field-work there with his students. From 1967 until his
retirement in 1993 he was a professor of anthropology at
the University of Illinois, Urbana. At both Huamanga and
Illinois he was an inspiring teacher who educated many
successful students. Most of his publications examine Inca
culture, kinship, and social organization in relation to
ritual, mythology, art, and concepts of time. Although
often declared by others to be a structuralist, Zuidemas
personal perspective is that, so much as possible, he
studies the Incas on their own terms. His book, The Ceque
System of Cuzco (1964) introduced a new paradigm to Inca
studies.
41 -
admission he found it difficult to comprehend
such approaches (see Castro, this volume, p. 75-
77). He showed little interest in music, poetry,
aesthetics, or ritual, except in so far as these
revealed social and economic structure. This is
striking given his devotion to Freudian psycho-
analysis with its emphasis on symbols. Murras
work does not employ statistics or any of the
hard sciences directly, although he saw the
value of scientific approaches and appreciated
the importance of human ecology.
Murra stressed the need to let the wishes and
perspectives of people in the Andean countries
guide research. By the time I had the opportunity
for private conversations with Murra I had
already done field-work in remote Mestizo and
Quechua communities of Ecuador and Peru. I
imagined that John was urging me to reach out to
the la gente humilde, everyday folk, perhaps
unlettered and monolingual in Quechua or
Aymara, poor, and without a public voice, but
knowledgeable in their world-views and the ways
of their cultures. I thought Murra was asking
researchers to integrate the cosmologies, politics,
aspirations, practices, and needs of these Ande-
ans into research plans and grant proposals. I
believed that he was advocating a search for
alternatives to Western science and its
methodology and underlying assumptions. From
experience I realized how difficult this would be,
even for ethnographers. Although Murra did not
admit this to me, he, too, understood the
problems from the perspective of his own field-
work. I believe that he considered the willingness
and ability to spend long periods of time in
constructive interaction with ordinary local
people to be a crucial test, and one that he,
himself, had perhaps failed. Later I learned from
the lives and work of Thomas Abercrombie,143
143
Thomas Alan Abercrombie (b. 1951) received a
B.G.S. from the University of Michigan (1973), and an
M.A. (1978) and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago
(1986). He is an anthropologist and ethnohistorian who
Barnes: John V. Murra
Denise Y. Arnold144 and Juan de Dios Yapita,145
Clark Erickson, Chris and Ed Franquemont
(Peters Andean Past 8), Tristan Platt, Matthias
Strecker,146 and Gary Urton,147 among others,
that an integration of science and non-scientific
world views was, indeed, sometimes partially
possible. However, at the time of my
conversations with Murra, I also saw it as the
has done field-work among Aymara-speaking people as
well as extensive research in Spanish colonial archives. He
is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director for
the Center of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at
New York University. He is the author of Pathways of
Memory and Power: Ethnography and History among an
Andean People (1998).
144
Denise Y. Arnold is an anthropologist who has, for
many years, worked within Aymara culture, along with her
partner, Juan de Dios Yapita. She is the director of the
Instituto de Lengua y Cultura Aymara, La Paz, Bolivia.
Among her recent books with Yapita are River of Fleece,
River of Song (2001), and The Metamorphosis of Heads:
Textual Struggles, Education, and Land in the Andes (2006).
Another of her recent books is Heads of State: Icons,
Power, and Politics in the Andes (with Christine Ann
Hastorf, 2008).
145
Juan de Dios Yapita Moya is an Aymara
anthropologist, linguist, and poet who often works with
his partner Denise Y. Arnold (see note 144).
146
Matthias Strecker (b. 1950) is a German-Bolivian
teacher who has dedicated himself to the preservation of
Bolivias cultural patrimony, especially its rock art. He is
the editor of numerous publications of the Sociedad de
Investigacin del Arte Rupestre de Bolivia (SIARB).
147
Gary Urton (b. 1946) received a B.A. from the
University of New Mexico (1969), and an M.A. (1971)
and Ph.D. (1979) from the University of Illinois. For many
years he taught anthropology at Colgate University, but is
now the Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian
Studies at Harvard University. He conducted field-work
at Pacariqtambo near Cusco, Peru. On the basis of that
research he published At the Crossroads of the Earth and
Sky: An Andean Cosmology (1981). For over a decade he
has been regarded as one of the worlds experts on the
quipu. On that topic he has published Signs of the Inca
Khipu: Binary Coding in the Andean Knotted-String Records
(2003) among other works.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
political and quasi-mystical vocation that it
indeed is. As I got to know John Murra better I
also realized that the Andean people he often
had in mind were established intellectuals like
Jos Mara Arguedas or Franklin Pease who did
set much of their countrys research agendas.
One of Murras very great personal strengths
was that he was willing to change course abruptly
when he realized mistakes. He repudiated
Communism forever when he understood the
discordance between its ideology of a better
world and the cruel behavior of its Russian
leaders. Once he saw from face-to-face contact at
conferences how deeply versed the British socio-
cultural anthropologists were in African
knowledge, he knew he couldnt match them and
no longer presented himself as a public expert on
Africa. However, by the time the Hunuco
Project was finished he had developed true
expertise in Andean cultures and he was the
John Murra who became famous in that field.
Murra was well-integrated into the Andeanist
communities of South America, Europe, and the
United States. His circle can be reconstructed
not just from the friends and colleagues he
mentioned in interviews, and from his
voluminous correspondence in the Smith-sonian
National Anthropological Archives and
elsewhere, but by noting the many reviews and
comments he published.148 Murra was generally
an appreciative reviewer except when he en-
countered films aimed at a popular audience. His
reflections on the relative merits of con-
tributions to ethnohistorical literature can be
found in the series of annotated biographies he
148
Murra1951a, 1954a, 1954b, 1955b, 1955c, 1956d,
1958c, 1959a, 1959b, 1960b, 1960c, 1964c, 1965, 1966c,
1967e, 1968c, 1969, 1970c, 1970d, 1970e, 1973, 1974c,
1975b, 1975c, 1976e, 1976d, 1977b, 1977c, 1977d, 1978e,
1978f, 1978g, 1978h, 1979d, 1980a, 1981b, 1981c, 1982c,
1982d, 1982e, 1983a, 1983c, 1984a, 1984c, 1985d, 1985e,
1988c, 1988d, 1988e, 1989b, 1990, 1993a, 1993b, 1994b,
1994c, 1996a, 1996b; Murra and Wachtel 1998.
- 42
produced for the Handbook of Latin American
Studies (Murra 1967c, 1970b, 1972b, 1974b,
1976c, 1978d, 1980a, 1982c). John Murra held
the keys to many doors, as I discovered when he
wrote my letter of introduction to the Archivo
de Indias in Seville.
Murras lecture style was outwardly
confident, elliptical, and even cryptic. He would
often make statements like, . . . as Arguedas
said . . . and students would have to figure out
that he meant Jos Mara Arguedas, the
Peruvian anthropologist, indigenista novelist, and
poet, not Alcides Arguedas (1879-1948), the
Bolivian statesman, diplomat, historian, and
indigenista novelist whose life overlapped in time
with Jos Maras. This was very difficult in the
days before the Internet. Murra was impatient
with direct questions. Students were just
supposed to know that the Lake was Titicaca,
not Poop or Cayuga and prove themselves
worthy of his attention through their knowledge
of Andean cultures and their dedication to
them. In this respect those born into such
cultures clearly had the advantage. Although
Murra advocated a broad, internationalist
anthropology, he privileged the study of ones
own culture, perhaps without intending to do
so, while divorcing himself from the subculture
into which he, himself, had been born (see
Salomon, this volume, p. 97). At the risk of
tedium, I have included many footnotes with
this biography, making explicit the identities
and accomplishments of people Murra
referenced only vaguely. The difficulty of this
task convinced me of its necessity.
Murra maintained a good personal library.
Towards the end of his life he divided his books
to be sent to Latin America. Then, as now, theft
from Latin American public and university
libraries was a problem. I asked Murra if it
bothered him that many of his books would not
remain where they were sent, but would
disappear into private collections. He gave me
43 -
one of his sphinx-like smiles. He assured me that
anyone who would appropriate his books would
be someone who would appreciate them. He then
gave me a few duplicates for my own private
library with his signature and good wishes. He
encouraged scholarship in many ways and had a
fine sense of irony.
Murra sometimes wrote about the
anthropologists he knew personally, enhancing
our understanding of their lives. Murras greatest
contribution along these lines was his pub-
lication of letters to him, and to their mutual
psychoanalyst Lola Hoffmann, by Jos Mara
Arguedas (Arguedas 1996; see also Murra 1978e
and 1983a). Murra first met Arguedas in 1958 at
a conference during which he also met histor-
ians Mara Rostworowski and Franklin Pease.
Reading Arguedas letters is a haunting ex-
perience. One perceives him slipping deeper and
deeper into a depression which, in those pre-
Prozac days, could not be interrupted, in spite of
the efforts of Arguedas and his physicians. One
knows the sad ending in advance. Murra also
published an appreciation of Julio C. Tello149
(Murra 1980b) and an obituary of his close
associate in the Institute of Andean Research,
John Hyslop (Murra 1994a).
149
Julio Csar Tello (1880-1947) was one of the founders
of Peruvian archaeology. In spite of a humble background
he obtained a bachelors degree in medicine in Peru (1909)
and then studied at Harvard where he earned an M.A. in
anthropology (1911). Tello was an energetic field worker
who discovered the famous Paracas mummy bundles in
1925, and also identified the Chavn culture. Between 1917
and 1929 he represented his native district of Huarochir in
the Peruvian national congress. He founded the Museo de
Arqueologa y Etnologa of the Universidad Nacional
Mayor de San Marcos and the Museo de Arqueologa
Peruana. Chapters in the life of Julio C. Tello as
reconstructed by Richard Daggett have appeared in Andean
Past 1, 4, and 8. Tello communicated his findings mainly
through a series of newspaper articles, especially in Limas
El Comercio. His articles have been collected in The Life and
Writings of Julio C. Tello (2009), edited by Richard L. Burger.
Tello is also the author of Paracas (1959).
Barnes: John V. Murra
My first encounter with John Murra was at
the London School of Economics when he
lectured there in 1976. His presence created
buzz, and a large number of people assembled to
hear the famous intellectual expound. Murras
talk was highly specialized and tightly focused,
with no compromises made toward his audience.
It was obvious that some people had come
expecting a more general presentation, but were
trapped in the intricacies of vertical archipelagos
and household inventories of four hundred years
before. It was impossible to leave, with eager
academics standing in every space not occupied
by a chair. A few people at the back of the large
room began unobtrusively to pass the time by
reading books and newspapers held on their
laps. Most speakers would have ignored this, but
John Murra demanded everyones full attention
whenever he spoke. He turned adults into
recalcitrant and embarrassed schoolboys by
telling them to put away their books or leave.
On the other hand, if Murra himself was bored
by a lecture, he did not hesitate to convey that
to the speaker. At one of the Northeast Con-
ferences on Andean Archaeology and Ethno-
history, a student had lost control of his pre-
sentation and was talking beyond his allotted
time. Although he was neither the organizer nor
the moderator, Murra began clapping loudly,
slowly, and rhythmically, completely humiliating
the student. Murra could be fearsome, indeed,
and few had the force of personality to
withstand him.
One of my regrets in life is that although I
studied in two of the places Murra taught, our
time in those places did not overlap much, if at
all. When I first came to Cornell in 1966 as a
high school advanced placement student Murra
had not yet arrived there and I had not yet
developed an interest in the Andean countries.
When I returned to Cornell eighteen years later
he had already retired, although he was still
quite a Presence in Ithaca, and on campus
during his relatively rare visits. He would,
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
however, usually participate in Cornell projects
and events, if expressly invited to do so. He was
a gracious moderator at the Fifth Northeast
Conference on Andean Archaeology and Ethno-
history, held at Cornell in 1986, and contributed
to Andean Past 4.
The trajectory of John Murras life has been
eloquently set out elsewhere, both in his own
words, and in those of others. At least nine
interviews of Murra have been published,
broadcast, recorded, or posted on the Internet.150
One, Castro et al., is book length. Other details
of Murras life can be gleaned from Arguedas
letters to him (Arguedas 1996) and from tributes
published during Murras lifetime (Castro et al.
2002; Contreras 1993; Henderson and Netherley
1993; Lorandi et al. 2003; Neira 2006; Raczynski
1995; Vsquez 1970; Vega 1983) as well as from
the many appreciative obituaries written in his
memory.151 Salomons tribute, in particular, is an
insightful summary of Murras intellectual
contributions to anthropology. Readers should
also not miss Comrades (1998), Harry Fishers
memoir of the Spanish Civil War, which contains
many admiring recollections of Murra. At least a
couple of denunciations of Murra have also been
published (Anon. n.d. [c. 1950]; Condarco
1977).
In spite of all that has been written about
John V. Murra, an original book length biography
remains possible, and I have begun that task. In
it I am making use of the richness of Murras
personal and professional papers which are now
part of the Smithsonian Institutions National
Anthropological Archives. These include the
150
Ansaldi and Caldern 1989; Castro et al. 2000; Gerassi
1980; Harriman 1983; Hermosa n.d.; Ipia 1976; Rowe
1984; de Siles 1983; Wolf 1966.
151
Alb and Bubba 2007, Anonymous 2006a, 2006b,
2006c, 2006d, 2007e; Gleach et al., Harris 2006; Hevesi
2006; Neira 2006; Salomon 2007, also forthcoming in an
edition of Formaciones edited by Jacques Poloni-Simard.
- 44
bulk of his correspondence and his diaries. The
latter reveal his second abiding intellectual
passion after Andean studiespsychoanalysis.
More than anything else, they demonstrate that
John Murra was, as Wordsworth wrote of Isaac
Newton in The Prelude, a mind forever
voyaging through strange seas of Thought,
alone.
For years I sought to understand John
Murras transition from young Communist
activist to anthropologist, scholar, and sage, but
without success. It was only over the course of
writing this biography that I realized that from
youth to old age he seems to have been drawn
into the deep river of utopian thought, a stream
that runs from Plato to Thomas More, to
nineteenth century Welsh socialist Robert
Owen, to Karl Marx and the Marxists, to the
Quechua utopia of Jos Mara Arguedas, and to
the psychotherapeutic commune of Saul B.
Newton. The abandonment of Communism did
not end Murras longings for an ideal society, or
rather, for ideal societies. Like other utopians
Murra sometimes produced authoritative work
before he had experienced the facts on the
ground.
Inca culture has long served as a template
for utopian thinkers such as Garcilaso de la
Vega, el Inga in the early seventeenth century,
Voltaire in the eighteenth, and Philip Ains-
worth Means in the first half of the twentieth.
Around the time that Means wrote Fall of the
Inca Empire . . . (1932), anthropology was
suggesting new models for living, with its
insistence on cultural relativism and its
explorations of cultural diversity. Murras
attraction to the Incas seems quite natural in
terms of his utopian vision. At the same time,
anthropology helped Murra appreciate the
thousands of possible solutions to human
problems. Murra learned to identify, elucidate,
and praise the Andean approaches to those
problems. Eventually he came to admit that his
45 -
enthusiasm for the Andean world probably
bordered on exaggeration, but he did not lose his
faith in the overall importance of Andean
contributions to culture. The Communist step-
ped to one side, but the Anthropologist-
Advocate took his place.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
AND AN INTRODUCTION
Because Murras life story has already been
well told by others, I realized that to add to the
narrative already established I would need not
only to draw upon my own experiences,
recollections, impressions, and interpretations,
but also to channel the spirit of John Murra
himself by conducting some original archival
research. Partial records of John Murras Civil
War experiences and of the Fear and Courage
Under Fire Project can be found in New York
Universitys Tamiment Library & Robert F.
Wagner Labor Archives. I thank the librarians
there for granting me access.
Ghostly footprints of Murras time at Vassar
College remain there, and I thank Dean Rogers
of The Catherine Pelton Durrell 25 Archives
and Special Collections Library, Vassar College,
and Lucy Lewis Johnson and Terri Lynn Cronk of
the Vassar Anthropology Department for helping
me discern them. Clifford Sather and I shared
memories of Vassar in the 1960s and 70s.
Heather Lechtman worked with me to mesh her
memories with the documentary evidence.
Harriett Davis Haritos and Nan Rothschild also
gave me their perspectives as Murras Vassar
students.
Lechtman, along with Andean Past board
member Richard L. Burger facilitated my access
to Institute of Andean Research records at the
Anthropology Division of the American Mu-
seum of Natural History. Paul Beelitz and Alex
Lando of the A.M.N.H. assisted my access.
Sumru Aricanli graciously made available John
Barnes: John V. Murra
Murras Hunuco Project files, Craig Morris
files of letters, articles, and unpublished papers
by John Murra, and John Hyslops file of letters
and articles by Murra, all at the A.M.N.H.s
Junius B. Bird Laboratory of South American
Archaeology. The cover photograph of this issue
of Andean Past and the one accompanying the
bibliogaphy of works by and about John Victor
Murra come from the A.M.N.H. My discovery
of the Cooper Family Files at the Brooklyn
Historical Society was entirely fortuitous.
Robert S. Leopold, Director, Smithsonian
Institution, National Museum of Natural
History, National Anthropological Archives and
Leanda Gahegan, Archivist made my research
there a valuable and enjoyable experience. As
Marcus Porcius Cato the Censor wrote more
than two millennia ago, Pabulum aridum quod
consideris in hiemem quam maxime conservato,
cogitatoque hiemis quam longa siet.152
Jacinta Palerm shared childhood
recollections of John Murra and her father,
ngel Palerm. Laura Rand Orthwein/Laura
Murra/Laura X confirmed details of her
relationship with John Murra. I am grateful to
Jess Contreras Hernndes, William M. Den-
evan, Pierre Duviols, Jorge Hidalgo, Antoinette
Molini, Pierre Morlon, Elas Mujca, Juan
Ossio, Ann Peters, Tristran Platt, Frank
Salomon, and Tom Zuidema for providing me
with autobiographical information. Eugene B.
Bergmann, Alita and Alec Kelley, Daniel J.
Slive, and Freda Wolf were also of enormous
assistance in the preparation of this biography.
I thank Junie Valhund for her cheerful
companionship. My fellow editor Daniel H.
Sandweiss helped me imagine Murra in his
teaching days at Cornell. I am grateful to
Thomas F. Lynch for letting me borrow some of
152
Keep as much dry fodder as possible for winter and
remember how long winter lasts (loose translation by the
author).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
his insight. Ellen FitzSimmons Steinberg joined
the search for references. It was Ellie Schrum
who pointed out that Murra did not adhere to
old mistakes. My husband and fellow editor
David Fleming participated in, and supported,
my research and suggested many good leads.
In many ways Dick Daggetts serial biography
of Julio C. Tello, published in earlier issues of
Andean Past, has inspired my approach to this
biography of John V. Murra. It was Dick who
showed me that truth resides in the details.
Josephine P. Meeker taught me the value of
constructing a time-line as a tool to under-
standing. If David Block had not spontaneously
sent me a draft of what became our bibliography
of works by and about John Murra I could never
have begun the research for this appreciation of
Murras life and work. I also owe a debt to John
Murra himself. I believe that by depositing his
papers in the Smithsonian, Murra invited
biographical scrutiny. I think he showed implicit
approval of such projects by publishing, late in
his life, both the Arguedas letters and a book
length interview of himself (Castro et al. 2000).
While I have worked hard to establish and
confirm the time-line and connections of John
Murras life, I have felt free to indulge myself by
relating anecdotes and to write about John
Murras writing and teaching, and to make
certain leaps of interpretation. I hope that my
tribute will serve as a good introduction to the
rest of our special section on Murra which
emphasizes his place as a mentor. This is among
the most important roles scholars assume and
some of their most penetrating insights are often
conveyed during classes, and in private
consultations, but are seldom recorded for
posterity.
For instance, in the fields of philosophy,
jurisprudence, and Hispanic studies, Francisco de
Vitoria (1492 [?]-1546) exemplifies both the
importance and the elusiveness of teaching.
- 46
Vitoria was a Dominican priest who taught at
Salamanca, Spain for many years. Credited with
developing the important concepts of both
natural law and international law, and a
defender of the rationality of Amerindians,
Vitoria influenced many people, including King
Charles V of Spain and Bartolom de las Casas,
the Indians great advocate. Nevertheless,
Vitorias ideas are only known to us through the
books of his students.
Although Murra published widely during his
lifetime, he did not publish everything he
wished. Frank Salomon is able to convey some
of Murras ideas which, otherwise, would fade
with human memoryMurras thoughts on the
history of American anthropology as revealed in
his courses, classes described in his published
interviews (Castro et al. 2000:80-83) but never
converted into a book by Murra himself. In
addition, Rolena Adorno, Victoria Castro, Inge
Harman, Heather Lechtman, AnaMara
Lorandi, Patricia Netherly, Silvia Palomeque,
and Freda Wolf de Romero share Murras
impact as a mentor of women, collectively
presenting a remarkably coherent portrait.
Complementing all this is a bibliography of
works by, in honor of, and about John Murra
which David Block and I have compiled.
Its length, breadth, and complexity serve as
an approximation of John Murras scholarship.
In addition to appearing in this volume of
Andean Past, an earlier version will be part of
the French language translation of Formaciones,
Murras pioneering collection of articles on
Andean culture. I hope that this special section
of Andean Past dedicated to the memory of John
Victor Murra will stimulate fresh thought on the
cultural dynamics of the Andean region to
which he dedicated most of his adult life.
47 - Barnes: John V. Murra

John Victor Murra instructs Vassar College anthropology class in Blodgett Hall, c. 1960. The student
second from the viewers right is Laura Rand Orthwein/Laura Murra/Laura X. Photo by Howard
Green, Poughkeepsie, New York courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural
History, National Anthropological Archives.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS BY, IN HONOR OF, AND
1
ABOUT JOHN VICTOR MURRA
BOOKS, ARTICLES, AND REVIEWS
Collier, Donald and John Victor Murra
1943 Survey and Excavations in Southern Ecuador.
Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History
Anthropological Series 35, Publication 528. Also
published in Spanish as Reconocimientos y excava-
ciones en el sur del Ecuador. Cuenca: Centro de
Estudios Histricos y Geogrficos de Cuenca
(1982); and as Reconocimientos y excavaciones en
el austro ecuatoriano (2007). Cuenca: Casa de la
Cultura Ecuatoriana, Nucleo del Azuay.
Condarco Morales, Ramiro and John Victor Murra
1987 La teora de la complementariedad vertical eco-
simbitica. La Paz: Hisbol. Series Breve Biblioteca
del Bolsillo 2. Contains Murras essays, El con-
trol vertical de un mximo de pisos ecolgicos
en la economa de las sociedades andinas, pp. 29-
85 (Murra 1972a) and El Archipilago vertical
revisitado, pp. 87-104 (Murra 1985c).
1
Bibliographers note: We have not been able to include all
of John Victor Murras writings of which we are aware. For
example, we have not located the articles on soccer and
the literary pieces he published in the Romanian-language
periodical Dimineata during the 1930s (Castro et al. 2000:
22, 24). We have also not been able to find the periodical
articles and speeches Murra said he wrote on behalf of
unnamed African leaders (ibid: 96). During the 1950s
Murra contributed regularly to The United States Quarterly
Book List published by Rutgers University Press for the
Library of Congress. However, it is not possible to identify
the individual reviews that Murra wrote. When page
numbers or other details are omitted it is because articles
were discovered in clipping files in The Catherine Pelton
Durrell 25 Archives and Special Collections Library,
Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York; in the archives
of the Anthropology Division of the American Museum of
Natural History, New York City; or in the Smithsonians
National Anthropological Archives, Suitland, Maryland
without such details recorded. We thank Rolena Adorno,
Sumru Aricanli, Richard E. Daggett, Jean-Jacques Decos-
ter, Pierre Duviols, David Fleming, Leanda Gahegan,
Heather Lechtman, Robert S. Leopold, Dean Rogers,
Deborah Santeliz-Lockwood, Daniel J. Slive, Frank Solo-
man, Ellen Fitz Simmons Steinberg, and the staff of New
York Universitys Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner
Labor Archives for assistance in the preparation of this
bibliography.
- 48
Lechtman, Heather and Freda Wolf, editors
n.d. [in preparation] Reciprocity and Redistribution in
Andean Civilizations. Lewis Henry Morgan Lec-
tures presented at the University of Rochester,
1969. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago
Press, Lewis Henry Morgan Lecture Series.
Murra, John Victor
1942 Cerro Narro and Andean Chronology. M.A.
Thesis, University of Chicago.
1946 The Historic Tribes of Ecuador. In Handbook of
South American Indians, edited by Julian H.
Steward. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of
American Ethnology Bulletin 143, Volume 2,
The Andean Civilizations, pp. 785-881. Washing-
ton, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
1948 The Cayapa and the Colorado. In Handbook of
South American Indians, edited by Julian H.
Steward. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin
143, Volume 4, pp. 277-291, plates 57-60. Wash-
ington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
1951a Review of The Puerto Rican Journey: New Yorks
Newest Migrants by C. Wright Mills, Clarence
Senior, and Rose Kohn Goldsen. Hispanic Amer-
ican Historical Review 31(4):680-681.
1951b Land Legislation of the Cameroons Under Brit-
ish Administration. United Nations Document
T/AC.36/L.3. Mimeographed.
1951c Land Legislation of the Trust Territories of
Togoland and the Cameroons under French
Administration. United Nations Document
T/AC. 36/L.6. Mimeographed.
1951d Land Legislation of Togoland under British
Administration. United Nations Document
T/AC.36/L.11. Mimeographed.
1951e Land Legislation of Tanganyika. United Nations
Document T/AC.36/L.12. Mimeographed.
1951f Population, Land Categories, and Tenure in
Tanganyika. United Nations Document T/
AC.36/L.17. Mimeographed.
1951g Constitutional Developments in Tanganyika,
1949-1951. United Nations Special Document
Prepared for 1951 East African Visiting Mission.
1954a Review of The Struggle for Africa by Vernon
Bartlett. American Anthropologist 56(6):1156-
1157.
1954b The Unconscious of a Race. Review of The Palm-
wine Drinkard [sic] and My Life in the Bush of
Ghosts, both by Amos Tutola. The Nation, Sep-
tember 25, 179(13):261-262.
1955a Trusteeship System: How it Operates. The
Nation, January 1, 180(1):10-13.
1955b Puerto Rico: New Immigrant, Old Story, Murra
Views Questions and Dilemmas Involved in
Puerto Rican Migration. Vassar Miscellany News,
October 5, 40(3):3.
49 -
1955c An African Autobiography. Review of The Dark
Child by Camara Laye. The Nation, January 1,
180(1):16-17.
1955d Puerto Rican Myths. Review of Transformation:
The Story of Modern Puerto Rico by Earl Parker
Hanson. The Nation, February 26, 180(9):181-
182.
1955e Reply to Damned with Faint Praise, a letter by
Frances R. Grant in response to Murra. The
Nation, March 26, 180(13):275-276.
1955f Correction: Drinking Tubes on Archaeological
Vessels from Western South America. American
Antiquity 20(3):288.
1955g United Nations Publications Obtainable from
the Columbia University Press. Booknotes. The
Nation, January 22, 180(4):79.
1955h Books on Africa. Booknotes. The Nation, January
29, 180(5):106.
1956a The Economic Organization of the Inca State.
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago. This
was first published in 1978 as La organizacin
econmica del estado inca, translated by Daniel H.
Wagner and modified by the author. Mxico:
Siglo Veintiuno, Amrica Nuestra series 11. This
work appears as four subsequent editions by Siglo
Veintiuno, as well as in an English language
edition, The Economic Organization of the Inka
State. Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press (1980).
The Rumanian-language edition, Civilizatie inca:
Organizarea economic| statuli incas, translated by
John Murras sister, Ata Iosifescu. (Bucharest:
Editura tintific i Enciclopedic, 1987),
includes additional material from Murras pub-
lished articles. Material from the English lan-
guage version is included in Human Relations
Area Files, Inka: Outline of World Cultures
codes SE13 and SE80 (an Internet resource).
1956b Kenya and the Emergency. Current History
30(177):372-378.
1956c Murra Sees Here Egg-head Culture. Vassar Chro-
nicle, March 5, 24:4, 6.
1956d Review of Man and Land in Peru by Thomas R.
Ford. American Anthropologist 58(5):930-931.
1957a Studies in Family Organization in the French
Caribbean. Transactions of the New York Academy
of Sciences (series II) 19(4):372-378.
1957b Discussion [of Raymond T. Smiths The Family
in the Caribbean] in Caribbean Studies: A Sym-
posium, edited by Vera D. Rubin, pp. 75-79.
Mona, St. Andrews, Jamaica, British West
Indies: Institute of Social and Economic
Research, University College of the West Indies.
1958a On Inca Political Structure. In Systems of Political
Control and Bureaucracy in Human Societies,
edited by Verne F. Ray, pp. 30-41. Seattle:
Block and Barnes: John V. Murra
American Ethnological Society. Also distributed
as a reprint and reprinted as On Inca Political
Structure. Bobbs-Merrill Reprint Series in the
Sciences, A-169. Indianapolis, Indiana: Bobbs-
Merrill (1958); also published in Comparative
Political Systems: Studies in the Politics of Pre-
industrial Societies, edited by Ronald Cohen and
John Middleton, pp. 339-353. Austin: University
of Texas Press (1967). A revised Spanish lan-
guage version, En torno a la estructura poltica
de los inka, appears in Murra (1975a), pp. 23-43.
An unauthorized Spanish language version
appears in El Modo de produccin asitico: Antolo-
ga de textos sobre problemas de la historia de los
paises coloniales, edited by Roger Bartra. Mxico:
Ediciones Era (1969).
1958b La funcin del tejido en varios contextos sociales
y polticos. Actas y Trabajos del Segundo Congreso
de Historia del Per, Volume 2, pp. 215-240, Also
published as a reprint (1961); and in 100 aos de
arqueologa en el Per, edited by Rogger Ravines,
pp. 583-608 (1970). The latest updated version
appears in Fuentes e Investigaciones para la Histor-
ia del Per 3:145-170. Lima: Instituto de Estudios
Peruanos, Petrleos del Per edition (1978); in
Arte mayor de los Andes: Museo Chileno de Arte
Precolombino, by Paulina Brugnoli and Soledad
Hoces, edited by Julie Palma, with photographs
by Fernando Maldonado, and translation by
Cecilia Contreras and Barbara Caces, pp. 9-19.
Santiago de Chile: El Museo (1989); and in
Murra (2002a), pp. 153-170. This article was
originally based on Chapter 4 of Murra (1956a).
An English language version was published as
Cloth and its Functions in the Inca State. Ameri-
can Anthropologist 64(4):710-728 (1962) Murra
previously updated the English language version
for Cloth and Human Experience, edited by
Annette B. Weiner and Jane Schneider, pp. 275-
302. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution
Press (1989). See also Cloth, Textile, and the
Inca Empire in The Peru Reader: History, Culture,
Politics, edited by Orin Starn, Carlos Ivn De-
gregori, and Robin Kirk, pp. 55-69. Durham,
North Carolina: Duke University Press (1995).
1958c Review of The Ancient Civilizations of Peru by J.
Alden Mason. American Anthropologist
60(4):767-768.
1958d Wonderful Weeks Bouquet. The Nation, May 31
180(22):484.
1959a Up to the Slums. Review of Up from Puerto Rico
by Elena Padilla and of Island in the City by Dan
Wakefield. The Nation, May 2,188(18):411-412.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
1959b Review of Power and Property in Inca Peru by
Sally Falk Moore. American Sociological Review 27(5):727.
1960a Rite and Crop in the Inca State. In Culture in
History: Essays in Honor of Paul Radin, edited by
Stanley Diamond, pp. 33-47. New York: Pub-
lished for Brandeis University by Columbia
University Press. A revised version was published
in Peoples and Cultures of South America: An
Anthropological Reader, edited by Daniel R.
Gross, pp. 377-389. Garden City, New York:
Doubleday and Natural History Press (1973). A
revised Spanish language version, La papa, el
maz y los ritos agrcolas del Tawantinsuyu, was
published in Amaru 8:58-62 (1968); in Murra
(1975a), pp. 45-58; in Cosmos, hombre y sacrali-
dad: Lecturas dirigidas de antropologa religiosa,
edited by Marco Vinicio Rueda and Segundo
Moreno Yez, pp.181-193. Quito: Departa-
mento de Antropologa PUCE and Ediciones
Abya Yala (1995); and in Murra (2002a), pp.
143-152.
1960b Review of Power and Property in Inca Peru by
Sally Falk Moore. American Anthropologist
62(6):1082-1083 [This review differs from Murra
1959b].
1960c Review of The Incas by Pedro Cieza de Len,
edited by Victor Wolfgang von Hagen and trans-
lated by Harriet de Onis. The Hispanic American
Historical Review 40(2):281-282.
1961a Guaman Poma de Ayala: A Seventeenth-Cen-
tury Indians Account of Andean Civilization.
Natural History 70(7):35-46 and Guaman Poma
de Ayala: The Post-Conquest Chronicle of the
Inca States Rise and Fall 70(8):52-63, separately
titled parts of a unified article. A Spanish lan-
guage version was published in Murra (2002a),
pp. 375-425.
1961b Social Structural and Economic Themes in
Andean Ethnohistory. Anthropological Quarterly
34(2):47-59. Also published as a reprint. A
Spanish language version, Temas de estructura
social y econmica en la etnohistoria y el antiguo
folklore andino, was published in Folklore Ameri-
cano 10:22-237 (1962); and in La etnohistoria en
Mesoamrica y los Andes, edited by Pedro Carras-
co Pizana, Juan Manuel Prez Zevallos, and Jos
Antonio Prez Golln, pp. 95-111. Mexico, D.F.:
Instituto Nacional de Antropologa y Historia
(1987). An expanded version was published in
Cuadernos de Investigacin: Antropologa (Hun-
uco, Per, Universidad Hermilio Valdizn,
1966).
1962 An Archaeological Restudy of an Andean
Ethnohistorical Account. American Antiquity.
28(1):1-4. An expanded, Spanish language
- 50
version was published in Cuadernos de Investiga-
cin: Antropologa (Universidad Hermilio Valdi-
zn, Hunuco, Per, 1966).
1964a Una apreciacin etnolgica de la visita. In Visita
hecha a la provincia de Chucuito por Garci Diez de
San Miguel en el ao 1567 by Garci Diez de San
Miguel, edited by John Victor Murra, pp. 421-
444. Lima: Casa de la Cultura del Per.
1964b Rebaos y pastores en la economa del
Tawantinsuyu. Revista Peruana de Cultura 2:76-
101. Also published in Murra (1975a), pp. 117-
144; and in Murra (2002a), pp. 309-327. An
English language version, Herds and Herders in
the Inca State, was published in Man, Culture,
and Animals: The Role of Animals in Human
Ecological Adjustments, edited by Anthony Leeds
and A. P. Vayda, pp. 185-215. Washington:
American Association for the Advancement of
Science (1965). Also distributed as a reprint.
1964c Review of The Sonjo of Tanganyika: An Anthro-
pological Study of an Irrigation-based Society by
Robert F. Gray. American Anthropologist 66(2):
471-472.
1965 Review of Los obrajes en el Virreinato del Per by
Fernando Silva-Santisteban. American Anthro-
pologist 67(5, part 1):1329-1330.
1966a El Instituto de Investigaciones Andinas y sus
estudios en Hunuco, 1963-1966. Cuadernos de
Investigacin: Antropolga, pp. 7-21 (Hunco,
Per, Universidad Nacional Hermilio Valdizn).
1966b New Data on Retainer and Servile Populations
in Tawantinsuyu. In XXXVI Congreso Inter-
nacional de Americanistas, Espaa. 1964, Actas y
Memorias. Volume 2, pp. 35-45 (Seville). An
updated Spanish language version, Nueva
informacin sobre las poblaciones yana, was
published in Murra (1975a), pp. 225-242; in
Murra (2002a), pp. 328-340; and as Nuevos
datos sobre las poblaciones yana en el Tawant-
insuyo. Antropologa Andina 1-2:13-33 (Cusco,
1976).
1966c Review of Life, Land, and Water in Ancient Peru
by Paul Kosok. American Anthropologist
68(5):1306-1307. A Spanish language version
published in Revista Peruana de Cultura, 7-8:270-
273 (1966).
1967a Nota preliminar sobre el manuscrito de la visita
de los chupachu y la transcripcin usada en la
presente edicin. In Ortiz de Ziga (1967), pp.
v-ix.
1967b La visita de los chupachu como fuente etnol-
gica. In Ortiz de Ziga (1967), pp. 381-406.
1967c Ethnohistory: South America. Handbook of Latin
American Studies 29:200-213.
51 -
1967d Ltude de Hunuco: Une experience inter-dis- 1970c
ciplinaire. tudes Latino-Amricaines 3:241-246.
Facult des Lettres, Aix-en-Provence, France.
1967e Review of films Aspects of Land Ownership and
Land Use in the Rural Community of Montero,
produced by the Land Tenure Center, University
of Wisconsin; Market at La Paz, Patterns of Living
and Land Use at Vilaque and near Lake Titicaca,
producer unknown; and Campesinos and Farming
on Isla del Sol: Annual Market Days at Casani
(Peru-Bolivia Border), producer unknown. Ameri-
can Anthropologist 69(6):792.
1968a An Aymara Kingdom in 1567. Ethnohistory
15(2):115-151. Included in Human Relations
Area Files, Aymara Kingdoms: Outline of World
Cultures SF50 (electronic resource). A Spanish
language version was published in Murra
(1975a), pp. 193-224; and in Murra (2002a), pp.
183-207. An unauthorized Spanish language
translation was published as Un reino aymara en
1567. Pumapunku 6:87-93 (1972); 9:31-49
(1975).
1968b Perspectivas y actuales investigaciones de la
etnologa andina, Revista del Museo Nacional
35:124-158 (1967-1968); republished as Las
investigaciones en etnohistoria andina y sus
posibilidades en el futuro in Murra (1975a), pp.
275-312; in Murra (2002a), pp. 445-470; and in
La Etnohistoria en Mesoamrica y los Andes, edited
by Pedro Carrasco Pizana, Juan Manuel Prez
Zevallos, and Jos Antonio Prez Golln, pp.
113-158. Mxico, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de
Antropologa e Historia (1987). An English
language version, Current Research and Pros-
pects in Andean Ethnohistory appears in the
Latin American Research Review 5(1):3-36 (1970)
and was also re-published as a pamphlet by the
Cornell University Latin American Studies
Program, Reprint Series 35, n.d.
1968c Review of Indianische Fische: Feldbauer und Vieh-
zchter: Beitrge zur peruanischen Vlkerkunde by
Horst Nachtigall. American Anthropologist
70(6):1224-1225.
1969 Review of Sozialpolitik in Inca-Staat by Angela
Mller-Dango. Hispanic American Historical
Review 49(4):741-743.
1970a Informacin etnolgica e histrica adicional
sobre el reino Lupaqa. Historia y Cultura 4:49-61.
1970b Ethnohistory: South America. Handbook of Latin
American Studies 32:103-117, edited by Henry E.
Adams. Gainesville: University of Florida Press
for the Hispanic Foundation, Library of Con-
gress.
Block and Barnes: John V. Murra
Comment on Depopulation of the Central
Andes in the 16th Century by C.T. Smith. Cur-
rent Anthropology 11(4, 5):461-462.
1970d Review of Francisco de Avila by Hermann Trim-
born and Antje Kelm and Dioses y hombres de
Huarochir by Jos Mara Arguedas. American
Anthropologist 72(2):443-445.
1970e Review of The Last Inca Revolt by Lillian Estelle
Fischer. Ethnohistory 17(3, 4):173-174.
1970f Nispa Ninchis 1. This is a mimeographed first
issue of a Quechua studies newsletter that Murra
intended to produce with Jos Mara Arguedas.
Arguedas suicide in 1969 prevented the news-
letter from continuing.
1972a El control vertical de un mximo de pisos
ecolgicos en la economa de las sociedades
andinas. In Ortiz (1972), pp. 427-476. Also
published privately as a pamphlet by John Victor
Murra (n.d.) Ithaca, New York: Glad Day Press;
as a pamphlet published by the Universidad Na-
cional Atonoma de Mxico (U.N.A.M.) Izta-
palapa, Divisin de Ciencias Sociales; in Murra
(1975a), pp. 59-115; in Textos de historia de
Amrica latina by Heraclio Bonilla, German
Carrera Damas, Tulio Halperin Donghi, D.C.M.
Platt, John Murra, and Juan Carlos Garavaglia,
Mxico: U.N.A.M (1981); and with updates in
Murra (2002a), pp. 85-125.
1972b Ethnohistory: South America. Handbook of Latin
American Studies 34:129-144, edited by Donald
E. J. Stewart. Gainesville: University of Florida
Press for The Latin American, Portuguese, and
Spanish Division of the Library of Congress.
1973 Review of Changement et continuit chez les mayas
du mexique: Contribution ltude de la situation
colonial en Amerique latine by Henri Favre. His-
panic American Historical Review 53(1):159-160.
1974a Las etno-categoras de un khipu estatal. In
Homenaje a Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrn, edited by
Roberto Bravo Garzn, Volume 2, pp. 167-176,
plus foldout chart. Mxico: Universidad Vera-
cruzana and Instituto Indigenista Inter-
americano; republished in Murra (1975a), pp.
243-254, and foldout chart; also published in La
tecnologa en el mundo andino/Runakunap
kawasayninkupaq rursqankunaqa, edited by
Heather Lechtman and AnaMara Soldi, Volume
1 Subsistencia y mensuracin, pp. 433-442, plus
foldout chart. Mxico: Universidad Nacional
Autnoma de Mxico, Instituto de Investiga-
ciones Antropolgicas (1981), and distributed as
an offprint. Also published as Etno-categoras
de un khipu regional in Quipu y yupana: Colec-
cin de escritos, edited by Carol Mackey, Hugo
Pereyna Snchez, Carlos Radicati, Humberto
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Rodrguez Pastor, and Oscar Valverde Ayala pp.
53-58, plus foldout chart. Lima: CONCYTEC
(1990), and in Murra (2002a), pp. 248-260.
1974b Ethnohistory: South America. Handbook of Latin
American Studies 36:91-99, edited by Donald E.
J. Stewart. Gainesville: University of Florida
Press for The Latin American, Portuguese, and
Spanish Division of the Library of Congress.
1974c Andean Cultures. Encyclopaedia Britannica (15th
edition), pp. 854-856.
1974d Review of Kuyo Chico: Applied Anthropology in an
Indian Community by Oscar Nez del Prado.
The Americas 31(2):226-227.
1975a Formaciones econmicas y polticas del mundo
andino. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
This consists of 12 essays, originally published
between 1958 and 1970, and almost all revised
for this collection. Each gives a genealogy of
publication. There is an Italian language edition,
Formazioni economiche e politiche nel mondo
andino: Saggi di etnostoria, translated by Ana
Mara Soldi. Turin, Italy: Giulio Einaudi (1980).
A French translation edited by Jacques Poloni-
Simard and published by the cole des Hautes
tudes en Science Sociale with the Maison des
Sciences de lhomme is forthcoming. It will
include an introduction based on Salomon
(2007) and Salomon (this volume, pp. 87-102) as
well as an earlier version of this bibliography.
1975b Review of The Men of Cajamarca: A Social and
Biographical Study of the First Conquerors of Peru
by James [Marvin] Lockhart. American Anthro-
pologist 77(3):652-654.
1975c Review of Struggle in the Andes: Peasant Political
Mobilization in Peru by Howard Handelman. The
Americas 32(1):167-168.
1976a Los lmites y las limitaciones del Archipilago
Vertical en los Andes. In Homenaje al Dr.
Gustavo Le Paige, S.J., edited by Jos Mara
Casassas, pp. 141-146. Antofagasta, Chile:
Universidad del Norte. Based on a paper read at
the Congreso del Hombre Andino, Arica, Chile,
June 1973. Also published in Avances: Revista
Boliviana de Estudios Histricos y Sociales 1:75-80
(La Paz, Bolivia; 1978); in Ensayos sobre el des-
arrollo econmico de Mxico y Amrica Latina
(1500-1975), edited by Enrique Florescano,
pp.193-198. Mxico: Fondo de Cultura Econ-
mica (1979); and in Murra (2002a), pp. 126-131.
An English language version, The Limits and
Limitations of the Vertical Archipelago in the
Andes, was published in Andean Ecology and
Civilization: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on
Andean Ecological Complementarity, edited by
Shozo Masuda, Izumi Shimada, and Craig Mor-
- 52
ris, pp. 15-20 (1985; article translated by Freda
Wolf de Romero). Tokyo: University of Tokyo
Press.
1976b American Anthropology, The Early Years, intro-
duction to Murra (editor 1976), pp. 3-7.
1976c Ethnohistory: South America. Handbook of Latin
American Studies 38, pp. 108-118, edited by
Dolores Mayano Martin and Donald E. J. Stew-
art. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida for
the Latin American, Portuguese, and Spanish
Division of the Library of Congress.
1976d Review of Investigaciones arqueolgicas en los
Valles de Caplina y Sama by Hermann Trimborn.
Man n.s. 11(3):445-446.
1976e Review of films The Incas, produced by Coronet
Films; Lost City of the Andes, produced by
Simmel and Meservey; and Intirumi, produced by
UNESCO. American Anthropologist 78(2):383-
384.
1977a Comparando las civilizaciones andinas y meso-
americanas: Dos simposios. Historiografa y
Bibliografa Americanistas 21:265-266.
1977b Review of Los aymara de Chinchera, Per: Per-
sistencia y cambio en un contexto bicultural by John
M. Hickman. American Anthropologist 79(1):153.
1977c Review of The Men of Cajamarca: A Social and
Biographical Study of the First Conquerors of Peru
by James Marvin Lockhart. Historica 1(1):136-
139.
1977d La arquitectura inka: Un nuevo estudio de
Graziano Gasparini. Review of La arquitectura
inka by Graziano Gasparini and Luise Margolies.
El Comercio, p. 10, 31 August (Lima). An
abridged version published as Introduccin.
Arquitectura Inka by Graziano Gasparini and
Luise Margolies, pp. vii-ix. Caracas: Centro de
Investigaciones Historicas y Estticas: Facultad
de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, Universidad
Central de Venezuela (1977). An abridged
English language version was published as the
Foreword to the English language translation of
Arquitectura Inka, Inca Architecture by Graziano
Gasparini and Luise Margolies, translated by
Patricia J. Lyon, pp. ix-xxi. Bloomington and
London: University of Indiana Press (1980).
1978a La correspondencia entre un Capitn de la
Mita y su apoderado en Potos. Historia y Cultu-
ra (Lima) 3:45-48. Also published in Murra
(2002a), pp. 223-234. An amplified English
language version, Aymara Lords and their Euro-
pean Agents at Potos, was published in Nova
America 1:231-243 (1978, Turin, Italy)
1978b La guerre et les rbellions dans lexpansion de
ltat inka. In Revel et al. Anthropologie historique
des socits andines, Anales 33(5-6): 927-935. An
53 -
English language version, The Expansion of the
Inka State: Armies, War, and Rebellions, was
published in Murra et al. (1986), pp. 49-58. A
Spanish language version, La expansin del
estado inka: Ejrcitos, guerras y rebeliones, was
published in Murra (2002a), pp. 57-66.
1978c Los olleros del Inka: Hacia una historia y
arqueolga del Qollasuyo. In Historia, problema y
promesa: Homenaje a Jorge Basadre, edited by
Francisco Miro Quesada Cantuaras, Franklin
Pease G. Y., and David Sobrevilla A., Volume 1,
pp. 415-423. Lima: Universidad Pontifcia
Catlica del Per, Fondo Editorial; also pub-
lished as Los olleros del Inka: Hacia una historia y
arqueologa del Qollasuyo. La Paz: Centro de
Investigaciones Histricas (1983); and in Murra
(2002a), pp. 287-293.
1978d Ethnohistory: South America. Handbook of Latin
American Studies 40:77-89, edited by Dolores
Moyano Martin. Austin: University of Texas
Press for the Hispanic Division of the Library of
Congress.
1978e Introduction. In Deep Rivers by Jos Mara
Arguedas, translated by Frances Horning Barra-
clough, pp. ix-xv. Austin: University of Texas
Press.
1978f Review of Inequality in the Peruvian Andes: Class
and Ethnicity in Cuzco by Pierre L. Van den
Berghe and George P. Primov. Hispanic American
Historical Review 58(2):345-346.
1978g Review of The Vision of the Vanquished by Na-
than Wachtel. The Americas 34(4):567-568.
1978h Review of Peru: A Cultural History by Henry F.
Dobbins and Paul L. Doughty. Ethnohistory
25(4):393-394.
1979a El valle de Sama: Isla perifrica del reino lupaqa
y su uso dentro de la economa minera colonial.
In Amerikanistische Studien/Estudios Ameri-
canistas: Festschrift fr Hermann Trimborn
Anlsslich seines 75 Geburtstages/Libro jubilar en
homenaje a Hermann Trimborn con motivo de su
septuagsimoquinto aniversario, Volume 2, edited
by Roswith Hartmann and Udo Oberem, pp. 87-
91. Collectanea Instituti Anthropos 21. St.
Augustin, Germany: Haus Vlker und Kulturen,
Anthropos-Institute.
1979b Algunos contrastes entre los pramos y las punas
como zonas de establecimientos humanos. In El
medio ambiente pramo: Actas del seminario de
Mrida, Venezuela 5 a 12 de noviembre de 1979,
edited by M. L. Salgado-Labouriau, pp. 219-224.
Mrida, Venezuela, Instituto Venezolano de
Investigaciones Cientficas.
1979c Derechos a las tierras en el Tawantinsuyu.
Revista de la Universidad Complutense
Block and Barnes: John V. Murra
28(117):273-287. Special issue entitled Economa
y sociedad en los Andes y Mesoamrica, edited by
Jos Alcina Franch. Also published in Revista del
Museo Inka (Cusco) 25:103-117 (1995); and in
Dos dcadas de investigacin en historia econmica
comparada en Amrica Latina, edited by Margarita
Menegus Bornemann, Antonio Ibarra, Juan
Manuel Prez Zevallos, and Jorge Silva, pp. 97-
111. Mxico, D.F.: Colegio de Mxico, Centro
de Estudios Histricos; Centro de Investiga-
ciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropologa
Social; Instituto Doctor Jos Mara Luis Mora
(1999); and Centro de Estudios Sobre la
Universidad, UNAM; and in Murra (2002a), pp.
294-307.
1979d Review of The Vision of the Vanquished: The
Spanish Conquest of Peru through Indian Eyes,
1530-1570 by Nathan Wachtel, translated by
Ben and Sin Reynolds. American Anthropologist
81(1):171.
1980a Ethnohistory: South America. Handbook of Latin
American Studies 42:135-159, edited by Dolores
Mayano Martin. Austin: University of Texas
Press for the Hispanic Division of the Library of
Congress.
1980b Dimensin internacional de Julio C. Tello. El
Comercio, El Dominical, p. 7, 6 April (Lima). A
longer version was published as La dimensin
internacional de la obra de Julio C. Tello.
Histrica 6:53-63 (1982). A footnote, p. 53,
states La revista solo public una primera parte,
la segunda fue aadida a una publicacin privada
hecha por el autor. (The journal only pub-
lished a first part; the second was added to a
private publication by the author). This has not
been located. A revised English language trans-
lation, The International Relevance of Julio C.
Tello is in The Life and Writings of Julio C. Tello:
Americas First Indigenous Archaeologist, edited by
Richard L. Burger, pp. 55-64. Iowa City: Univer-
sity of Iowa Press (2009).
1981a Socio-political and Demographic Aspects of
Multi-Altitude Land Use in the Andes. In
Cahiers Npalais: lHomme et son environnement
haute altitude, Environmental and human popula-
tion problems at high altitude, Seminaire, Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique [and] Na-
tional Science Foundation, Paris, 1-3 octobre 1980.
Edited by Paul T. Baker, Corneille Jest, and
Jacques Ruffi, pp. 129-135. Paris: Editions du
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.
1981b Commentary on Reciprocity and the Inca State:
From Karl Polanyi to John V. Murra by Nathan
Wachtel. Research in Economic Anthropology
4:688-691.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
1981c Review of History of the Inca Empire: An Account
of the Indians Customs and their Origin together
with a Treatise on the Inca Legends, History, and
Social Institutions by Father Bernab Cobo, trans-
lated by Roland Hamilton. American Ethnologist
8(1):202.
1981d Prlogo. In La tecnologa en el mundo
andino/Runakunap kawasayninkupaq rursqan-
kunaqa, edited by Heather Lechtman and Ana
Mara Soldi, Volume 1, Subsistencia y mensura-
cin, pp. 7-9. Mxico: Universidad Nacional
Autnoma de Mxico, Instituto de Investiga-
ciones Antropolgicas.
1982a The Mita Obligations of Ethnic Groups to the
Inka State. In The Inca and Aztec States: 1400-
1800, edited by George A. Collier, Renato I.
Rosaldo, and John D. Wirth, pp. 237-262. New
York: Academic Press. Also distributed sepa-
rately as a paper read at a meeting comparing the
state in Meso-America and the Andes (1978),
revised October, 1981. Included in Human
Relations Area Files, World Cultures, South
America, Inka SE13 (an Internet resource). A
Spanish language version, La Mita al Tawan-
tinsuyu: Prestaciones de los grupos tnicos, was
published in Chungur 10:77-94 (1983); and in
Murra (2002a), pp. 261-286.
1982b El trfico de mullo en la costa del Pacfico. In
Primer Simposio de Correlaciones Antropolgicas
Andino-Mesoamericano, 25-31 de Julio de 1971,
Salinas Ecuador, edited by Jorge Marcos G. and
Presley Norton, pp. 265-273. Guayaquil: Escuela
Superior Politcnica del Litoral. Also published
in Murra (1975a), pp. 255-267; and in Murra
(2002a), pp. 171-179; and in Reconocimientos y
excavaciones en el austro ecuatoriano (see Collier
and Murra 1943), pp. 403-418 (2007).
1982c Ethnohistory: South America. Handbook of Latin
American Studies 44:102-121, edited by Dolores
Mayano Martin. Austin: University of Texas
Press for the Hispanic Division of the Library of
Congress.
1982d Review of Parentesco y matrimonio en los Andes,
edited by Enrique Mayer and Ralph Bolton.
American Anthropologist 84(4):909-910.
1982e Review of The Transition to Statehood in the New
World by Grant D. Jones and Robert R. Kautz.
Hispanic American Historical Review 62(4):713-
714.
1982f Platform Submitted to Support Candidacy for
President, American Anthropological Associa-
tion. Circulated by the American Anthropologi-
cal Association and by John Victor Murra.
Photocopy. On file in the archives of Andean
Past.
- 54
1983a Jos Mara Arguedas, dos imgines. Revista Ibero-
Americana 122:43-54. Republished in Arguedas
1996:265-298.
1983b Prioridades en la etnografa antigua del mundo
andino. Semana de Ultima Hora (La Paz), 25 -
February, p. 3.
1983c Review of Chan Chan: Andean Desert City by
Michael Moseley and Kent C. Day. Man n.s.
18(2):410-411.
1984a Andean Societies. In Annual Review of Anthro-
pology 13:119-141.
1984b The Cultural Future of the Andean Majority. In
The Prospects for Plural Societies, edited by David
Maybury-Lewis, pp. 30-38. Washington, D.C.:
American Ethnological Society.
1984c Review of Estructuras andinas del poder: Ideologa
religiosa y poltica by Mara Rostworowski de Diez
Canseco. Hispanic American Historical Review
64(4):790-791.
1985a Andean Societies before 1532. In The Cambridge
History of Latin America, edited by Leslie Bethell,
Volume 1, pp. 59-90. Cambridge and New York:
Cambridge University Press. Spanish language
version, Las sociedades andinas antes de 1532
published in Historia de Amrica Latina 1, Amri-
ca Latina Colonial: La Amrica precolombiana y la
conquista, edited by Leslie Bethell and translated
by Antonio Acosta. Barcelona, Editorial Crtica
(1990).
1985b Andean Societies before 1532 (bibliographic
essay). In The Cambridge History of Latin Amer-
ica, edited by Leslie Bethell, Volume 11, pp. 15-
18. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press. Spanish language version, Las
sociedades andinas antes de 1532 (Ensayo Biblio-
grfico) in Historia de Amrica Latina 1, Amrica
Latina Colonial: La Amrica precolombiana y la
conquista, edited by Leslie Bethell. Barcelona,
Editorial Crtica (1990).
1985c El archipilago vertical Revisited. In Andean
Ecology and Civilization: An Interdisciplinary
Perspective on Andean Ecological Complementarity,
edited by Shozo Masuda, Izumi Shimada, and
Craig Morris, pp. 3-13 (article translated by
Freda Wolf de Romero). Tokyo: University of
Tokyo Press. A Spanish language version, El
archipilago vertical: Once aos despus, was
published in Condarco 1987, pp. 87-104, and in
Murra (2002a), pp. 132-139.
1985d Commentary on Staple Finance, Wealth Fi-
nance, and Storage in the Inka Political Econ-
omy by Terence N. DAltroy and Timothy K.
Earle. Current Anthropology 26(2):200.
1985e Review of Religion and Empire: The Dynamics of
Aztec and Inca Expansion by Geoffey W. Conrad
55 -
and Arthur A. Demarest. Man n.s. 20(3):553-
554.
1986a Notes on Pre-Columbian Cultivation of Coca
Leaf. In Coca and Cocaine: Effects on People and
Policy in Latin America, Proceedings of the Confer-
ence, The Coca Leaf and Its DerivativesBiology,
Society, and Policy, Sponsored by the Latin Ameri-
can Studies Program (LASP), Cornell University,
April 25-26, 1985, edited by Deborah Pacini and
Christine Franquemont, pp. 49-52. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Cultural Survival and Ithaca,
New York: Cornell LASP. Also distributed as an
Audiobook by Cornell LASP (1985).
1986b Le difficile accouchement dune histoire andine.
In Economies mditerranennes:quilibres et inter-
communications, XIIIe-XIXe sicles. (Actes du IIe
Colloque International dHistoire), Volume 3, pp.
309-313. Athens: Centre de Recherches No-
hellniques de la Fondation Nationale de la
Recherche Scientifique.
1987a Existeron el tributo y los mercados antes de la
invasion espaola? In La Participacin indgena en
los mercados surandinos: estrategas y reproduccin
social siglos XVI a XX, edited by Olivia Harris,
Brooke Larson, and Enrique Tandeter. La Paz,
Bolivia: Centro de Estudios de la Realidad
Economica y Social. Also published as Existeron
el tributo y los mercados en los Andes antes de la
invasion espaola? in Arqueologa, antropologa, e
historia en los Andes: Homenaje a Mara
Rostworowski, edited by Rafael Varn Gabai and
Javier Flores Espinoza, pp. 737-748. Lima:
Instituto de Estudios Peruanos and Banco Cen-
tral de Reserva del Per (1997); and in Murra
(2002a), pp. 237-247. An English language
version, Did Tribute and Markets Prevail in the
Andes before the European Invasion? was pub-
lished in Ethnicity, Markets, and Migration in the
Andes: At the Crossroads of History and Anthropol-
ogy, edited by Brooke Larson and Olivia Harris
with Enrique Tandeter, pp. 57-72. Durham,
North Carolina: Duke University Press (1995).
1987b Inventando una historia andina? Discurso Liter-
ario 4(2):347-353.
1987c La etnohistoria. In La etnohistoria en Mesoamrica
y los Andes, edited by Juan Manuel Prez Zevall-
os and Jos Antonio Prez Golln, pp. 159-175.
Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropologa y
Historia.
1988a El Aymara libre de ayer. In Races de Amrica: El
mundo Aymara, edited by Xavier Alb, pp. 51-74.
Madrid: Alianza Editorial.
1988b El Doctor Barros de San Milln, defensor de los
seores naturales de los Andes. In Actas del IV
Congreso Internacional de Etnohistoria. Lima:
Block and Barnes: John V. Murra
Universidad Pontifcia Catlica del Per, Volume
2, pp. 359-377. Also published as El Doctor
Barros de San Milln: Defensor de los seores na-
turales en los Andes. Barcelona: Servei de
Publicacions de la Universitat de Barcelona
(1993); and in Murra (2002a), pp. 426-438.
1988c Review of La heterodoxia recuperada: En torno a
ngel Palerm, edited by Susana Glantz. American
Anthropologist 90(1):196-197.
1988d Review of The Orgins and Development of the
Andean State, edited by Jonathan Haas, Shelia
Pozorski, and Thomas Pozorski. Hispanic Ameri-
can Historical Review 68(4):820-821.
1988e Review of The Evolution of Human Societies: From
Foraging Group to Agrarian State by Allen W.
Johnson and Timothy Earle. Man n.s. 23(3):586-
587.
1989a High Altitude Andean Societies and their Econ-
omies. In Geographic Perspectives in History,
edited by Eugene D. Genovese and Leonard
Hochberg, pp. 205-214. Oxford and New York:
B. Blackwell.
1989b Review of Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness
in the Andean Peasant World, 18th to 20th Centuries
by Steve J. Stern. American Anthropologist
91(1):214-215.
1990 Review of Suma y narracin de los Incas by Juan
de Betanzos, edited by Mara del Carmen Martn
Rubio. Ethnohistory 37(1):95-97.
1991a Le dbat sur lavenir des Andes en 1562. In
Cultures et socits: Andes et Mso-Amrique: M-
langes en homage Pierre Duviols, edited by
Raquel Thiercelin, Volume 2, pp. 625-632. Aix-
en-Provence: Universit de Provence, Service
des Publications.
1991b Nos hazen mucha ventaja: The Early European
Perception of Andean Achievement. In Transat-
lantic Encounters: Europeans and Andeans in the
Sixteenth Century, edited by Kenneth J. Andrien
and Rolena Adorno, pp. 73-89. Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press. A Spanish language
version, Nos hacen mucha ventaja: Percepcin
europea temprana de los logros andinos, was
published in Semillas de industria: Trans-
formaciones de la tecnologa andina en las Amricas,
edited by Mario Ruz, pp. 19-35. Mxico: Ciesas
and Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution
(1994); and in Murra (2002a), pp. 25-40.
1992 Guaman Pomas Sources in Guaman Poma de
Ayala: The Colonial Art of an Andean Author by
Rolena Adorno, Tom Cummins, Teresa Gisbert,
Maarten van de Guchte, Mercedes Lpez-Baralt,
and John Victor Murra, pp. 60-66. New York:
Americas Society.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
1993a Review of Ancient Andean Political Economy by
Charles Stanish. The American Historical Review
98(2):616-617.
1993b Review of Provincial Power in the Inka Empire by
Terence N. DAltroy. The American Historical
Review 98(4):1355.
1994a John Hyslop 1945-1993. Andean Past 4(1-7).
1994b Review of Domination and Resistance by Daniel
Miller, Michael Rowlands, and Christopher
Tilley. American Anthropologist 21(3):628.
1994c Review of the Inca Empire: The Formation and
Disintegration of a Pre-Capitalist State by Thomas
C. Patterson. Latin American Antiquity 5(2):184-
185.
1996a Prlogo. In Las Cartas de Arguedas, edited by
John Victor Murra and Mercedes Lpez-Baralt,
pp. 13-16. Lima: Universidad Pontifcia Catlica
del Per. Second edition (1998).
1996b [1977] Semblanza de Arguedas. In Las Cartas de
Arguedas, edited by John Victor Murra and Mer-
cedes Lpez-Baralt, pp. 283-293. Lima: Universi-
dad Pontifcia Catlica del Per. Second edition
(1998).
1998 Litigation Over the Rights of Natural Lords in
Early Colonial Courts in the Andes. In Native
Traditions in the Postconquest World: A Symposium
at Dumbarton Oaks, edited by Elizabeth Hill
Boone and Tom Cummins, pp. 55-62. Washing-
ton, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library
and Collection. A Spanish language version,
Litigio sobre los derechos de los senores natur-
ales en las primeras cortes colonials en los
Andes published in Historias 49:101-105 (2001).
1999 El Tawantinsuyu. In Historia general de Amrica
Latina, edited by Federico Mayor and Germn
Damas, Volume 1, pp. 481-484. Madrid: Edito-
rial Trotta and Paris: Ediciones UNESCO. Also
published in Murra (2002a), pp. 67-82, plus
foldout map.
2002a El Mundo andino: Poblacin, medio ambiente y
economa. Lima: Pontifcia Universidad Catlica
del Per, Fondo Editorial and Instituto de Es-
tudios Peruanos, Series Historia Andina 24.
2002b Barros de San Milln. In Diccionario histrico de
Bolivia, edited by Josep M. Barnadas, Guillermo
Calvo, and Juan Ticlla. Volume 1, pp. 272-273.
Sucre: Grupo de Estudios Histricos.
Murra, John Victor and Gordon Hadden
1966 Apndice: Informe presentado al Patronado
Nacional de Arqueologa sobre la labor de liem-
pieza y consolidacin de Hunuco Viejo. In
Cuadernos de Investigacin, Antropologa 1.
(Universidad Nacional Hermilio Valdizan,
Hunuco, Per.)
- 56
Murra, John Victor and Caroline G. Mercer
1957 Brown Will Discuss Faulkners Negro; Frazier,
the Negro Community and Conf. Vassar Chroni-
cle, February 23. 14(17):3.
Murra, John Victor and Craig Morris
1976 Dynastic Oral Tradition, Administrative Re-
cords, and Archaeology in the Andes. World
Archaeology 7(3):269-279.
Murra, John Victor. and Nathan Wachtel
1978 Prsentation. In Revel et al. (1978), pp. 889-894.
An English language version, Introduction, was
published in Murra et al. (1986), pp. 1-9.
Sinclaire Aguirre, Carole, Soledad Hoces de la Guardia
Chellew, Paulina Brugnoli, and John Victor Murra
2006 Awakhuni: Tejiendo la historia andina. Santiago de
Chile: Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino.
An English language version published as Awak-
huni: Weaving the History of the Andes, in Memory
of John Victor Murra (1916-2006). Santiago de
Chile: Museo Chileno de Arte Precololombino
(2007).
Thompson, Donald E. and John Victor Murra
1966 The Inca Bridges in the Hunuco Region Ameri-
can Antiquity 31(5) Part 1:632-639. Also pub-
lished in Peruvian Archaeology: Selected Readings,
edited by John Howland Rowe and Dorothy
Menzel, pp. 235-242. Palo Alto, California: Peek
Publications. A Spanish language version, Puen-
tes incaicos en la region de Hunuco Pampa was
published in Antropologa: Cuadernos de Investiga-
cin 1, pp. 79-94 (Universidad Nacional Her-
milio Valdizn, Facultad de Letras y Educacin,
Hunuco, Per, 1966).
VOLUMES EDITED BY JOHN VICTOR MURRA
Arguedas, Jos Mara
1996 Las Cartas de Arguedas, edited by John Victor
Murra and Mercedes Lpez-Baralt. Lima:
Universidad Pontifcia Catlica del Per. Second
edition (1998).
Guaman Poma de Ayala, Felipe
1980 El primer nueva cornica y buen gobierno, edited by
John Victor Murra and Rolena Adorno. Quech-
ua translations by Jorge Urioste. Coleccin
Amrica Nuestra 31. 3 volumes. Mxico: Siglo
XXI. Reprinted 1988, 1992. Expanded and
corrected edition published in Madrid by His-
toria 16 in its Crnicas de Amrica series (1987);
facsimile CD-ROM of manuscript GKS 2232 4o,
Copenhagen: Royal Library of Denmark, n.d.
and on-line facsimile:
(http://www.kb.dk/permalink /2006/poma/info/
en/frontpage.htm, consulted 21 March 2008),
plus the Murra-Adorno-Urioste transcription,
57 -
searchable and corrected by Ivan Boserup and
Rolena Adorno.
Murra, John Victor, editor
1964 Visita hecha a la Provincia de Chucuito por Garci
Dez de San Miguel en el ao 1567. Transcription
and bibliography by Waldemar Espinoza Soriano.
Includes Padrn de los mil indios ricos de la Pro-
vincia de Chucuito en el ao 1574, by Fray
Pedro Gutirrez Flores. Lima: Casa de la Cultura
Peruana.
1976 American Anthropology, The Early Years: 1974
Proceedings of the American Ethnological Society.
St. Paul, Minnesota; New York, New York;
Boston, Massachusetts; Los Angeles California,
and San Francisco, California: West Pub. Co.
1991 Visita de los valles de Sonqo en las yunka de coca de
La Paz (1568-1570). Madrid: Instituto de Co-
operacin Iberoamericana, La Sociedad Estatal
del Quinto Centenario, and Instituto de Estudios
Fiscales. Includes Notas preliminarios sobre el
manuscripto de la visita de los cocales de Sonqo
y la transcripcin usada en esta edicin, pp. 6-13;
Introduccin al estudio histrico del cultivo de la
hoja de la coca [Exythroxylon coca] en los Andes,
pp. 565-581; also published in Murra (2002a),
pp. 359-372, and Los cultivadores aymara de la
hoja de coca: Dos disposiciones administrativas
[1568-1570], pp. 653-674; also published in
Murra (2002a), pp. 341-358.
Ortiz de Ziga, Iigo
1967 Visita de la provincia de Len de Hunuco en 1562,
edited by John Victor Murra, Volume 1, Visita de
las cuatro waranqa de los chupachu, transcribed by
Domingo Angulo, Marie Helmer, and Felipe
Mrquez Abanto. Hunuco, Per: Universidad
Nacional Hermilio Valdizn, Facultad de Letras
y Educacin, Series Documentos para la Historia
y Etnologa de Hunuco y la Selva Central.
1972 Visita de la provincia de Len de Hunuco en 1562,
edited by John Victor Murra, Volume 2, Visita de
los Yacha y mitmaqkuna cuzqueos encomendados
en Juan Sanchez Falcon, transcribed by Felipe
Mrquez Abanto. Hunuco, Per: Universidad
Nacional Hermilio Valdizn, Facultad de Letras
y Educacin, Series Documentos para la Historia
y Etnologa de Hunuco y la Selva Central.
Revel, Jacques, John Victor Murra, and Nathan Wachtel,
editors
1978 Anthropologie historique des socits andines,
Annales 33(5-6), special issue. Published as an
English language edition, Anthropological History
of Andean Polities, edited by John Victor Murra,
Nathan Wachtel, and Jacques Revel. Cambridge
and New York: Cambridge University Press and
Block and Barnes: John V. Murra
Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de
lHomme (1986).
Rojas Rabiela, Teresa and John Victor Murra, editors
1999 Historia General de Amrica Latina, Volume 1,
Los sociedades originarias. Madrid: Editorial
Trotta and Paris: Ediciones UNESCO.
PAPERS OF JOHN VICTOR MURRA
The bulk of John Victor Murras papers are in the Na-
tional Anthropological Archives of the Smithsonian
Institution. For a register of these papers see:
http://www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/fa/murra.pdf
(consulted 3 June 2009).
Other archival collections with documents relevant to the
life and work of John Victor Murra include The Catherine
Pelton Durrell 25 Archives and Special Collections
Library, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York.
New York Universitys Bobst Library contains extensive
records of the Research Institute for the Study of Man
with much material relevant to Murras work in the
Caribbean.
New York Universitys Tamiment Library & Robert F.
Wagner Labor Archives houses documents and audio-
tapes relevant to Murras participation in the Spanish
Civil War.
The Harry S Truman Library and Museum, Independence,
Missouri, Records on the Presidents Committee on Civil
Rights Record Group 220 incorporates Murras citizenship
case records.
Several collections of documents in the Anthropology
Division of the American Museum of Natural History
have papers relevant to John Victor Murra. The records
there of the Institute of Andean Research contain docu-
ments pertinent to John Murras 1941-42 fieldwork in
Ecuador, to the Inca Provincial Life (Hunuco Project),
and to his tenure as President of the IAR. The AMNHs
Junius B. Bird Laboratory of South American Archaeology
contains further records of Murras Hunuco Project,
including field notes and photographs, transcriptions of
archival documents relevant to Hunuco, maps of the
region, official documents authorizing the project, interim
reports, and professional and personal letters by or to
Murra. Certain letters in the Bird Lab to and from E.
Craig Morris and to and from John Hyslop are also
relevant to Hunuco John Victor Murras life and work.
Information on Murra in the Archivo General de la
Guerra Civil, Salamanca, Spain was said by him to be
partially incorrect.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Some significant John Murra papers remain in Andean
countries and in private hands.
INTERVIEWS
En la obra de cualquier autor, poeta, lo que sea, cual-
quiera, hay un retrato que se hace del el, y otra cosa es lo
que l percibe de s mismo John Victor Murra speaking to de Siles, Mara Eugenia
Waldo Ansaldi and Fernando Caldern G., 1989 (In the
work of any author, poet, whoever, there is a portrait that
is made of him, but how he perceives himself is something
else, translation by Monica Barnes).
Ansaldi, Waldo and Fernando Caldern G.
1989 Reconocer el valor de esta sociedad que por
casualidad encontr: Conversacin con John
Murra. David y Goliath 18(54):2-14. Also pub-
lished as Pon la vida, pon los sueos: Conversa-
cin con John Murra. In Los esfuerzos de Ssifo:
Conversaciones sobre las ciencias sociales en
Amrica Latina, pp. 245-285, edited by Fernando
Caldern G. (2000). Heredia, Costa Rica:
EUNA.
Castro, Victoria, Carlos Aldunate, and Jorge Hidalgo,
editors
2000 Nispa ninchis/decimos diciendo: Conversaciones con
John Murra. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos
and New York: Institute of Andean Research.
Series Fuentes e Investigaciones para la Historia
del Per 13.
Gerassi, John
1980 Unpublished audio-taped interview of John
Victor Murra. Abraham Lincoln Brigade Ar-
chive (ALBA) Audio #18, John Gerassi Oral
History Collection, The Tamiment Library, New
York University.
Harriman, Manny
1983 Video interview with John Victor Murra. Not
broadcast or distributed. To be deposited in the
archive of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Tami-
ment Library, New York University, New York,
New York.
Hermosa, Ernest
n.d. Fragamento de entrevista con John Murra.
Presencia Cultural, Televisin Nacional del Per,
Program posted on YouTube,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12unr4yx83o
(consulted 4 June 2009). Nine minutes of a more
extensive interview.
Ipia Melgar, Jos
1976 Etnolgia andina: Entrevista con John Victor
Murra. Presencia Literaria 12 September, pp. 1ff.
Rowe, John Howland
1984 An Interview with John Victor Murra. Hispanic
American Historical Review 64(4):1-21. A Span-
- 58
ish language translation by Martha Len
Urdaneta is posted on the website of the Banco
de la Repblica de Colombia, La Biblioteca Luis
ngel Urdaneta, Biblioteca Virtual
www.lablaa.org/blaavirtual/publicaciones
banrep/bolmuseo/1986/bol17/ boc3.htm ( c o n -
sulted 4 June 2009).
1983 Conversaciones con John Victor Murra, un
apasionado del mundo andino. Semana de Ultima
Hora, February 11, pp. 6-8 (La Paz, Bolivia).
Wolf de Romero, Freda
1966 An Interview with John Victor Murra. Lima
Times, August, pp. 31-32.
TRANSLATIONS
Murra, John V., Robert M. Hankin, and Fred Holling,
translators
1951 The Soviet Linguistic Controversy: Translated from
the Soviet Press. New York: Kings Crown Press
for the Columbia University Slavic Studies
Department.
Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, Mara
1960 Succession, Coption to Kingship and Royal
Incest Among the Incas. Translated by John
Victor Murra. Southwestern Journal of Anthropol-
ogy 16(4):417-427.
FESTSCHRIFTS AND MEMORIAL VOLUMES
Editors of Chungar
2009? At the time Andean Past 9 went to press, an issue
of Chungar: Revista de Antropologa Chilena.
dedicated to John Murra was in preparation.
Henderson, John S. and Patricia J. Netherly, editors
1993 Configurations of Power: Holistic Anthropology in
Theory and Practice. Ithaca, New York: Cornell
University Press.
Lorandi, AnaMara, Carmen Salazar-Soler, and Nathan
Wachtel
2003 Los Andes: Cincuenta aos despus (1953-2003);
Homenaje a John Murra. Lima: Universidad
Pontifcia Catlica del Per.
WORKS ABOUT JOHN VICTOR MURRA
Alb, Xavier and Cristina Bubba
2007 John Murra, solidario militante. La Razn, No-
vember 4, A6 (La Paz, Bolivia).
Anonymous
1942 57 South Siders Receive Degrees at U. Of Chi-
cago: 642 Students Graduated Since Last Sum-
mer. Chicago Daily Tribune, December 20, p. S4.
59 -
1947a U.S. to Lift Lid on Red Asking for Citizenship.
Chicago Daily Tribune, January 1, p. 42.
1947b Denies U. Of C. Ex-Instructor Citizen Rights.
Chicago Daily Tribune, January 18, p. 1.
1947c Alien Rejected as U.S. Citizen to Appeal Case.
Chicago Daily Tribune, February 12, p. 38.
1947d Injustice from a Biased Judge. The Chicago Sun,
January 24.
1948a Red Gospel Advanced by Fund Grants: Exempt
Trusts Pay Writers. Chicago Daily Tribune, No-
vember 7, p. 1.
1948b Second Ruling Due Nov. 22 in Murras Citizen-
ship Plea. Chicago Daily Tribune, November 10,
p. B1.
1948c Igoe Studies Plea of Ex-U. Of C. Aid Accused as
a Red. Chicago Daily Tribune, November 23, p.
A10.
1948d Igoe Files Findings as Prof. Murra Acts in Citi-
zenship Ban. Chicago Daily Tribune, November
24, p. 3.
1948e Citizenship Request is Turned Down. A.P.
report. Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, Novem-
ber 24, p. 2. Also published as Denies Citizenship
to Teacher. The La Crosse Tribune, November
24, p. 11.
1949a U.S. Opposes Appeal of Educator in Fight to
Gain Citizenship. Chicago Daily Tribune, Sep-
tember 22, p. 5.
1949b Reverse Denial of Citizenship to Ex-U.C. Aid:
U.S. Court of Appeals Clears Murra. Chicago
Daily Tribune, December 15, p. 9.
1950a Deny Rehearing to U.S. in Murra Citizenship
Bid. Chicago Daily Tribune, February 2, p. 7.
1950b Igoe, Reversed, Grants Citizen Oath to Russian.
Chicago Tribune, June 15, p. C10.
1950c Engineers Hear Talk by Anthropologist. Pough-
keepsie New Yorker, November 21.
1956 Columbia to Make a Study of Tropics. The New
York Times, April 21, p. 37.
1953 American Friends Plan Seminar. Vassar Miscel-
lany News, March 4, 37(17):5.
1954a J. Murra, M. Flack Join Vassar Faculty. Vassar
Miscellany News 38(15):3, February 17.
1954b Flack and Murra, New VC Faculty Members.
Vassar Chronicle, February 20,11(15):6.
1954c AAUW Study Group to Hear Mr. Murra.
Poughkeepsie New Yorker, October 22.
1954d Murra Named to Fair Club Board. Poughkeepsie
New Yorker, November 27.
1955a Vassar Lecturer Attends Meeting. Poughkeepsie
New Yorker, January 5.
1955b John V. Murra Speaking at Brandeis. Pough-
keepsie New Yorker, April 16.
Block and Barnes: John V. Murra
1955c Goals of Childhood Set Pattern for Adult Life
Anthropologist Says. Boston Globe, November
20.
1955d Engineers Hear Talk by Anthropologist, Pough-
keepsie New Yorker, November 21.
1956a Murra Chosen Series Moderator. Poughkeepsie
New Yorker, January 27.
1956b Grant Received by Vassar Senior. Poughkeepsie
New Yorker, February 13.
1956c John V. Murra . . . will be Moderator of a Series
of Four Meetings about African Arts . . . Vassar
Miscellany News, February 15, 40(15):1
1956d Vassar Professor Receives Degree. Poughkeepsie
New Yorker, March 19.
1956e Faculty Notes. Vassar Chronicle, December 15,
14(12):8.
1956f John V. Murra Attends AAA Meetings. Pough-
keepsie New Yorker, December 29.
1957a Faculty Notes. Vassar Chronicle 14(14):4, Janu-
ary 19.
1957b Program in Commemoration of New State of
Ghana. New Paltz Independent, April 18.
1957c 400 Attend Opening of African Unit. Afro-
American, October 5 (Baltimore, Maryland).
1957d John Murra to Attend Seminar in Puerto Rico.
Poughkeepsie New Yorker, November 11.
1957e John Murra to Speak at Brandeis. Poughkeepsie
New Yorker, November 25.
1958 Caribbean Course Slated by AAUN. Pough-
keepsie New Yorker, January 3.
1959a Murra Opens Convocation with Anthropology
Address. Vassar Miscellany News 44(1), Septem-
ber 23.
1959b New Faculty Members Cited, Professors on
Leave Return. Vassar Miscellany News 44(2):1, 4,
September 30.
1960a John V. Murra of the Anthropology Department
will lecture . . . on the All Africa Conference
which He Attended. Vassar Miscellany News,
March 2, 44(19):1.
1960b Professor to Talk to Harding Club. Poughkeepsie
New Yorker, May 10.
1961a Advisers Air Program of Health Unit. Advance ,
February 13 (Staten Island).
1961b Africa to Incas. News (Detroit, Michigan),
March 22.
1961c U-D Will Host Special Talks on African Ways.
Northwest Record, March 23.
1961d Trustees Grant Fourteen Faculty Leaves . . .
Vassar Miscellany News, May 10, 45(25)1, 6.
1961e Africa Lecture Slated. News (Detroit, Michigan),
October 13.
1961f Asks Truer Inca Study. News (Newark, New
Jersey), November 24.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
1961g Ethnologist Seeks True Inca Image. Sun, Novem-
ber 30 (Baltimore, Maryland).
1961i True Picture of Inca. Science News Letter 80(23):
364.
1962a LWV Announces Names of Series Patronesses.
Register, January 18 (New Haven, Connecticut).
1962b Second Lecture in LWV Series Set Wednesday.
Register, January 28 (New Haven, Connecticut).
c. 1964 [exact date unknown] En Hunuco habra
otro Machupicchu: As afirma catedrtico de
EU. La Prensa (Lima).
1966 Carnet Social. La Chrnica, February 10 (Lima).
1983 292 Receive Fellowships from Guggenheim
Fund. The New York Times, April 10, Metropoli-
tan Desk, Late City Final Edition, Section 1, p.
48.
2006a [Frederic W. Gleach] John V. Murra. Ithaca
Journal, p. 4A, October 25.
2006b John Murra, Anthropologist. International Herald
Tribune, News Section, October 25, p. 3.
2006c John Victor Murra. Lives in Brief. The Times
[London], November, 1. Features, p. 66a.
2006d Anthropologist J. Murra: Expert on Incan Em-
pire. Watertown Daily Times [New York],
November 3.
2007e Correction of October 24, 2007 Obituary about
John V. Murra Regarding Incident in his Life.
The New York Times, November 2, Late Edition,
final, Metropolitan Desk section, page 2.
n.d. (c. 1950) Untitled editorial denouncing John
Victor Murras citizenship application and his
hiring by Vassar College. National Republic Letter-
gram 222 (Washington, D.C.). The National
Republic Lettergram, an offshoot of The National
Republic magazine was edited by Walter S.
Steele, an anti-Communist activist
Castro Rojas, Victoria, Craig Morris, and Carlos Ivan De
gregori
2002 Homenaje a John Murra. Gaceta Arqueolgica
Andina 26:223-227.
Condarco Morales, Ramiro
1977 Un ataque a Murra. Presencia Literaria June 5, p.
2 (La Paz, Bolivia).
Collier, Donald
1942 Ecuador Expedition Returns. Field Museum News
13(3):3.
Contreras, Jess
1993 Solemne investidura de doctor honoris causa al
professor John V. Murra: Discurs de presentaci
pel professor Jess Contreras. Barcelona: Univer-
sitat (in Catalan and Spanish).
Fisher, Harry
1998 Comrades: Tales of a Brigadista in the Spanish Civil
War. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Contains many mentions of John Victor Murra
- 60
in the context of his participation in the Spanish
Civil War.
Friedman, Rosalind
1960 Anthropologists, Philosophers, Historian Attend
Conference. Vassar Miscellany News 44(13):1,
January 13 .
Gillespie, Adele
1950 Murra Speaks on Conditions Prevailing Now in
Puerto Rico. Vassar Miscellany News 35(9):3, 6,
November 22 .
Gleach, Frederic W. and Frank Salomon
2006 Death Notices: John V. Murra. Anthropology
News 47(9):36.
Gleach, Frederic W. with David Block, Jane Fajans, John
Henderson, David Holmberg, Eduardo Kohn, Heather
Lechtman, Frank Salomon, and Gabriela Vargas-Cetina
2006 Obituary: John V. Murra
http://www.ethnohistory.org/sections/news/
index. php ?id=17 (consulted 26 June 2009).
Glaser, June
1959 Experience in Peru Related by Murra. Vassar
Miscellany News 44(2):1, 4, September 30.
Harris, Olivia
2006 John Victor Murra: An Anthropologist Who
Dedicated Himself to Understanding the Incan
Civilization. Guardian, p. 39, November 4.
Spanish language translation published in conos
26:164-66 and on-line:
http://www.flacso.org.ec/docs/i27murra.pdf
[consulted 1 August 2009].
Henderson, John S. and Patricia J. Netherly
1993 Murra, Materialism, Anthropology, and the
Andes. In Configurations of Power: Holistic An-
thropology in Theory and Practice, pp. 1-8. Ithaca,
New York: Cornell University Press.
Hevesi, Dennis
2006 John V. Murra, 90, Professor Who Recast Image
of Incas, Dies. The New York Times, October 24.
On-line at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/24/obituaries
/24murra.html?scp=1&sq=%22John%20Victo
r%20Murra%22&st=cse (Consulted 4 June
2009, includes correction).
Hirschman, Joan
1955 Upper Classmen Interview Professors; Compare
Freshmen. Seniors in Class, Loss of Spontaneity
. . . Vassar Miscellany News, 40(11):3, December
7.
Honan, William H.
1992 U.S. Returns Stolen Ancient Textiles to Bolivia.
The New York Times, September 27, page 23.
Jenson, Peter
1965 A Traveling Exhibit in the Andes. Curator 8(3):
223-227.
61 - Block and Barnes: John V. Murra

Klineberg, Rosemary Bauer, Arnold J.

1954 Murra Conducts Discussion Group. Vassar 1976 Review of Formaciones econmicas y polticas del
Miscellany News, 39(7):3, November 3. mundo andino. Hispanic American Historical
Neira, Hugo Review 56(3):472-473.
2006 Hugo Neira comenta la trayectora de John Brading, David
Murra. Presencia Cultural, Televisin Nacional 1981 From the Peasants Point of View. Review of
del Per. Economic Organization of the Inca State. The Times
http:/www.presenciacultural.com/blog/index. Literary Supplement, August 14, p. 938 .
php?s=Murra&submit= Caballero, Antonio
(Consulted 4 June 2009). 1987 La tragedia (ilustrada) de la conquista. Review of
Raczynski, Christiane Nueva cornica y buen gobierno. Cambio 16, May
1995 John Murra: Conquistado por los Andes. El 5, pp. 144-145.
Comercio, E24, 29 October (Lima). Cahill, David
Redfield, Robert and Fay-Cooper Cole 1990 History and Anthropology in the Study of An-
1947 Case Against Murra. Letter to the Sun, January dean Societies. Review of Anthropological History
(Chicago, Illinois). of Andean Politics, edited by John Victor Murra,
Salomon, Frank Nathan Wachtel, and Jacques Revel, among
2007 John Victor Murra (1916-2006). American Anth- other books. Bulletin of Latin American Research
ropologist 109(4):793-795. 9(1):123-132.
Vsquez Aliaga, Jos Carter, William
1970 John Murra: Agudo peruanista. La Prensa, Sep- 1965 Review of Visita hecha a la provincia de Chucuito
tember 5 (Lima). por Garci Diez de San Miguel en el ao 1567.
Vega, Roberto American Anthropologist n.s. 67(5), part 1:1327-
1983 Un maestro de la historia del Tawantinsuyu. 1328.
Tiempo Argentino, 30 May, p. 7. Dwyer, Edward B.
Wachtel, Nathan 1976 Review of Formaciones econmicas y polticas del
1973 La reciprocidad y el Estado Inca: De Karl Polanyi a mundo andino. Ethnohistory 23(1):70-71.
John V. Murra. Lima: Publisher Unknown. Elliott, J. H.
Wakefield, Dan 1973 Review of Visita de la Provincia de Len de
1959 The Other Puerto Ricans: Headlines Have Ob- Hunuco en 1562, Volume 1 by Iigo Ortiz de
scured the Fight that Most Must Make Against Ziga. Journal of Latin American Studies
Slum Living and Intolerance. The New York 5(2):321.
Times Sunday Magazine, October 11, pp. 24, 25, Escajadillo, Toms
82-85. 1996 Reveladoras cartas. Review of Las cartas de
Zahner, Barbara Arguedas, edited by John Victor Murra and Mer-
1950 Profile Mr. Murra. Vassar Miscellany News, cedes Lpez-Baralt. Debate 18(91):63 (Per).
October 18, 35(4):3, 5. Faron, Louis C.
1965 Review of Visita hecha a la provincia de Chucuito
REVIEWS OF THE WORKS OF JOHN VICTOR MURRA por Garci Diez de San Miguel en el ao 1567.
Ethnohistory 12(3):263-265.
Alb, Xavier 1968 Review of Visita de la Provincia de Leon de
1983 Dos nuevas ediciones completas de Waman Hunuco en 1562, Volume 1 by Iigo Ortiz de
Puma. Review of El primer nueva cornica y buen Ziga. American Anthropologist 70(3):620-621.
gobierno by Guaman Poma de Ayala. Annales 1981 Review of Anthropologie historique des socits
E.S.C. 38(3):633-635. andines, edited by Jacques Revel, John Victor
Ballesteros Gaibrois, Manuel Murra, and Nathan Wachtel. Hispanic American
1987 Guaman Poma de Ayala, cronista indio, Review Historical Review 61(1):106-107.
of Nueva cornica y buen gobierno by Guaman Gose, Peter
Poma de Ayala. Historia 16, March, pp. 83-88. 1987 Review of Anthropological History of Andean
Bankes, George Polities edited by John Victor Murra, Nathan
1983 Review of The Economic Organization of the Inca Wachtel, and Jacques Revel. Man n.s.
State. Journal of Latin American Studies 15(1):199- 22(4):762-763.
200. Ganster, Paul
1974 Review of Visita de la provincia de Leon de Hunu-
co en 1562, Volume 2, Visita de los Yacha y
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Mitmaqkuna cuzqueos encomendados en Juan
Snchez Falcn by Iigo Ortiz de Ziga. Ameri- 1988
can Anthropologist 76(4):923-924.
Guarisco, Claudia
1992 Nuevo aporte de John Murra: Visita de los valles
de Sonqo. El Peruano, 9 September, pp. 6-7.
Higgins, James
1982 Review of El primer nueva cornica y buen gobierno
by Guaman Poma de Ayala. Bulletin of Hispanic
Studies 59:84-85.
Kjonegaard, Vernon
1982 Review of El primer nueva crnica y buen gobierno,
edited by John Victor Murra and Rolena Adorno
with Jorge L. Urioste. New Scholar 8(1, 2):442-
448.
Lavall, Bernard
1982 Review of El primer nueva crnica y buen gobierno,
edited by John Victor Murra and Rolena Adorno
with Jorge L. Urioste. Bulletin Hispanique 84(1-
2):226-227.
Loza, Carmen Beatriz
1992a Review in Spanish of Visita a los valles de Sonqo
en los yunka de coca de La Paz, 1568-1570. Revista
Andina 10(1):251-252.
1992b Another review in French of Visita a los valles de
Sonqo en los yunka de coca de La Paz, 1568-1570.
Journal de la Socit des Amricanistes 78(1):158-
161.
Ludea de la Vega, Guillermo
1985 Review of El primer nueva cornica y buen gobierno
by Guaman Poma de Ayala. El Comercio, 20
March (Lima).
Mallku (sic)
1977 Etnohistoria e ideologa. Review of Formaciones
econmicas y polticas del mundo andino. El Diario,
January 23, p. 10 (Bolivia).
Means, Philip Ainsworth
1944 Review of Survey and Excavation in Southern
Ecuador by Donald Collier and John Victor
Murra. American Anthropologist 9(3):366-367.
Middleton, DeWight R.
1977 Peasantries and Other Topics: South and Meso-
america. Reviews Formaciones econmicas y polti-
cas del mundo andino, among other works. Ameri-
can Anthropologist 79(1):98-104.
Millones, Luis
1982 Ethnohistorians and Andean Ethnohistory: A
Difficult Task, a Heterodox Discipline. A book
review article that evaluates La organizacin
econmica del estado inca and Formaciones econ-
micas y polticas del mundo andino, among other
books. Latin American Research Review
17(1):200-216.
- 62
Mitchell, William P.
Review of Etnografa e historia del mundo andino:
Continuidad y cambio, edited by Shozo Masuda
and of Anthropological History of Andean Polities,
edited by John Victor Murra, Nathan Wachtel,
and Jacques Revel. American Anthropologist
90(1):198-199.
Morris, Craig
1979 Review of La organizacin del estado Inca. Ameri-
can Anthropologist 81(4):922-924.
Moseley, Michael E.
1987 Review of Anthropological History of Andean
Polities, edited by John Victor Murra, Nathan
Wachtel, and Jacques Revel. Hispanic American
Historical Review 67(4):699-700.
Ortega, Julio
1981 Review of El primer nueva crnica y buen gobierno,
edited by John Victor Murra and Rolena Adorno
with Jorge L. Urioste. Vuelta 5(58):35-37.
Ossio, Juan M.
2001 Guaman Poma en Internet. Review of El primer
nueva cornica y buen gobierno (GKS 22324o) El
Comercio, El Dominical, 3 June (Lima) .
Pease, G. Y., Franklin
1973 Las visitas de Hunuco en el siglo XVI: Nuevas
Ediciones. Review of Visita de la Provincia de Len
de Hunuco en 1562 by Ortiz de Zuniga. El
Comercio, El Dominical, 4 February (Lima).
Peters, Ann H., and Calogero Santoro
2004 Reviews of El mundo andino: Poblacin, medio am-
biente, y economa. Chungar 36(1):241-245.
Schaedel, Richard P.
1968 Review of Visita hecha a la provincia de Chucuito
por Garci Diez de San Miguel en el ao 1567. Chu-
cuito. Hispanic American Historical Review
48(2):290-292.
1969 Review of Visita de la Provincia de Len de Hunu-
co en 1562. by Iigo Ortiz de Ziga. Hispanic
American Historical Review 49(3):542-544.
1977 Review of Formaciones econmicas y polticas del
mundo andino. Hispanic American Historical
Review 42(1):129-131.
Silverblatt, Irene
1989 Review of Anthropological History of Andean
Polities, edited by John Victor Murra, Nathan
Wachtel, and Jacques Revel. American Ethnolo-
gist 16(2):400-401.
Spector, Ivan
1952 Review of The Soviet Linguistic Controversy by
John Victor Murra, Robert M. Hankin, and Fred
Holling, among other works. American Slavic and
East European Review 11(1):82-83.
Villamarin, Juan A.
1989 Review of Anthropological History of Andean
Politics, edited by John Victor Murra, Nathan
63 - Block and Barnes: John V. Murra

Wachtel, and Jacques Revel. Ethnohistory

36(2):204-206.
2005 Review of Historia General de Amrica Latina,
Volume 1, Los sociedades originarias, edited by
Teresa Rojas Rabiela and John Victor Murra.
Hispanic American Historical Review 85(3):499-
500.
Weinberg, Gregorio
1982 Crnica, alegato y utopa, review of El primer
nueva cornica y buen gobierno by Guaman Poma
de Ayala. La Nacin, 14 February, pp. 2-3,
(Buenos Aires); also published in El Comercio 20
March, 1985 (Lima).
Willey, Gordon R.
1944 Review of Survey and Excavations in Southern
Ecuador by Donald Collier and John Victor
Murra. American Anthropologist 46(1, part
1):129-131. Reconstruction of Hunuco Pampa as directed by
Zuidema, R. Tom John Victor Murra and Gordon Hadden (1966). Photo
1982 Review of El primer nueva crnica y buen gobierno, courtesy of the Anthropology Division,
edited by John V. Murra and Rolena Adorno American Museum of Natural History.
with Jorge L. Urioste. Latin American Indian
Literatures 6(2):126-132.

Bibliography compiled by David Block, Bibliographer,

Benson Latin American Collection,
University of Texas at Austin
and Monica Barnes

29 October 2009
 JOHN VICTOR MURRA: A MENTOR TO WOMEN

John Victor Murra in his official portrait as the first National Science Foundation
Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution (1966-67)

INTRODUCTION what it means to have been his student and

Heather Lechtman
and Freda Yancy Wolf de Romero
In considering a contribution to the special
section of Andean Past 9 that honors John
Murra and that documents an historic era in
Andean anthropology, both of us agreed that a
unique contribution should come from women
who were students and colleagues of John
Murra. The most accurate and honest way to
document the strong support and unwavering
commitment Murra gave to women at various
stages in their intellectual and professional lives
was to ask them to write their own versions of
colleague and to have been mentored by him.
We contacted a few womenthere are many
morefrom North and South America and
asked each to comment on the ways in which
Murra affected her development and maturation
as an anthropologist. We added our own
perspectives. It is remarkable to see the
similarities in these accounts, not having
consulted with each other. As Freda notes,
How quickly we recognized him, and perhaps
he us. Some of the women whose texts appear
here were students of John Murra. All of us
were his colleagues.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009): 65-85.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
ANTHROPOLOGY IS MY VILLAGE
HEATHER LECHTMAN
Cambridge, Massachusetts
The Andean achievement is to combine such
very different things into a single system.
There is a tendency in the social and human
sciences to diminish differences. Then there is
the other stance, which is mine, that wants to
emphasize, to the point of exaggeration, the
Andean achievement, the effort it took to
combine all of that. Anthropology is the
science of differences, whereas science in
general is the systematic knowledge of
uniformities. But ours, no. Ours is a paean to
difference.1
(John Murra, in Castro et al. 2000:140-142.
Translation by the author)
I knew John Murra for 54 years. We met in
1952, when he was a new lecturer in
anthropology at Vassar College and I was a
sixteen year old freshwoman determined to
study physics there. During those 54 years I
would say that the two most consequential and
persistent identities he allowed himself were as
a soldier in the International Brigades of the
Spanish Civil War and as an anthropologist.
Murra refused to be consigned to any
category, a social tendency in the U.S. that he
hated. Born in Russia, he was no Russian, nor
did he consider himself Romanian, though he
left Romania for the United States at the age of
seventeen. He did not want or need a
nationality. When abroad he might respond
1
El logro de lo andino es combinar en un solo sistema
cosas tan distintas. Es que hay una tendencia en las
ciencias sociales y humanas a reducir diferencias. Y hay la
otra posicin, que es la ma, de querer enfatizar y hasta
exagerar el logro, el esfuerzo que toma combinar todo esto.
La Antropologa es la ciencia de las Diferencias. Mientras
que la ciencia en general, es la ciencia de Uniformidades.
Y lo nuestro no. Lo nuestro es un canto de la diferencia.
- 66
when questioned that he was from North
America. By his east European upbringing he
was culturally very much a Jew, but he avoided
any affiliations, personal, political, or otherwise
with Jews that might have been founded on a
sense of shared roots.
Murra was a soldier in the international
army that helped the people of Spain fight
against fascism. The only identity card he
carried with him and curated protectively
throughout his life was his Livret Militaire, issued
on 14 April 1937 by the Ministerio de Defensa
Nacional, Repblica Espaola, Brigadas Interna-
cionales, Ejrcito de Tierra. For political party,
the ministerio entered Antifascist. For
profession, Student of Archaeology. By 15
May 1938 the carnet registers Murra as
Squadron Leader in the 15th Brigade. I have
Murras International Brigade carnet and will
deliver it to the Archive of the Abraham
Lincoln Brigade, located at the Tamiment
Library, New York University.
However, it is his identity as an
anthropologist that Murras students
experienced and that most of us appropriated.
For Murra, anthropology was a way of life, an
attitude by which one could relate to, capture
the peopled world, and recognize the
multiplicity of solutions humans devised to
manage that world. In his several day interview
with his Chilean colleaguesVictoria Castro,
Carlos Aldunate, and Jorge Hidalgo (2000)he
makes his position clear. Ever since he
discovered anthropology at the age of eighteen,
in Radcliffe-Browns2 classes at the University of
Chicago, his concerns both as a social scientist
and as a political actor on this planet remained
anthropological concerns. He declared himself
an anthropologist, first and foremost, because he
was interested in and invested in an alternative
to the world in which we live presently. If there
2
For Radcliffe-Brown see Barnes, this volume, note 8.
67 -
were no interest in human diversity, there would
be no anthropology (2000:75).
When I studied at Vassar, from 1952 to
1956, there was one constant theme he
drummed into us, regardless of the subject
matter of the course: the existence and
continuity of cultural differences. Murras eye
was always on the multiplicity and adaptability
of solutions to what is essentially the human
social condition. The responsibility of
anthropology was to discover, to broadcast, and
to champion human social and cultural
diversity. That responsibility was not only his,
he made it ours. He insisted that the
fundamental contributions anthropology made
to social science were the concept of culture and
the methodology of field-work.
During my Vassar years Murra did not offer
classes on the Andean world. After his legal
battle in the federal courts to be accorded U.S.
citizenship, which he won in 1950, the
government still denied him a passport. He was
unable to travel to the Andes until 1956 when
his passport was issued. Instead, Murra taught
about African societies, especially because he
was seriously involved in the political viabilities
of newly established nations, such as Ghana and
Nigeria. He taught about the Nuer and the
indigenous peoples of the North American
Plains. We learned about culture.
But there was something else I recognized in
Murra, long after having graduated from Vassar,
that influenced my own intellectual trajectory
profoundly. He was as interested in and excited
by new approaches, uncommon methods by
which to represent human diversity as in
diversity itself. We all consider Murra an ethno-
historian. But he defined ethnohistory in his
own terms: By ethnohistory I mean that I am
going to excavate but I am also going to read
documents (2000:80). It was that new
combination of methodological approaches that
John V. Murra: A Mentor to Women
characterized his structuring of the Hunuco
Viejo project in 1958. Archaeology and history
were of a piece for Murra. He was unwilling to
draw firm distinctions, to construct boundaries
between them.
I had met Murra in New York briefly in
1952, one month before beginning college. I
decided to enroll in one of his anthropology
classes. I wound up taking every anthropology
course he and Helen Codere3 taught at Vassar
and graduated with a double major, in physics
and anthropology. My entire career has involved
an effort to mesh the two fields, to contribute to
anthropology from a platform built upon the
physical and engineering sciences.
Murra never tried to dissuade me from
studying physics, nor did he exert pressure to
focus my energies and interests solely on
anthropology. He described himself as
interstitial, as operating between systems
rather than wholly within them. He understood
what it took me decades to realize, that being
interstitial locates one at interfaces, which is
where the action is. In his own way he let me
know that it was O.K. to be an interstitial. His
goal was to discern and present cultural diversity
through the mechanisms of anthropology. Those
goals became mine. I understood that I might
approach them with tools that could become
tools of anthropology. Developing the tools was
my responsibility. It was a responsibility that
could stand as my reciprocal exchange with
Murrastudent to teacher.
I did not continue with graduate school in
cultural anthropology or in archaeology. Yet my
materials engineering research that is focused on
Andean prehistoric production technologies has
been guided by a concern for identifying the
culture of technologies. What was Andean
about Andean metallurgy, and how and why did
3
For Codere see Barnes, this volume, note 42.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 68

it differ from metallurgies that developed in When I introduce students to my graduate,

equally sophisticated ways in other ancient
social settings? Ultimately my Andean studies
led me to propose not only that technologies are
culture bearing and culture producing systems,
but that they may represent and display ethno-
categories by which people order experience.
Ethnocategories are rendered through
technological behavior just as they are rendered
linguistically. The utility of a materials-
archaeological approach, of focusing on what
and how people do rather than on what and how
they say, is that it confines us to detailed
scrutiny of materials and their relationships in
practice. Ethnocategories arise from patterns of
technological practice, whether or not those
patterns are labeled linguistically (Lechtman
1999: 223, 230).
two semester seminar and laboratory classes in
the materials science of material culture, I begin
my remarks by assuring them that the class in
which they are enrolled is not a class in
laboratory analytical procedures, nor is it a how
to class. It is an anthropology class.
Murra hated when North Americans asked
him what he did. I learned to hate the question
too. Usually I respond that I am a New Yorker.
Only when pressed by those I admire do I reply,
I am an anthropologist. Murra often declared,
Anthropology is my village. What he gave
mewhat he gave to all his studentswas his
village.
REFERENCES CITED

Castro, Victoria, Carlos Aldunate, Jorge Hidalgo, editors

For Murra it was much more than O.K. for
me to be interstitial. It was important, and with
time we both understood his ease with respect
to my dual professional education and his
support for the ways in which my contributions
to anthropology were expressed. His support
helped me focus, and it surprised neither of us
that my focus aimed at discerning cultural
features of Andean technological behavior.
2000 Nispa Ninchis: Decimos Diciendo, Conversaciones
con John Murra. Lima: Instituto de Estudios
Peruanos and New York: Institute of Andean
Research.
Lechtman, Heather
1999 Afterword. In The Social Dynamics of Technology,
edited by Marcia-Anne Dobres and Christopher
R. Hoffman, pp. 223-232. Washington, D.C.:
Smithsonian Institution Press.

John Victor Murra (second from viewers left) wearing two academic decorations presented to him on his 82nd
birthday, August 24, 1998, by the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos and the Universidad Nacional
San Antonio Abad del Cusco. Seated outside the Centro Cultural de San Marcos (La Casona) are, from left to
right, AnaMara Soldi, John Murra, Heather Lechtman, and Freda Wolf (photo: courtesy of Heather Lechtman).
69 -
MENTORS AS INTELLECTUAL PARENTS
FREDA YANCY WOLF DE ROMERO
Lima, Peru
Death ends a life. But it does not end a
relationship (Robert Anderson, I Never
Sang for My Father, 1966)
The personal relationship one has with a
mentor or intellectual father or mother is often
ignored. It is important to recognize that such
relationships are significant in academic
disciplines, as they are in life in general, and are
very much part of what graduate schools advo-
cate as scholars learning from scholars. Just as
we feel some aspects of our childhood and
family relationships were good or bad and the Hunuco visita (Ortiz 1967 [1562]) and
these perceptions consciously or unconsciously
affect how we relate to the world, they also exist
in our professional and intellectual lives and
what we want to accomplish and pass on, trying
to improve or equal what we received from
others. Teachers are important all through life
to help fill the gaps and empty spaces in our
experience and early family life.
I met John Murra in the spring of 1963 at
the American Ethnological Society meeting at
Cornell University. I was 20 and a sophomore at
Barnard about to go to Mexico for a first field
experience with Gary Martin, a student of
Murra and Sidney Mintz1 at Yale, who was
giving a paper in the Elsie Clews Parsons2 essay
1
For Mintz see Barnes, this volume, note 60.
2
Elsie Clews Parsons (1875-1941) received her doctorate
in sociology from Columbia University (1899). She was a
founder of the New School for Social Research and of the
American School of Research, the first female president of
the American Anthropological Association, and president
of the American Ethnological Society. For over twenty
years she was an associate of the Journal of American
Folklore. Her publications include The Social Organization
of the Tewa of New Mexico (1929), Hopi and Zuni Cere-
monialism (1933), Pueblo Indian Religion (1939), and Mitla:
John V. Murra: A Mentor to Women
competition. Murra, at that point, was about to
begin the Hunuco Project, about which he
spoke at the AES meetings. Murra, Martin, and
I drove from Ithaca back to New York City
together. It was a magical trip. Murra was in his
element. He was a terrific actor with a dynamic
stage presence who found his best voice when
he was in front of an audience, so he was in
excellent form in the afterglow from the AES
meetings. He also loved nothing better than a
young audience who hung on his every word,
which we certainly did. In addition to giving us
insightful advice about our upcoming field
experience and Mexico, he told us about the
forthcoming multidisciplinary Hunuco project
encompassing ethnohistory, archaeology,
ethnobotany, and ethnology. He talked about
about Peru and psychoanalysis and made me see
the world in a way I had never seen it before. I
had also never met a 46 year old man who was
so alive and open to change.
I had already recognized I was an anthro-
pologist, which is not something you choose, but
something you discover about yourself. When I
heard my first lecture in physical anthropology
as a freshman, I could finally put a name to what
I knew I was, even though I also knew it was not
physical anthropology that I wanted to do.
Courses in other disciplines just seemed to be
bad anthropology, and I graduated from Barnard
with more than double the number of credits I
needed for the major.
I served an apprenticeship with Murra on
and off for several years, and in exchange I was
his assistant. My own father died when I was a
child and my experience with John patched over
Town of the Souls (1936). Every other year the American
Ethnological Society awards the Elsie Clews Parsons prize
for a graduate student paper. Her obituary by Leslie Spier
and A.L. Kroeber appeared in a 1943 number of the
American Anthropologist.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
some of the paternal gap. I think of Murra as my
intellectual father. I acted as a sounding board
for him and helped him write, which was not a
simple task. This was partly because English,
which he spoke very well, was not his mother
tongue, but mostly because it was very hard for
him to just spill out all the information he had
worked so hard to glean and understand, so that
just anybody could read it, and besides,
somebody might say he was wrong. This last is
really more realistic than paranoid, because in
anthropology there is almost nothing one can
say about a culture and even less about culture
or cultures in general that is not controversial.
He also wrote better when he had someone to
accompany him, argue with him, to rejoice with
him at those eureka moments, and to blame
when he was lit up by a possible connection
which didnt pan out. He told me he could only
write with Karl Reisman,3 Irving Goldman4 and
me. I never met the other two so cannot
generalize.
We do not always choose what we learn
from our mentors and our teachers. Murra once
3
Karl Reisman earned a Ph.D. in social anthropology
with a speciality in anthropological linguistics. He has
published articles on aspects of the language and culture
of the West Indies and of Africa.
4
Irving Goldman (1911-2002) was one of Franz Boas last
students. A life-long resident of Brooklyn, he was John
Murras neighbor for a time. From 1936 to 1942 he was a
member of the Communist Party. Goldman did field-work
with the Modoc of Oregon (1934), with the Alkatcho
Carrier of British Columbia (1935-36), and with the
Cubeo of the Amazon (1939), as well as library research
on other groups. He was interested in issues of culture
change and political evolution, often re-interpreting
anthropological works. Among his publications are The
Cubeo: Indians of the Northwest Amazon (1963); Ancient
Polynesian Society (1970), an analysis of the regions status
systems, and The Mouth of Heaven (1975), on the Kwa-
kiutl (now designated the Kwakwaka'wakw). From 1949
to 1980 he taught at Sarah Lawrence College. An obituary
of Goldman by Paula Rubel and Abraham Rosman ap-
peared in the December 2003 issue of American Anthropol-
ogist.
- 70
remarked he learned how to answer the phone
from Robert Redfield,5 to whom I think he was
an assistant in the Chicago days. An
anthropologist he held in great esteem was Ruth
Benedict,6 with whom he had also worked in the
early days. I think because of his own difficulties
in liberating himself, he tried to help women to
liberate themselves. In 1964, he gave me Doris
Lessings The Golden Notebook, now a feminist
classic, but at the time the novel had only been
published a couple of years before. He very
much approved of people creating themselves
and changing their names to fit the new person
they had become; he favored psychoanalysis. He
had particular sympathy for women. I think he
was especially sensitive to and intrigued by
women because mothering was the largest gap in
his own childhood. He especially sympathized
with prom queens, lonely, shy intellectuals, and
nuns, and others who felt trapped by what other
people expected of them. He accepted you as
you were, was supportive of what you wanted to
do, and very good about helping you find where
it fit the larger anthropological picture, and
finding ways of doing it.
Murra always took women seriously, treating
us with an intellectual respect I had not always
found at Barnard, and in the beginning I was
very young and knew virtually nothing about
the Andes. He emphasized the importance of
field-work, and of knowing the people well
where you were doing field-work. This included
not only the people whose culture you were
studying, but also local intellectuals. It was
essential to participate in the culture of
anthropology in the country where you did
research, and to maintain long-term
relationships (read lifetime commitments) both
with colleagues and informants. You could not
ever really know the culture unless you spoke
5
For Redfield see Barnes, this volume, note 11.
6
For Benedict see Barnes, this volume, note 32.
71 -
the local indigenous language as well as the
national language, in the latter case, well
enough to perform professional acts such as
giving papers, publishing results, teaching,
attending professional meetings, and
participating in, or helping form, the discipline
of anthropology in the country where you did
research. It was the way to protect
anthropology, not to mention the fact that we
will never have a true anthropology until we
have anthropologists of all different cultural
backgrounds. He believed in anthropology for its
importance to the informants themselves, who
were always the people who had a vested
interest in their own culture and history. One of
his favorite examples was how important Ruth
Landes work with the Mdewakantonwan
Santee (called by others the Mystic Lake Sioux)
was to the Santee themselves, when years after
her field-work they realized they had lost a lot of
their culture and were trying to retrieve it. He
was always aware of the importance of trying to
find out as much as possible about the Andean
past because it was important to Andean people
to know their own past, to be able to shape an
authentic identity of their own. Andean peoples
have only recently begun to have even limited
space in the history books used in their national
schools.
My own ethnohistorical work was with the
sixteenth and early seventeenth century Ay-
mara and Quechua dictionaries, grammar books,
and manuals written by Catholic priests as aids
in their proselytization efforts. I did a study of
Aymara kinship based on the terminology and
information found in these sources, kinship
being a particular concern of the church. In Juli
on Lake Titicaca, I copied and photographed
about eighty parish books recording births,
deaths, and baptisms, all in the European system
but with the occasional Andean detail that
made it all worthwhile, especially because most
of the early books are organized in terms of
Andean ayllus from 1621 until roughly the time
John V. Murra: A Mentor to Women
of independence (1821). Searching Catholic
parish records from the former Lupaqa kingdom
to study Aymara social organization historically
was, of course, very much in the Murra
tradition. I even found a baptism book in one of
the coastal valleys where the Lupaqa had
islands of resources where they cultivated
crops that couldnt be grown in their altiplano
kingdom. In the 1670s their descendants were
still in the coastal valley and still claiming
membership in the ayllus located up above in
the seven divisions of the Lupaqa kingdom. In
addition to the usual participation in
anthropology and ethnohistory meetings in
Lima and Cusco, I taught an anthropology
course to young people from rural zones around
Puno as part of a teacher training course in a
normal school in Puno, and participated with
international development teams in writing new
bilingual textbooks in Aymara-Spanish and in
Quechua-Spanish, teaching them anthropology,
and suggesting chapters on local themes such as
planting, harvesting, and fiestas.
It is sometimes surprising to realize what we
have internalized from our mentors and
intellectual fathers and mothers, the parts of
them that live within us. I think I trained in
psychoanalytic psychotherapy largely due to
Murras indirect influence, and, although my
interest began with cultural anthropology and
ethnohistory, it moved toward the interface of
culture and psychology. While I did not follow
an academic career, Murra greatly influenced
the work I did in ethnohistory, my writing, work
with patients, and also my personal and family
life. Having married into a Peruvian family and
raising children in Peru, keeping or regaining a
cultural perspective certainly saved my sanity on
more than one occasion. Murra looked upon
everything as anthropology and was often
frustrated by his departmental colleagues in the
universities in which he taught because they
didnt apply anthropology to themselves or the
world around them. In the case of women
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Murra recognized the huge difference womens
reproductive cycle and child-rearing activities,
as well as their culturally ascribed roles, make in
their professional lives, and was good at
considering individual strategies in working with
these differences, as well as building on the
peculiarities of personal backgrounds. He also
recognized the value of the motherhood
experience. I once commented to Murra about
the differences between the conversations of
groups of women and those of groups of men.
He looked thoughtful, and said, But at least the
women talk about real things.
Murra was complex, conflictive, brilliant,
and an anthropologists anthropologist. He was
true to anthropology and his friends, though
often nicer behind your back than to your face.
Anthropology was not just his profession or his
discipline, it really was his village, although it
stretched over the globe, and particularly in
Europe, the United States, and Latin America,
he had friends who cared deeply about him.
Anthropology is where he lived, it is what he
loved, what he defended. He left us a rich legacy
which is internalized within us as much as it
exists on library shelves and has become an
integral part of our vision of the Andean world
and anthropology. He never tried to persuade or
dissuade us that we could or could not do
anything as women, he always assumed we
could. And thank heaven, he did not make
being married a requirement for women to be
able to go into the field as Boas did with his very
famous women students Ruth Benedict, Ruth
Landes,7 and Margaret Mead.8
7
Ruth Landes (1908-1991) did field-work among the
Objibwa, the Dakota, and the Potawatomi, obtaining a
doctorate in 1935. On this basis she published Ojibwa
Sociology (1937), Ojibwa Woman (1938), Ojibwa Religion
and the Midwiwin (1968), and The Mystic Lake Sioux
(1968). Landes pioneered the study of race and gender
relations, interests reflected in her study of candombl, an
Afro-Brazilian religion (City of Women 1947). Landes had
strong interests in Afro-American, Jewish, Mexican, and
- 72
AN EXTRAORDINARY TEACHER
WHO TAUGHT ALL THE TIME
PATRICIA NETHERLY
Nashville, Tennessee
I have always felt privileged to have had the
opportunity to train under John Murra. That
this opportunity came my way was largely his
doing. We met in 1966, at a seminar at la
Catlica, a university in Lima where I was
studying in the doctoral program in history.
John was just finishing the Hunuco Project and
still had research materials to hand. He sat me
down to practice paleography on a microfilmed
roll of notarial documentsall in letra cadinilla
which in the hands of sixteenth century
notaries clerks became a kind of shorthand. I
could not make much progress, but my
perseverance was sufficient to earn me an
invitation to apply to Cornell for graduate work.
John Murra was an extraordinary teacher,
and he taught all the time. The first semester of
graduate school began the summer before with
an intensive Quechua course where John was
one of the students. He believed that knowing
this language was indispensable for a full
understanding of Andean culture in the present,
and in the past. To an unusual degree, John
directed his teaching toward students and
scholars from the Andean region. That first
semester we met twice a week with the late
Csar Fonseca Martel, who had carried out
ethnographic research as part of the Hunuco
project. Csar was attempting to map out the
meaning of the term ayllu. None of us knew at
the start exactly where the full meaning lay, but
John kept asking questions with exquisite
patience until the moment arrived when the
Louisiana Acadian cultures. Her biography, Ruth Landes:
A Life in Anthropology is by Sally Cooper Cole (2002).
8
For Mead see Barnes, this volume, note 33.
73 -
breakthrough in understanding finally came to
Csar and to us all.
Above all, the lesson and the legacy which
infused Johns work were his profound respect
for, and understanding of, the peoples of the
Andes and their achievements. He celebrated
their mastery of a harsh and exacting
environment and the skills they demonstrated in
farming, herding, water management, and
weaving. Beyond the study of living people,
Murra looked to colonial administrative records,
particularly the visitas, or official inspection
tours, where local leaders sought to explain their
culture to the Spaniards. His honesty and rigor
in the use of these materials can be seen in the
way he laid out the words of Andean people in
full quotation. His careful editions of colonial
visitas and other documents, which he
encouraged his former students and colleagues
to publish, are his achievement and his enduring
memorial to the creators of Andean civilization.
I had originally trained as an historian.
Studying in Peru had opened the possibility of
combining archaeology and linguistics with
history in the study of the past, but I had a very
hazy idea of anthropology and ethnohistory
when I began to work with John Murra as a
graduate student. In truth, I was a bit more
ecumenical than he was comfortable with.
However, one of Murras sterling virtues as a
graduate adviser was that while he insisted that
you do something in a particular way, he did not
stand in the way of your doing it. It is hard for
bright women to realize their potential. I didnt
go to graduate school in the United States until
after I had discovered or been discovered by promoted. A short time later I prepared an
John Murra. It probably would be better to say
recognized: we mutually recognized each other.
John was remarkably patient with the travails of
balancing career and family and was always kind
to my children in an Old World avuncular way.
This goes way beyond the formal academic
John V. Murra: A Mentor to Women
relationship and is a credit to his extraordinary
humanity.
KICKING OFF A NEW PERSPECTIVE IN
ETHNOHISTORY
ANA MARA LORANDI
Buenos Aires, Argentina
I had the opportunity to get to know John
Victor Murra, and to speak with him
extensively, during a rock art conference which
took place in Hunuco, Peru in 1967. At that
time I was conducting archaeological research in
northwestern Argentina and had a general
background in the Andean world. The date is
very significant because, during these years,
Murra was kicking off a new perspective in
ethnohistory, approaching colonial sources with
the eye of an anthropologist. Murra had been
working on the interdisciplinary project of
Hunuco Pampa and had analyzed the earliest
visitas (colonial inspection tour reports). On this
occasion he presented his model of vertical
control of ecological niches, or archipelagos
as he later called them. Along with other
congress participants we made an excursion to
the great Inca tambo, and, without any doubt,
this first direct contact with Tawantinsuyu,
guided by Murras fascinating discourse, was the
first change in direction of my professional
career.
From this moment we remained in contact
and my research, as well as the courses I offered
at the Universidad de la Plata, reflected the
interdisciplinary perspective which Murra
article in which I analyzed and compared
various models, presenting a global focus on
social interaction in the Andean world from the
double perspective of archaeology and ethno-
history (Lorandi 1977). These frameworks were
Murras model of vertical control (Murra 1972),
Augusto Cardichs study of the upper limits of
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
cultivation (Cardich 1975), and the Huari y Lla-
cuaz article by Pierre Duviols (Duviols 1973), an
exploration of the prehispanic dual organization
of farmers and herders. In the original work I
also incorporated an analysis of Mara Rostwo-
rowskis coastal dynamics (Rostworowski 1974),
but because of problems with length I had to
eliminate it. Murra really appreciated my
analytic approach. When, in 1971, I visited him
in New York and accompanied him to Yale
University where he taught at that time, he
encouraged me to disseminate my work. It was
subsequently published in France (Lorandi
1978) and in England (Lorandi 1986) as a
synthesis. On this trip to the United States, on
his advice, and through the contacts he gave
me, I visited the Universities of Illinois and
Michigan and gave seminars in those places.
In the following years, even though I
continued with my archaeological research in
Argentina, I kept abreast with developments in
ethnohistory, and each encounter with Murra at
different congresses, plus our frequent exchange
of letters, increased my interest in the subject.
However, the years I lived in Paris, 1976 to
1979, plus earlier visits, were decisive and
produced a substantial change in the course of
my professional career. I offered seminars at the
cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales,
but, more importantly, I attended those offered
by Nathan Wachtel1 and his group in which, in
1978, John Murra also participated. Murras
pioneering teaching was the central axis of the
themes tackled.
1
Editors note: Nathan Wachtel is Professor of History and
the Anthropology of South and Meso-American Societies
at the Collge de France and Director of Studies at the
cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales. Among his
published works are Vision des vaincus: Les indien du Prou
devant la conqut espagnole (1971), Anthropologie historique
des socits andines (edited with Jacques Revel and John V.
Murra, 1978), and Dieux et vampires: Retour Chipaya
(1992).
- 74
When I returned to Argentina in 1980, I
began my first ethnohistorical research and
progressively I abandoned archaeology. In 1984
the Universidad de Buenos Aires offered me the
directorship of the Instituto de Ciencias
Anthropolgicas of the Faculty of Philosophy
and Letters. The following year I founded the
Ethnohistory Section within the Institute. From
then on I could dedicate myself completely to
developing this discipline which lacked up-to-
date specialists in Argentina. I devoted myself to
research, but above all, to training new students
who incorporated John Murras teaching into a
core understanding of the Andean world. Murra
visited us in 1982 and in 1988 and participated
in the First Congress of Ethnohistory (Primer
Congreso de Etnohistoria) which I organized in
Buenos Aires in 1989, an occasion on which he
was paid a special tribute.
Murra was my tie to the academic world
outside my country. Frequently I met foreign
specialists who, when I presented myself,
immediately told me, Ah. John Murra has
spoken to me very favorably of you! I always
had the feeling that he had been the promoter
of my professional career, but, above all, that he
had made a substantial change in my life. I
recognize that I embraced ethnohistory with
much greater passion than archaeology, perhaps
because my original education in history allowed
me to involve myself in a more humanistic
manner with Andean society which, even
though modified by the long colonial process,
still retains the cultural pattern which Murra
identified as the essence of lo andinoor
Andean-ness.
In personal terms I can say that in ethno-
history I found my place in the world, not only
with the subjects I researched, but also through
the chance to educate students, and to develop
the discipline in my country. Without John
Victor Murra my life would have been different.
It was my good fortune that we met on lifes
75 -
road when I was just 31 years old and could re-
orientate myself thanks to this great teacher of
teachers.
Translated from the Spanish by Monica Barnes
REFERENCES CITED
Cardich, Augusto
1975 Agricultores y pastores en Lauricocha y lmites
superiores del cultivo. Revista del Museo Nacional
41:11-36 (Lima).
Duviols, Pierre
1973 Huari y Llacuaz: Agricultores y pastores: Un
dualismo prehispnico de oposicin y comple-
mentariedad. Revista de Museo Nacional 39: 95-
117 (Lima).
Lorandi, Ana Mara
1977 Arqueologa y etnohistoria: Hacia una visin
totalizadora del Mundo Andino. In Obra del
centenario del Museo de La Plata, Volume 2, pp.
27-50. La Plata, Argentina: Facultad de Ciencias
Naturales y Museo.
1978 Les horizons andines: Critique dun modle.
Annales: Economie, Societ, Civilization 33(5-
6):921-926. Special issue edited by Jacques
Revel, John Victor Murra, and Nathan Wachtel.
1986 Horizons in Andean Archaeology. In Anthro-
pological History of Andean Polities, edited by John
Victor Murra, Nathan Wachtel, and Jacques
Revel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
and Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de
lHomme.
Murra, John Victor
1972 El Control vertical de un mximo de pisos ecol-
gicos en la economa de las sociedades andinas.
In Visita de la provincia de Len de Hunuco en
1562 by Iigo Ortiz de Ziga, edited by John V.
Murra, Volume 2, Visita de los Yacha y mitmaq-
kuna cuzqueos encomendados en Juan Sanchez
Falcon, transcribed by Felipe Mrquez Abanto,
pp. 427-476. Hunuco, Per: Universidad Na-
cional Hermilio Valdizn, Facultad de Letras y
Educacin, Series Documentos para la Historia
y Etnologa de Hunuco y la Selva Central.
Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, Mara
1974 Pescadores, artesanos y mercaderes costeos en
el Per prehispnico. Revista del Museo Nacional
41:311-349.
John V. Murra: A Mentor to Women
THE ABILITY TO BESTOW CONFIDENCE AND
STIMULATE NEW IDEAS
VICTORIA CASTRO
Santiago de Chile
No one can doubt John Murras ability to
bestow confidence and stimulate new ideas
among his students. The notable thing about
this surprising relationship is that he never
discriminated in this form of instruction
between men and women. He simply
appreciated the modesty, talent, and honesty of
people.
I first met John Murra in 1971 when I was
an anthropology student. On the occasion of
the Congress of Archaeology we received
visitors at the University of Chile and I was
dazzled by two teachers, John Victor Murra and
Luis Guillermo Lumbreras.1 Both embodied a
dynamic notion of history, and of the Andean
world, for sure. Their commitment to work left
an indelible imprint on me, and also significantly
marked my path in life, as a graduate student, as
a teacher, and as a researcher, up to the present.
The summer school course which John
taught at the University of Chile in January
1984 included an analysis of the possibilities of
the comparative method, the topic of exchange,
the new work of Nathan Wachtel2 in Cocha-
bamba, Bolivia on the collca or storehouses of
the Inca, along with criticism of Murras own
work, and the inculcation of the necessity to
study and republish documents continuously.
Among the themes to which he called our
attention was the miracle of the potato,
ethnological advances, and work in native
languages up to and including recent Andean
1
Editors note: for Lumbreras, see Barnes, this volume,
note 90.
2
Editors note: for Wachtel see Lorandi, note 1.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
ethno-astronomy, to say nothing of his closest
specialities such as changes in, and the
expansion of, Tawantinsuyu; weavers and
potters; coca fields; and mullu or Spondylus shell.
When I presented him with the proposal for
my masters thesis, directed by Rolando Mellafe
at the University of Chile he commented to me:
. . . The thesis project. I will tell you that
the plan of study seems to me to be only a
first approximation . . . But, you also have
to tell yourself that I have never studied
religious phenomena, and I dont feel
prepared, on one hand, but on the other
hand, the fact is that these themes attract
me. I have had many debates with [Pierre]
Duviols3 on the theme to the point that he
believes that I must occupy myself with it,
an area in which I know very well that I
dont have any sensibilities and I dont
touch such themes. I was reared in an
atmosphere in which the anti-clerical
struggle was a fundamental element, and
this has left psychological roots, although
not intellectual ones.
Now I know through the reading of so
many old papers that there was always an
important struggle involving the priests
and friars of the first century and a half of
the colonial occupation . . . I believe that
this isnt reflected in your project. Even
though we dont have direct data on the
Andean population, we can focus on the
reflection of what happens in the
ecclesiastical literature (Murra, personal
communication, 25 February 1986).4
3
Editors note: for Duviols see Barnes, this volume, note
54.
4
. . . el proyecto de tesis. Te dir que el programa me
parece slo un primer bosquejo. . . Pero tambin tienes
que darte cuenta que yo nunca he estudiado fenmenos
religiosos, ya que no me siento preparado, por un lado,
- 76
During the course of my research, on a visit
to Santiago, I gave him the work to read, and so
that he could comment upon the first chapter of
this thesis, in which, to some extent, I had
considered his suggestions. Eleven years later he
wrote from Madrid, Congratulations on having
finished the thesis! And its 530 pages! Who
else could have shared the joy, although I had
delayed eleven years in finishing Huacca
muchay: Evangelizacin y religin andina en Char-
cas, Atacama colonial (Huaca Worship: Evangeli-
zation and Andean Religion in Charcas, Colonial
Atacama).
At some point I sent him a work on terraces,
a small article in a scientific journal, and he
wrote to me that,
This is a theme which merits a great deal
of attention . . . One of the agreeable
things about Creces is seeing your name as
an author identified with the Universidad
de Chile (personal communication, 12
May 1988).5
At this time we were still under military
government and any kind of stability was
difficult.
pero por otro el hecho es que me atraen estos temas. Con
Duviols he tenido muchos debates sobre el tema ya que el
cree que yo tengo que ocuparme, donde yo se muy bien
donde no tengo sensibilidad y no toco tales temas. He sido
criado dentro de un ambiente donde la lucha anti-clerical
era elemento fundamental y esto ha dejado races
psicolgicas aunque no intelectuales.
Ahora s que la lectura de tantos papeles viejos que
siempre hubo una lucha importante involucrando los
sacerdotes y frailes del primer siglo y medio de la ocupa-
cin colonialcreo que esto no est reflejado en tu proyec-
to. Ya que no tenemos datos directos de la poblacin
andina, tenemos que fijarnos en el reflejo de lo que pasaba
en la literatura eclesistica.
5
Es un tema que merece mucha atencin. . . una de las
reflexiones agradables de Creces es ver tu nombre como
autora identificado con la Universidad de Chile.
77 -
He never stopped thanking me for so much
care and effort expended on the transcription of
the audio tapes of the interviews which later
gave form to Nispa Ninchis. My fellow editors
Carlos Aldunate and Jorge Hidalgo and I
overwhelmed him with our questions during a
stay which we shared with John for this purpose
in Zapallar, on the Chilean coast. During the
long process of correcting these transcriptions
John demonstrated infinite patience and I, after
a while, learned many things. Johns replies
never ceased surprising us. In personal terms,
like so many of us, in some way he made you a
participant in his decisions and sought your
opinions while relating various situations.
His correspondence provided, at the same
time, lessons on the world and, especially, on
people. He stimulated and pleased with his very
special manner of teaching. However, without
doubt the strongest aspect was the
demonstration that he believed in you and your
work, something which was not merely
intellectual, but also involved you completely as
a human being. Ever since 1983, when he
listened to, and commented on, our work on the
altiplano origins of the Toconce Phase (1300-
1450 A.D.; Castro et al.1984), he showed us his
interest and approval. His opinions created in
me a solid confidence in the work we were
doing, as well as in my intuitions, and, along
with that, a very powerful tie of friendship and
trust.
I will never forget how he spoke about
women he admired. For example he said that
Heather Lechtman was an extraordinary
person with much imagination (personal
communication, 1977). This was praise I heard
him deliver in many forms towards his
extraordinary friend and doctor Lola Hoffman,6
6
Editors note: Lola Hoffman (d. 1988) was a psychoana-
lyst who treated both Murra and his friend the Peruvian
novelist, essayist, poet and anthropologist, Jos Mara
John V. Murra: A Mentor to Women
and about the affection and loyalty of Freda
Wolf and AnaMara Soldi.7
Murra solidified my holistic comprehension
of the Andean world, and of history, and gave
me the certainty that by combining the separate
tactics of anthropology, archaeology, ethno-
history, and ethnography one could increase the
enormous complexity of its unique cultural
history.
Translated from the Spanish by Monica Barnes
REFERENCE CITED
Castro, Victoria, Carlos Aldunate, and Jos Berenguer
1984 Origenes altiplanicos de la fase Toconce. Estudios
Atacameos 7:209-235.
THE GREEN PATCHWORK PAPER
ROLENA ADORNO
New Haven, Connecticut
As I reflect on the role that John Murra
played in the development of my intellectual
and professional academic life, I focus on the
lessons I learned from him as a teacher. Murra
was perhaps the most exciting professor I had in
graduate school, but we got off to a rocky start.
Having decided in 1972 that I wanted to
concentrate on colonial Spanish American
literature as my field of specialization in the
doctoral program in Romance Studies, Spanish,
at Cornell University, I was advised by faculty in
my department to take a course or two on
Andean ethnohistory and civilization from
Professor Murra. So I went to his office at
advising time, taking my turn among the
students lined up to see him. When I introduced
myself and told him that I was interested in
Arguedas.
7
Editors note: for AnaMara Soldi, see Barnes, this
volume, note 67.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
studying El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, he
glowered down at me and, scowling, asked:
Why not Guaman Poma? I shrank back,
shaken, and I did not gather the courage to
return until a semester later. That was the
beginning of a long and productive professional
and personal relationship.
As a teacher, I found Johns passion for the
Andean world to be both daunting and
inspiring. No dilettanti welcomed in his
classroom! When an undergraduate student
(this was a mixed, graduate-undergraduate
seminar that met in the ethereal realms of
McGraw Hall) explained that he would very
much like to go to the Andes for research the
following summer but had no money to do so,
John (glowering again) said, Well, ask your
parents to refinance their home! Hed made his
point, and no further whining or shedding of
crocodile tears was tolerated. Typically, John
would storm into the classroom, write the names
and concepts he wanted to discuss on the
blackboard, and dive in. While, according to
todays demands for mentoring and the like,
John seemed indifferent to students, he was, in
fact, carefully cultivating them, placing before
each one what he thought might reach or direct
his or her interests. It was sheer mastery, and
this practice bespoke the seriousness with which
he engaged his students as well as his subject
matter. Writing papers for his courses always
resulted in his careful, thoughtful readings and
pertinent written comments. When, in the
course of that seminar, I told John about Sebas-
tin de Covarrubias Horozcos 1611 Tesoro de la
lengua castellana, o espaola, he immediately and
enthusiastically ordered several photocopies of
the entire out-of-print 1943 edition to make
them available for purchase by his students,
complementing his active use of the Quechua-
Spanish dictionaries of that era. New sources,
new research tools, new questions were greatly
welcomed by him. In all these ways, and many
more, John Murra provided a pedagogical model
- 78
that I still strive to live up to in and outside the
classroom after thirty-plus years of university
teaching.
In Murras encouragement of students work,
I was one of those on whom he focused, despite
the fact that I was not an anthropologist-in-
training. It was, of course, my literary-studies
work with texts and literary history that he saw
as promising. To stimulate my interest he placed
before me his two-part article in Natural History,
published in 1961, Guaman Poma de Ayala: A
Seventeenth-Century Indians Account of
Andean Civilization and The Post-Conquest
Chronicle of the Inca States Rise and Fall, not
to mention the 1936 Paris facsimile edition of
the Nueva cornica y buen gobierno. He showed
me the sheaf of typewritten notes that he had
taken on that work over the years, and this
became the basis for the ethnological index in
our print (1980, 1987) and online (2001, 2004)
editions of Guaman Pomas manuscript. John
encouraged my reading of the Nueva cornica,
which resulted in my doctoral dissertation, the
title of which described the Nueva cornica as a
lost chapter in the history of Latin American
letters. Because I asked other questions than
John did about Guaman Pomas writing (I was
always interested in what the Andean chronicler
had read, his library), John found my thesis
only mildly interesting. Yet, after I completed
my Cornell Ph.D. and was on the faculty of the
Department of Foreign Languages and
Literatures at Syracuse University, John
suggested that I take two particular chapters of
it and make it into an article for publication. It
resulted in Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala: An
Andean View of the Peruvian Viceroyalty,
1565-1615 published in the Journal de la Socit
des Amricanistes (1978) which, at least in my
own view, has withstood the test of time.
Its writing was another story, and it is the
last one I will tell here. John and I met
periodically at his McGraw Hall office in Ithaca
79 -
that autumn semester, 1977 (during his famous
Otoo Andino, see Barnes, this volume, p. 39),
as I worked through draft after draft of the
article. It was a difficult essay to write, not only
because I was a novice at academic writing (it
would be my second article), but also, primarily,
because the article had many goals. The
discrete, manageable objective was to set forth
Guaman Pomas readings of the works of others,
as evidenced in his chronicle, documenting
them as carefully as possible. My breakthrough
was having just discovered, two years post-
dissertation, that Guaman Poma, without
attribution, had quoted and paraphrased Fray
Bartolom de las Casass unpublished Tratado
de las doce dudas (1564), which was integral to
the Andean chroniclers arguments about the
need for Spaniards to obey Andean law (instead
of vice versa) and his formulation of a proposal
to restore Andean sovereignty. My discovery of
Guaman Pomas unnamed source showed,
among other things, that his nomination of his
son as sovereign prince of the Indies of Peru
was not sheer nonsense. It merely updated Las
Casass proposal of a half century earlier in
which the Dominican had recommended the
restoration of Inca sovereignty in the person of
Huayna Capacs grandson, Titu Cussi Yupanqui,
who in 1560, had been the reigning Inca at
Vilcabamba, but whose rule, and that of his last
successor, Thupaq Amaru, had ended decades
before Guaman Poma wrote the Nueva cornica.
He no doubt nominated his son precisely
because the main Inca line had died out and a
restoration candidate would have to be found.
Another challenge of my study was to
highlight the personalities and set forth the
workings of Spanish missionary culture with
which Guaman Poma was directly or indirectly
engaged. Historical investigation and textual
analysis came together uneasily. The difficulty
was to create a coherently unfolding narrative
exposition. John had the solution. In reference
to my antepenultimate draft and with slight
John V. Murra: A Mentor to Women
exasperation, he said, Give it to me. Ill see
what I can do. I discovered when he returned
the paper to me a week later that he had
carefully cut it apart (those were the days of
literally cutting and pasting), composed and
typed up new transitional passages and internal
conclusions, and pasted the whole back together
with its new patches. Here, he said, handing it
back to me, see if this works. And he placed in
my hand my paper, sticky with glue and
highlighted by his typewritten
patcheshighlighted because he had done this
editorial work using a very clever pedagogical
strategy of typing his sentences on scraps of pale
green paper! The green-paper draft resulted in
the finest writing lesson I have ever received.
How I let this patchwork paper slip out of
my files at some point over the years I do not
know, and I am sorry that it is gone. But no
matter. It exists in my memory as vividly as if I
had it in front of me now. To my way of
thinking, it represents John Murras pedagogical
personality in its toughness and its extraordinary
generosity. My acknowledgment to Johns
memory in my The Polemics of Possession in
Spanish American Narrative (2007) states it best.
John was breathing his last as I wrote, in
October, 2006, that he was the greatest of
teachers, for the example of his single-minded
devotion to the pursuit of knowledge about the
ancient Andes, his intellectual generosity, and
his help in teaching me to write. Here, just
now, I have unlocked the secret of the last
clause of that sentence. I went on to conclude,
Our collaboration in studying and editing the
chronicle of Guaman Poma, which lasted from
the typewriter age to the era of the Internet,
stands as a testament to what I owe him. That,
of course, is another story, which I have
attempted to tell in the special issue of Chungar
to be published by the University of Arica, Tara-
paca, Chile, which, like this section of Andean
Past, will be devoted to John Murras memory
and his multiple legacies.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
DO ANTHROPOLOGY THE WAY THAT
POETS WRITE POETRY
INGE MARIA HARMAN
North Potomac, Maryland
I remember with remarkable clarity my first
encounter with John Murra. I was
contemplating a graduate degree in
anthropology with a special emphasis on the
Andes and had traveled to Ithaca, New York
specifically to meet Professor Murra and to
determine what he was like, and if he was the
teacher whom I and my husband, Roger
Rasnake, were looking for. We thought that we
would get some of our questions answered about
anthropology at Cornell and learn some
particulars about Professor Murra. We had been
warned that he might not be interested in
working with us and that we could expect him
to be tough, demanding, and difficult.
Now, after nearly thirty-five years of having
known himhaving studied with him and
worked with him, having been mentored and
supervised, and edited by him, having traveled
together, attended meetings together, even
cooked meals togetherafter thirty-five years of
correspondence and visits and conversation, I
can say, yes, indeed, John Murra was tough and
demanding and sometimes difficult. But that
was only a small fraction of what he was! He was
also immensely knowledgeable. He was
intellectually curious and extremely politically
aware. He was adventuresome, entertaining,
worldly-wise, and charming! In addition to all
this, he was a committed teacher who believed
that it was important to maintain a real and
honest relationship with his students, who were
expected to be as devoted to Andean research
as he was. He did not hesitate to let you know
when your efforts were inadequate. However, he
also was open to his students ideas and readily
recognized their contributions. He impressed
upon us the great importance of studying
- 80
indigenous Andean languages and encouraged
his students to devote themselves to lengthy
field- work and in-depth historical investigation.
John was unlike any other teacher or college
professor I ever encountered. It was not easy to
convince him to take you on as a serious
student. Once he did, he accepted you, not just
as a student, but as a human being. He was
committed to you and concerned about you as
a person with a particular psychological,
cultural, and social make-up. He also ex-
pectedinsisted, reallythat you deal with him as
the complex person he was. He had a cultural
heritage, a mother, a father, an intellectual
formation, a political background, personal
commitments, and an anthropological vision
that made him the person he was, and he
trusted that you would be cognizant of these
things in your interactions with him.
In studying a topic in a seminar, or in
preparing for field research, John expected his
students to develop a depth and breadth of
understanding based on historical literacy that
was, for anthropologists at least, of a
breathtaking scale. For John, a time frame of
five hundred or even a thousand years was
scarcely adequate to answer the kinds of
questions he posed about Andean society,
polity, and ecology. Nonetheless, even when
working and thinking in very broad historical
and geographical terms, John never lost sight of
the individual and the idiosyncrasies that shape
human behavior and decision-making. All these
characteristics combined to make John Murra
an exciting and inspiring teacher and colleague.
John believed that Andean cultural history
was relevant for contemporary life. He felt
strongly that the Andean history that he, and
other like-minded scholars, were deciphering
was of great relevance to social and political life
in the modern Andean republics, and he
communicated this understanding and this
81 -
excitement to his students and to scholars
throughout the world of Andean studies. For
John, every historical or archaeological
revelation, every linguistic discovery, every
investigation of Andean social and cultural
practices contributed to the larger effort of
accurately describing the Andean achievement,
and each students contributions were
recognized and appreciated as part of a larger
effort.
John was, undeniably, a charismatic speaker
and lecturer who attracted scholars and
activistsboth men and womento the cause of
understanding the Andean accomplishment. It
is worth pointing out that John liked women and
enjoyed working with them. He had strong and
positive relationships with many women, both
students and colleagues. It never seemed to
occur to him that women might be lacking in
any of the physical, social, or intellectual skills
that an anthropologist or historian might need
to carry out her investigations. For someone of
his generation, an awareness and appreciation of
women as intellectual equals was not a given
and was unusual even in university settings.
The stream of visitors and correspondence
that found its way to Johns door in his latter
years is testimony to the fact that he had strong
emotional ties to many women the world over.
(Here I am not even considering his marriages
or romantic liaisons.) It is important to note
that, in my experience, John related to women,
not in some sort of stereotypical, gender-driven
way, but as individuals. Regardless of gender, he
was challenging to work with and expected real
commitment from his students, whether male or
female. He was truly dedicated to the cause of
Andean studies and worked best with those who
shared that dedication.
As a female grad student beginning my
studies with him, I observed John working in a
collegial fashion with women researchers and
John V. Murra: A Mentor to Women
academics from all parts of Latin America and
Europe. Of course he also dealt with male
scholars, publishers, university administrators,
and others, cultivating a wide circle of influence
and support. As a woman in an anthropology
department with an almost exclusively male
faculty, I took special notice of the scholarly
exchanges and collaborative relationships he
maintained with women around the world. I
also noticed the strong personal relationships he
had with current and former students and the
loyalty they felt towards him. All these things
motivated me, and my husband as well, to
persevere in our efforts to convince Professor
Murra to chair our doctoral committees and
allow us to do doctoral research under his
guidance and tutelage.
After my years of class work, field-work
preparations, and proposal writing at Cornell
were over, John continued to maintain contact
with me and my husband. During years of field
research in the Andes, during dissertation
writing and defense, during my first experiences
of college teaching, during applied work in
Bolivia, during my pregnancies and the early
childhood years of my girls, John was a regular
correspondent, an occasional guest in my home,
and an ongoing part of my life. Remarkably, he
was supportive of my decision to give up
research and teaching and spend undivided time
with my children. He was interested in my
daughters as unique human beings and curious
about the process of child rearing and
socialization.
John never ceased to expect that I would
eventually find time to rededicate myself to the
scholarly work that I had begun with my initial
research on Andean reciprocities. He told me,
not too long before his death, that he had begun
the work of translating Collective Labor and
Rituals of Reciprocity, my dissertation, into
Spanish. His hope was to see it made available
to an Andean audience. Of course, that hope
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
and the obligation to share that knowledge with
an Andean public are mine as well. I recognize
them, however, for what they are. They are his
creationhis work in me, which I acknowledge
and appreciate and intend to see to completion.
One more interesting thing about John
Murra is that I keep learning from him, even
now after his death. Early in my sojourn at
Cornell, I became aware that John had little
patience with those who viewed anthropology as
a career, a job, or a path up the academic
ladder. John said more than once that we really
shouldnt expect to make a living from our
anthropological inclinations. Because I was
young and just starting my career, I found this
stance a bit confusing. John made his vision a
little clearer when he explained that we should
do anthropology the way that poets write poetry.
What he meant, of course, was that we should
do it for the sheer love of it, and because we are
compelled to do it. I may finally have reached a
point in my life where I can truly comprehend
his meaning.
EIGHT THOUSAND SOLUTIONS
TO THE SAME PROBLEM
SILVIA RAQUEL PALOMEQUE
Cordoba, Argentina
I first met John Murra in 1984, soon after his
retirement. He was 68 years old and I was 37.
He was a professor at FLACSO, Quito (Facul-
tad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales in
Quito) in its first masters degree program in
Andean History. This was a pioneering
educational experiment in the history of the
Andean region, not just of individual Andean
countries, in which basic principles could be re-
established. Apart from one person from Spain,
all of us students came from Andean countries
or had lived in one of them for almost a decade.
We arrived as graduates in different disciplines,
and as was customary at FLACSO at that time,
- 82
we had full fellowships so that we could devote
ourselves to working towards a masters degree
which was the result of an academic Andean
project, not of institutional financial interests.
We didnt know if John would come or not.
He had only accepted us as students towards the
end of the course, after we had taken classes
with Luis Lumbreras,1 Carlos Sempat Assa-
dourian, Csar Fonseca Martel, Tristan Platt,
Frank Salomon, Magnus Mrner,2 and Segundo
Moreno Yaez,3 among others. Professor Murra
arrived just at the moment when the majority of
students had broken not only with disciplinary
boundaries, but also with our original academic
areas, and, with a little awe, had begun to
perceive something of the complex diversity of
Andean culture, and of the specifics of the
system of colonial domination, as well as the
persistence and transformations of societies
prior to the rupture of the colonial bond. In the
1
Editors note: for Lumbreras see Barnes, this volume,
note 90; For Sempat Assadourian see Barnes, note 49; for
Fonseca Martel see Barnes, note 97; for Platt see Barnes,
note 64; and for Salomon see Barnes, note 48, and Salo-
mon, this volume, pp. 87-102.
2
Editors note: Historian Magnus Mrner (b. 1924) is a
prolific and multi-lingual author who has specialized in
Latin America. Among his best known works are The
Expulsion of the Jesuits from Latin America (1965), Race and
Class in Latin America(1970), The Andean Past: Land,
Societies, and Conflict (1985), and The Transformation of
Rural Society in the Third World (1991).
3
Editors note: Ecuadorian Segundo Moreno Yaez (b.
1939) became an anthropologically oriented historian
after a thorough grounding in philosophy, theology, and
ancient languages. He studied at Bonn under the late Udo
Oberem and wrote his dissertation on rebellions in the
Audiencia de Quito. He is one of the founders of the
Department of Anthropology of the Universidad Catlica
(Quito). He has been Director of the Seccin de Antro-
pologa de la Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana and the
founder of the Revista de Antropologa Ecuatoriana. He has
also held posts in the Instituto Otovaleo de Antropologa
and in the Banco Central del Ecuador, among other
institutions.
83 -
meantime, nobody knew very clearly what to do
with all this. John once told me that he had
never had a dialogue with such eager students.
As the years passed I realized that he appeared
before us just at the point when we were ready
for him.
A large proportion of us students who chose
to take Johns seminar had participated in the
Latin American leftist militancy of the 1960s
and 70s which had just been militarily defeated
by right wing forces, and we were in the middle
of the process of reviewing our intense and
difficult prior experiences. As in the past, the
study of social sciences had gone hand-in-hand
with political activism. In addition, we faced
serious problems with our work, and, perhaps,
these had prompted us to become masters
degree students. The analytic tools we knew
segmented society on the basis of concepts from
political economics where economic structures
dominated the whole social complex and led to
the classic division of society into social classes.
During the 1970s, in the midst of the maelstrom
of social movements, advances had been made
in the critique of evolutionism and the
inevitable succession of modes of production.
However, in terms of analytical instruments,
we had come only to the point of accepting the
existence of a political superstructure separate
from an economic structure, and the idea that
both could have had independent movements.
That is to say, a complex of advances which did
not modify the initial homogeneity put in place
by economic factors only partially complicated
the panorama. These instruments were not only
insufficient, but also reductionist for people with
militant backgrounds who did field-work or
archival studies with an analysis centered on
popular sectors or Andean campesinos. What
was worse, the instruments were questionable in
terms of what must be done with the knowledge
attained.
John V. Murra: A Mentor to Women
When, in 2000, Victoria Castro, Carlos
Aldunate, and Jorge Hidalgo published Nispa
ninchis/decimos diciendo . . ., their 1993
interviews of John Murra, even if they reduced
Johns catalytic role by saying that his struggle
consisted in . . . demonstrating cultural
achievements where others only saw poverty . .
.,4 the type of battle through which John helped
us to liberate ourselves in 1984 was
underscored. John Murra, in the interviews, told
them that in order to show one first had to
see, but for him the vision was rather
obvious. A goose has two legs. It isnt necessary
to be a philosopher [to see that]. One has to see
geese,5 he said. However, that which appeared
obvious to John, his capacity to see and
show, two words key to his operation, were
not easy for us to decipher then. I still
understand that seeing is far from simple, and
I also realize that even for him it wasnt easy to
find the path towards showing.
By 1984 we had already seen geese, but
poor geese, because that was what we leftist
militants knew how to see, and because of this
we felt very comfortable with John. Like him we
saw geese and, without ignoring the existence of
peacocks, we fixed on geese, as he did when he
chose to see potatoes instead of continuing to
fixate on maize. Both were political optionsone
tries to center oneself on something and leave
the rest in the background, but without
removing it from consideration. This also
related to Murras very well-known struggle with
Communism. I would like to make it clear that,
according to my understanding, this only had to
do with the leadership of a Stalinist Communist
party, or with a certain type of leader, but which
absolutely had nothing to do with his former
4
. . . mostrar los logros culturales donde otros slo ven
pobreza . . . (p. 12)
5
Que el ganso tiene dos patas. No hay que ser filsofo.
Hay que ver gansos (p. 24).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
comrades or fellow-combatants who continued
to be his friends, and were part of the network
in which he lived.
However, even if we saw geese, the truth is
that we hadnt seen the same geese as John, in
so far as we centered ourselves on dividing the
geese into the rich and the poor and according
to their internal logic. We couldnt see their
non-economic differences. Even when
confronted with difficulties in facing the time
depth of processes, the only people who could
see better than us were the few anthropologists
in the group. Yes, they could see, even if later
they didnt know what to do with their vision.
That which we non-anthropologists couldnt see
was Andean societies in their diversity, with
their ayllus or kin groups, with their important
cultural achievements interrupted or disrupted
by the Spanish invasion which submitted them
to a regime of colonial domination that
maintained their ethnic authorities because the
Spaniards didnt find any other way to exploit
them. For centuries the domestic units of the
ayllus only obeyed the authorities of their own
leaders, whom they elected or accepted through
an internal selection process which we still dont
know, and with consequences that continued
after the rupture of the colonial pact, and which
still have a bearing on the configuration of their
dominant elites.
The power to perceive these cultural
differences intertwined with colonial
domination which treated indigenous ayllus
quite differently from European peasants who
were classified on the basis of the economic and
social class criteria on which we based our
analysis. All this was only possible thanks to the
work of John Murra and his followers or close
colleagues. In order to achieve this, it was
necessary to go through a long year of courses
and effort and destructuring reflection which
later affected our whole relationship with the
world. From a historiographic perspective it was
- 84
a more than important advance which, for many
of us, opened another world, the possibility of
thinking about history from a perspective not
only distinct from that of power (which we
already had), but to begin to penetrate the
logicsnot the logicof Andean societies and try
to reconstruct their specifics, keeping in mind
the existence of their own thinking, alternate
propositions to those of the elites, and imagine
what they would be. That is, to include the
doubts of anthropology within historical
thinking, and work together with archaeologists
and ethnographers, or train ourselves to
accomplish the work of recovering the best
traditions of these disciplines, not all of them.
The course of Murras critical trajectory,
including his break with the leadership of the
Communist Party and its politics, and his de-
commissioning as a Party militant, we
understood very well. Our relocation in a well-
known and common territory was what let John
explain to us his political life choice, to become
an anthropologist in order to take a position in
the militant life, in as much as there existed a
form of the anthropological discipline (that
which is practiced by those who learn the
language of the people they study) which allows
knowledge of the 8000 solutions to the same
problem, from which each society chooses one.6
During that course, in a conversation which
we had after he returned our final exams, we
showed the confusion with which our future
presented itself to us, perhaps looking for advice
without saying so explicitly. It was a very
difficult dialogue on our part due to his usual
ability to leave us in the end analyzing the
naturalized elements which included our own
questions, before giving us a partial response
which, in the end, laid out the paths to take in
order to build our own reply.
6
"Creo que hay 8.000 soluciones al mismo problema y que
cada sociedad escoge alguna (p. 75).
85 - John V. Murra: A Mentor to Women

I dont remember well how much he said, or
how he managed to get us to make our own
conclusions about the necessity of the act of
seeing and later the act of showing in place of
our usual transform in the name of . . ., a
problem that was not easy for him to resolve,
either, according to my understanding. From
that arose the necessity that in the future we
would take our places, that we would reflect on
the fact that we had some small power over the
word which gave us a certain authority, and,
perhaps, that would lead us to a sort of social
listening; that after seeing and respecting, we
would see how to use our power over the word
to show society as a whole the cultural
achievements of the diverse Andean groups, but
only during the lapse of time when these groups
could still not express themselves.
things and commercial success. It will be a
society of solidarity where talent and the dignity
of work are valued, without discrimination. I
believe it will also be a world with a
predominance of woman workers, creative,
intelligent, living in fellowship, and with the
capacity to found institutions which permit
transformation to continue beyond the life of
one person, by providing for the education of
young people who will guarantee and make
possible the re-creation and continuity of the
life choice and work of unequaled value which
John Murra left us as a legacy.
Translation from the Spanish
by Monica Barnes

There, as well, we perceived that Johns

social utopia, his eagerly awaited goal, was a
world of diverse people, accepted as such, who
had the means of directly expressing their
situation and their interests, and struggling for
them. These are the political conclusions which
I remember that we took away from this first
and intense relationship with him, and it was at
that point we began a personal relationship
which was strong, lasting, and very significant
for me in that he became a dear friend with John Victor Murra in Chicago,
whom I shared the same basic language in Spring, 1945
relation to the world. (Photograph courtesy of Heather Lechtman).

In conclusion, it is important to underscore

that his commitment was to the world, both as
a combatant in the International Brigades of the
Spanish Civil War, and in his struggle against
discrimination, which he developed everywhere
he lived, in support of Afro-Americans, and in
solidarity with Spaniards, Africans, women, and,
mainly, with Andean societies and their
achievements. A central part of his life was his
commitment to humanity in the search for a
different future, for alternatives to build upon, a
future separate from the domination by material
 KINSMEN RESURRECTED: JOHN VICTOR MURRA AND THE HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY
INTRODUCTION1
After my doctoral advisor, John V. Murra,
died, I rummaged in my basement for papers to
help me remember him. I found, under a stack
of punch-card-era computer work, a manila
folder of yellow legal-size pages that I had
completely forgotten. They were my notes from
Murras 1971 Cornell University course History
of U.S. Anthropology.
In 1971, as I began graduate school, Murra
gathered a few students, mostly his own
advisees, twice weekly in a garret tucked under
the slate mansard of Cornells McGraw Hall.
Our group was a small one and unrepresentative
of Cornell anthropology as a whole, for at that
time Murras students seemed to the rest of the
department to be a personalistic sect. His
lectures gave unique pleasure. I loved to hear
the names of our North American ancestors
spoken in his Rumanian burr. His huge eyes
opened wide to deal out penetrating, respect-
compelling glances when he mentioned the
names of the honored ones: Henry Rowe
1
Editors note: this article is a revised and expanded
English-language version of the second part of a larger
article accompanying the French translation of Forma-
ciones econmicas y polticas del mundo andino (1975), a
collection of major early essays by John V. Murra, edited
by Jacques Poloni-Simard, and to be published by cole
des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales with the Maison
des Sciences de lHomme. It was submitted to Poloni-
Simard in August 2008 and to Andean Past in September
2008.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009): 87-102.
FRANK SALOMON
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Schoolcraft,2 Lewis Henry Morgan,3 John
Wesley Powell,4 Franz Boas,5 Paul Radin6. . . His
2
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (1793-1864) was a pioneering
geographer, geologist, and ethnologist,who is credited with
the identification of the source of the Mississippi River.
He studied at Union College and Middlebury College. His
first wife, Ojibway-speaker Jane Johnson Schoolcraft,
greatly aided his research. He is the author of numerous
works on American Indians. A biography of Schoolcraft,
Indian Agent and Wilderness Scholar: The Life of Henry
Rowe Schoolcraft was published in 1987 by Richard E.
Bremer.
3
For Morgan see Barnes, this volume, note 139.
4
John Wesley Powell (1834-1902) was a noted geogra-
pher, linguist, and explorer of the American West. He was
educated at Illinois College, Wheaton College, and
Oberlin College but did not graduate from any of those
institutions. He was a director of the U.S. Geological
Survey, the founding director of the Bureau of Ethnology
at the Smithsonian Institution, and the founder of Wash-
ington, D.C.s Cosmos Club. Among his best known works
are Canyons of the Colorado (1875) and Introduction to the
Study of American Indian Languages . . . (1877). Several
book length biographies of Powell have been published.
5
The German-American Franz Boas (1858-1942) created
in the U.S.A. the role of the anthropologist as a Ph.D.-
trained specialist. He, himself, held a doctorate in physics
from the University of Kiel (1881). Many of his students
at Columbia University went on to become prominent
researchers. Boas fought tirelessly against racism and
criticized evolutionary frameworks as lacking cultural
depth. From the 1880s Boas conducted fieldwork among
Arctic peoples and tribes of the Canadian Pacific coast.
He stressed the importance of cultural context and
history. He propounded the four-field concept of anthro-
pology, and was an early advocate of the participant-
observer method in fieldwork. He formulated cultural
relativism as a central theme of American anthropology.
His numerous published works include The Central
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
lectures were often elliptical and indirect, with
important points left between the lines. A
semester was not enough for most of us to
understand fully, but thirty-eight years might be.
The side of Murra that these lectures
expressed has not been evoked in any of his
many tributes and obituaries. Anthropologists
know a lot about Murras life as an Andeanist.
However one should also know something about
his life as an American immigrant intellectual.
By the time Murra hit Andeanist print he
had given a lot of work and thought to the
U.S.A. It was not the stereotyped Rumanian
anti-Franco combatiente of 1937 who wrote his
works; it was an adoptive Chicagoan, a young
man acquainted with the likes of anthropologist
Robert Redfield7 (who taught him about Lewis
Henry Morgan, for Murra the totemic U.S.
intellectual) and Philleo Nash (later President
Kennedys Commissioner of Indian Affairs).
Saul Bellow, the novelist par excellence of savvy
young Chicagoans on the make, knew him in
the 1940s when both were financially strapped
University of Chicago students. Bellow later
mischievously gave his name to an accountant:
Eskimo (1888), Kwakiutl Culture as Reflected in Mythology
(1935), Race, Language, and Culture (1940), the Mind of
Primitive Man (1944), Primitive Art (1951), and many
articles on the Indians of North Americas Northwest
Coast, among other topics.
6
Paul Radin (1883-1959) was a student of Franz Boas
and an ethnographer of the Siouan Winnebago or Ho-
Chunk tribe in Wisconsin. He also contributed to an
understanding of African art and folktales. His work is
characterized by emphasis on biography and attention to
intellectuality in Native American cultures. Among his
works are The Method and Theory of Ethnography (1933),
The Italians of San Francisco (1935), Primitive Religion: Its
Nature and Origin (1937), Indians of South America (1942),
The Culture of the Winnebago as Described by Themselves
(1949). He was the editor of African Folktales and Sculpture
(1952).
7
For Redfield see Barnes, this volume, note 11.
- 88
Murra, that well-dressed marvelous smooth
expert (Bellow 1975:36). When I asked Murra
about this, he said Bellow was alluding satirically
to Murras cleverness in talking his way out of a
debt to the University bursar.
THE ANTHROPOLOGIST AS IMMIGRANT/
THE IMMIGRANT AS ANTHROPOLOGIST
Murras inclination to delve into the
colonial and early-republican roots of U.S. and
Canadian ethnology had something to do with
an immigrants curious comparing of the old
country and the new, but more to do with his
insistence on knowing who one is, both
historically and psychoanalytically. His resulting
singular view of American anthropologys past is
worth a second look, now that some quarters of
U.S. anthropology have once more become
receptive to humanism and historicism.
The 1971 course represented an early
moment in the development of inquiry into the
history of the field, and an incomplete one by
todays standard. Thanks to George Stockings
and Richard Handlers University of Wisconsin
Press publications (c.f. Stocking 1992), to Regna
Darnells from the University of Nebraska Press
(starting 2005)8 and to many other researchers
published in the History of Anthropology
Newsletter (formerly edited by Henrietta
Kuklick), the history of North American
anthropology today flourishes far beyond what
Murra had to offer. Nonetheless his early
perspective on how anthropology sat within
American intellectual history was well-
researched and original, and remains a durably
provocative one.
When Murra spoke to Latin American
audiences, and when he talked to us about his
efforts to build research institutions in the
Andean countries, he sometimes said that the
8
Darnells Histories of Anthropology Annual is in its fourth
volume as of 2008.
89 -
Sputnik-era U.S.A. was a good platform for
launching various disciplinary tactics.
However it would be completely wrong to think
this meant his interest in the North American
growth of the disciplineby 1971, explosive
growth in terms of sheer graduate enrollment
numberswas merely instrumental. In 1974, as
President of the American Ethnological Society,
he had the option of dedicating a number of the
AES Publications to any theme he chose. He
decided on American Anthropology: The Early
Years. In its preface he wrote:
I am not a historian of our craft. When I
receive my copy of the History of
Anthropology Newsletter, I nod my head in
recognition or amazement. All those
kinsmen resurrected, reevaluated,
scrutinized. Events, influences,
skullduggery, and alternative readings of
the evidence are us because they are part
of our past. . . I pretend that it
[anthropology] is my only ethnic, religious,
and ideologic [sic] affiliation. This stance
may not be a scientific one, and may be
the reason why I do not conduct research
in the history of anthropology. But I am a
committed, critical, patriotic consumer of
the work of those who do (Murra 1976:3-
4).
North American anthropology is not really
a discipline in the usual sense, but a
consortiumone can still hope, a symbiosisof
very different studies that were brought together
by a common motive: inquiry into the original
peoples of the Americas. The alliance among
archaeologists, biologists, cultural
anthropologists, and linguists seemed to Murra
a great achievement, and a deep-rooted one. He
showed us how it took shape in the middle
nineteenth century, long before the
professionalization of the discipline crystallized
these as fields or quadrants. Schisms among ronments. As founder of the Anthropology Department of
the quadrants were already occurring in 1971,
Salomon: John V. Murra
as each field developed vested interests and
ideological fetishes. Murra saw his course as one
way to oppose a breakup. He was not exactly a
conciliator; he upheld a distinctive minoritarian
humanism and historicism against all comers.
But he didnt think conciliators or unifiers were
really needed. In fact he commented that North
Americans mania to reconcile sometimes
made mush of inquiry. Rather he thought
ethnographic commitment, the bond with the
peoples we study, should suffice as common
ground, indeed a social contract, even among
scholars who disagree about everything else.
Murras course could be taken as a history of
that pact, and it was chronologically organized.
Nevertheless, time and again he circled back
toward a few pervasive themes. These themes
reveal something about his intellectual
peculiarity as well as about anthropology, and it
is these which I will sketch in the following
pages.
CATHEXIS
Cathexis was always central. To this
Freudian, nothing but love was strong enough to
cement the ethnographic pactthough his ways
of expressing love could be peculiar. The power
of passions in shaping intellectual history formed
a leitmotif. As Murra stated in one of his course
lectures:
There is no Boas school of thought but
there is a Boas emotional group and an
institutional tie. Boas as a historicist is a
mistake; as Kroeber9 says he had no
9
Alfred L. Kroeber (1876-1960) was an influential
American anthropologist who studied under Franz Boas
(Ph.D. 1901). As an archaeologist he excavated in New
Mexico, Mexico, and Peru. He developed the concept of
the culture area, a region in which societies shared
certain basic traits and operated in similar natural envi-
the University of California at Berkeley, he did much to
record the languages and cultures of the Indians of the
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
historical sensehe just got stuck in
that category by not being an
evolutionist. The emotional storm
wasnt about his ideas, but his
personality, and other personalities
stirred up by the fact that his seminars,
unlike others of the time, had female
members.
In discussing the Columbia University
graduate department he remarked that
[Intellectual history] is often the effect of Joe
on Nelly. Murra had an Old World sense of
the honor of achievement and seniority, and he
chastised those of us who, as he thought, callow-
ly gossiped about major scholars. But at the
same time he also had a comedic sense of the
way things work. Stories of particular
anthropological Joes and Nellies seemed to him
both important and amusing. In class he limited
himself to some dry semi-Freudian kidding
about intellects enslavement to Eros: The unit
[of Boasian academic organization] is the
foreign-born Jew and the WASP woman.
Such kidding was the visible outcrop of a
larger rumination, born of psychoanalytic
struggles, that Murra clearly carried on
constantly yet never shared with us. It
concerned relations between the passions of the
subconscious and the work of intellect,
including such themes as solitude and insomnia,
dreaming and phobia, as well as desire. In class
Murra expressed admiration for Alfred L. Kroe-
bers recognition of dream work in his early field
research:
American West. Among his many published works are
Animal Tales of the Eskimo (1899), The Arapaho (1902-07),
The Chumash and Costanoan Languages (1910), Anthropol-
ogy (1936), Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North
America (1938), and The Archaeology and Pottery of Nazca,
Peru . . . (edited by Patrick H. Carmichael, 1998). Kroe-
bers wife Theodora published a biogaphy of Alfred L.
Koreber in 1970 and Julian H. Stewart published one in
1973.
- 90
[Mohave] . . . raided far away, largely
from curiosity. . . They had high regard for
dreams and for reasoning from dreams. All
this was done before 1917: that is, before
Malinowski,10 and before Kroebers own
[psycho]analysis; most of it was done by
1912.
Murra noticed something anthropologists
Robert Lowie,11 Radin, and Kroeber had in
common:
They spent large parts of their lives alone,
widowed, or divorced. It wasnt their
isms, but their marginality in civilized life,
that made the field and the museum
central in their personal lives and their life
callings.
Despite his theoretical insistence that vocations
are unitary, fusing the scholarly with the
personal, a stoic or soldierly impatience with
weakness made Murra a tough love advisor
rather than a fatherly one. Students could not
count on him for much comfort amid the
loneliness of fieldwork.
PROFESSIONALISM
Another axis of the course concerned
democratic science and professional science.
Our classroom sat barely 45 km from the lovely
Cayuga Lake village of Aurora, where Lewis
10
For Malinowski see Barnes, this volume, note 36.
11
Robert H. Lowie (1883-1957), educated in German
humanism, took his A.B. from the College of the City of
New York (1901) and his Ph.D. from Columbia University
(1908) under Franz Boas. He was an expert on North
American Indians and, as a theorist, helped to formulate
the doctrine of cultural relativism which holds cultural
constructs to be interpretable only within the contexts of
individual societies. Among his books are Primitive Society
(1920), Primitive Religion (1924), History of Ethnological
Theory (1937), and The Crow Indians (1935). An obituary
of Lowie was published by Paul Radin in the American
Anthropologist in 1958.
91 -
Henry Morgan lived and propounded ethnology
long before it became a profession. More
orthodox Cornell anthropologists never
mentioned Morgan. I think they were
embarrassed for their long-dead neighbor, then
so utterly out of fashion. But like it or not,
Morgan was our genius loci, and he was in many
ways the fulcrum of Murras thinking about U.S.
anthropology.
It interested Murra a great deal that
Morgans career was a life lived in pre-academic
science. Morgan grew up on 600 formerly Iro-
quoisan acres granted to his father after the
1779 massacre of the Cayuga. His career as a
railroad lawyer and Republican state senator was
to serve the transformation of upstate New York
into the continents first industrial boom area.
Murra made no bones about the fact that
Morgans study of the Iroquois peoples grew
directly from a Rhodesian situation of land
theft that followed U.S. independence. (He was
alluding to Ian Smith. The comparison between
historic and current political situations was
characteristic.)
Upstate New Yorks post-revolutionary
culture included a citizen-scholar ethos which
academic growth would later displace. College
or seminary educated townsfolk expected that
people would teach themselves and each other.
Secret societies became the free universities of
the time, offering a course upward for the
humble. Morgan invited an educated Seneca
man, Ely Parker12, and Parkers wife, to join his
own secret lodge: the Society of the Gordian
Knot, later called Grand Order of the Iroquois.
This was to be the start of important careers for
both men.
At the end of Morgans era, when the
citizen-scientist ethos was under attack from
12
Ely Samuel Parker (1825-1895) was a Seneca sachem,
civil engineer, and Civil War general on General U.S.
Grants staff.
Salomon: John V. Murra
university elites loyal to the German graduate
school model, the self-trained anthropologist
Otis Mason13 spoke up for the older citizen-
scholar tradition which had produced the likes
of Schoolcraft and Morgan. Mason praised
a science in which there is no priesthood
and no laity, no sacred language; but one
in which you [the general educated public]
are all both the investigator and the
investigated (Mason quoted in Hinsley
1976: 41).
Murra thought Masons party, though
politically doomed, scientifically inadequate,
and compromised by racism, still deserved
respect. He taught us to esteem people for what
was possible within their times; Morgan and the
other primitive ethnographers were no more
and no less racist than their contemporariesbut
they were more than that; they went beyond
their racism. He likewise had sympathy for the
proto-anthropologies that Latin countries
(including Rumania) had been developing
contemporaneously via non-academic self-
studies in folklore and vernacular-language
philology.
Looking back, one wonders if part of Murras
enjoyment of the Andean countries did not
come from the circumstance that when he
arrived, scholarly life in the Andes still had
some of the same malleable, historically open-
ended character. When in 1886 Andrew
Dickson White14 invited Lewis Henry Morgan
13
Otis Tufton Mason (1838-1908) graduated from
Columbian College (now George Washington University)
in 1861. He was an advocate of evolutionary theories of
social development. He was a curator at the Smithsonian
Institution, a founder of the Anthropological Society of
Washington, and an editor of the American Naturalist. His
books include Summaries of Progress in Anthropology:
Womans Share in Primitive Culture (1894) and The Origins
of Invention . . . (1895).
14
Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918) was the founder,
with Ezra Cornell, of Cornell University.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
to Cornell, Murra remarked, the task of
creating national intellectual models was nearly
finished; [it] is now the difficult task of the
Andes.
As I was getting ready for my first Cornell-
guided trip to Ecuador, Murra counseled me
that I would find in Quito a situation something
like Morgans. I never wrote down exactly what
he said, but I remember the gist: since
commanding research institutions and
professional associations did not exist in
Ecuador, I would find the most interesting
talents in citizen-scholars grouped only by their
own affinities.
That advice led to wonderful encounters.
Olaf Holm, a Dane who had come to Ecuador to
manage a cacao plantation, became a self-
trained archaeologist after finding precolumbian
figurines among his seedlings. Osvaldo Viteri, a
painter, built a truck-mounted mobile studio
whose jolting journeys brought him to
undocumented prehispanic sites. Padre Jos
Mara Vargas guarded in his Dominican
monastic cell a huge collection of early colonial
papers, a treasure trove of ethnohistory,
originally compiled to defend Ecuadors disputed
borders. Costanza and Alberto di Capua, refugee
Italians who built Ecuadors first toothpaste
factory, were in their off hours applying to South
American papers the exacting humanist
methods learned in the old country (see Bruhns,
this volume, pp. 103-107). The dapper
provincial aristocrat Hernn Crespo Toral made
it his vocation to transform gold held by the
Banco Centralprecolumbian gold jewelryinto
the core of a great museum. In the solarium of
his mock castle, the aged oligarch Carlos
Manuel Larrea pored over the papers of a
vanquished seigneurial order. Meanwhile, a few
blocks down the avenue at the Casa de la Cul-
tura, the nationalist ethnohistorians Piedad and
Alfredo Costales pounded out number after
number of the journal Llacta, glorifying Quichua
- 92
groups struggles with the latifundist world
Larreas peers had made.
Murra and Curtis Hinsley were right, too, to
emphasize the limitations of the pre-academic,
citizen-scholar scene. With no canonical way to
organize debate, disagreements among scholars
became feuds. Without powerful institutions,
there was no way to fund gifted researchers who
happened to be poor, like the tireless autodidact
ethnohistorian Aquiles Prez, whom I found
hunched at a tiny desk over a cobblers shop.
For such reasons, Murra regarded the transition
to professional scholarship and university
leadership as a costly, but inevitable and useful
one.
Murras extensive teaching about Franz
Boas, the locomotive of North American
professionalization, had, then, a covert as well as
an overt purpose. It was a monument to great
scholarship, but also a how-to lesson in scholarly
politics. Murra began by pointing out that Boas
first festschrift (Laufer 1906) was bestowed on
him for reasons that had everything to do with
academic politics. It happened before he did all
the things that Leslie White15 hated, meaning
before he had created a great corpus of
ethnography. What Boas had done was
transform a vocation to a profession, and find
for it a place in the constellations of power and
money. He was sponsored by many influential
15
Leslie Alvin White (1900-1975) was an American
anthropologist who formulated a technology-oriented
model of cultural evolution. He earned a B.A. (1923) and
M.A. (1924) from Colombia University, and a Ph.D. from
the University of Chicago (1927) under Fay-Cooper Cole.
He engaged in bitter academic disputes with the followers
of Franz Boas. His major works are The Science of Culture
and The Evolution of Culture and several monographs on
American Indian cultures. A biography by Harry Elmer
Barnes comprises the Forward to his festschrift Essays in
the Science of Culture (edited by Gertrude E. Dole nad
Robert L. Carneiro, 1960. An obituary of White by Elman
Service, Richard K. Beardsley, and Beth Dillingham was
published in the American Anthropologist in 1976.
93 -
non-academics including Carl Schurz,16 who
saw Boas as the embodiment of the liberal
aspirations of his own 1848 revolutionary
generation. In one of his lectures Murra stated:
Boas [in his contention with the old
powers of the American Ethnological
Society] was a meticulous scholar, but also
a power wielder, an organizer. He
attracted and favored New York City
people, immigrants, and their children,
especially women. A wheeler-dealer,
spinner of nets, an anthropological tank.
Boas struggle to academicize anthropology
via graduate schools goes on now in
countries that dont have a professional
guild, like Chile and Peru. There, the self-
made anthropologists want the prestige of
having grad schools, but not the elitist
consequences.
The past he was talking about seemed to him
parallel to his present. In the Chicago 1902 fight
with W. J. McGee17 and George Dorsey18 over
16
Carl Schurz (1829-1906) was a German-American
politician and journalist, who served as a U.S. army
general during the Civil War.
17
William John McGee (1853-1912) was a self-taught
geologist and ethnologist associated with John Wesley
Powell. He served as president of the American Anthro-
pological Association, the National Geographical Society,
and the American Association for the Advancement of
Science. Among his works are Palaeolithie Man in America:
His Antiquity and Environment (1888), Geological Atlas of
U.S. (1894), Maya Year (1894), The Seri Indians (1898), as
well as articles on the Sioux, primitive mathematics, and
trepanation in Peru.
18
George Amos Dorsey (1868-1931) was Curator of
Anthropology at Chicagos Field Museum from 1896 to
1915. He held an A.B. from Dennison College (1888), an
A.B. (1890) and Ph.D. (1894) from Harvard. He con-
ducted excavations at Perus ancient Ancn cemetery and
other important South American sites. Among his more
than seventy-five publications on American Indians and
physical anthropology are Archaeological Investigations on
the Island of La Plata (1901), The Arapaho Sun Dance
Salomon: John V. Murra
writing the AAAs charter, the latter two
favored a mass membership, no-credentialing
policy. (George Stocking 1988). According to
Murra:
McGee pointed out that a generous
policy will bring generous finances; how
did Boas propose to finance? . . . McGee
was really arguing for himself. McGee,
John Wesley Powell, or Lewis Henry
Morgan couldnt have joined the AAA
under Boas rules!
On my yellow legal pad I capitalized what
Murra said loudly: NOT THE DOCTRINES
BUT THE STRUCTURE OF THE
PROFESSION.
EXPERIENCE
As Murra saw the 1902 AAA fight, it was
one outbreak of a permanent tension in U.S.
academe. American scholars inherit at the same
time European esteem for intellectual
credentials and American dislike of
intellectuals as a privileged class. It seems
significant that Murras struggle for citizenship
occurred at a time when the latter sentiment
was quite strong. He could take it in stride
because he felt that anti-academic sentiment
was one part of an American mind-set that also
entailed positive historic values.
At the time Murra gave his lecture about
McGee, New York was convulsed with racialized
anger over what was called the Ocean Hill-
Brownsville school affair. Black parents in these
Brooklyn neighborhoods had seized on new
school regulations to take control, expelling an
entrenched and white-dominated teachers
union. As Murra interpreted it:
(1903), and The Cheyenne (1905). Dorseys obituary was
published by Fay-Cooper Cole in the American Anthropolo-
gist (1931).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
The revolt of black parents against paper
credentials and teachers reliance on
[standardized achievement] tests is a
continuation of American resistance to
European cumulative and bookish
credentials. Only the blacks and a few
others havent been bought out by Europe.
In natural science, theres no resisting it.
But in social studies, in human things, we
can still hold experience as the credential.
To make experience the prerequisite for
the institutionthats the contribution of
the U.S.
This mind-set left a mark on anthropology.
Long-lasting emphasis on personal and local
experience stood in tension with historical
perspective and with disciplinary rigor.
Maybe . . . blindness to history is a product
of . . . avidity for direct experience and
dislike of vicariousness. L.H.M. didnt care
for anything he couldnt observe. . . The
intellectual character of U.S.
anthropology, and other sciences, is self-
starting and immediate.
Murra sympathized with this mentality,
which made Americans into field-workers
(though not participant observers) long before
Boas or Malinowski. In his role as an advisor of
young anthropologists, Murra tried to promote
Boasian professionalism without suffocating the
self-starting habit of mind, which he liked.
Unlike his deans, he made practiced ethno-
graphers welcome regardless of diplomas.
McGee was right about the necessity for
practical field experience, the dispen-
sability of Ph.D.s. You must be immersed
at some point.
He contrasted deep fieldwork involving
personal cathexis with the skimpy, narrowly
programmed field excursions Cornell
- 94
administrators were used to accommodating. He
scolded the social scientists for sponsoring
merely ritual fieldwork, which is forced to fit
. . . in interstices of the academic calendar. You
cant see the whole culture in summer . . . Like
Hawaiian pineapples, our experience is grown
can size.
American museumsthe Peabody at Harvard
and its homonym at Yale, the American
Museum of Natural History in New York,
Pennsylvanias University Museum, and the
Field Museum in Chicagowere often hostile to
professionalization, but they did one great thing:
they were able to sponsor long fieldwork
unconstrained by semesters. In Murras eyes,
Kroeber, who was Berkeleys museum man
among other things, was right to speak of:
submerging oneself in other ways of life as
an act of personal liberation and self-
understanding, the only ecstasy we will
ever have from our given past and path.
Because Murra saw long, open-ended
expeditions as the heart of the anthropological
task, he taught respectfully about museum
men. We were expected to take their bigotry
and even their entanglements in military
intelligence in perspective, the better to
appreciate their impact in enlarging and
internationalizing field research.
The Peabody anthropologists were the first
[U.S. anthropologists] to go abroad, before
World War I, to Maya lands (where the
spying was done), and to Africa.
Murra also credited the museums ability to
publish long works on anthropology. Until well
into the twentieth century the Smithsonian was
still the only place to publish large studies; in
fact the beginning of other [academic press]
outlets was the beginning of its deterioration.
Despite his disappointment in Julian H.
95 -
Stewards19 evolutionist manhandling of South
American ethnography, Murra admired his
adroit manipulation of the federal funding
system to publish the Handbook of South
American Indians as Smithsonian Bureau of
American Ethnology reports (Steward 1946-
1959). In the 1960s museums had lost ground
due to their not getting any Sputnik sauce,20
and Murra took on a consultancy seeking to
prevent the collapse of the Smithsonians
unique anthropological establishment.
STATECRAFT
Although Murra valued much of the North
American intellectual past, he also felt that it
showed some durably wrong inclinations. One of
these was the search for an overarching
evolutionary natural science of society. Murra
remarked that although much of Morgans
evolutionary model was wrong and refuted, we
would never get rid of his evolutionism.
This was not a matter of denying the validity
of an evolutionary frame for understanding
complexity. As a materialist, Murra
acknowledged that if evolution is true of some
of nature, then it is true of all nature, including
socio-cultural human nature. But that only
helped to define the constraints on humanity in
each of its techno-environmental conditions.
The neo-evolutionist Stewardian venture of
ranking societies in a schema of determinately
emerging adaptive complexity seemed to him
the most drab, least creative program for
anthropology. In a book review which caused
hard feelings, he referred to Timothy Earles21
19
For Steward see Barnes, this volume, note 37.
20
Murra meant National Defense Education Act funds
available after the space technology panic of 1957. These
funds fueled a vast expansion of U.S. universities.
21
Timothy K. Earle (b. 1946) is known for his contribu-
tions to an understanding of the chiefdom form of political
organization. He has used Hawaii as an important case
Salomon: John V. Murra
post-Stewardian approach as an evolutionary
chore (Murra 1988:586).
The interesting thing for himand for all his
studentswas how humans make changes within
their evolutionary moments. If societies alter
from one form to another, they do so
historically, through what would later be called
agency. This was what diachronic anthropology
should study. Murra detested coarser
materialists such as Leslie White and Marvin
Harris22 the latter then the predominant public
voice of anthropology in the U.S.for laying a
heavy thumb on the scale of historical
interpretation.
Just as wrong, Murra thought, was
evolutionists tendency to see the politicization
and centralization of society as an inevitable and
uniform process. The justification for studying
the evolution of states, he thought, was not to
multiply purported laws of complexity. It was on
the contrary to skeptically probe the clout of
kings and the varieties of political experience.
Thinking of peoples buffeted by states, Murra
asked for answers about states and answers to
states. How different it [kinship-based state
society] was! What anthropology has to offer is
study. Among his major works are Economic and Social
Organization of a Complex Chiefdom . . . (1978), Archaeo-
logical Field Research in the Upper Mantaro, Peru, 1982-
1983 (1987), and How Chiefs Come to Power . . . (1997).
22
Marvin Harris (1927-2001) was an American anthro-
pologist who formulated theories of cultural materialism
combining Karl Marxs emphasis on the means of produc-
tion with the impact of demographic factors on other parts
of socio-cultural systems. He studied as both an under-
graduate and a graduate student at Columbia University,
obtaining a Ph.D. there in 1953. He taught at Columbia
from 1953 until 1980, then at the University of Florida,
Gainesville from 1980 until 2000. Among his 17 books
are The Rise of Anthropological Theory (1968), Cultural
Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture (1979),
and Theories of Culture in Post-Modern Times. An obituary
of Marvin Harris by Maxine L. Margolis and Conrad
Phillip Kottak was published in the American Anthropolo-
gist in 2003.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
the proof that there was an alternative. States,
particularly precapitalist states in Africa and the
Americas, were his ethnological center of
gravity. In teaching about Burundi, Cameroon,
or Zulu politics, however, his point was not at
all to show regularities of state formation but, on
the contrary, to show how surprisingly the
sources and uses of political power can vary.
Long after the utopian in him had perished, he
argued by example and indirectly, for the
unsuspected political alternative.
ETHNICITY
In the 1970s a substantial number of
American sociologists and anthropologists were
trying to reinvent or reabsorb the Marxian
legacy, among them Murras great friends Eric
Wolf23 and Sidney Mintz24. He had nothing but
admiration for their inventive historicism, even
as he hung back from their larger Marxian
program. But he disliked cruder versions of
Marxian social science. In his view, insistence
on class as the sovereign analysis had prevented
scholars, both North and South American, from
writing history in cultural depthjust as
frameworks of nationality and race had done
earlier. The Rumanian in him insisted forever
on ethnicity: more than race, more than
nationality, more than stratification.
His interest in it was not limited to sweet-
tempered multiculturalism, either. He regarded
23
Eric Robert Wolf (1923-1999) was an anthropologist
well-known for his studies of peasant societies, especially
in Latin America. He obtained his Ph.D. from Columbia
University after World War II. An early exponent of
peasant (as opposed to primitive) studies, he later
emphasized linkages between worldwide economic systems
and local ethnographic facts. Among his many influential
works are Sons of the Shaking Earth (1959), Peasants
(1966), and Europe and the People Without History (1982).
An interview of Wolf by Ashraf Ghani was published in
the American Anthropologist in 1987 and an obituary by
Jane C. Schneider in the same journal in 1999.
24
For Mintz see Barnes, this volume, note 60.
- 96
ethnic friction as a normal and basic part of the
human condition for better or worse. In one
guise or another inter-ethnic situations provoke
primitive anthropology, raw but fertile
situations of encounter and reflection. Boas or
Malinowskis foreignness in his academic
country seemed to Murra to be a central fact.
Boas, the foreign agitator . . . like Malinow-
ski [advanced by] coagulating refugees and
colonials into a group; Boas swiftly pulled
together a tight but heterogeneous group
. . . He was their rescuer and their patron.
He insisted that the battle between the
academic machine Boas was creating around
1900 and the informal lineages of the Harvard,
Pennsylvania, and New York museum sets was
an ethnic battle. When the AAA in 1919
expelled Boas for dissenting against
anthropological involvement in spying on
Central America, of twenty who voted against
Boas, fifteen were at Harvard and many were
former U.S. government employees. Murra
identified them as WASP upper crust.
Murra was likely speaking indirectly of
himself when he agreed with Claude Lvi-
Strauss25 that anthropology is a way of living
with an unresolved ethnic identity. He
particularly felt empathy for anthropologists
who grew this way, for example Morris
25
Claude Lvi-Straus (b. 1908) is a French ethnologist
and anthropological theorist famous for developing
anthropological structuralism, a system that analyses a
complex field in terms of formally interrelated and oppos-
ing parts. He received his doctorate from the Sorbonne
(1948). He lived in Brazil in the 1930s and 40s, teaching
and conducting ethnographic field-work there. He
presented two theses, one on the family and social life of
the Nambikwara Indians and the other The Elementary
Structures of Kinship (published in 1949). Among his other
famous books are Tristes Tropiques (1955), Structural
Anthropology (1958), The Savage Mind (1962), and the
four volumes of Mythologiques(1969-1981). A good guide
to the work if Lvi-Strauss was published by Edmund
Leach in 1970.
97 -
Swadesh,26 in self-exile from the then-unfriendly
United States driving the only Moskvitch car
in Mexico City, alienated at home, successful
abroad.
As Boas turned to anti-racism, Sapir27
turned to Jewish consciousness. . . He took
his Nootka skills to Yiddish and
Jewishness.
On the Peruvian side, Murras friendship
with Peruvian anthropologist, novelist, and poet
Jos Mara Arguedas rested in part on empathy
with Arguedas lonely, out-of-the-zeitgeist
ethnic loyalties (Murra and Lpez Baralt 1996).
Murra was, however, notoriously touchy
about his own unresolved ethnic identity. He
felt that the persona he had forged in his
Spanish soldiering and his profession was his
only real identity and deserved to be accepted
beyond questioning. He hated to hear his Jewish
childhood name mentioned. As it happened I
was the only overtly Jewish student in his group.
When I proposed to write a seminar paper on
Guaman Pomas allusions to Hebrew scriptures,
some fellow students told me it was a bad idea
because religious discussionseven ethnological
26
The Americanist linguist Morris Swadesh (1909-1967)
originated glottochronology, a method for estimating
chronologies of language divergence based on lexical
comparison. He held a B.A. and an M.A. from the
University of Chicago and a Ph.D. from Yale with a
dissertation on the Nootka language. He published 130
articles and 17 books and monographs. An obituary by
Norman A. McQuown was published in the American
Anthropologist in 1968.
27
Edward Sapir (1884-1939), a published poet and Boas-
ian linguist who concentrated on North American Indian
languages, is most famous as the co-creator of the Sapir-
Whorf hypothesis which postulates relationship between
grammar and thought patterns. He graduated from
Columbia College in 1904. He continued at Columbia to
study linguistics and anthropology. Ruth Benedict pub-
lished an obituary of Sapir in a 1939 issue of the American
Anthropologist. Included is a complete bibliography of
Sapirs published work prepared by Leslie Spier.
Salomon: John V. Murra
ones always got on Murras nerves. But Murra
liked the idea. After the paper was done, he
commented in private that an outspoken Jewish
identity is a good thing, but the waffling, evasive
relation to Judaism he thought he saw in others
(and I asked myself, only in others?) was an
ethnic neurosis.
INDIVIDUALITY
Murras notion of the anthropological calling
as a way to bring forth something grand
ethnographyout of something inwardly pain-
fulalienationhas much to do with his respect
for individuality. He adhered strongly, though
not orthodoxly, to Freudianism because he
thought it an unbudgeable fact that at every
level from intimacy to nationality one lives
against ones people, as well as with them.
Whether at the inner level of the psyche or the
outer level of professional action, he saw the
agonistic creation of the self as a basic human
process. He admired good self-documenters
like Lowie, Kroeber, Sapir, and Swadesh whose
writings help us follow theirs. Murra valued
Sapir, too, for being a dissenter himself and
finding dissent within culture. Others might
credit tribes with unanimity; Sapir said things
like, The Burucubucu say so-&-so; Two Crows
denies it (referring to Dorsey 1885:211-371).28
Above all, Murra brought forward as
exemplar of the anthropologist self-realized in
cryptic uniqueness an earlier expatriate, Paul
Radin (Radzyn), the most historical and most
European of his generation. He returned to
Radin over and over, out of proportion to the
dimensions of the course. Murra pointed out
that Radin, the originally Polish author of
remarkable ethnographies about the Winnebago
(now self-denominated Ho-Chunk) of
Wisconsin:
28
This phrase was later amplified as the title of a mono-
graph on the famous Omaha kinship problem, by Robert
Harrison Barnes (1984).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
taught at Kenyon [College], Fisk
University [a Negro campus], and at 75,
Brandeis, and Black Mountain [a short-
lived but profoundly influential
experimental avant-garde campus]. He
lived to see his books republished and
popular after years on remainder tables.
Radin, Murra remarked, had no disciples in any
grand school; was he a part of history, having no
impact?29
Murra sympathized with Radins ethno-
graphic emphasis on Winnebago (etc.)
biography and autobiography (c.f. Radin 1949)
because they foregrounded the non-solidity,
the non-rigidity of culture and the self-creative
powers of every person as cultural being. He
liked Radins lack of nomothetic ambition.
The Winnebago Tribe (1990 [1923]) ends
nowhere after a mountain of description,
but its his best work. Its more like
anthology than analysis, full of big but
mutually relevant quotes. Uniqueness is
not reduced but put center-stage.
When Murra remarked that the obituary
Radin wrote about Lowie (1958) reflected a lot
of Radins self, we wondered if Murra were not
hinting that in remembering Radin he was in
turn reflecting his own sense of self. Like his
fellow Cornellian the expatriate novelist
Vladimir Nabokov, whom he read with
admiration, though not affection, Murra
sometimes tried his audiences wit with plays of
mirroring. One suspected indirect self-comment
when he said of Boas, His lack of praise to
students disturbed peoplehe was a stern
taskmaster whom everybody both loved and
hated. His comment that [Radin] didnt mind
29
But this statement referred only to the United States,
the scope of the course. Murra also thought that Radin
had productive dialogue with some anthropologists in
other countries.
- 98
being disliked but subtly demanded to be loved
had the same flavor.
Now, Murra said, we are swept into the
dimmer atmosphere of social science. He
despised the new, quantitativist-dominated
establishments into which midwestern deans
were forcibly relocating anthropology. He
quoted with approvals Kroebers famous article
about anthropologists as changelings in the
house of social science (Kroeber 1959). And
Murra went on:
Do sociologists call us bird-watchers,
antiquarians? It does not matter. We
dislike the facelessness of sociological
method more than we value its
methodological virtues. [Anthropology] is
the daughter of natural science by esthetic
humanism. It started with a glowing sense
of discovery in studying culture. It is truly
called intellectualizing romanticism. But it
is never called sterile or toneless.
In 1982, Murra ran unsuccessfully for
President of the American Anthropological
Association. His platform was partly a protest on
the above lines, going on to speak against
Sputnik-subsidized inflation in the number
of U.S. anthropologists, the vested interest
of departments in growth without
spelled-out priorities, be they regional or
intellectual, the lavish federal grants . . .
shoe-horning research into mental
health and other administratively selected
categories.
His candidacy was not just a protest. It was
also an appeal to remember what had been vital
and central in the United States ethnological
experience. Having just finished preparing, with
Nathan Wachtel and Jacques Revel, the special
Andean number of Annales, (Murra et al. 1986
Revel et al. 1978), he reflected on the special
99 -
orienting role that the epic of Native American
achievement played in New World intellectual
history. He hoped the A.A.A. would expand the
tradition of the same classic ethnographers his
course expounded. American anthropologists
should orient themselves around
documentation and comparison of the
cultural history of all human societies, with
a special, though not exclusive,
commitment to those civilizations
vanquished in the expansion of Europe
and the United States . . . the historical
anthropology approach, so new and
experimental in France, is our pride and
heritageit could give a focus and a new
urgency to the A.A. [American
Anthropologist] (Murra 1982).
COSMOPOLITANISM
Murras interest in the United States had
nothing to do with nationalism and everything
to do with cosmopolitan curiosity. Had the
disasters of the 1930s landed him someplace else
he would surely have delved into the place and
the history around him no less piercingly. In his
lectures, tantalizing digressive threads pointed
to other inquiries about other continents and
other anthropologies, which never became full
scale courses, at least not at Cornell.
Murra complained that his colleagues
pushed him into average anthropology instead
of letting him teach what he alone could teach.
By this he apparently meant a cosmopolitan
curriculum in ethnology. He took a strong
interest in views of American ethnology from
other intellectual traditions. Indeed in the first
week of the course I have been evoking he had
us read and debate critiques against American
anthropology by the Swede ke Hultkranz
(1968) and the Hungarian Tams Hofer (1968),
both of whom argued against the export of the
programs that United States foundations were
Salomon: John V. Murra
supporting. Murra could, and sometimes did,
teach marvelously on the British
anthropological tradition (he was an admiring
friend of Raymond Firth who taught at Cornell
in 1970)30 and on French ethnology, especially
French African researches. France, too, he often
reminded us, also had nationally rooted ethno-
graphic inquiries and anthropological societies
long before it had anthropology departments.
The most original of his cosmopolitan
lessons was his lecture segment (in a different
course) about the ethnohistory of the Russian
empire. One thing that made it compelling was
comparison of imperial Russia to the United
States as a particular kind of expansive
formation: an early-industrial state trampling
vast temperate and subarctic tribal
hinterlands. Murra began with Stephan
Krasheninnikov, who pushed Russian
exploration south from Alaska to the
Californian confines of the Spanish empire in
1735-1737, and ended with the fortunes of
contemporary ethnographic inquiry in the
Soviet Union. In connection with Boas Jesup
Northwest expedition of 1897-1902 he talked
with admiration of the Russian exile ethno-
graphers Lev Shternberg31 and Vladimir
Bogoraz32 (then all but forgotten in the United
30
For Firth see Barnes, this volume, note 35.
31
Lev Yakovlevitch Shternberg (1861-1927) was a
Ukranian ethnographer who studied the peoples of the
Russian northern Pacific islands and of Siberia. With
Boass patronage he worked for the American Museum of
Natural History. He was politically active in Marxist and
Jewish social movements. He accomplished some of his
ethnographic work while a political prisoner in Siberia.
32
Vladimir Germanovich Bogoraz (1865-1936), who was
an associate of Lev Shternberg, and who used the pseud-
onym N.A. Tan, was a Russian revolutionary, essayist,
novelist, poet, folklorist, and linguist who studied the
Chukchi people of Siberia while in political exile. Like
Shternberg he participated in the American Museum of
Natural Historys Jessup Pacific Expedition (1900-1901).
A bibliography of Bogorazs work was published by Katha-
rina Gernet in 1999.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
States). Murras brief lessons about Chukchee or
Gilyak (Nivkh) seemed outcrops of greater
study. He always kept an eye out for meritorious
ethnographers on the other side, urging us to
have a look at Sovietskaya Etnografiya; The
good ones write sandwiches, you know, a slice of
anthropology between two slices of Lenin.
He seemed to regret that little research had
come of his strong east-European interests.
After all, in the Cold War era, just about
anything concerning the Soviets was fundable,
and with his deep Russian knowledge Murra
could surely have made a career of it. Indeed in
1950 Columbia had offered him paid work on
Soviet ethnology. In 1951 Murra published a
piece explaining to Americans the importance
of The Soviet Linguistic Controversy, the
moment when Stalin seemed about to open a
space for cultural research by reassigning
language from superstructure to base (Murra than did his outings on the puna (which is not
et al. 1951). But the cold war burden of politics
and, above all, the impossibility of unfettered
fieldwork in the Soviet sphere, put Russian-
language ethnohistory permanently on Murras
back burner.
Murra had a prescient sympathy for another
kind of cosmopolitans, not fashionable at that
time, but now widely appreciated. These were
the native intellectuals of the empires
everywhere, then sometimes called organic
intellectuals or evolus. Alongside Perus He mentioned that:
Indian chronicler Felipe Guaman Poma de
Ayala, or Francis La Flesche, the magnificent
native ethnographer of the Omaha and Osage,
he liked to put Samuel Johnson, the pioneer
Yoruba-Anglican historian of Nigeria, or Jomo
Kenyatta, first prime minister and president of
Kenya, or the Akan intellectual J.B. Danquah,
whom he knew slightly. Danquahs aristocratic
hauteur seemed to Murra an amusing
counterpoint to the populist tone of de-
colonizing anthropology. North American
Indian interlocutors, people such as School-
- 100
crafts educated Ojibwe wife Jane Johnston,
Morgans Seneca friend and co-author Ely S.
Parker, and Boas great Amerindian collaborator
George Hunt33 never failed to loom large. There
was, of course, something personal about his
affection for intellectual lives lived among rather
than within cultures.
TO LIVE AS AN ANTHROPOLOGIST
Awed by Murras knack for getting along
with so many kinds of people, by his charm and
his polyglot savoir-faire, some of us wondered
why he bound himself so tightly to the archival
life of ethnohistory (c.f. Ortiz de Ziga 1967-
72). He never became much of a face-to-face
ethnographer. His patience for the discomforts
of Andean village life had limits. It seems,
looking back, that his life among South
American intellectuals mattered more to him
to deny that such trips in the company of
cultural and archaeological field-workers had
revelatory effects on him; c.f. Collier and Murra
1943). The emerging institutional research life
of Andean countries, not the Quechua or Ay-
mara rural scene, was the scene in which he
achieved great participant-observer insight.
He demanded his doctoral candidates build
collegial and ethnographic connections as major
personal commitments, not mere contacts.
German and Japanese anthropologists
when they arrive [in their countries of
research] usually attend local universities
and develop emotional and social ties.
This corresponds to humanism in
anthropology. Whereas, we from the U.S.
33
Tlingit George Hunt (1854-1933) was a friend and
collaborator of Franz Boas. Through marriage he also
became expert in Kwakiutl or Kwakwakawakw language
and culture.
101 -
come for short noncommittal visits and
objectivist purposes.
At Cornell his great institutional energies were
directed not so much toward institution-
building, as toward opening spaces for collegial,
non-bureaucratic affinity. Murra fought
continual campaigns in the graduate school for
better recognition of international credentials,
better funding of outgoing travelers and
especially, fellowships for incoming foreign
students. He invariably demanded that graduate
students take part in the institutions of their
host countries.
Students of other anthropological masters in
Murras generation sometimes find it hard to
understand what was so compelling about him.
Compared to some, Murra wrote little (and
often published in relatively obscure outlets).
He preferred regional, middle-level modeling to
grand theory, at a time when a grand theory
wave was cresting. He could be maddeningly
inconclusive: invited to give the Lewis Henry
Morgan lectures at Rochester University in
1969, he could not be bothered to write them
up for publication.
Yet those who worked with him never cease
to hear his echo in their minds. Having lived
into an age when humanism, skepticism,
tolerance for uncertainty, and love of the ethno-
graphic particular are again becoming welcome
in our discipline, one feels that in the end his
teaching of unfashionable anthropology did
make its mark. We are much the richer for it.
Murras life was not only a remarkable career in
Andean research; it also demonstrated one very
special way to live as an anthropologist.
REFERENCES CITED
Barnes, Robert Harrison
1984 Two Crows Denies It: A History of Controversy in
Omaha Sociology. Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press.
Salomon: John V. Murra
Bellow, Saul
1975 Humboldts Gift. New York: Viking Press.
Collier, Donald and John V. Murra
1943 Survey and Excavations in Southern Ecuador.
Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History,
Publication 528, Anthropological Series, volume
35.
Dorsey, J. Owen
1885 Omaha Sociology. In Third Annual Report of the
Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, pp.
211-371.
Hinsley, Curtis
1976 Amateurs and Professionals in Washington
Anthropology, 1879 to 1903. In American
Anthropology: The Early Years, edited by John V.
Murra, pp. 36-68. St. Paul, Minnesota: West
Publishing.
Hofer, Tams
1968 Anthropologists and Native Ethnographers in
Central European Villages: Comparative Notes
on the Professional Personality of Two
Disciplines. Current Anthropology 9(4):311-315.
Hultkranz, ke
1968 The Aims of Anthropology: A Scandinavian
Point of View. Current Anthropology 9(4):289-
310.
Kroeber, Alfred L.
1959 The Personality of Anthropology. Kroeber
Anthropology Society Papers 19:1-5.
L[aufer], B[erthold]
1906 Boas Anniversary Volume: Anthropological Papers
Written in Honor of Franz Boas . . . Presented to
Him on the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of his
Doctorate, Ninth of August, Nineteen Hundred and
Six.New York: G. E. Stechert & Company.
Murra, John Victor
1982 Platform Submitted to Support Candidacy for
President, American Anthropological
Association. Circulated by the American
Anthropological Association and by John Victor
Murra. Photocopy. On file in the archives of
Andean Past.
1988 Review of The Evolution of Human Societies: From
Foraging Group to Agrarian State by Allen W.
Johnson and Timothy Earle. Man n.s. 23(3):586-
587.
Murra, John Victor, editor
1976 American Anthropology: The Early Years. St Paul,
Minnesota: West Publishing Company.
Murra, John Victor, Robert M. Hankin, and Fred Holling
1951 The Soviet Linguistic Controversy. Columbia
Slavic Studies. New York: King's Crown Press for
the Columbia University Slavic Languages
Department.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Murra, John Victor, and Mercedes Lpez-Baralt, editors.
1996 Las cartas de Arguedas. Lima: Pontificia Universi-
dad Catlica del Per, Fondo Editorial.
Murra, John Victor, Nathan Wachtel, and Jacques Revel,
editors.
1986 Anthropological History of Andean Polities.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ortiz de Ziga, Iigo
1967-72 Visita de la provincia de Len de Hunuco en 1562,
edited by John V. Murra, Volume 1, Visita de las
cuatro waranqa de los chupachu. Hunuco, Per:
Universidad Nacional Hermilio Valdizn,
Facultad de Letras y Educacin, Series Docu-
mentos para la Historia y Etnologa de Hunuco
y la Selva Central.
Radin, Paul
1958 Robert H. Lowie, 1883-1957. American
Anthropologist 60(2):358-375.
1949 The Culture of the Winnebago: As Described by
Themselves. Baltimore, Maryland: Waverly Press.
1990 [1923] The Winnebago Tribe. Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press.
Revel, Jacques, John Victor Murra, and Nathan Wactel
1978 Anthropologie historique des socits andines.
Thematic issue, Economies, Societs, Civilisations,
Annales 33(5-6).
- 102
Steward, Julian H., editor
1946-59 Handbook of South American Indians. United
States Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin
143, 7 volumes. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Gov
ernment Printing Office.
Stocking, George W.
1988 Guardians of the Sacred Bundle: The American
Anthropological Association and the
Representation of Holistic Anthropology. In
American Council of Learned Societies
Occasional Paper 5: Learned Societies and the
Evolution of the Discipline, edited by Saul B.
Cohen and David Bromwich, pp. 17-25.
1992 The Ethnographers Magic and Other Essays in the
History of Anthropology. Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press.
 COSTANZA DI CAPUA DI CAPUA ( DECEMBER 17, 1912 - MAY 5, 2008)

KAREN OLSEN BRUHNS

Fundacin Nacional de Arqueologa de El Salvador
and
San Francisco State University

Costanza Di Capua examines a pot in her collection. Portrait by Jacob Blickenstaff (2006).

Costanza Di Capua died unexpectedly in her
Quito home in the early morning of May 5,
2008, at the age of 95. She was a dear friend of
mine for over thirty years. We met when the
Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the
University of California, Berkeley, called me and
asked if I would guide a visitor from Ecuador.
No one there knew anything at all about that
country and I had, at least, been there once!
The visitor was Costanza. We spent the day
together, looking at the displays, including type
collections from Cerro Narro, some materials
from the Caribbean littoral, plus the usual
flotsam that ends up in museum corners, going
out to lunch, and talking all day. After that we
met whenever she and her husband Alberto

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009): 103-107.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
came to San Francisco to visit their son, and I
stayed with them many times in Quito, when I
was doing archaeological research in Ecuador.
We talked, argued, and gossiped, and had a
wonderful time. Speaking with Costanza
brought a breath of fresh air. She did not look at
life like most of my academic friends do; she
pursued her interests out of her own passion.
Talking with Costanza was always stimulating,
often a revelation, and sometimes, many times,
I was far out of my depth.
As Frank Salomon, another old friend has
said (personal communication, September
2008):
Yes, its true, conversations with Costanza
were like no other conversations. To the
end (we last met less than a year before
her death) her focus and tenacity were
absolutely strict. You had to be one hun-
dred percent awake to take part in those
conversations! But at the same time she
was intellectually generous. The last thing
she gave me was her paper on the place of
Dante in Italian Jewish tradition, which I
enjoyed mightily as I read it on a bus
bumping down to Saraguro. She was a liv-
ing outcrop of the very best of pre-WW II
European humanism, setting an example
that very few people now know how to
follow. But we are trying.
Costanza Di Capua was born in Rome, to
an old Italian Jewish family. She attended school
there, gaining an excellent education with an
emphasis on Latin, Greek, philosophy, and
literature. She was awarded a Ph.D. in Modern
Languages in 1935 from the Universit La
Sapienza. Her doctoral dissertation is titled
Joseph Roth, Kafka, Brod, and Judaism. Costanza
spoke Italian, Spanish, French, and English
fluently, although she preferred to write and to
present talks in either Italian or Spanish.
- 104
The latter half of the1930s was a tense time
for Italian Jews. Mussolini enacted a series of
anti-Semitic laws that made it difficult for Jews
to earn a living, get an education, or even,
eventually, to move safely in the streets. Costan-
za met her cousin, Alberto Di Capua, in 1938,
shortly before Alberto emigrated to Ecuador.
Alberto then proposed to his cousin by mail and
she sailed alone to Ecuador to marry him in
1940. They set up housekeeping in a home in
Calle Juan Rodrguez in the Amazonas district of
Quito, then called Calle de las Casas Rojas
because the houses had red roofs and fronts that
imitated brick. Costanza lived in this house with
Alberto to the end of both their lives. It was
here that their three children, Ana Rosa,
Marco, and Alejandro were born.
Alberto had begun a pharmaceutical busi-
ness, Laboratorios Industriales Farmacuticos
Ecuatorianos (LIFE), which soon grew to pros-
perity and importance. Costanza was a home-
maker, somewhat at loose ends in this new land,
and she threw herself into family life.
Costanza was extremely fond of music and
the cultural life of Quito in the 1940s and 50s
was not all that great. She got her relatives to
give her phonograph records of classical music
for her birthdays and anniversaries. Every Sun-
day she had her friends over to listen to music.
Costanza became an Ecuadorian citizen in
1951 and, as her children grew and started
school, she began to enter into cultural and
community affairs. She was instrumental in
establishing the first Jewish temple in Quito
during the 1950s and, in the 1960s, was the
intellectual leader and whip of a group of citi-
zens who established the Quito Philharmonic
Orchestra. She remained active in temple and
cultural affairs until her death.
In 1959, her children nearly grown, she
began to collect Ecuadorian precolumbian art.
105 -
She was immediately attracted to the topic and
became interested in iconography, so she began
to study anthropology. This eventually resulted
in a number of her most widely read and appre-
ciated publications. Her interest led her into a
long friendship, and an active collaboration,
with Hernn Crespo Toral in the founding of
the Museo del Banco Central del Ecuador as the
national museum of archaeology, anthropology,
and history.
She also turned to the wonders of her new
city. She was sensitive to the baroque because of
her exposure to it in her native land. When she
went to Quito she became interested in the
Quito baroque. Because she was not a Roman
Catholic, she had a certain detachment and her
works are free of the stultifying religiosity of
many studies of church art and architecture.
Her interest resulted in a small bilingual guide-
book published in 1965, Quito Colonial. This
was the first work of its type ever published in
Ecuador and this book, coupled with Costanzas
other efforts, was important in the establish-
ment, in 1978, of the colonial quarter as one of
UNESCOs Heritage of Humanity sites.
Their children grown, Alberto and Costanza
traveled to the United States and Europe with
some frequency on both business and family
affairs and then, when Alberto retired and his
health started to fail, they took numerous
cruises. However Costanza (out of Albertos
hearing) referred to these vacations as another
2 weeks on the Love Boat. She found them
boring, but gladly went because it was a way her
beloved Alberto could take a vacation.
Alberto died in 1997. Costanza, who had
kept him alive for the last decade of his life by
sheer force of will, was devastated. However,
she was pulled from the excesses of mourning by
the need to catalogue Albertos (and her) books
and paintings and by the desire to preserve her
own freedom of action. Her children, worried
Bruhns: Costanza Di Capua
about her apparently declining health (a reac-
tion to the death of her Alberto and to the years
of worry and work that had gone into making
the end of his life as pleasant as possible),
wanted her to move to a high-rise apartment.
The Amazonas district had become a tourist
area and most of the houses on Juan Rodrguez
were now hotels or worse. A rough element had
moved in and Costanza said she often let trans-
vestite prostitutes hide from the police in the
garden. Homosexuality was illegal, and very
heavily punished in Ecuador at the time.
Costanza, who was a practical as well as a world-
ly person, did not approve. Costanza really
didnt want to leave the house where she and
Alberto had spent their lives together and,
fortunately, her grandson Eduardo Kohn Di
Capua, was in Ecuador, using his Nonas house
as a home base while he did his field research in
anthropology in the Amazon region. Eduardo
worked out a system whereby, when he wasnt
there, Costanza had a nurse-companion at night
as well as a secretary-companion most days.
Because there were also servants in the house,
this was enough to ensure her safety and well-
being. Also, her son and grandchildren in Quito,
as well as Ana Rosas children visited her fre-
quently, as did many other people.
Costanza was nearly blind and very deaf for
the last decade of her life, but it did not slow her
down a bit. Costanza was an indefatigable
traveler, visiting her children and grandchildren
in the United States and her old home and
friends and family in Italy and Europe. At 90,
her son Marco being stationed in Delhi, she
traveled to India. Marco had visited Benares
and described to his mother the sun rising over
the Ganges. Costanza, whose interest in Dante
was always phenomenal, remembered that, for
Dante, Jerusalem was the center of the earth,
and the sun rose in Benares and set at Gibraltar.
So she had to go to India to see the sun rising
for herself!
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Despite many honors from universities and
institutes, Costanza never had an institutional
affiliation, although she could have had one for
the asking. She did not think of herself as a
professional, but as a gifted and curious ama-
teur. Considering that she was far more knowl-
edgeable than many of my professional col-
leagues, and had a gift of insight into problems
that was extremely penetrating, one wonders if
an academic affiliation is really all that it is
cracked up to be! Certainly, in Costanzas case
it made no difference at all in the quality of her
thought and her publications. Not being pushed
to publish or perish, she was free to mull over
problems until she had resolved them to her
own satisfaction. Her publications were limited,
mainly by her own perfectionism and the fact
that she was busy, as Patricia Netherly once
said, ruling the universe. However, she always
viewed her family as first and herself as second
and their needs or demands had priority, even
though she frequently (at least to me) com-
plained about never having time of her own to
work on her projects. Then she would laugh and
say, well, my family needs me and my friends do
too and that was that. Costanza was a matri-
arch and not just of her own family. She looked
after all sorts of visiting or passing scholars
archaeologists, historians, artists, writers, who-
ever. She had an active social life and was much
involved in the archaeological, literary, and
musical communities of Quito.
Costanza gave a great many talks, including,
in her last year of life, several at the Museo del
Banco Central, on iconographic themes dear to
her heart. She also spoke to Italian groups in
Quito and to other cultural institutions on a
wide range of topics. Costanza was elected a
member of the Institute of Andean Studies in
Berkeley in 1979, where she presented a paper
Further Evidence of a Trophy Head Cult in
Pre-Columbian Ecuador at the annual meeting
that year. This was an elaboration of her paper
on trophy heads and head shrinking in Tolita
- 106
that she had published the year before. Other
honors included official recognition by UNES-
CO in 2003 of her role in the preservation of
colonial Quito. In 2005 the Municipio of Quito
awarded her the medal of the Order of Barn de
Carondelet for her cultural efforts, and the
Government of Ecuador in 2006 bestowed upon
her the Gold Medal for Civic and Cultural
Merit. She was also presented an Italian decora-
tion, the Order of a Cavalier of the Star of
Italian Solidarity. On April 17, 2008 the Casa
de la Msica of Quito rendered homage to
Costanza with a special concert in honor of her
role in founding the Quito Philharmonic.
Costanza Di Capua is survived by her
children, grandchildren, and great grandchil-
dren. Her daughter, Ana Rosa Di Capua de
Kohn of Princeton, New Jersey, has two chil-
dren, Eduardo and Emma. Eduardo and his
family live in Montreal. Eduardo has two sons,
Benjamin and Lucas (the latter born after
Costanzas death). Costanzas son Marco, the
Embassy Energy Advisor for the United States
Ambassador in Beijing, and his wife Anne, have
two daughters, Kathleen and Emily, who work
and study in the United States. Alejandro,
Costanzas other son, and his wife Cecilia Saco-
to live in Quito. Their three children, Daniela,
Ana Gabriela, and Carlos Alberto, all study in
Spain. Doa Costanza is also survived by a host
of friends, all of whom mourn her and celebrate
their good fortune at having known her.
One of these friends, Frank Salomon, recalls
(personal communication, September 31, 2008):
. . . one of the last things she wrote (in
2006, I think) was an essay on the memory
of Dante Alighieri among Italian Jews. It
was really about many things besides
Dante, being in truth a meditation on the
humane symbiosis that Christianity and
Judaism enjoyed in some parts of Italian
history, and beyond that, implicitly, about
107 - Bruhns: Costanza Di Capua

how Doa Costanza situated herself as
a tolerant humanist who at the same
time sympathized with sacred culture.
A beautiful piece.
nellAmerica indigena, edited by Davide Dominici,
Carolina Orsini, and Sofia Venturoli. Bologna:
CLUEB.
Article about Costanza Di Capua

In addition Doa Costanza published a great Aguirre, Milagros

many articles on cultural matters, reviews, 1993 Costanza Di Capua: Del Tiber a Valdivia. Revista
Diners 131:6-11.
letters to the editor, and short articles in Quito
magazines and newspapers. Of these, the only
one I know anything about is a long review of
The Mapmakers Wife which she was writing and
sending to a Quito newspaper in 2005 in the
hope of inspiring someone to translate this book,
which is so pertinent to Ecuador, into Spanish.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

I am indebted to Marco Di Capua, Eduardo Kohn Di

Capua, Frank Salomon, Ronald Lippi, and Patricia
Netherly for help with this appreciation of the life of Doa
Costanza. We hope she is busy, as usual, ruling the
universe.
Costanza di Capua as a young woman in the
kitchen of her house in Calle Juan Rodrguez.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS OF COSTANZA DI CAPUA Costanza was a wonderful cook. Ronald Lippi
swears that her rabbit and polenta was the best he
1965 Quito colonial: Gua y recuerdo. Guayaquil: A. G. has ever had. Many of us, including, I suspect,
Seinfelder (second edition 1968, third edition
1973).
Alberto, would vote for her pasta dishes.
1978 Las cabezas trofeos: Un rasgo cultural de La
Tolita y Jama-Coaque y breve anlisis del mismo
rasgo en las dems culturas del Ecuador pre-
colombino. Antropologa Ecuatoriana 1:72-164.
1984 Consideraciones sobre una exposicin de sellos
arqueolgicos. Antropologa Ecuatoriana 2-3:79-
103.
1985 Chaman y jaguar: Iconografa de la cermica
prehistrica de la Costa Ecuatoriana. Miscelanea
Antropolgica Ecuatoriana 6:157-169.
1994 Valdivia Figurines and Puberty Rituals: An
Hypothesis. Andean Past 4:229-270.
1997a La luna y el Islam, La serpiente e el Inka: Una
semntica de la Imaculada en Espaa y su men-
saje ulterior en la Virgen de Quito. Memoria
7:95-119 (Instituto de Historia y Antropologa
Andinas, Quito).
1997b Una atribucin cultural controvertida. Fronteras
de la Investigacin 1:5-14.
2002 De la imagen al Icono: Estudios de arqueologia e
historia del Ecuador. Quito: Ediciones Abya-Yala.
2003 Una interpretacin tentativa para los figurines
Palmar Inciso. In Il sacro e il paesaggio
 RECONSTRUCTION OF THE BURIAL OFFERING AT PUNKUR IN THE NEPEA VALLEY
OF PERUS NORTH-CENTRAL COAST
In 1933 Julio C. Tello began a program of
field-work in the Nepea Valley. There he
carried out various projects, among them exca-
vations at a site called Punguri by local people
then and Punkur by archaeologists and the
general public today. At the time, Tello was
interested in everything related to his concept of
Chavn. At present, Tellos field records are
divided between the Museo Nacional de
Arqueologa, Antropologa e Historia del Per
(MNAAHP) and the Museo de Arqueologa y
Antropologa of the Universidad Nacional
Mayor de San Marcos (MAA-UNMSM). Previ-
ously unpublished documents relating to Tellos
excavations at Cerro Blanco and at Punkur
were recently printed by MAA-UNMSM (Tello
2005).
In the course of investigating the role of
large exotic molluscs including Spondylus prin-
ceps, Strombus galeatus, Conus fergusoni, and
Fasciolaria princeps, among others, in the ritual
and paraphernalia of central Andean pre-
columbian societies, my colleagues and I found
a natural trumpet made from the shell of a
Strombus galeatus, a marine gastropod (Falcn et
al. 2005). Later, I established that it pertained to
the burial context of a sacrificed woman found
by Tello at Punkur, which he declared enthusi-
astically to be the first trace of the people of
the Chavn culture identified in the area
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009): 109-129.
VCTOR FALCN HUAYTA
Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Per
(Anon. 1933b in Daggett 1987:139).1 This
article analyses the circumstances of the discov-
ery of this burial context and the objects associ-
ated with it. The goal is to reconstruct the event
which included the deposit of this precolumbian
trumpet or huayllaquepa which is, at present, the
only object known to remain from the context
excavated by Tello at this site.2
PUNKUR
Punkur, as described by Tello, is on the
right bank of the lower Nepea River Valley, at
km 409 on the Pan-American Highway North,
where it makes a turn to the east, near the town
of San Jacinto. Its distance from the coast is 27
km and its altitude is 230 masl (Daggett 1987:
1
El primer hallazgo de las gentes de la cultura Chavn,
identificado en el terreno.
2
The whereabouts of all the other objects associated with
this burial offering are unknown, although the discovery
was published in various periodicals of the day and
extensive field data are now available. These objects,
among which are a stone mortar and pestle, both
beautifully decorated, belong to Perus national cultural
patrimony and their value is emblematic because they
correspond to a context excavated by one of the founders
of Peruvian archaeology; they belong to a time in which
the earliest iconographic repertories associated with
monumental architecture were being created; and they
come from a known archaeological context which makes
them one of only two known cases. The other Formative
decorated stone mortar from an excavated context was
recently recovered from the Santa Valley site of San
Juanito (Chapdelaine and Pimentel 2008:248-253).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
114; Vega-Centeno 1999:5). Today the setting
of Punkur is the same as Julio C. Tello when
saw it more than seventy years ago (Figure 1).
Like many of the huacas in the valleys of the
Peruvian coast, Punkur appeared to be an
earthen mound set in the middle of sugar cane
fields, in this case belonging then to the Socie-
dad Agrcola Nepea Ltda (Nepea Agricul- its funerary context, which is characterized by
tural Company Ltd.), administered by a North-
American, John B. Harrison, who had exca-
vated there in 1929 (Daggett 1987:112). Harri-
son had also excavated at Cerro Blanco during
the previous year, when, during the course of
the construction of irrigation canals and wagon
roads, its well-known Chavinoid walls were
uncovered. It was the photographs of these
murals that made Tello take an interest in the
Nepea Valley sites (Bischof 1997:203; Daggett
1987:111-112).
Through the recent publication of Tellos
field notes, it is now known that Punkur was
the object of at least two clandestine excava-
tions. The first of these was conducted by an-
other hacienda administrator called Subiri in
the western part of the site many years previ-
ously (hace muchos aos). The second exca- ary context at the foot of the clay feline (Larco
vation was by Harrison (Tello 2005:76; Figure
2).
Tellos work at the site attracted the atten-
tion of the press. Nevertheless, once the site had
become old news and the emotion of the mo-
ment had passed, Punkur did not become the
object of greater attention, and the continuity of
research there was lost because of the political
hostilities of the government at the time to-
wards Tello (Daggett 2007:81, 83-84, 87-91).
No conservation measures were taken, and the
face of the polychrome clay sculpture of a feline,
unique in all the Andes, was destroyed (Bischof
1994:173; Samaniego 2006:18, 22-23; Vega-
Centeno 1999:7, 12). Fortunately, in 1998, a
research and restoration project at Punkur
- 110
under the direction of Lorenzo Samaniego
Romn changed the fortunes of this monument
by preparing it for visitors.3
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE PUNKUR BURIAL
OFFERING
In this article I consider the burial offering in
its status as a primary context, its articulation
with the monuments architecture, and its
composition and associated objects, the majority
of them elaborate and exotic in relation to the
location of the find.
Until recently, the absence of better refer-
ences to the work of Tello at Punkur forced
researchers to resort to reports in newspapers of
the day, to discussion of the little iconography
that had been published, and to site visits (Bis-
chof 1994, 1995; Daggett 1987; Proulx 1973,
Vega-Centeno 1998, 1999). As for the discovery
and description of the contents of the burial
offering, there were only brief references (Anon.
1933b in Daggett 1987:139; Tello 1943:136-
137), a few profile drawings of excavations in
the temple, and a photo which shows the funer-
2001:15-29, figure 24). In this article I recon-
struct events related to the excavation of the
burial offering, principally as narrated by re-
cently published documents from the Tello
Archive.4
There is detailed information about the way
that Tello came to work in the Nepea Valley
(Bischof 1997; Daggett 1987:112). According to
3
(http//www.uns.edu.pe/punkuri/punkuri6.html;
consulted July 20, 2008).
4
I worked directly from papers in the Tello Archive in
UNMSM. However, because those documents are now
published, I refer to the pagination of the published book,
not to the original foliation of the documents themselves.
111 -
the field notes, when Tello decided to excavate
in front of the clay feline, an earlier excavation
had already been made in the area by Harrisons
workers who had begun to excavate the waka
from its upper part in the north, opening a deep
trench. They had encountered what Tello later
called the Painted Staircase (escalera pinta- was already quite clear. During this operation
da) and the clay feline found in the middle of
it (Tello 2005:76, photo P9/F2/ 56 on p. 78).
The discovery of the feline made Harrison and
his workers so enthusiastic they were about to
destroy the head of the idol under the suspicion
that it contained the treasure they sought.
Fortunately, Harrison did not take the sugges-
tion and decided to contact Tello (ibid.). Con-
tinuing his search, Harrison discovered a small
quadrangular feature at the top of the monu-
ment and decided to excavate almost its entire
floor which was at a depth of 4 meters from the
top of the excavation. At this point he was
halted by the resistance of the fill and the lack
of results (ibid.: 80-81). Under these circum-
stances, Harrison ordered excavation in front of
the clay idol to a depth of one meter, at which
point excavation ended because of the compac-
tion of the fill (ibid.: 90).
Four years later, on Tuesday, 19 September
1933, Tellos workers had already cleared the
rubble left by Harrison on the part of the site
containing the Painted Staircase, the clay feline,
and in front of it. Tello decided to excavate
there because he thought that Harrisons test
trench was shallow, and that by deepening it
one might encounter human remains (algunos
cadveres) given the presence of the idol near-
by. An important point is that Tello said that
Harrison broke the plaster of the floor (rompi
el enlucido del piso), which consisted of a layer
apparently formed by lime and sand, or perhaps
by a special whitened clay and sand, which
formed a cap some 4 cm thick, located over
Falcn Huayta: Reconstruction at Punkur
another surface painted brick-red (ibid.).5 On
the following day, Tello cleared the area better,
and confirmed that earth had previously been
removed. Nevertheless, he decided to go at least
2 m deeper in order to understand the structure
of the huaca (ibid.).6 At that point Platform 2
Tello discovered a lower plastered and painted
wall, distinct from the staircase structure, and
he decided to follow it. He was sure he had an
interesting discovery and enlarged the area of
excavation to 3.5m in length by 2.5 m in width,
ordering his workers to dig until reaching the
painted wall (hasta alcanzar el muro pintado;
ibid.).
The following day, when the area was
cleared to a depth of a meter, Tello ordered the
work to stop there. He went into the trench to
examine the excavation to decide if they would
continue to deepen it only near the painted
wall, which had been discovered about 30cm
below, and a little in front of, the last step of the
Painted Staircase (ibid.).7 With his shovel he
removed a lump and was surprised to notice the
rim of what appeared to be a cup (taza) which
he examined in private and which gave him the
sensation of stone or of iron (sensacin de
piedra o de fierro; ibid.: 91). Tello had been
presented with a a stone mortar which he did
not disinter immediately because, as he said,
Not being yet sure of the type of object I
had found, I covered it with earth and I re-
5
Torta formada aparentemente por cal y arena o tal vez
por una arcilla especial blanquizca y arena que forma una
capa como de cuatro centmetros de grueso colocada sobre
otra superficie pintada de ladrillo.
6
por lo menos unos 2m de profundidad con el fin de
conocer la estructura de la huaca.
7
Haba descubierto como a 30 centmetros por debajo
y un poco atrs del ltimo peldao de la escalera pintada.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
mained at the site and ordered the laborers
to continue working at my side . . .8
They were continuing to go down on the sides
while Tello remained above the mortar, when
one of them alerted him to the presence of an
object in the form of a drill (en forma de
barreno). Tello covered the new find and the
work day continued. The fact that the workers
were speaking in Quechua aroused his suspi-
cions. Tello indicated that he once again cov-
ered with earth the finds of the day and selected
a new watchman to stay and sleep at the site,
guarding the objects until the following day. In
the afternoon the administrator of the hacienda
and his wife arrived at Punkur. Tello told them
what had happened and invited them to witness
on the next day the removal of the stone objects
including a large stone vessel with engravings
in the Chavn style and a tool similar to a mace,
also completely made of stone (ibid.).9
In an account of the events of this day Tello
said he took down a wall which ran longitudi-
nally along the platform and which retained its
fill. Likewise he indicated that
during the excavation of the two stone
objects towards the rear center of the
sounding a mound of ash and small carbon
fragments was found, as well as guinea pig
skeletons at two sides, and a type of white
plumage at various points (ibid.: 92).10
8
No seguro an de la clase de objeto que haba
encontrado lo cubr con tierra me par sobre el sitio y
orden a los obreros que continuaran trabajando a mi
alrededor . . .
9
Vaso grande de piedra con grabados al estilo Chavn y
otra que es una herramienta semejante a una porra
tambin toda de piedra.
10
Durante la excavacin que condujo al hallazgo de las
dos piezas de piedra se encontr hacia la parte media y
posterior del pozo un montn de ceniza y pequeos
- 112
Copper objects and human bones, which ap-
peared to be disturbed, were located in the
back-dirt (en el desmonte).
On Thursday, 21 September, Tello ex-
panded and cleaned his excavation with the
goal of photographing the objects in situ, finding
fragments of purplish clay murals. He once again
checked the prepared surface of the platform
and the fill consisting of layers of semi-spherical
adobes slightly flattened, and hardened clay
with a few stones (ibid.: 93).11 We note the
absence up to now of references to the presence
of ceramics in the fill. This situation continued
throughout the course of the excavation and is
very important because it contradicts the infor-
mation which subsequently appeared in newspa-
pers of the time.
I continue to follow events from Tellos
perspective:
at about 1.2m from the line which the up-
per part of the sounding forms with the
base of the first step of the Painted Stair-
case, as one sees in the attached schematic
drawing, a precious gray stone mortar with
decoration in relief on its external surface
was found, as well as a large pestle also
made of stone (ibid.).12
Harrison took photos and filmed the discovery.
At this point Tello intuited that he was being
fragmentos de carbn y a uno y otro lado esqueletos de
cuyes y una especie de plumilla blanca en varios sitios.
11
Capas de adobes semiesfricos aplanados o achatados
y barro endurecido con algunas piedras.
12
Como a 1.20m de la lnea que en la parte superior del
pozo forma la base del primer peldao de la escalera
pintada como se ve en el esquema adjunto se encontraron.
. . un precioso mortero de piedra gris con ornamentaciones
en relieve en su cara externa y un largo moledor
igualmente de piedra.
113 -
presented with his first authentic Chavn tomb
(autnticamente Chavn). Successive events
confirmed his hunch of being near the body of
the burial. Continuing, he noted the presence of
very fine purplish dust and a few pieces of
charcoal.
Soon I [Tello] discovered the skull and
from its position I deduced that the body
was placed with the face up and a little
forward (ibid.: 94).13
The fragile bones of the cadaver defined the
position of the body with the head towards the
east and the feet to the west. The purplish fine
dust was found mainly around the waist and
pelvis of the individual. Tello attributed its
presence to the remains of the soft tissues
(partes blandas) and the clothes of the ca-
daver. At this time Tello, as he later did in the
company of Rafael Larco Hoyle, recovered
many turquoise beads and a bluish stone. .
. The beads were of different sizes, and of
various shapes; the work is relatively crude
in the majority of the beads, nevertheless,
a few are very well made, especially a large
sphere (ibid.).14
One must observe that, up to this point, Tello
does not mention in his field notes the presence
of several objects associated with the burial
offering, such as the huayllaquepa made of Strom-
13
Un polvillo muy fino de color violceo y de algunos
trozos de carbn de palo . . . Pronto descubr [dice Tello]
el crneo y por su posicin deduje que el cadver estuvo
echado pues la cara estaba hacia arriba con una ligera
inclinacin adelante (ibid.: 94).
14
Numerosas cuentas de turquesas y de una piedra
azulada. . . Las cuentas eran de diferentes tamaos, y de
varias formas, el trabajo es relativamente tosco en la
mayora de las cuentas; sin embargo, unas estn muy bien
talladas principalmente una grande esfrica (ibid.).
Falcn Huayta: Reconstruction at Punkur
bus galeatus and the Spondylus princeps valves to
which we will return later.
The objects found were moved to the nearby
town of San Jos. On Friday 22 September,
Tellos team proceeded with the excavation of
the fill containing the funerary context until
they arrived at the floor on which the body had
been placed. Likewise, the clearing of the north
or main faade and the east side of the temple
continued. During this work they found a few
isolated cadavers, some Moche sherds, and
constructions of rectangular adobes within the
rubble near the surface. This aspect is interest-
ing, because such references are characteristic of
mentions which appear in the field notes of the
presence of human remains, among which were
isolated skulls. The presence of another type of
ceramic is only referred to in a news article
dated 28 September, which was neither written
nor dictated by Tello, in which fragments of
black ceramics (fragmentos de cermica
negra) were mentioned (Anon 1933a in Dag-
gett 1987:137). When Tello referred to the
presence of ceramics at Punkur in a newspaper
report, he did so in the following manner: I also
found ceramic fragments which belong to the
finest types and pieces encountered (ibid.
136).15 As we have seen, this could refer to the
presence of Moche ceramics which were found
in the rubble which covered Punkur.
Saturday, 23 September was dedicated to
clearing the two columns that began to appear
towards the east side of the temple, and to
almost completely clearing the main (north)
facade (Figure 3). According to the available
records, the body was not touched, and clear-
ance was limited to a niche at the foot of the
15
Hall tambin fragmentos de cermica que acusan
pertenecer a modelos y piezas de los ms finos que se han
encontrado.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
idol. At the end of the day Toribio Meja Xesspe
and his wife arrived from Lima.
On Sunday, 24 September, Punkur received
the visit of various personalities who took part
in the extraction of the individual within the
burial offering. Among them were Rafael and
Javier Larco Hoyle, Alfredo Hoyle, a Mr.
Miano, a photographer, and the draftsman Mr.
Daz. Views of the context were recorded with
still photographs and on cin film. Rafael Larco
Hoyle and Tello concentrated their work on the
body of the burial offering and Tello declared,
It appears that the cadaver corresponded
to an individual of poor constitution who
was probably put to rest with the muscles
and legs flexed. Around the body, espe-
cially around the waist, I encountered a
multitude of turquoise beads, and a few
purple cylindrical beads, some triangular
plates with closed [sic] edges, or sharp ob-
jects which look like shark teeth. In addi-
tion a good set of shell beads was found,
and a magnificent example of Strombus
with the external surface also worked in
Chavn style (ibid.).16
This is the first mention of the huayllaquepa
of Strombus galeatus, in spite of the fact that it
certainly would have been visible since the day
when the stone objects were removed, because
it was located between them and the body of the
individual. The Strombus was broken into sev-
16
Parece que el cadver correspondiera a un individuo
de constitucin pobre y al ser acostado se le coloc
probablemente con los muslos y piernas flexionadas.
Alrededor del cadver y principalmente alrededor de la
cintura encontr multitud de cuentas de turquesas y
algunas cuentas cilndricas de color morado, de lminas
triangulares con bordes cerrados [sic] o espinosos que
parecen dientes de tiburn. Adems se encontr un buen
lote de cuentas de conchas y un magnfico ejemplar de
Strombus que presenta la superficie externa labrada
tambin del estilo Chavn.
- 114
eral pieces, perhaps by the weight of the fill, or
perhaps during handling, so that only Tello
perceived the incisions which mark its Chavn
affiliation. The left hand on the last curve of the
huayllaquepa shell was not noticed, so this motif
remained unknown (Figure 4).17
Toribio Meja assumed the recording for the
excavations on the following day, Monday, 25
September, as indicated by the notes in the
Tello Archive of the MAA-UNMSM. On this
day the removal of the last elements of the
context was finished, adding additional data
about the event. Meja noted that 70 shells of
Scutalus proteus appeared at the sides and
shoulder of the body along with
a good quantity of beads made of turquoise
and of shells, two examples of Spondylus
pictorum with two pairs of perforations
made in order to wear them as pendants.
The presence of very fine, pulverized,
somewhat purplish earth is noted around
and below the body, as if it consists of the
remains of clothing, or other objects that
perhaps accompanied the cadaver (Meja
in Tello 2005:97).18
17
Milano Trejo Huayta found the remains of the
huayllaquepa from Punkur in two separate bags in the
MNAAHP storehouse of organic material in 1999. Later,
noticing the similarity of the fragments and their joins, he
proceeded to glue the parts together, reconstructing the
conch trumpet and revealing, in this way, the incised
design of a left hand. The recent final restoration was
entrusted to Rosa Martnez Navarro, conservator of the
MNAAHP (Falcn et al. 2005).
18
A los lados y hombro del cadver: buena cantidad de
cuentas de turquesa de conchas, dos ejemplares de
Spondylus pictorum con dos pares de perforaciones como
para llevar colgados. Se constat la presencia de tierra
muy fina pulverizada de aspecto algo violceo alrededor y
debajo del cadver como si se tratara de restos de las
partes tal vez correspondientes a los vestidos, algunos
otros objetos que quizs acompaaron al cadver. This
was written by Toribio Meja Xesspe in the site notebook.
115 -
Having cleaned the area, they noted that the
individual had been placed on a platform and
that the back of the body had made a small
depression in it.
Later, the work was organized to clear the
walls with polychrome reliefs which were en-
countered on both sides of the burial offering.
At this point lenses of ash and molluscs were
detected. I stress that Meja also did not men-
tion ceramics in the fill, except when he referred
to Muchik ceramics (cermica Muchik) in associated with the burial offering and we can
the upper fill. On the other hand, the iconogra-
phy of the reliefs has been written up and dis-
cussed and several photos of them have been
published (Bischof 1994:173 figure 3d; Daggett
1987:116-117; Samaniego 1992). To this we can
add the publication of the Tello Archive (2005).
DISCUSSION
What was the fullest description we have of
this burial offering before the publication of the
field notes? In a newspaper interview that ap-
peared on 2 October 1933, Tello mentioned its
components in this context:
Having made a test pit in front of the
small platform on which the talons of the
idol rested, and only at a depth of 2m, a
body was encountered. . . It was placed in
an east-west direction. Next to it were
found two stone objects, a large vessel and
a type of pestle, both ornamented with
figures in relief, in Chavn style. . . Around
the body, and mainly at the level of the
pelvis, about a kilo of turquoise beads was
found, of different forms and sizes, from
the small, discoidal bead, almost flat, to
the large bead, spherical or cylindrical, and
weighing eight to ten grams. Also found
was a conch shell (Strombus galeatus) trum-
Meja did the recording on 25 September 1933.
Falcn Huayta: Reconstruction at Punkur
pet, whose surface appears ornamented
with hidden [sic] figures, also in Chavn
style; sixty examples of land snails (Scuta-
lus proteus); a pair of mollusc shells (Spon-
dylus pictorum); and skeletal remains of
guinea pigs and birds, very fragmentary
and partially pulverized (Anon. 1933b in
Daggett 1987: 139).19
Now we know that there was a sequence in
the appearance and location of the objects
draw some important conclusions:
(1) It is improbable that the burial offering
had an entrance to the surface of the platform
which extended to the feet of the feline. Even if
it is certain that Tello did not see the original
surface, he ascertained that Harrison broke it in
his search and Tello encountered remains of this
surface as soon as he enlarged his own excava-
tion. Likewise, it is difficult to think that if
Harrison had found any indication of the pres-
ence of a tomb he would not have continued.
Nevertheless, he abandoned the excavation at
only a meters depth from the start. In conse-
quence, it is most probable that the tomb was
sealed and hidden with the fill of the second
platform.
19
Al realizarse un cateo delante de la pequea
plataforma donde descansaban las garras del dolo, y slo
a dos metros de profundidad, se encontr un cadver. . .
estuvo echado en direccin E.O; junto a l se encontraron
dos objetos de piedra; un gran vaso y una especie de porra,
ambos ornamentados con figuras de relieve, del estilo
Chavn. . . Alrededor del cadver, y principalmente al
nivel de la pelvis, se concentr como un kilo de cuentas de
turquesas de diferentes formas y tamaos, desde la cuenta
pequea discoidal casi laminar, hasta la cuenta grande,
esfrica o cilndrica y de peso de ocho a diez gramos. Se
hall, adems, una trompeta de caracol (Strombus
galeatus), cuya superficie aparece ornamentada con figuras
escondidas [sic], tambin al estilo Chavn; sesenta
ejemplares de caracol terrestre (Scutalus proteus); un par
de conchas (Spondylus pictorum) y restos de esqueletos de
kuyes y aves, muy fragmentados y en parte pulverizados.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
(2) Until now, the presence of Early Forma-
tive ceramics at Punkur has been suggested on
the basis of news items published in the periodi-
cals of the time (Anon. 1933a in Daggett 1987,
Daggett 1987:116; Proulx 1973:15). Neverthe-
less, in the light of the field notes and current
observations we can conclude that in the fills
which constituted the matrix of the funerary
context there were no sherds from this period.
(3) On the basis of my review of the field
notes and photographs I propose the following
sequence for the inhumation of the Punkur
burial offering:
(a) On the floor of the first platform and
at the middle of the entrance whose lateral
walls exhibit the painted friezes with a zoo-
morphic personage in a horizontal position,
identified as a bird (Daggett 1987:117, figure
4b), or as ferocious mythical animals Bischof
1994:173), the body of a woman20 was identi-
fied, in a flexed position, and with the head
towards the east. The face looked up and had a
slight forward inclination. Apparently the body
was attired in a purplish garment.21 At the sides
and around the shoulders were placed lomas22
snail shells of the species Scutalus proteus and
many beads of turquoise and other stones,
mainly around the waist. Around this section
were found two pierced Spondylus princeps
20
The sex of the individual is mentioned in the note of an
anonymous journalist, who surely was told of it by Tello,
dated 28 September, 1933 (Anon. 1937a in Daggett 1987;
Tello 1943:137).
21
Tello and Meja suggest this repeatedly. One must
consider the possibility that the purplish substance relates
to a pigment or colored earth, because mural fragments of
this color were found in the fill.
22
In Peruvian geography and archaeology, lomas is a term
referring to the slopes of the western Andean foothills and
the seasonal patches of vegetation upon that that derive
their moisture from fog.
- 116
valves, but the exact location cannot be deter-
mined. Later, some type of burning was possibly
done.
(b) During this initial part of the burial
offering sequence a huayllaquepa of Strombus
galeatus was placed with its mouth or stoma
facing downwards. The incised left hand re-
mained visible on the dorsal face of the marine
gastropod. The piece was unbroken at the
moment of its deposit, and was fractured by the
weight of the fill. Nevertheless, the ventral part,
adjacent to the stoma (columela) contained a
round hole in the middle which could hardly be
a fracture made by the fill or during the time of
removing the specimen from the burial. This
suggests that the huayllaquepa may have been
ritually sacrificed by breaking this part in an
intentional manner, before placement. Likewise,
in the broad incisions which make the design of
the left hand one finds the remains of red pig-
ment which Larco also observed on the bones of
the individual (Falcn et al. 2005; Vega-Cente-
no 1999:6).
(c) These objects were lightly buried and
later the stone mortar was deposited with its
principal design facing up. Around its base was
placed the large pestle or mano, also deco-
rated with incised strokes.23
(d) Finally, in order to raise the level of
the fill, a retention wall was constructed and a
fire was made. Beside it were deposited guinea
pigs. Likewise some feathers were spread in the
fill.24
23
In an account of these events, Meja gives the depth of
this level as 1.6m from the surface of the platform (Tello
2005:114).
24
I have not considered the copper finds that Tello
mentioned because they were apparently in disturbed
contexts. Likewise, I note that a pencil drawing indicates
the presence of a support stone (piedra de apoyo) below
117 -
(e) When the fill covered the lower
30cm of the walls with the clay friezes, the
surface upon which the new platform was con-
structed was prepared (Figure 5).
Finally, one has to take into account an
inventory that Meja prepared of the species
found next to the Chavn cadaver (especies
encontradas junto con el cadver Chavn) of
Punkur. Among these notes are mentions of
the following:
(1) Perforated shells of Scutalus proteus
snails, among which were found five triangular
beads of serrated teeth, identical to five others
which figure in P12,25 which are assigned a
provenience of the fill of the habitations of
Building I.26 These last are 3cm long by 2cm
the mortar (Tello 2005:92, drawing on folio 518v (104) of
the archive), assigning it the letter d and showing it in
a schematic drawing of the base of the excavation (fondo
de la excavacin) of the burial offering. On the other
hand, a statement by Tello to the press about the contents
of the funeral context indicates the presence of bird bones
(Tello 1933) which are consigned to a list of objects
found in the fill of the houses of Building I by Meja
(Tello 2005:115) next to a polished turquoise bead, from
which it is reasonable to think that it belonged to the
burial offering context in that, apparently, deposits of such
objects were made as the platform was in-filled. Some of
these extraneous objects would be the unusual conical
adobes with incised faces or surfaces to which Santiago
Antnez de Mayolo called attention and tried to explain
(Antnez de Mayolo 1933 in Daggett 1987:161).
Likewise, in a statement to the press, Tello argued that he
had encountered in the lower fill of Punkur some beads
of rock crystal, worked and polished in a special manner
. . (Tello 1933 in Daggett 1987:147; en los rellenos ms
inferiores de Punkur algunas cuentas de cristal de roca,
talladas y pulidas de una manera especial . . .), all of
which leads one to consider that the process of adding fill
to raise the platforms of these structures was a ritual act.
25
Cinco cuentas triangulares de dientes aserrados,
idnticos a otros cinco que figuran en P12.
26
Building I or Edificio I/I edificio was used by Tello in
his field notes to designate the earliest construction phase
Falcn Huayta: Reconstruction at Punkur
wide at the base and have two perforations,
presumably in order to be strung.
(2) Flat turquoises that were square, circu-
lar, and rectangular.
(3) Cubical beads of Spondylus pictorum or
of Strombus galeatus.
(4) Large, flat beads of Spondylus pictorum
whose length varies between 2 and 4.8cm,
among them two triangular ones, and one in the
form of a human foot with incised toes (pie
humano con dedos incididos), etc. (Meja in
Tello 2005:115).
ELEMENTS ASSOCIATED WITH THE BURIAL
OFFERING
One of the problems affecting Peruvian state
museums is the need to order and catalogue
collections. It is usual to emphasize research,
which must take place as one of the indispens-
able pillars of their activity, even if it does not
receive the same emphasis and have the same
resources as are allocated to it in modern muse-
ums. Cataloguing and research are indissolubly
linked, because it is not possible to deepen the
knowledge of a collection, series, or object that
is part of a museums holdings if previously there
was not the minimum control of a computerized
inventory and acquisition data.
I now comment on the most important
elements of the burial offering and ask some
questions concerning their whereabouts.27
at Punkur.
27
According to published letters, we now know that the
political events in Peru at the beginning of the 1930s
influenced the changes in the direction of the institutions
related to the Nepea campaign which, in turn, caused a
resurgence in the intellectual rivalries that obstructed
Tellos work and contributed to a turbulent atmosphere
(Tello 2005:165-179). In relation to this Toribio Meja
Xesspe declared, Because of the absolute abandonment
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
The human remains. The fragile skeletal
remains of the burial offering of Punkur (skull,
long bones, and other pieces (otros pedazos)
were recovered and sent to Lima during the
Cerro Blanco campaign. The Storehouse of
Human Remains at MNAAHP contains only
four skulls from this site, which, on the basis of
their characteristics and annotations written on
them in pencil, correspond to those discovered
in the fill over the site. The bone remains of the
Punkur burial offering have not been located.
The huayllaquepa of Strombus galeatus
As mentioned above, this object was re-
moved from the burial offering in pieces. Never-
theless, thanks to the only photo of the context
published by Rafael Larco Hoyle, who was an
exceptional witness, we can identify it as the
specimen in the Storehouse of Organic Material
of MNAAHP, because the photo shows a bro-
ken, whitish, ovoid object among the remains of
a burial located at two meters below the clay
feline (Larco 2001 [1938]: figure 24). Later
research provides more evidence for relating the
photo to the huayllaquepa. A photo in the Tello
Archivo of MNAAHP (negative 101), and some
in the archive of the MAA-UNMSM, now
published, confirm this definitively because in
the photos one observes the huayllaquepa, its
breaks, and the little and ring fingers of the
engraved left hand.
This object was restored in the MNAAHP.
The team there identified its archaeological
by the government and the institutions charged with the
conservation and study of archaeological ruins at the time,
the excavated parts of the Templo de Punkur were
reburied on the express order of Professor Tello. . .
(Samaniego 2006:99; Por abandono absoluto de parte del
Gobierno y de las instituciones encargadas de la
conservacin y estudio de las ruinas arqueolgicas, en la
fecha, se realiza la tarea de enterramiento de las partes
descubiertas del Templo de Punkur por orden expresa del
Profesor Tello. . .).
- 118
context, restored its original appearance and
incised design, recovered its sonic register, and
exhibited it (Falcn et al. 2005; Figures 6, 7).
Stone objects
The identity and quality of stone objects was
already made clear with the publication and
study of Tellos field notes. Nevertheless, before
this there was a little confusion that arose at the
time of the excavation of Punkur. In an issue of
La Crnica, one of the newspapers that pub-
lished news of the events, dated 5 October
1933, there is a photograph in which appear
two of the vessels brought from Nepea by
Dr. Tello. Some of the symbols which will
be studied by the archaeologist can be seen
faintly.28
One of these vessels (vasos), that which shows
a thick band below its lip and three triangles
pointing towards the base, like large tusks, is the
one that appears in association with the burial
offering (negatives 94 and 106 of the Tello
archive at MNAAHP). This is corroborated by
Meja in his list of objects encountered in associ-
ation with the burial offering. The other piece
corresponds to the stone Chavn vessel (vaso
Chavn de piedra) purchased by Tello from
someone called Silva, whom he met in the
Hotel Central owned by Vctor L. Prez of
Chimbote (folio 122 del Archivo Tello de
MAA-UNMSM). Its iconographic characteris-
tics correspond with those of the mortar after-
wards known to have come from Suchimn in
the Santa Valley. Later, when Tello returned to
the theme of the funerary context and its de-
scription, he noted, in respect to the stone
objects, a mortar and pestle, both of diorite,
polished and engraved with figures in the classic
28
Dos de los vasos trados de Nepea por el doctor Tello.
Pueden verse dbilmente algunas de las simbolografas que
sern estudiadas por el arquelogo.
119 -
Chavn style (Tello 1943:137, figure 17a) and
illustrated both mortars with their respective
identifications (ibid.: 17b). In 1948 Rebeca
Carrin Cachot published drawings of both
mortars as coming from Nepea (Carrin
Cachot 1948: 125, plate 11, figures 7, 8). Curi-
ously, the designs are placed in the same posi-
tion in which they appear in the La Crnica
photos. A little more than a decade ago a photo
of the Suchimn mortar was published
(Kaulicke 1994:392, figure 368). It is very
similar to one of Carrin Cachots drawings
(ibid.: plate 11, figure 8), but is different from
the one illustrated by Tello as having come from
this site (Tello 1943: figure 17b), possibly be-
cause the other side of the piece is shown. For
his part, Henning Bischof published drawings of
three mortars (1994: figure 12): (a) that from
Punkur; (b) that of Suchimn as presented by
Tello (1943); and (c) one without provenience
drawn by Bischof from a photo in the archive of
MNAAHP. The last is the same as that illus-
trated by Kaulicke (1994) as coming from Such-
imn. Kaulicke suggests that (b) and (c) are one
and the same, the Suchimn mortar (Bischof
1994: figure 12a-c, 1995:170, figure 7), which is
correct. Finally, later work, in which the two
views of the Suchimn mortar which had previ-
ously been presented separately are combined,
suggests its iconographic development (Vega-
Centeno 1998: 195, 196, figure 5c). Neverthe-
less, it lacks several important motifs that were
already part of the iconographic repertoire
(Tello 2005:107, [P9/F7249]).
With respect to the pestle with incised
designs, we previously did not have any illustra-
tion or description except the comment of
Antnez de Mayolo that it was adorned with a
pair of designs in ribbons (Antnez 1933 in
Daggett 1987:160; adornado con un par de
dibujos en lazos). Now we have a photo avail-
able which shows the design in some detail, so
we can add that the lazos appear to be, in
Falcn Huayta: Reconstruction at Punkur
reality, three attached bands that turn in a spiral
around the piece (Figure 8).29
With respect to the Punkur mortar I can
indicate its decorative restraint on the basis of
three iconographic motifs: (a) a stepped fret
with mirror repeats and with the base of the
design at the rim of the vessel. The stepped fret
is emphasized by means of a line which defines
a band; (b) the three large and sharp triangles
which separate the step fret elements and end at
the base of the vessel; and (c) a rectangular
motif running horizontally within a thick band
below the rim, such that it repeats around the
whole circumference. The long sides of this
motif have small breaks in two places. Within
this motif are two inscribed lines, also with small
breaks.
The step fret motif is very similar to the
upper heads of the staffs of authority (bas-
tones de mando) or scepters carried by the
warrior-priests of Cerro Sechn (Bischof 1995:
165, figure 4e). It is differentiated only by the
triangular space which is made by a diagonal
stroke that creates a division from the upper left
vertex of the figure towards the base of the step
fret. In this space three rectangles are inscribed.
The three sharp triangles are comparable with
those that emerge from a similar motif called the
Eccentric Subrectangular Eye (Ojo Sub-
rectangular Excntrico; ibid.: figure 4b) in the
29
During the course of research my colleagues and I went
to the Storehouse of Lithic Materials of the MNAAHP in
search of these pieces, but without results. We did not
find the objects, nor did we encounter the kilo of
turquoises. We thank Julissa Ugarte Garay for her kind
attention. We continued the search in the collection of
lithic materials at MAA-UNMSM with equally negative
results. Faced with the physical absence of the stone
objects from the burial offering in the institutions in which
they should be, we registered a formal complaint to the
National Institute of Culture in the second half of 2006.
We did the same for the other missing components of this
context and for the Suchimn Mortar.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
iconography of the Suchimn mortar (Tello
2005:107, P9/ F7/ 249). The only difference is
that in the Punkur example the motif is empha-
sized by a band. The rectangle with lightly
broken inscribed lines is similar to the motif
engraved on a stone block from Sechn Alto
(Samaniego 1995:39, 40, figure 13) which is
exhibited in the Museo Max Uhle in Casma.
Therefore, the three motifs which decorate the
Punkur mortar reoccur in the iconography of
stone objects dating to this period from the
Casma and Santa Valleys and, because the find
spot of the Punkur mortar is proximate to the
staircase, this mortar is directly associated with
an object that denotes power.
The other associated objects
The potential of the study and analysis of
molluscs from precolumbian archaeological
contexts has been established (Rivadeneira and
Piccone-Saponara 1998:31; Sandweiss and
Rodrguez 1991:55, 56) so that, although we
have not found those from the burial offering,
we can still offer some commentary on the
Spondylus princeps valves which are part of the
list of sumptuary and exotic objects associated
with the burial offering. It must be noted that
these are complete worked pieces and are part
of the earliest evidence of this type in these
circumstances, occurring a little before the
presence of ceramics in the Central Andes at c.
1600 B.C. As we know, later they become more
frequent and were part of the ceramic and lithic
cultures of Cupisnique and Chavn during the
first millennium B.C.
In spite of their number (seventy individu-
als), until now little attention has been given to
the terrestrial gastropods of the species Scutalus
proteus associated with the Punkur tomb. These
are lomas snails which reach a size between 3.5
and 5 cm. They can be considered part of the
food offerings and are also represented as such
in Moche ceramics (Donnan 1978: figure 102).
- 120
Finally, the guinea pig and bird bones were
other evidence of the diet associated with this
important context.
THE BURIAL OFFERING AND ITS RELATION-
SHIP TO THE TEMPLE OF PUNKUR:
CHRONOLOGY
Several authors have dealt with the theme
of the construction phases of Punkur and its
relation to the early cultural traditions of the
central Andes. They agree that there have been
at least three construction phases (Bischof 1994:
see figure 2, section; Daggett 1987; Samaniego
2006; Vega-Centeno 1998, 1999). The context
of the burial offering was located in the fill of
Platform 2 (plataforma 2; Figure 9) and was
deposited as part of this. This is assigned to the
second construction phase of Punkur, or Phase
A-2 (fase A-2; Vega-Centeno 1999:7-11).
The famous clay feline is part of Phase B-1
(fase B-1; ibid.:13). Vega-Centeno places
Punkur in the Early Formative c.1800 B.C.-
1200 B.C.
Nevertheless, on the basis of stylistic com-
parisons, I deduce a different chronological
range for Punkur. I present the arguments for it
here. A first coherent grouping was made by
Tello, who indicated that a bas relief stone
plaque engraved with a crouching (agaza-
pado) feline had traits sufficiently naturalistic
to relate it to the corpus of Chavn objects
which, according to him, was its place of origin
(Kan 1972:73, figure 7; Tello 1960:228).30 Kan,
however, questioned this assignment, and also
the Chavn affiliation of the painted feline on
the clay building of Cerro Sechn (Kan 1972:74,
figure 8). Finally, he distinguished the sculpted
feline of Punkur from the Chavn style, al-
30
Nevertheless, it must be noted that Tello also related
this engraved plaque directly to the Punkur feline head
(Tello 1960:229).
121 -
though the monument itself appeared to indi-
cate a Chavn affiliation (ibid.: 76, figure 11).
Later, a study of the early Chavn styles and
their precedents reunited these three icons once
again under a more unified classificatory
scheme, and added another example to the
group, the petroglyph of a feline with an in-
scribed bird, located in the Jequetepeque Valley
(Bischof 1994:180, figure 14d; 1995:171, figure
8; Pimentel 1986:23, figure 59).Thus, the num-
ber of the early felines in this group has in-
creased, making it one of the earliest representa-
tions of cats associated with monumental archi-
tecture (Falcn and Surez in press).
Along these lines, the following sequence
has been proposed by Henning Bischof for a
series of representations important for the case
of Punkur, and considered to be pre-Chavn
A; (a) the clay murals of Punkur (Punkur
Style); (b) The painted clay feline of Punkur,
and the painted felines of Cerro Sechn; (c) the
engraved iconography on the stelae at Cerro
Sechn (Sechn Style). One must note, never-
theless, that this sequence is more appropriate
for classification than for chronological pur-
poses. It has been suggested that the earthen
building decorated with two painted felines in
the interior of Cerro Sechn was constructed in
the twenty-fourth to the twenty-second centu-
ries B.C. while the stone building there, also
Preceramic, existed sometime between the
nineteenth and eighteenth centuries B.C. It
continued in use until the sixteenth to four-
teenth centuries B.C. (Bischof 2000:48; Fuchs
1997: 159). If I attempt a correlation between
the painted feline of Cerro Sechn and the
freestanding sculpted feline of Punkur, consid-
ering them to be stylistically linked, I can pro-
pose a chronological position for the latter at
about 2100-1800 B.C. In consequence, if the fill
which contained the burial offering corresponds
to an architectural phase immediately prior to
the sculptured feline, it can serve as a temporal
Falcn Huayta: Reconstruction at Punkur
framework in which to place the burial offering.
These correlations support the observations of
Samaniego, who indicated that the three con-
struction phases of Punkur lack ceramics
(Samaniego 2006:38).
On the intra-site level, the stylistic affinity
between the engraved design of the stone mor-
tar and the representations on the murals called
friezes I and II of the earliest Punkur building
has been noted (Bishof 1994:173). These have
been assigned to Phase A1 (fase A1; Vega-
Centeno 1999:15, figure 10). Nevertheless, the
stylistic characteristics of the hand represented
on the Strombus galeatus huayllaquepa of Punkur
relate more to the naturalistic style of the
freestanding feline (Vega-Centenos Phase B1),
so that the iconography of the objects from the
burial offering context would constitute a group
which associates schematic and geometric
motifs with the stylized naturalism of Phase A2
of a building which in any case shows articu-
lated, coherent, and continuous architectural
modifications.31
As for the hand motif represented by itself,
a stone sculpture found at Jaive in the Supe
Valley shows the very stylized palms of both
hands in which the order of the fingers can be
distinguished by their proportions and location
beside a round anthropomorphic face. I note
that the hand on the Punkur huayllaquepa
shows its back. Nevertheless, the Jaiva stone
sculpture may be one of the first engraved, low
relief lithic pieces in the central Andes (Falcn
31
On the other hand, it has been proposed that geomet-
ric or schematic conventions are present in the Pre-
ceramic as well as in the Early Formative (convenciones
geomtricas o esquematizadas estn presentes tanto en el
precermico como en el Formativo Temprano) and that
there were developed figurative resources available as
guidelines for the Punkur Style (Vega-Centeno 1998:
187). I am more in agreement with this position, but think
that this occurred a little before the Initial Period or the
Formative.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
2006) and may belong to a style of representa-
tion earlier than the iconographic repertory of
Punkur. However, this suggestion still needs to
be refined. Another example of this motif is
found on the stone block associated with Huaca
A at Pampa de las Llamas-Moxeque (Burger
1989; Pozorski and Pozorski 1988). This hand is
more naturalistic than that engraved on the
Punkur huayllaquepa, to the extent that it
appears to be the impression of a right hand on
the stone, that is to say, the palm is shown.
According to its discoverers, this stone, securely
associated with Huaca A, is the earliest
securely-dated stone carving known in Peru. A
wooden door from Huaca A produced an uncor-
rected 14C date of 156570 B.C. (351570 B.P.
Uga-5462) and is in the mid-range of dates from
that site (ibid.). This date and the iconography
of the felines which flank the entrance portal of
the associated architectural complex, assigned
to Chavn A, puts it sometime after Punkur.
Finally, I would like to indicate that until
recently the presence of Strombus galeatus
huayllaquepas as part of the cult paraphernalia of
the end of the Late Archaic had not been docu-
mented. Now we have the huayllaquepa from
Punkur and a possible representation of another
Strombus galeatus huayllaquepa held by one of the
seated personages on a mortar from Lambayeque
that is assigned to the same period (Bischof
1995:169, 170, figure 6d). On this object the
Strombus is represented as a spiral which has an
oblong vertical piercing and which ends by
tracing a straight edge, and is serrated with
blunt points, which represent the characteristic
ribs that naturally form on the dorsal surface of
Strombus galeatus and which, although generally
smoothed out in order to incise designs, leave
clear traces on the lip edge of the mollusc. In
consequence, it is now known that this sonorous
ritual instrument, abundantly present in the
galleries of Chavn de Huntar, had its anteced-
ents at this time.
- 122
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Sincere thanks go to Henning Bischof for
numerous consultations on the Late Archaic of
the central Andes. Likewise, Richard Daggett
and Rafael Vega-Centeno have my gratitude for
their comments. Finally, I recognize the notable
efforts of Lorenzo Samaniego Romn for the
recovery of Punkur to the point of converting it
into a cultural center and an example to Peruvi-
ans, and to the world, of a seminal stage in the
development of precolumbian Andean religion.
To a great extent, this article is a tribute to his
tenacious work.
Translation from the Spanish by Monica Barnes
REFERENCES CITED
Anonymous
1987a Un nuevo hallazgo arqueolgico, en la Huaca de
Pungur. El Comercio 28 September, 1933
(Lima). In Reconstructing the Evidence for
Cerro Blanco and Punkur by Richard E. Dagget,
Andean Past 1, Appendix, p.137.
1987b Nuevas excavaciones arqueolgicas sern practi-
cadas en la prxima quincena en el palacio de
Cerro Blanco, en Nepea. El Comercio, 2
October, 1933 (Lima). In Reconstructing the
Evidence for Cerro Blanco and Punkur by
Richard E. Daggett, Andean Past 1, Appendix,
pp. 138-140.
Antnez de Mayolo, Santiago
1933 Los trabajos arqueolgicos en el valle de Nepea.
El Comercio, 15 December (Lima). In Recon-
structing the Evidence for Cerro Blanco and
Punkur by Richard E. Daggett, Andean Past 1,
Appendix, pp. 155-163.
Bischof, Henning
1994 Toward the Definition of Pre- and Early Chavn
Art Styles in Peru. Andean Past 4:169-228.
1995 Cerro Sechn y el arte temprano centro-andino.
Arqueologa de Cerro Sechn 2:157-184. Lima:
Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Per and
Fundacin Volkswagenwerk-Alemania.
1997 Cerro Blanco, valle de Nepea, Per: Un sitio
del Horizonte Temprano en emergencia.
Archaeologica Andina 2:203-234 (Sociedad
Arqueolgica Peruano-Alemana, Reiss-Museum
Mannheim, Germany).
123 -
2000 Cronologa y cultura en el Formativo centro-
andino. Estudios Latinoamericanos, 20:41-71
(Warsaw, Poland).
Burger, Richard L.
1989 The Pre-Chavin Stone Sculpture of Casma and
Pacopampa. Journal of Field Archaeology 16:478-
485.
Carrin Cachot, Rebeca
1948 La Cultura Chavn: Dos nuevas coloniasKuntur
Wasi y Ancn. Revista del Museo Nacional de
Antropologa y Arqueologa 2(1):99-172.
Chapdelaine, Claude and Pimentel, Victor
2008 Personaje de alto rango en San Juanito, valle de
Santa. In Seores de los reinos de la Luna, edited
by Krzysztof Makowski, pp.248-253. Coleccin
Arte y Tesoros del Per. Lima: Banco de Cr-
dito.
Daggett, Richard E.
1987 Reconstructing the Evidence for Cerro Blanco
and Punkuri. Andean Past 1:111-132, Appendix,
The Tello Material from El Comercio, pp. 133-
163.
2007 Tellos Lost Years: 1931-1935. Andean Past
8:81-108.
Donnan, Christopher B.
1978 Moche Arte of Peru. Los Angeles, California:
Museum of Cultural History, University of
California.
Falcn Huayta, Victor
2006 La litoescultura de Jaiva y las representaciones
rupestres preformativas. Arkeos: Revista Elec-
trnica de Arqueologa. Pontifica Universidad
Catlica del Per.
http://mileto.pucp.edu.pe/arkeos/images/docu
mentos/articulos/5-art-epar-vfh.pdf (Consulted
25 March 2009).
Falcn Huayta, Victor, Rosa Martnez Navarro, and
Milano Trejo Huayta
2005 La Huayllaquepa de Punkur, costa nor-central
del Per. Anales 13:53-74 (Museo de Amrica,
Madrid).
Falcn Huayta, Victor and Mnica Surez Ubills
in press El felino en la emergencia de la civilizacin en
los Andes centrales. Crnicas sobre la piedra: Arte
rupestre de las Amricas, edited by Marcela Sepul-
veda, Luis Briones, and Juan Chacama. Arica,
Chile: Ediciones Universidad de Tarapac.
Fuchs, Peter R.
1997 Nuevos datos arqueomtricos para la historia de
la ocupacin de Cerro Sechn: Perodo ltico al
Formativo. Archaeologica Peruana 2:145-161.
Kan, Michael
1972 The Feline Motif in Northern Peru. In The Cult
of the Feline: A Conference in Pre-Columbian
Falcn Huayta: Reconstruction at Punkur
Iconography, October 31st and November 1st, 1970,
edited by Elizabeth P. Benson, pp. 69-90. Wash-
ington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks.
Kaulicke, Peter
1994 Los orgenes de la civilizacin Andina 1. Lima:
Editorial Brasa, S.A.
Larco Hoyle, Rafael
2001 [1938] Los Mochicas, Volume 1. Museo Arqueo-
lgico Rafael Larco Herrera. Lima: Fundacin
Telefnica.
Pimentel, Vctor
1986 Petroglfos en el valle medio y bajo de Jequete-
peque, norte del Per. Kommission fr Allgemeine
und Vergleichende Archologie des Deutschen
Archologischen Instituts Bonn (KAVA) 31.
Pozorski, Thomas and Shelia Pozorski
1988 An Early Stone Carving from Pampa de las
Llamas-Moxeke, Casma Valley, Peru. Journal of
Field Archaeology 15:114-119.
Proulx, Donald
1973 Archaeological Investigations in the Nepea Valley,
Peru. Research Reports 13, Department of An-
thropology, University of Massachusetts, Am-
herst.
Rivadeneira Giuria, Vctor and Mara del Carmen
Piccone-Saponata
1998 La malacologa y su aporte a los estudios arqueo-
lgicos. Boletn de Lima 113:27-32.
Sandweiss, Daniel H. and Mara del Carmen Rodrguez
1991 Moluscos marinos en la prehistoria peruana:
Breve ensayo. Boletn de Lima 75:55-63.
Samaniego, Lorenzo
1992 Arte mural de Punkur: Aproximacin. Pacfico:
Revista de Ciencias Sociales 1:11-37 (Chimbote,
Per).
1995 La Escultura del Edificio Central de Cerro Se-
chn. Arqueologa de Cerro Sechn., Volume 2:19-
44. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Catlica del
Per and Fundacin Volkswagenwerk-Alemania.
2006 Punkur: Proyecto Cultural, Homenaje al Cen-
tenario del Distrito de Chimbote. Special edition of
Revista del Centro de Conservacin del Patrimonio
CulturalOCEUPSUNS (Nuevo Chimbote:
Per: Universidad Nacional del Santa) 8(17).
Tello, Julio C.
1933 Las ruinas del valle de Nepea. El Comercio, 6
October (Lima). In Daggett, Richard E., Recon-
structing the Evidence for Cerro Blanco and
Punkur, Andean Past 1, Appendix, pp. 144-148.
1943 Discovery of the Chavin Culture in Peru. Ameri-
can Antiquity 9(1):135-160.
1960 Chavn: Cultura matriz de la civilizacin andina.
Lima: UNMSM.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 124

2005 Arqueologa del Valle de Nepea: Excavaciones en

Cerro Blanco y Punkur. Cuadernos de Investiga-
cin del Archivo Tello 4. Lima: Museo de
Arqueologa y Antropologa de la Universidad
Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.
Vega-Centeno, Rafael
1998 Patrones convencionales en el arte figurativo del
Formativo temprano en la costa norte de los
Andes Centrales. Bulletin de lInstitut Franais des
tudes Andines 27(2):183-211.
1999 Punkur en el contexto del Formativo temprano
de la costa nor-central del Per. Gaceta Arqueo-
lgica Andina 25:5-21.
125 - Falcn Huayta: Reconstruction at Punkur

Figure 1: Map showing the location of Punkur.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 126

Figure 2: Punkur, north facade of the monument today.

Figure 3: The clearing of Platforms 2 and 3 of the north facade of Punkur in progress. Note the central
staircase which gives access to Platform 2 (photograph courtesy of the Tello Archive of the MNAAHP,
negative 109 AT/617).
127 - Falcn Huayta: Reconstruction at Punkur

Figure 4: Left hand engraved on the dorsal side of

the Punkur huayllaquepa.

Figure 5: Schematic drawing of the se-

quence of deposition of the Punkur burial
offering.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 128

Figure 6: The Punkur huayllaquepa during its restoration.

Figure 7: The Punkur huayllaquepa after its restoration.

129 - Falcn Huayta: Reconstruction at Punkur

Figure 8: The Punkur mortar, pestle, and the Suchimn mortar (Tello 2005, CD included, file: Anexo
fotogfico, F2_Punkur, Foto 52-119).

Figure 9: Staircase that leads to the upper part of Platform 2 at Punkur.

Note the poor state of the staircase and the fill that covers Platform 3.
The figure is Arturo Jimnez Borja on a visit to the site in 1971
(photography courtesy of Lorenzo Samaniego Romn, Coordinador General,
Centro de Conservacin del Patrimonio Cultural, Universidad Nacional del Santa).
 AN ANALYSIS OF THE ISABELITA ROCK ENGRAVING AND ITS ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT,
CALLEJN DE HUAYLAS, PERU
INTRODUCTION
Isabelita is the name of an impressive Early
Horizon rock engraving in Perus Callejn de
Huaylas. It was discovered in 1999 at the Am
II site (Pan 5-49) while I was conducting an
archaeological study in the vicinity of the mod-
ern Pierina Gold Mine (Ponte 2005:247,
1999b). The rock stood in the upper part, or
Cotojirca neighborhood, of the village of Maren-
iyoc in the Jangas district, Huaraz province,
Ancash region (Figures 1, 2, 12-15). Its iconog-
raphy consists of a human being holding a
trophy head, accompanied by four animals
(Figures 1, 3).
In modern Ancash Quechua am means
darkness but is also a prohibitive grammatical
element more or less equivalent to the English
word dont. In this context it most likely refers
to the shadows formed by large boulders because
Isabelita, in its original placement, was near
funerary chambers constructed in the shelter of
overhanging rocks (Figures 4-10).1 However, in
the Callejn de Huaylas, am may be derived
from amay (the Spanish plural is amayes), found
in seventeenth century court trials and official
inspection tours from Cajatambo relating to
idolatry (Duviols 2003:178, 186). Here it seems
to mean a mortuary structure. Individual amayes
are characterized in the Cajatambo documents
1
Initially Isabelita was the name given to a mapping
control point atop a boulder. We later discovered petro-
glyphs lower down on its flat surface.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009): 131-175.
VCTOR MANUEL PONTE ROSALINO
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
as a modo de casilla (in the form of a little
house), as muy pintado (heavily painted), and
with doors (ibid.:186). An important funeral
chamber within a circular structure may have
been associated with the Isabelita Rock during
the middle and late parts of the Early Horizon
(c. 600-100 B.C.).
The village of Mareniyoc occupies a large
mound composed of the remains of an Early
Horizon occupation (Figure 11). For millennia
Mareniyoc was a primary center within a locally
integrated settlement pattern. This pattern
included defensible sites that I believe main-
tained independent status and economic sys-
tems, but shared a powerful religious ideology
manifested by Isabelitas iconography, and
present in other areas of the Andes.
In this paper I analyze the iconography of
the Isabelita Rock, establishing its relative
chronology and meaning through comparisons
with other Early Horizon sculptures. An analysis
of the engraving must center on the role and
purpose of religion as an institution, as well on
its sociopolitical impact within the community.
The location of the Isabelita Rock in a space
where mortuary rituals were performed connects
the image to the ceremonial architecture enclos-
ing the nearby Great Stone, another large man-
modified boulder. A human burial with offerings
was under the Great Stone, within a funerary
space constructed with fieldstones (Figures 5-7,
9). This context can be related to the Andean
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
notions of machay and malqui documented for
late prehispanic and colonial times (Arriaga
1999 [1621]:21; Doyle 1988; Duviols 2003).
The Great Stone constitutes the machay, a
Quechua concept of a natural rock shelter or
cave suitable for ritual performances. Malqui is
the burial, the mummy of the principal ancestor
of the local community. Its people may have
gathered in the terraced space next to the
Mareniyoc mound to venerate it. In the central
Andes no ancestor cult has been detected in any
context earlier than that associated with the Isa-
belita Rock.
The cult there is probably contemporaneous
with the Capilla Style (600-200 B.C.; Table 1)
of the Huaricoto site (Figure12; Burger 1985),
the nearest Early Horizon site in the Callejn de
Huaylas that has been investigated. Although
more religious practices and human burials have
been detected in the temperate Quechua ecoz-
one2 of Mareniyoc, they belong to later periods,
confirming the long tradition of ancestor vener-
ation, especially in the Recuay culture (Table 1)
and in later times (Lau 2002; Hernndez Prnci-
pe 1923 [1622]).
I postulate that Mareniyoc was integrated
with other Early Horizon sites in a shared verti-
cal domain extending from the warm floor of
the Santa River Valley to the cold puna of the
Cordillera Negra (Figures 13, 14). This per-
ceived linkage led me to focus on the develop-
ment of a local sociopolitical subsystem. I sug-
gest that settlements in different ecological
zones participated in a social interaction sphere
that was centered in the area where ideology
took material form. If ideology is a source of
power and can be controlled by the dominant
group (De Marrais et al. 1996), the area of
Mareniyoc may have been the place where the
economic resources and subsistence pattern
2
For a definition of the Quechua ecozone see The Area
of Study below.
- 132
were organized through cooperation, trade, and
interrelationships with other areas. Even though
the primary site is defined only by its magnitude
and its connection with the religious and mythi-
cal personage represented on the Isabelita Rock,
I suggest that during the Early Horizon Coto-
jirca Phase I (Table 1), the foundation was laid
for a regional economic model that was dupli-
cated by later groups without any substantial
changes.
The local religious tradition was stimulated
and influenced by important ceremonial centers
like Chavn de Huntar, Pallka in the upper
Casma Valley, Cerro Blanco and Punkur in the
Nepea Valley,3 Pacopampa in the Department
of Cajamarca, Puemape and Tembladera on the
north coast (Figure 12, Table 1), and Paracas on
the south coast. In other words, the Chavn
religious cult spread. The development and
management of similar ceremonial practices,
including the representation of common sym-
bols, support arguments for the interaction of
the Callejn de Huaylas with much of the rest of
the Andes. Before explaining the archaeological
context and the interconnection of sites in
detail, I will outline the Early Horizon in the
Callejn de Huaylas.
THE AREA OF STUDY
The Callejn de Huaylas is a large inter-
montane valley delineated by two mountain
ranges. To the west is the Cordillera Negra. To
the east is the Cordillera Blanca (Figure 13).
The latter is the highest range of snow capped
mountains and glacial lakes in the Central
Andes. Within it are thirty peaks higher than
6000 meters. It also contains the Huascarn
National Park, one of Perus important nature
3
For discussions of Punkur in Andean Past see Bischof
(1994):172-173, figures 2,3, 12, 14c, 31 and Falcn, this
volume, pp. 109-129. For Cerro Blanco and Punkur see
Daggett (1987).
133 -
preserves, and the goal of thousands of moun-
tain climbers every year.
The perennial Santa River flows from the
Cordillera Blanca and through the Callejn de
Huaylas. It is, by volume, the largest Peruvian
river that empties into the Pacific Ocean (Wil-
son 1988:32). The Callejn de Huaylas was one
of the centers of plant domestication in the
central Andes. Evidence from Guitarrero Cave
has shown that maize and beans were important
staple foods in the region and Phaseolus may
have been consumed there since the beginning
of the third millennium B.C. (Kaplan and Lynch
1999:265). The study area discussed in this
paper is in the eastern foothills of the Cordillera
Negra. The study area includes four ecological
zones (Figure 14):
(1) The floor of the Callejn de Huaylas (at an
average elevation of 2800 masl) is heavily culti-
vated, especially to the north of Jangas and
Taric. Currently, fruits and flowers are grown
for export. Tree crops such as Pacay, avocado,
and lucuma may have been gathered there by
early societies. The existence of a modern
community of potters in the small town of
Taric has some implications for past practices.
(2) The Quebrada Cuncashca/Llancash system
(average elevation 3615 masl; Figure 14) is a
natural pass to the puna, and to the western
slopes of the Cordillera Negra and beyond to the
coast. It has perennial water and includes the
best agricultural land.
(3) The Quechua ecozone (average elevation
3500 masl) is where maize, tubers (oca, olluco
[Ullucus tuberosus], potatoes) and some trees are
grown. There is evidence of agricultural terraces
and irrigation canals. However, the area does
not offer much space for cultivation and the soil
is not rich in nutrients.
Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving
(4) Puna pastureland (average elevation 4000
masl) consists of relatively flat grasslands domi-
nated by ichu and used today, as in the past, for
maintaining herds.
The ecological zones are integrated by an
ancient road that connects archaeological sites
belonging to several periods (Figure 14). The
road extends from Jangas (2800 masl) on the
Santa Valley floor, to Cuncashca on the puna
(4000 masl). Walking from Jangas to Mareniyoc
in the Quechua ecozone at 3050 masl can be
accomplished in about two hours. From there it
takes another two hours to reach Cuncashca.
Control of these various ecological zones may
have been maintained in the past, as first postu-
lated for the Andes by John V. Murra (1975:62-
70). The major center was the Mareniyoc site.
Its position in the middle of the vertical ecologi-
cal zones permitted economic control by the
local elite and the consumption of the products
of all four zones.
THE EARLY HORIZON
IN THE CALLEJN DE HUAYLAS
During the time when the Isabelita Rock
engraving may have been created, important
ceremonial centers functioned in the Callejn
de Huaylas. One of them is the temple of Huari-
coto (Figure 12), a large mound where the
oldest ceremonial architecture dates to the
Preceramic Period. It served as the setting for
ritual practices related to the Kotosh Religious
Tradition (Burger 1992:42, 45, 49-50). Rites
were performed in small public buildings, circu-
lar in plan. Ceremonies included the incinera-
tion of offerings in central stone-lined fire pits.
Another ritual construction, associated in the
Callejn with the Capilla Style, was a circular
plaza. This suggests that the sunken plaza of
Chavn de Huntar was not necessarily the sole
model for Early Horizon religious structures in
the Callejn (Burger and Salazar-Burger
1985:131-132, among others). Other contempo-
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
raneous public monumental centers also existed
in the Callejn and are said to belong to the
Chavn Style (Tello 1960:36). They are defined
by their magnitude, but have not been suffi-
ciently studied. One such is Pumacayan (3100
masl), a large mound on the southern side of the
Santa River, and within the modern city of
Huaraz (Figure 12). Incised Black-and-Red Style
ceramics, carved slabs, and tenoned heads have
been found there, but without contextual data.
The Pumacayan building was remodeled repeat-
edly, specifically in Huars and Recuay times
(Table 1). Long galleries, passageways, and
funerary chambers like those at Chavn are
hidden under Recuay structures (Tello 1943:
155).
Another important center in the Callejn
de Huaylas that has public architecture is the
Tumshucaico site (2295 masl) on the northern
side of the city of Caraz (Figure 12). It shares
both its plan and style of masonry with monu-
ments in the Nepea Valley (see Proulx 1985:
plates 15a, 16a, b). However, Bueno (2003:75)
has recently studied the site, concluding that
there are architectural connections with La
Galgada. Bueno dates Tumschucaico to the late
Preceramic Period. Both Pumacayan and
Tumshucaico were densely occupied by post-
Chavn cultures, including the Inca. It will take
additional study to determine whether those
sites had a central and articulated role in the
diffusion of the Chavn religious cult, or
whether they functioned independently in so far
as ceremonies are concerned, with religion
serving to congregate people.
Within the Callejn de Huaylas there must
exist many other sites which were occupied
during the Early Horizon or prior to it. One
problem in identifying them is that much of
their architecture was buried and/or re-utilized
during later occupations. Chupacoto (Figure
12), another small Early Horizon mound, was
mentioned by Thompson (1962). He docu-
- 134
mented two carved stones in a clear Sechn
Style dated to the Initial Period by comparisons.
However, there is no direct evidence linking the
site and these carved stones found in isolation
and without context. The existence of any pre-
Chavn occupation will be clarified with future
findings of Initial Period sites in the Cordillera
Negra. I predict that these will contain cultural
elements from the coastal valleys.
North of the Santa River in Corongo prov-
ince, a team headed by Terada (Terada 1975,
1980; Morris 1981:961) excavated the La
Pampa site (Figure 12), a platform mound
complex with retention walls and non-domestic
rooms from the Initial Period Yesopampa Phase
(Table 1). Yesopampa Style ceramics have some
affinities with the Initial Period Pandanche Style
ceramic assemblages from the Cajamarca region,
while the artifacts of the successive occupation,
the La Pampa Period (Table 1), have greater
affinities with Chavn Style. A stone lintel with
Chavn feline-serpent attributes probably be-
longs to this period (670-540 B.C.).
It seems that at the same time, different
religious practices existed in the highlands, with
some autonomy expressed in the ceremonies
performed. Likewise, the economic organization
of highland communities reflected territorial
differences. Nevertheless, the essence and
requirements of ritual forged inter-regional
connections through the procurement of goods
and raw materials both from the coast and from
the eastern tropical forest.
In the Marcara River Valley Gary Vescelius
recorded about 125 sites (Burger and Lynch
1987:1; Lynch 1970:12). Among them, the
Ucush Punta site yielded Chavinoid artifact
types such as incised and rocker stamped sherds
(ibid.). In the same area Gero (1992) excavated
the site of Queyash Alto, a ridge-top site at the
confluence of the Marcara and Santa Rivers.
Although it belongs to the Early Intermediate
135 -
Period, its earliest levels are related to the
Huars White-on-Red Style ceramics (200 B.C.-
A.D. 250; Gero 1991:132). The site plan of
Queyash Alto features two small stone mounds,
each longer than it is wide, at the extremities of
the ridge. A linear arrangement of rectilinear
rooms and courtyards fills the entire ridge.
Terraces follow the contours of the long east
and west sides of the ridge (Gero 1991:130,
2001:19-20, figure 2, left).The layout of this site
is similar to those of Chonta Ranra Punta and
Maquellouan Punta, both sites in the Mareniyoc
area that are described below (Figure 13). Those
sites have produced Early Horizon and Huars
White-on-Red Style ceramics. Marcum, near
the city of Huaraz (Figure 13), is another site
with the same sort of plan. It also has yielded
middle and late Early Horizon sherds.
MARENIYOC AREA
The modern village of Mareniyoc stands on
an artificial mound consisting of deep cultural
deposits. The site measures 1200 by 800 meters.
The mound is a series of stepped platforms and
large habitation areas where people carried out
ceremonial and domestic activities, as indicated
by the thick black midden deposits shown in
profiles (Figure 11). Judging from artifacts
disturbed by modern house construction and
remodeling, Mareniyocs first occupation proba-
bly occurred during the Early Horizon. A com-
mon Recuay settlement pattern in the Callejn
de Huaylas and in the Nepea Valley (Ponte
2000:223; Proulx 1985:285) is the reoccupation
of Early Horizon villages by modifying their
scattered structures surrounding a high central
mound. The mound was the architectural focal
point where celebrations took place. The mound
is always formed by fill containing artifacts such
as sherds, animal bones, lithic instruments, and
garbage mixed with earth. This fill, contained by
stone blocks, constitutes the mound. The fill
could have accumulated during the first occupa-
tion of the site during the Early Horizon. Over
Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving
time, Mareniyoc grew as a local elite population
center, but it was also the focus of cyclical
ceremonial activities, as was the religious center
of Huaricoto (Burger 1993:54). The Mareniyoc
area, including the Am site, has been occupied
many times, from the Early Horizon to the Late
Horizon. During the Early Intermediate Period
(c. 100 to 600 A.D.), Mareniyoc was probably a
center for the Recuay population. Recuay funer-
ary structures surround the center in a dispersed
pattern.
The Am II site is at an altitude of between
3500 and 3550 masl (Figures 15, 16). A central
trail crosses a large ridge with houses and agri-
cultural lands on both sides. The site has a very
irregular and abrupt topography that includes
boulders used today, as in the past, as rock
shelters. The boulders are natural formations
that create shadows and dark spaces. The steep
slopes of the hill are leveled and contained by
retention walls forming terraces. These are said
by todays Mareniyoc farmers to have been built
by earlier farmers. The modern terraces are
filled with agricultural earth and are divided
into segments of land called parcelas. Eucalyptus
is grown for its wood. Prehispanic deposits and
funerary structures were found in the lees of the
big boulders, under approximately 1m of modern
fill (Figures 4-7, 9, 10). The prehispanic terraces
were constructed in relation to the big boulders,
following the contours of the slope (Figures 6, 8-
10). They were poorly preserved, with walls
standing only to a height of about 0.7m.
EXCAVATIONS AT THE AM II SITE
(COTOJIRCA PHASE I)
For purposes of excavation, the site was
divided into sectors according to local agricul-
tural plots and terrace divisions (Figure 6). This
was useful for determining the spatial distribu-
tion of features and for assessing differences
between ceremonial and funerary spaces as
constructed and used during the Cotojirca I
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Phase (755-170 B.C.) of the Early Horizon and
the Cotojirca II-III Phases of the Early Interme-
diate Period (Table 1).
Archaeological excavations were completed
on three levels of modern terraces consisting of
pirca (unmortared stone walls), irrigation chan-
nels, and planting surfaces (Figures 2, 4, 6-10).
Today these are also used as household dumps.
The area studied was limited to the north side of
the Jangas-Pierina road. Five separate Cotojirca
I Phase contexts were identified: (1) the Isa-
belita Rock (Figures 1-3, 8); (2) the ceremonial
structure surrounding the Great Stone (Figures
4-7, 9); (3) the Am II Tomb E (Figures 4-7, 9);
(4) the Am II Tomb R or offerings (Figure 6);
and (5) an area of domestic refuse containing
Early Horizon artifacts (Context 49IV30; Figure
6).
Isabelita Rock
The Isabelita Rock depicts a human figure
and animals engraved with a hard and sharp
instrument on the flat surface of the boulder
(Figures 1-3). The rock is andesite, according to
an identification made by geologists of the Pieri-
na Mine (personal communication, Enrique
Garay, June 1998). It measures 3.0 by 2.5 meters
and the entire rock weighs approximately 8
tonnes. This was estimated by the relation of
density and weight (according to the geologists).
It was probably in its original position when
found, laid horizontally with the flat face bear-
ing the petroglyph forming a table-like plane
(Figure 2). The rock was threatened by con-
struction of a road to the Pierina Mine. There-
fore, this huge petroglyph was relocated to the
lithic park of the Regional Archaeological
Museum of Huaraz. Now it stands vertically,
providing a greater visual impact to the public.
The incised boulder was between adobe houses
(Figures 2, 6, 8). The Great Stone (see below) is
20 m to the east (Figures 4-7, 9). The principal
design on Isabelita is a dancing man carrying a
- 136
human trophy head in his left hand (Figures 1,
3). The full figure human is depicted in frontal
position, while the animals, shown in profile,
appear to the right of the principal image (from
the viewers perspective). The animals repre-
sented are a reptile, a deer or fox, a snake, and
some sort of bird.
The engraved man has rectangular eyes, a
triangular nose, and an open mouth (Figure 3a).
The rectangular ears are similar to those in
Sechn Style sculpture, although Tello (1960:
figure 79) also found a stone slab with a frontal
human face resembling the Isabelita man at
Qaucho, a site near Chavn de Huntar. On the
top of the Isabelita human figures head there
are four long and symmetrical appendages that
seem to make up a kind of ornament. These
could be interpreted as simplified snakes in
agreement with John Rowes comparison of hair
to snakes (1970:78). In the Paracas pottery of
Ica a specimen with head appendages also
exists, but in that image there are only two long
appendages. On the Isabelita Rock, the human
figures left arm is exaggeratedly long, and only
three fingers are shown holding a trophy head
by its hair. The hair is represented by four ovoid
incisions, a convention that has been observed
in the iconography of Cerro Sechn (e.g. Tello
1956: figures 83-84). The trophy head is circular
with round eyes, and has a close relationship to
the Chavn trophy heads seriated by Peter Roe
(1974:17). The main figures right arm is less
visible because of the natural fractures of the
boulder and the stepped flat surface of the rock
surface into which the main figures right side is
carved. The Isabelita mans chest is rectangular
in form and ends in a rectangular belt decorated
with cross-hatching. There are parallels to this
belt in the corpus of Sechn stone sculpture, but
the belt decoration per se does not exist within
Sechns Sacrificial procession (Bischof
1994:176). The geometric figures on the belt
have similarities to the incised resin-painted
designs on bowls and cups from Phase 9 of the
137 -
Paracas pottery of Ica (Menzel et al. 1964: figure
53e, f, g, I, k). Roe (1974:18) also showed a
cross-hatched decoration as feature 147 from
the EF Period of John Rowes Chavn seriation
that is exactly the same design as that of the
Isabelita mans belt. There is a slight bending at
the knees of the Isabelita man. The feet are
shown facing in different directions, giving the
impression of movement. I interpret this posi-
tion as representing dancing.
The profile of a reptile or serpent head is
above the true left shoulder of the human figure
(Figure 3b). It has a round eye with an incised
central dot. Two ovoid bands that extend from
each corner of the eye may represent tears.
There are many parallels to this kind of eye, in
a variety of media including clay sculpture
(Tello 1960:2 29), clay mural art (Pozorski and
Pozorski 1986: figure 5), engraved bones
(Bischof 1994: figures 18, 27a; Tello 1956:
figures 19, 22) and stone slabs (Burger 1992:
figure 184; Tello 1960: figures 62, 72, 74). It is
found on monuments in the Casma Valley and
in the Chavn de Huntar region. These two
areas seem to have shared a common tradition.
Other examples of eyes with similar bands have
been reported on Cupisnique Style bottles
carved in the form of serpents (Burger and
Salazar-Burger 2000: figure 39) and on modeled
ceramic vessels with Cupisnique associations
(Donnan 1992: figure 26). Bischof calls this a
bi-corned eye (1994:225). Roe called the same
iconographic motif a double wing eye (1974:
18), and Tello (1956:49) related it to the
wrinkles of felines and caymans, an interpreta-
tion that seems salient to an understanding of
the meaning of this motif. I will call the mouth
of the cayman head saw-toothed, with a slight-
ly raised snout. The reptile mouth is depicted
as similar to a cats mouth in an association
interpreted by Rowe as a sign of supernatural
power (1970:81). This attribute is shared with
the being engraved in a bone from the Pallka
temple (Tello 1956: figure 22). There is a strong
Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving
similarity between the reptile head on the Isa-
belita Rock and the Pallka bone representation,
although the former has been simplified. An-
other similarity is found in the clay frieze from
Garagay, an Early Horizon temple within metro-
politan Lima. Here a cross-hatched band encir-
cles the head of a fanged supernatural being
(Burger 1992: figures 43-44).
A second animal, almost completely de-
picted in profile, is in the upper right of the flat
boulder (viewers perspective). This could
represent a deer or a fox with angular legs, a
long snout, and erect ear(s) (Figure 3c). Its
mouth is open, showing serrated teeth less
visible than those of the reptile. A similar ani-
mal, also with erect ears, is depicted on a carved
slab adorning the New Temple of Chavn de
Huntar and was interpreted as a viscacha
(Burger 1992: figure 184).
A third animal on the Isabelita Rock is a
bird with extended wings and a long beak (Fig-
ures 1, 3d). It most closely resembles some type
of seashore bird. Punctation indicates an eye
and the tail feathers are rendered with a simple
zigzag line. There are many examples of birds in
the iconography of the Early Horizon but they
are usually stylized versions of eagles and fal-
cons. The simple design of the bird on the
Isabelita Rock is more similar to bird representa-
tions on Paracas Phase 10 artifacts from Ica (cf.
Menzel et al. 1964: figure 61c).
The fourth animal engraved on the Isabelita
Rock is a simplified snake which appears in the
bottom right corner (from the viewers perspec-
tive) beneath the bird. The snake is drawn in
profile with a triangular head and curved body.
The simplicity of snake representations was used
by Peter Roe (1974) to support John Rowes
seriation of the Chavn stone sculpture.
When seen in its full cultural context, the
principal figure, a dancing man carrying a trophy
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
and accompanied by animals, constitutes an
important key to understanding the religion and
ritual related to mythical beings that spread
during the last part of the Early Horizon.
Ceremonial Structure around the Great Stone
Around the Great Stone there was an al-
most circular masonry ceremonial structure
(Figures 4-7, 9). A single course of masonry and
a long, rather weak retaining wall connect this
feature to the Isabelita Rock which is at roughly
the same elevation. Objects were arranged in a
cultural deposit at the Great Stone. In excava-
tions of the platform, the topmost strata con-
tained modern utilitarian ceramics manufac-
tured in Taric, a town of potters on the Santa
Valley floor (Figure 14). These ceramics were
found mixed with prehispanic artifacts. The
frequency of the latter increased with depth. An
artificial fill of stones and ceramic fragments
that covered an earlier structure characterized
the second stratum. This earlier feature was a
double-faced wall, 0.65 m wide by 0.50 m high.
It formed an ovoid enclosure around the large
stone. This irregular stone seems to have been
the center of ceremonial performance. It formed
a rectangular shelter aligned to the north within
which a bundle of human bones was found. This
feature is called the Am II Tomb E. The orien-
tation of the Great Stone is towards the snowy
peaks of the Cordillera Blanca and it defines an
almost direct line to Huascarn which, with a
summit at 6768 masl, is the highest peak in the
Cordillera Blanca.
The ovoid structure around the Great Stone
created an inner offering space where we found
two groups of poorly preserved deer and camelid
bones. On the southern side we uncovered a
small bowl with an exterior red slip surface and
flat base. Several blue beads were left inside of
this as an offering (Figure 17). On the western
side, two little structures shaped as altars were
each created by four rock slabs, with the open
- 138
side facing NNW. Altars imply the idea of
arranging objects in a ritual setting. One altar
supported two crossed long bones of a young
deer and seashells of Mesodesma donacium, while
another smaller one contained a bundle of
young camelid bones, not arranged in any
particular order. Bones were placed into the
structure, on top of the middle slab.
Am II Tomb E
The chamber below the Great Stone was
0.85 m high and 2.15 m long. The funerary
space was delimited by a wall of undressed field
stones built against the Great Stone (Figures 4-
7, 9). The space contained the incomplete
remains of an adult. The skeleton was in an
extended position with the head to the south
and the feet to the north. The bones were badly
preserved because of the acidity and humidity of
the soil. Only a few fragments of the skull, a
femur, and metatarsals were recovered. There
were several items associated with the burial,
including guinea pigs placed in a spondylus
shell, 81 chrysocolla beads (Figure 17), and 136
spondylus beads. Near the feet of the skeleton
the presence of ash indicates that ritual burning
may have taken place. We found ceramic offer-
ings here. These consist of fragments of two
bottles, one jar, and three bowls. We also found
two 17 cm long copper pins (ticpis in Ancash
Quechua; for the metallurgical analysis of the
pins see Ponte 1999a: chart 4).
One bottle was almost completely restored.
It is dark gray with a round body and a long
neck with an everted rim (Figure 18). The other
was red, and only the long tubular neck (7cm)
was recovered. The gray bottle was 17cm tall
and is similar to a bottle found in a Tomb (G-
Tm4) from the Kunturwasi site in Cajamarca
assigned to the Copa Phase, 380-200 BC (Table
1; Onuki 1997: 112, figure 53), although the
latter has a flat base and a thickened external
rim. There is some resemblance between the
139 -
bottles found in the Am II Tomb E and bottles
from the Huaricoto site (Figure 12), which dates
to the Early Capilla Phase (Burger 1985: figure
22). These comparisons suggest an Early Hori-
zon date for the tomb. Significantly, similarities
to the late Initial Period are less marked. There
is also a slight difference between the Cotojirca
I Phase bottles with round bases and the flat-
based bottles registered by Tello (1956:
figure10c) from the Pallka temple in the middle
Casma Valley (Figure 12). Some relationship
with the Cupisnique ceramic assemblages can be
suggested because of the long tubular necks
(Tellenbach 1986: plates 131,4; 132,2).
The bowls from the Am II Tomb E are 16
cm in diameter and 6 cm tall with divergent
sides (Figures 19-20). Both internal and external
surfaces have orange-to-light-brown burnished
surfaces. One of them is decorated with dark-
red horizontal bands. Red-on-Orange Style
ceramics similar to the bowls found in the Am
II Tomb E have been found at the Pacopampa
site in the Cajamarca Department (Figure 12).
Daniel Morales has assigned these to the Capilla
Expansiva Phase (1998:119; Table 1). This local
Early Horizon ceramic phase is roughly coeval
with the Copa and Early Capilla Phases. If the
Tomb E construction can be dated by its associ-
ated ceramics, then, given its proximity to the
Isabelita Rock, a similar date may be extended
to the rock art itself (Ponte 2005:249).
Am II Tomb R
Digging into a modern terrace we uncovered
a large rock about 1.05 m below the surface. To
call this a tomb may be over-interpreting the
feature. I suggest that human bones, now poorly
preserved, were left as part of ritual offerings.
Although this feature was recorded as Am II R,
it could have been associated with Context
49IV30 (see below) because it was in the same
stratum and the components were similar. In
the lee of this large rock were fragments of a
Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving
human skull and two bowls (Figures 21, 22).
The latter were useful in further clarifying the
diffusion of ceramic styles. One, an open bowl,
has 4 mm horizontal incisions in the exterior,
repeated around the vessel (Figure 21). This
semi-hemispheric bowl is 9 cm high. Incised
lines were colored by orange pigment, as was its
flat base, while the rest of the surface has a red
polished treatment. An identical example found
in the Pallka Temple in the Casma Valley
(Figure 12) has been illustrated by Tello (1956:
figure 11y).
The other bowl from the Am II R context
is short and globular, with white wavy band
designs on the upper part of a red polished
surface (Figure 22). This can be identified as an
example of Huars White-on-Red. This style
was defined primarily by Bennett (1944:75)
from materials at Willcawain and Chavn de
Huntar. Recently Lau (2004:181, figure 2) has
analyzed a new set of radiocarbon dates for the
Huars White-on-Red Style and suggests that
this style was in use between 400 and 100 B.C.
Lau assigns the Huars Style to the early part of
the Recuay tradition, while other archaeologists
(Ponte 2000:223; Wilson 1988:295) define
Huars as a late Early Horizon and early Early
Intermediate Period culture with socioeconomic
relations of varying intensities, and probable
interregional warfare. Whether the Huars Style
is a reflection of a social group that later pro-
duced the totally different ceramics in the
Recuay Style, or was a distinct group that
vanished at some point in time remains a subject
for discussion. However, it is clear that the
Huars Style existed during the decline of Cha-
vn de Huntar and the rise of Recuay. Looking
at the Am II R Context with the new radiocar-
bon data in mind, it appears not incongruent
that two different styles form part of the same
deposit. Both styles shared the same territory
and probably overlapped in time. Both are
found above Chavn components. Archaeolo-
gists (Burger 1985:125, 1992:165; Lumbreras
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
1993:314) have confirmed the Huars Red-on-
White Styles position immediately over Jana-
barriu Phase (390-200 B.C.; Table 1) strata, but
in some cases it has been found to be contempo-
raneous with the Janabarriu Phase (Burger 1992:
228).
Domestic structures that yielded Huars
White-on-Red Style ceramics spread over the
Circular Plaza building of the Old Temple of
Chavn de Huntar. There are many differences
between the Chavn architectural styles and
those of the Huars culture. The quality of
Huars structures is poor and their masonry is of
a different type from that of the temple. The
White-on-Red Style) has been identified in
several regions of the Andes, always above Early
Horizon levels. It existed during the probable
rise of interregional warfare and interregional
socioeconomic relations of varying intensities
(Wilson 1988:295).
Domestic Refuse Area with Artifacts:
Context 49IV30
A retention wall running east-west sup-
ported a platform near the Isabelita Rock into
which a 3 m by 1 m excavation unit was dug.
Within Strata 2, Context 49IV30 was isolated
from the rest of the excavation unit (Figure 6).
This context consists of a 30 cm deposit of loose
silty clay soil with abundant mid-size gravel (5-8
cm). This is a cultural fill, as is indicated by the
great quantity of diagnostic ceramic sherds
found mixed with the soil. Bones from an adult
and an infant were also found in the refuse area,
along with neckless ollas, shallow bowls, and
open bowls (Figures 23-27). The open bowls are
hemispherical and have flattened rims. Surface
treatment consists of burnished patterns and
circular stamped impressions made by a tubular
instrument (6-7 mm average; Figure 25). The
impressed portions are in the upper part of the
vessels, and the impressions are arranged in
horizontal rows. Similar bowls were found in the
- 140
Nepea Valley by Donald Proulx (1985:325,
plate1A), and correspond to the Early Chavi-
noid Phase. Tello encountered Chavn ceramics
with incised decoration or stamped circles in the
subsoil of buildings A, E, and test pit 1 in the
Chavn de Huntar temple complex (1960:
figure 151) and at the Pallka temple (1956:
figures 161, 4, u). Carinated bowls with red slip
burnishing were also identified (ibid.: figure
15b). Richard Burger (1998:424, figure 333)
found the equivalent in the Janabarriu Phase of
the Chavn de Huntar settlement. A small
group of bowls with wide red bands decorating
the rim and the upper part of the vessel are
among the recovered materials from this con-
text at Am II (Figures 23d, 24).
There are numerous brown ollas and gray
globe-shaped neckless ollas with incurving rims
found in the refuse area. One fragment has red
pigment along the rim, while the body of this
sherd is a natural orange clay color and has a
fine incised diagonal punctated decoration that
may have been made with a cactus spine. This
fragment was found beside the Isabelita Rock.
Burger encountered a similar style of decoration
in the Chakinani Phase (460-390 B.C.; Table 1)
ceramics found in the presently occupied town
of Chavn de Huntar (Burger 1998:407, figure
229). Tello illustrated a similar specimen which
he assigned to the Chavn ceramic sequence
(1960: figure 159b). These parallels corroborate
the Early Horizon date of the Isabelita Rock.
Complementary to the aforementioned
styles are short-necked ollas with everted rims,
burnished red surfaces, and decorated olla and
jar body fragments with parallel red lines on a
yellowish brown polished surface. Finally, one
eroded rim with small punctated decoration in
a double row (Figure 25c) can be compared with
the late Initial Period Urabarriu Phase of Chavn
de Huntar that is associated with the Old
Temple (Table 1; Burger 1998: figure 137).
141 -
DEVELOPMENT OF THE LOCAL SUBSYSTEM
(COTOJIRCA PHASE I)
As mentioned above, a prehispanic road
connected Mareniyoc, a major Early Horizon
local sociopolitical center, with other contempo-
raneous sites. These include valley bottom
settlements as well as sites in the puna. Here I
discuss two puna settlements, Chonta Ranra
Punta and Maquellouan Punta. I then describe
Urpay Coto, a site located at the valley bottom
of the Callejn de Huaylas and Quitapampa C
(Table 1, Figure 13), a Recuay funerary chamber
in the upper part of the Cotojirca neighborhood
of Mareniyoc.
Chonta Ranra Punta
Within the steppe environment of the puna
a fortified site, Chonta Ranra Punta (PAn 5-1;
4291 masl) stands at the top of the hill of the
same name (Figure 28). A 2 m wide perimeter
wall surrounds the site. Chonta is divided into
three sectors: a natural rocky elevation on the
north, an intermediate flat open area where
storage rooms were built, and a rectangular low
platform with residential rooms. Although
excavations in the rectilineal-to-apsidal rooms
did not uncover plant remains or artifacts, these
rooms were probably used for the deposit of food
products. The isolation of the area, the consecu-
tive linear pattern of structures, the cold envi-
ronment which naturally preserves food, and the
necessity of foodstuffs for the people who re-
mained in the site support this interpretation.
The residential area measured 27 m by 31 m and
was delineated by a low, square platform sup-
porting a rectangular grid comprised of four
rooms, each 2 m by 3 m in plan, plus a trape-
zoidal structure standing alone and an apsidal
room attached to the platform wall. The rooms
are constructed of dressed stone masonry. Test
pits in one of the rooms revealed scattered
ceramics associated with charcoal.
Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving
The diagnostic ceramics recovered are fine
open bowls with red polished slip on both sur-
faces. They are related to the Early Horizon
styles of the Nepea (Proulx 1985:341, plate
9B), Casma, and Santa Valleys. In spite of the
small number of artifacts found, I suggest that
domestic activities took place in these rooms. A
radiocarbon date obtained from the charcoal
found in the excavated room produced a cali-
brated date range between 390-210 B.C. (Table
2). No artifacts associated with warfare were
found. The lithic inventory is composed of only
three projectile points recovered from excava-
tions and two polished points collected from the
surface. Point 109 (60 mm at maximum dimen-
sion) was found in the room and was associated
with ceramics and charcoal. Point 108/119 (41
mm at maximum dimension) comes from one of
the probable storage structures. Malpass (1983:
figure 43) recorded similar points from Casma
sites associated with ceramics.
Two D-shaped structures added to the
northeast platform wall may have restricted
access to the rooms. The position of this site
had strategic advantages because from here it is
possible to control the movement of people from
the western coastal valleys to the Callejn de
Huaylas. Also, the site is near the natural water
divide of the Cordillera Negra, between the
Santa Valley to the east and the highland puna
elevations to the west.
Maquellouan Punta
At the southern edge of the Quebrada Cun-
cashca, 200 m below Chonta Ranra, is another
hilltop site, Maquellouan Punta (PAn 5-4). This
had a different function, but shared aspects of
site planning with Chonta Ranra Punta. Ma-
quellouan Punta was built along the slope and
top of a limestone rock formation at 4118 masl.
Its location, with a good view of the Callejn de
Huaylas, could have been a factor in choosing
this place for settlement. Maquellouan was
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
connected to the Santa Valley floor by a prehis-
toric road (Figure 14). The occupants lived on
terraces, and the summit was used for ceremo-
nial activities. The site plan shows an artificial
platform with complex architecture, a central
plaza with a rectangular room, and a northern
platform based on a natural mound that sup-
ports a residential sector (Figure 29). The plan
of Maquellouan Punta shares some common
features with that of Chonta Ranra Punta.
However, while Chonta Ranra Punta is bigger,
Maquellouan contains much denser archaeolog-
ical deposits. Retention walls were used at this
site because of its very steep cliff, especially on
its northern and southern sides. The rectangular
room built in the plaza measures approximately
13 m x 4 m and yielded information about
ceremonial practices.
Sixty-seven percent of the tools made from
faunal parts that were recovered in the Pierina
area have been found at the Maquellouan Punta
site. Thirty-two percent of the artifacts made
from faunal parts found there were recovered
from the rectangular structure. The most com-
mon tools are made of camelid bones or taruka
(the northern Andean deer, Hippocamelus
antisensis) antlers used as gravers and for soft-
pressure lithic flaking. Eleven projectile points,
six of black chert, four of fine shale, and one of
a porphyritic igneous rock (point 400-7) were
also found with minimal indication of flaking
(Grimaldo 1999:216). In general these projectile
points share similarities with those from the
Chonta Ranra site. The igneous point has
unique features including ferro-magnesium
crystals, a rectilinear distal base, and larger size
(64 mm long and 23 mm wide) compared to the
shale points. The shale and chert points have
polished surfaces, beveled edges, and flat sec-
tions (points 400-6 and 426). Similar points
were found in the debris of buildings A, E, and
F at Chavn de Huntar and were associated
with Recuay ceramics (Tello 1960: figure 142).
Ground stone points seem to be found above
- 142
triangular black chert points in excavation
contexts. Most of the ground stone points were
collected on the surface, except point 466 which
was associated with a biface. Point 400-2 can be
compared with Lynchs Lampas Type 16 (Lynch
1980: figure 9.3, r). Cutting tools such as coarse
denticulate implements, or scrapers (n=433), a
uniface (lithic 400-5), and utilized flakes com-
plete the lithic inventory.
A large number of Early Horizon ceramics
were found here (Figures 30, 31), as well as deer
and camelid bones. A silver pin was found in the
second patio next to the northern platform.
This item of personal adornment, as well as an
incised deer bone and fine ceramics, tells us
something about the social organization of the
people who lived at the Maquellouan site. A
three meter square excavation pit (Unit A)
placed perpendicular to the thick wall that
dissects Platform I yielded information about the
constant remodeling and construction at
Maquellouan. The foundation of Platform I was
a series of large, cut stones with a loose dirt and
refuse fill between them. Considerable labor
was necessary to build such platforms because of
the two meter deep fill and the structures many
remodelings.
At about 30 to 40 cm below the ground
surface of the artificial platform I encountered a
circular structure corresponding to the late
Cotojirca V (A.D. 1200-1400) occupation of
Maquellouan Punta. This was, perhaps, a do-
mestic structure. Ceramic fragments dispersed
throughout the site are associated with the
Cotojirca Phase V. Below this was an Early
Horizon structure. The lower structure clearly
forms a circular room. Its masonry is elaborate
with carefully chosen cut stones arranged over
a limestone calcite soil associated with the core
Early Horizon occupation of the site. The struc-
ture is related to the Janabarriu Style and to
Huars White-on-Red Style ceramics(Cotojirca
I Phase). At the bottom of Unit A was a deposit
143 -
resting in the small natural hollows in the upper
surface of the limestone bedrock.
Urpay Coto
The Urpay Coto site (PAn 5-39, Figure 32)
is on the upper part of a natural hill at 2938
masl. At this altitude the climate is warmer than
it is at sites on the puna or suni ecozones.4 The
site includes two levels of retention walls that
also could have had a defensive function.
Rooms and other structures on the top of the
hill can barely be seen because they are covered
by bushes. However, in the central part of the
site excavations uncovered a terrace wall that
separated a complex of small structures associ-
ated with camelid bones and ceramics (Unit C,
Figure 32). Camelid bones consisted of limb
parts of one adult alpaca, one adult llama, and
two young camelids (Rofes 1999:167). These
finds suggest that camelid consumption oc-
curred here. A radiocarbon sample was taken
from a ceramic fragment (register number 3924)
and yielded a very early date of 1410-1265 B.C.
(Table 2). This measurement is problematical.
It is possible that the calcitic soil in contact with
the ceramic produced a contaminated date.
In the central part of the hill, I excavated a
2.20 by 2.90 m rectangular room with high
masonry walls. It had a narrow door and a low
bench inside. Its function was probably related
to habitation, although no domestic features or
artifacts were found inside. Most of the archaeo-
logical structures of Urpay Coto remain buried
and covered with vegetation. Therefore, the
map presented here must be regarded as prelimi-
nary. Nevertheless, the portion of retaining
walls investigated reveals a fortified site where
4
According to the classification of Peruvian geographer
Javier Pulgar Vidal, who drew upon indigenous concepts,
the suni zone is between 3200 and 4000 meters in eleva-
tion in the central Andes (Pulgar 1946:105) and is
suitable for the cultivation of tubers and Chenopodium
(ibid.:113-118).
Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving
camelid meat was consumed and where neckless
ollas with spouts were used (Figure 33: 3913).
The Cotojirca I Phase ceramics are similar to
those found at Maquellouan, but compared to
the subsequent Cotojirca IV/Ancosh occupation
(A.D. 650-950) their presence is minimal at the
site.
Quitapampa C
Test excavations in the terrace 5 m east of
Quitapampa C (Pan 5-50), a Recuay funerary
chamber in the upper part of the Cotojirca
neighborhood, revealed a feature consisting of a
small, U-shaped stone structure with a different
function from that of the Recuay mortuary
structure. It is 1.46 m long and 0.79 m high and
was built with rustic masonry of mid-size stones
joined with mud mortar. The structure delin-
eated a cist-like chamber filled with silty clay
soil to a depth of 0.56 m. Within this soil were
small pieces of charcoal and sherds of a neckless
olla which show clear indications of having been
exposed to fire. The floor of the cist is composed
of burnt clay soil 0.06 m thick. A radiocarbon
sample was taken from the charcoal deposited
on the floor. It yielded a date of 480-230 B.C.
(Table 2), which would place it within the Early
Horizon. The structure resembled an earthen
cooking oven or pachamanca. The utilitarian
ollas share some features, including sandy paste,
white inclusions, and orange color. Surfaces are
greatly eroded. The ollas lack parallels with the
Cotojirca Phase I Style. We could not continue
excavations in this area because of hostile
reactions from the landowner. This zone may
contain an Early Horizon component.
DISCUSSION, INTERPRETATION, AND
CHRONOLOGY
Assessing the Cotojirca I Phase
The stylistic elements that comprise the
Cotojirca I Phase come principally from the
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Am II Tomb E. The ceramics associated with
the burial constitute examples related to the
Early Capilla Style (600-400 B.C.). Bowls with
Red-on-Orange decoration and divergent side-
walls like that found in context 49N11 are
common in the Huaricoto and Early Capilla
Styles, but there is a slight difference in the
decorative painted band. The same Red-on-
Orange decoration appears on neckless ollas in
the refuse area context 49IV30 and is compara-
ble to the Capilla Expansive Phase of the Paco-
pampa site dated by Morales (1998:118) at
around 400 B.C. From the same refuse context
decorations of circular and dash-like puncta-
tions confirm the correlation of the Cotojirca
Phase I with the Huaricoto Style.
Another piece of evidence key to accessing
the early chronology of the Cotojirca I Phase
comes from the pair of bottles found in the
burial. The gray bottle from the Am II E mor-
tuary context resembles a bottle found in a tomb
at the Kuntur Wasi site that corresponds to the
Copa Phase (c. 500-250 B.C.). Proulx (1973:
plate 1a-c) shows a group of long-necked,
single-spout bottles whose origin is in the Nepe-
a Valley. Because long-necked bottles have not
been found in the Callejn de Huaylas, one
could argue for an exotic or imported prove-
nance. Generally, long-necked bottles are found
at north coast sites within the Cupisnique
tradition. Furthermore, the extended position of
the human body in the Am II Tomb E con-
forms with coastal mortuary customs during the
Late Cupisnique (c. 500-200 B.C.; Elera 1994:
248) and with those of the Puerto Moorin Phase
(350 B.C. to A.D. 1) at the beginning of the
Early Intermediate Period for the Vir Valley
(Grieder 1978:51; Wilson 1988:149). A long-
necked bottle with modeled and incised decora-
tion depicting a reptile with the same attributes
as the reptile from Isabelita Rock has been
recovered from an unknown context at the
Tembladera site (Pasztory 1998:98). The vessel
has post-fired red resin paint and circular
- 144
stamped decoration. This amazing example is in
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
and has been dated to between 400 and 200
B.C., within the range I have proposed for the
Isabelita Rock.
An incised broad line bowl found beside the
White-on-Red bowl in the Am II R burial
context suggests a longer chronology than has
been assumed for the Huars White-on-Red
Style. Lumbreras (1993:417) obtained radiocar-
bon dates from the temple of Chavn de Hun-
tar from Huars domestic contexts and burials
within a range from 780 to 150 B.C., but all of
these dates are uncalibrated. Surprisingly, the
Huars White-on-Red Style is found in associa-
tion with other styles from the Early Horizon
such as the incised bowl from the Am II R
context. Similarities to the incised Am II R
bowl may be found in Proulxs (1985:198)
Nepea Broad Lined Incised type dated to the
Early Horizon Chakinani Phase.
Circular stamped decoration on rounded
bowls has also been found in the refuse deposit
context 49IV30. This is a feature consistently
associated with the Janabarriu Phase, a late
Early Horizon manifestation. Observing the
variability of the styles from the 49IV30 context,
a chronological gap seems to exist among the
artifacts deposited with it, probably caused by
disturbance. A more refined classification would
distinguish more than one phase. The Isabelita
Rock engraving and the whole Am II site were
located in a special place according to a sacred
geography.
Settlement Pattern
The evidence presented for interaction of
settlements during the Cotojirca I Phase is
deduced from similarities in artifacts, site plan-
ning, and dependency on agriculture and
pastoralism exploiting a number of vertical
ecozones. The sociopolitical organization cen-
145 -
tralized in Mareniyoc permitted the multiplica-
tion of rites and ceremonies at other, subsidiary,
sites on the puna above it as well as within the
lower warm valley ecozone near the Santa
River. Nevertheless, Mareniyoc is distinguished
from the rest of the sites in the area by its man-
agement and production of symbols. The large
funerary area is next to the religious site, Am
II. Furthermore, ethnographic data from the
local farmers support the idea that during the
Early Horizon Mareniyoc was already a central
place controlling the Cuncashca puna where
today townspeople conduct their animals to dry
season grazing lands (Sergio Vergara, personal
communication, 1998). Transhumance among
various ecological zones at different altitudes
within the Callejn de Huaylas has been occur-
ring since preceramic times (Lynch 1971).
The settlement pattern with the distribution
of open spaces as patios between artificial or
natural platforms reflects a desire to congregate
people in limited areas. The social activity
developed at the Maquellouan site seems to
have included ceremonies and rituals where
feasts were important to group coherence.
Information recovered from Queyash Alto has
indicated the role of celebration sponsored by
recognized social and political authorities (Gero
1992:18). Our data concur in that the commu-
nity organized its collective life around celebra-
tion and drinking, thus affirming social relations
and reciprocity.
Fortified constructions at high altitude sites
such as Chonta Ranra Punta may be explained
by the need to install an outpost or refuge that
could control the puna and the Cuncashca
Quebrada. Both sites coexisted with similar
settlement plans. Furthermore, the communica-
tion with the primary center (Mareniyoc) in a
complementary economy was a means of inte-
grating a region where attacks may have come
from people occupying the western slopes of the
Cordillera Negra. Wilsons (1995) work in the
Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving
Casma Valley indicates warfare as a reason for
the profusion of fortresses during the Patazca
Period (350 to 1 B.C.). The increasing popula-
tion and the need for more agricultural land
forced chiefdoms to fight among themselves.
The Am II Ritual Area of Mareniyoc
As I mentioned in the introduction, the
simple architecture around the Great Stone and
its human burial beneath may have ceremonial
meaning related to the ritual of burial and
reverence paid to the interred individual.
Doyles definition of the Cusco Quechua machay
as a sacred space formed by natural or modified
caves, with openings that were intentionally
blocked to reduce the size of the entrances
(1988:110) exactly matches the Am II Tomb
E.
Another factor that demonstrates the cere-
monial aspect of the Great Stone is its orienta-
tion to the highest mountain peaks of the Cor-
dillera Blanca. This is related to the well-known
Andean practice of showing reverence to moun-
tains through rites performed with sea products
(Rostworowski 1986:87). A monolith, Piruro II
(PAn 5-9; Figures 34-36), with similar ceremo-
nial attributes was found on the upper ridge
above the Am II site, at the boundary between
the puna and suni ecozones (3930 masl). This
stone was modified to a cubical form. It was
made of tuff (silica), is 1.22 meters high, and is
enclosed by a nearly circular structure composed
of irregularly shaped rocks (Figure 36). The
faces of the cubic stone were carved with simple
designs, possibly depicting a human face, but
not in any particular style (Figure 35). Piruro II
faces north, towards the Huascarn peak. Only
two tubular kaolinite beads, each 5 cm long, and
one spherical metal bead were found in the
structure surrounding the stone. Neither ceram-
ics nor bones were among the offerings. In
summary, the structures around sacred rocks
may have had the function of shrines, where the
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
members of the local communities celebrated
ceremonies on special occasions, as they cur-
rently do throughout the year at small Catholic
shrines in Andean communities.
Isabelita: Assessing the Art Style
Although the incision technique on flat
surfaces of rock was used in the sculptures from
Cerro Sechn (Burger 1989:552), the represen-
tations on the Isabelita Rock are quite different.
The frontal position of the man with a trophy
head, as represented on the Isabelita Rock never
appeared at Sechn. The artist who made the
Isabelita image could have inherited the Sechn
technique, but his or her cultural expression
differs from the Sechn Style. The reptile head
on the Isabelita Rock is similar to the engraved
bone from Pallka and may have been intended
to represent the same being. Almost all the
diagnostic ceramics of the Cotojirca I Phase
found at the Am II site have their counterparts
within the Pallka temple ceramic assemblage,
which may have been the center of diffusion at
this time.
The principal element of the Isabelita Rock
is the frontal man holding a trophy head. This
image represents a ritual human sacrifice in-
tended to ensure a good harvest or success in
some other project (Benson 1997:11). This
images central position may indicate that it is
a deity, as seen in Cupisnique petroglyphs (Guff-
roy 1999:136). The mammal represented in full
body profile, if intended to represent a fox,
evokes the metaphoric significance of such
animals in the Andes in connection with agri-
cultural cycles and productivity (Urton 1985:
267). Today deer are considered to be the cows
of the apus or sacred mountains. They belong to
them and when humans kill them they always
have to deposit offerings in exchange for them
(ibid.: 258-259). Both foxes and deer are cur-
rently seen in the Cordillera Negra in the puna
near outcrops.
- 146
A possible connection between the icono-
graphy of the Isabelita Rock and the manipula-
tion of religious power in circular structures is
the representation of the cat mouth in the
images of the reptile and the feline. Rowe
(1970:81) argued for a relationship between the
jaguar mouth and the religious ritual associated
with important mythological beings. Further-
more, in the Cupisnique region a powerful
religious ideology appeared that featured human
trophy heads, a feline/bird/reptile triad, fish, and
spondylus imported from what is now Ecuador,
among other elements (Von Hagen and Morris
1998:57). All of these concepts are expressed on
the Isabelita Rock. Without doubt some kind of
generalized ritual must have existed in the
Andes when the late Chavn Style was current,
and aspects of this ritual seem to have been
both expressed by the Isabelita Rock and per-
formed there.
When Menzel and her colleagues studied
the ceramic sequence of Ica, based on artifacts
from Ocucaje and Callango, they recognized
innovations introduced in Phase 9 that were
derived from Phase 8, the latter still under
Chavn Phase EF influence (Menzel et al. 1964:
259). The principal innovation, according to
Menzel et al., is a mythical personification of the
Oculate Being, represented as the full figure of
a man, with a trophy head, appendages on the
top of this head, angular arms and legs, and
incised lines marking off the fingers (ibid.: fig-
ures 44b, 52c, figure 40 from Willey 1974: plate
359). All of these attributes are exhibited by the
human-like being depicted on the Isabelita
Rock. Whether this figure is the same mythical
entity as the Oculate Being, or is the representa-
tion of a man with a trophy head and hafted
knife, remains unclear, but the figure appears
elsewhere in the Andes (ibid.: 259). In this
respect, Grieder (1978:183) suggested a Paracas
influence on elements of the Recuay Style
ceramics. Whether true or not, long distance
interactions were occurring at the same time.
147 -
The appearance of the trophy head theme in
two distant regions at the same time confirms
the decline of the Chavn Horizon, the demise
of its cult, and the emergence of sites such as
Pallka and Kuntur Wasi (Burger 1989: 561) and
the beginning of the White-on-Red Horizon
Style.
Elements of the iconography expressed on
the Isabelita Rock persisted in the art of societ-
ies such as Recuay and Wari. Examples of
Recuay art showing full frontal humans are
common in the media of petroglyphs, bone
carvings, and ceramics (Ponte 2005). In the
corpus of Callejn de Huaylas rock sculpture
produced during Wari times, one frequently
finds depictions of a central human being flank-
ed by felines. This is a Recuay theme appropri-
ated by the Wari imperial apparatus as part of
their efforts to control ideology.
CONCLUSIONS
This discussion of the Isabelita Rock engrav-
ing focused on its meaning in its archaeological
context and elucidated its relationship to con-
cepts of space-time during the Cotojirca I Phase.
It also revealed its association with funerary
rituals that may have established the foundation
of the Am II site through a cult of ancestor
veneration expressed on a sacred rock. The
Isabelita Rock engraving is contemporaneous
with the EF Phase of Chavn de Huntar rock
sculpture seriation (late Early Horizon) while
the rounded structure and the burial is earlier,
as shown by ceramics in the mid-Early Horizon
Huaricoto and Capilla Styles present. Am II, a
component of the Mareniyoc site, was the focus
of worship by a local community, or ayllu estab-
lished on the eastern flanks of the Cordillera
Negra. Religion and its rituals were extremely
important to the sociopolitical organization of
the community. Ceremonies had to be per-
formed, and their symbols reproduced cyclically
in a sacred landscape. Other sites located on the
Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving
puna and valley floor interacted with the
Mareniyoc center in a pattern of vertical ecolog-
ical control. The Cotojirca I Phase shows the
development of a kin-based chiefdom in a
circumscribed mountainous territory within the
Callejn de Huaylas.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to my wife Shari for reviewing and
correcting the English text. Special thanks go to project
members Cesar Aguirre, Santiago Morales, Emily Baca,
and Sergio Anchi (all from the Universidad Nacional
Mayor de San Marcos). Luis Lumbreras commented on
the first Spanish language draft and I benefitted from
Richard Burgers advice on a revised English version. Bill
Sapp also helped to improve this paper. Two anonymous
Andean Past reviewers made useful critiques and sugges-
tions. Research was supported by Minera Barrick Misqui-
chilca, S.A., owner of the Pierina Mine. Sincere thanks
goes to Barrick managers, especially Holton Burns,
Environmental Coordinator, who included cultural
mitigation in the environmental management master plan.
REFERENCES CITED
Arriaga, Joseph Pablo
1999 [1621] La extirpacin de la idolatra en el Piru.
Cusco: Centro de Estudios Regionales Andinos
Bartolom de las Casas.
Bennett, Wendell
1944 The North Highlands of Peru: Excavations in the
Callejn de Huaylas and at Chavin de Huantar.
Anthropological Papers of the American Mu-
seum of Natural History 39(1).
Benson, Elizabeth P.
1997 Birds and Beasts of Ancient Latin America. Gaines-
ville: University Press of Florida.
Bischof, Henning
1994 Toward the Definition of Pre- and Early Chavin
Art Styles in Peru. Andean Past 4:169-228.
Bueno Mendoza, Alberto
2003 Arqueologa al norte del Callejn de Huaylas: La
Galgada,Tumshukaiko y Pashash. In Arqueologa
de la Sierra de Ancash: Propuestas y perspectivas,
edited by Bebel Ibarra Asencios, pp. 51-82. Lima:
Instituto Cultural Rvna.
Burger, Richard L.
1985 Prehistoric Stylistic Change and Cultural Devel-
opment at Huaricoto, Peru. National Geographic
Research 1(4):505-534.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
1989 El horizonte Chavn: Quimera estilstica o
metamrfosis socioeconmica? Revista Andina
7(2): 543- 573.
1992 Chavin and the Origins of Andean Civilization.
London and New York: Thames and Hudson.
1993 Emergencia de la civilizacin en los Andes: Ensayos
de interpretacin. Lima: Universidad Nacional
Mayor de San Marcos.
1998 Excavaciones en Chavn de Huntar. Lima:
Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Per, Fondo
Editorial.
Burger, Richard L. and Thomas F. Lynch
1987 Gary S. Vescelius (1930-1982). Andean Past 1:1-
3.
Burger, Richard L. and Lucy Salazar-Burger
1985 The Early Ceremonial Center of Huaricoto. In
Early Ceremonial Architecture in the Andes, edited
by Christopher B. Donnan, pp. 111-138. Wash-
ington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks.
2000 Los primeros templos en Amrica. In Los dioses
del antiguo Per, edited by Krzysztof Makowski
and Julio Rucabado, pp. 1-87. Lima: Banco de
Crdito del Per.
Daggett, Richard E.
1987 Reconstructing the Evidence for Cerro Blanco
and Punkur. Andean Past 1:133-163.
De Marrais, Elizabeth, Luis Jaime Castillo, and Timothy
Earle
1996 Ideology, Materialization, and Power Strategies.
Current Anthropology 37(1):15-31.
Donnan, Christopher B.
1992 Ceramics of Ancient Peru. Los Angeles: Fowler
Museum of Cultural History, University of
California at Los Angeles.
Doyle, Mary Ellen
1988 Ancestor Cult and Burial Ritual in the Seventeenth
and Eighteenth Century, Central Peru. Ph.D.
dissertation, Department of History, University
of California, Los Angeles.
Duviols, Pierre
2003 Procesos y visitas de idolatras: Cajatambo, siglo
XVII. Lima, Pontificia Universidad Catlica del
Per and Instituto Francs de Estudios Andinos.
Elera, Carlos
1994 El complejo cultural Cupisnique: Antecedentes
y desarrollo de su ideologa religiosa. In El mundo
ceremonial andino, edited by Luis Milliones and
Yoshio Onuki, pp. 225-252. Lima: Editorial
Horizonte.
Falcn, Victor Huayta
2009 Reconstruction of the Burial Offering at Punkur
in the Nepea Valley of Perus North-Central
Coast. Andean Past 9:109-129.
- 148
Gero, Joan M.
1991 Who Experienced What in Prehistory? A Narra-
tive Explanation from Queyash, Peru. Processual
and Postprocessual Archaeologies: Multiple Ways of
Knowing the Past, edited by Robert W. Preucel.
Occasional Paper 10: Papers from the Sixth
Annual Visiting Scholars Conference Held April
28-29, 1989. Carbondale: Center for Archaeo-
logical Investigations, Southern Illinois Univer-
sity.
1992 Feasts and Females: Gender Ideology and Politi-
cal Meals in the Andes. Norwegian Archaeology
Review 25(1):17-30.
Grieder, Terence
1978 The Art and Archaeology of Pashash. Austin:
University of Texas Press.
Grimaldo, Claudia
1999 Informe del material ltico de los sitios excavados
por el Proyecto Arqueolgico Pierina: Analisis de
los asentamientos arqueolgicos en el area de
influencia de la Mina Pierina, edited by Victor
Ponte, pp. 206-305. Report submitted to Minera
Barrick Misquichilca and the Instituto Nacional
de Cultura, Huaraz.
Guffroy, Jean
1999 El arte rupestre del antiguo Per. Lima: Instituto
Francs de Estudios Andinos.
Hernndez Principe, Rodrigo
1923 [1622] Mitologa andina. Inca 1:25-78 (Lima:
Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos).
Kaplan, Lawrence and Thomas F. Lynch
1999 Phaseolus (Fabaceae) in Archaeology: AMS
Radiocarbon Dates and their Significance for
Pre- Columbian Agriculture. Economic Botany
53(3): 261-272.
Lau, George F.
2002 Feasting and Ancestor Veneration at Chincha-
was, North Highlands of Ancash, Peru. Latin
American Antiquity 13(2):279-304.
2004 The Recuay Culture of Perus North-Central
Highlands: A Reevaluation of Chronology and
its Implications. Journal of Field Archaeology
29:177-202.
Lumbreras, Luis Guillermo
1993 Chavn de Huntar: Excavaciones en la Galera de
las Ofrendas. Mainz am Rhein, Germany: P. von
Zabern.
Lynch, Thomas F.
1970 Excavations at Quishqui Puncu in the Callejn de
Huaylas, Peru. Occasional Papers of the Idaho
State Museum 26.
1971 Preceramic Transhumance in the Callejn de
Huaylas, Peru American Antiquity 36(2):139-148.
149 -
1980 Guitarrero Cave: Early Man in the Andes, edited
by Thomas F. Lynch. New York: Academic
Press.
Malpass, Michael A.
1983 The Preceramic Occupations of the Casma Valley,
Peru. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wiscon-
sin, Madison.
Menzel, Dorothy, John H. Rowe, and Lawrence E. Daw-
son
1964 The Paracas Pottery of Ica: A Study in Style and
Time. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Morales, Daniel
1998 Investigaciones arqueolgicas en Pacopampa,
departamento de Cajamarca. Boletn de Arque-
ologa PUCP 2:113-126.
Morris, Craig
1981 Review of Excavations at La Pampa in the North
Highlands of Peru by Kazou Terada. American
Antiquity 46(4):961-962.
Murra, John V.
1975 Formaciones econmicas en el mundo andino. Lima:
Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
Onuki, Yoshio
1997 Ocho tumbas especiales de Kuntur Wasi. Boletn
de Arqueologa PUCP 1:79-114.
Pasztory, Esther
1998 Pre-Columbian Art. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Ponte Rosalino, Victor M.
1999a Excavaciones arqueolgicos en el area de Mareniyoc,
Carretera Jangas Pierina 10+160-11 Km. Report
submitted to Minera Barrick Misquichilca and
the Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Huaraz.
1999b Anlisis de los asentamientos arquelgicos en el area
de influencia Mina Pierina. Report submitted to
Minera Barrick Misquichilca and the Instituto
Nacional de Cultura, Huaraz.
2000 Transformacin social y poltica en el Callejn
de Huaylas, siglos III-X D.C. Boletn de Arqueo-
loga PUCP 4:219-251.
2005 Anthropomorphic Petroglyphs from the Callejn
de Huaylas, Per. In Archaeology Without Limits:
Papers in Honor of Clement W. Meighan, edited by
Brian D. Dillon and Matthew A. Boxt, pp. 245-
256. Lancaster, California: Labyrinthos Press.
Pozorski, Shelia and Thomas Pozorski
1986 Recent Excavations at Pampa de las Llamas-
Moxeke, a Complex Initial Period Site in Peru.
Journal of Field Archaeology 13(4):381-401.
Proulx, Donald
1973 Archaeological Investigations in the Nepeia Valley,
Peru. Research Report 13, Department of An-
thropology, University of Massachussets, Am-
herst.
Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving
1985 An Analysis of the Early Cultural Sequence in the
Nepea Valley, Peru. Research Report 25. De-
partment of Anthropology, University of Massa-
chusetts. Amherst.
Pulgar Vidal, Javier
1946 Historia y geografa del Per: Tomo I, las ocho
regiones naturales del Per. Lima: Empresa Editora
La Tribuna S.A.
Roe, Peter G.
1974 A Further Exploration of the Rowe Chavin Seriation
and Its Implications for North Central Coast Chro-
nology. Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archae-
ology 13. Washington, D.C. Dumbarton Oaks.
Rofes, Juan
1999 Anlisis de los restos de fauna vertebrada re-
cuperados por el proyecto arqueolgico Pierina,
Huaraz-Ancash. In Anlisis de los Asentamientos
Arqueolgicos en el Area de Influencia Mina
Pierina, edited by Victor Ponte, pp. 148-185.
Report submitted to Minera Barrick Mis-
quichilca and the Instituto Nacional de Cultura,
Huaraz.
Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, Mara
1986 Estructuras andinas del poder. Second edition.
Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
Rowe, John H.
1970 Form and meaning in Chavn Art. In Peruvian
Archaeology: Selected Readings, edited by John H.
Rowe and Dorothy Menzel, pp. 72-103. Fourth
Edition. Palo Alto, California: Peek Publications.
Struiver, Minze and Bernd Becker
1986 High-Precision Decadal Calibration of the
Radiocarbon Time Scale, AD 1950-2500 BC.
Radiocarbon 28:863-910.
Tellenbach, Michael
1986 Las excavaciones en el asentamiento formativo
de Montegrande, valle de Jequetepeque en el
norte del Per. Materialien fr Allgemeine und
Vergleichenden Archologie 39. Munich: Verlag
C.H. Beck.
Tello, Julio C.
1943 Discovery of the Chavin Culture in Peru. Ameri-
can Antiquity 9(1):135-160.
1956 Arqueologa del valle de Casma: Culturas Chavn,
Santa o Huaylas yunga y sub-Chim. Lima:
Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.
1960 Chavn: Cultura matriz de la civilizacin andina.
Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Mar-
cos.
Terada, Kazuo
1975 Excavations at La Pampa in the North Highlands of
Peru. Report of the Japanese Scientific Expedition to
Nuclear America. Tokyo: University of Tokyo
Press.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 150

1980 Excavaciones arqueolgicas en la Pampa, An- Urton, Gary, editor

cash, realizadas por la Expedicin Cientfica 1985 Animal Myths and Metaphors. Salt Lake City:
Japonesa a la Amrica Nuclear en 1975. In El University of Utah Press.
hombre y la cultura andina: 31 de enero-5 de febrero Von Hagen, Adriana and Craig Morris
1977, actas y trabajos, III Congreso Peruano, 1998 The Cities of the Ancient Andes. London and New
edited by Ramiro Matos M., pp. 1048-1077. York: Thames and Hudson.
Lima: Editora Lasontay. Willey, Gordon
Thompson, Donald E. 1974 Das Alte Amerika. Berlin: Propyden verlag.
1962 Additional Stone Carving from the North High- Wilson, David
lands of Peru. American Antiquity 28(2): 245-246. 1988 Prehispanic Settlement Patterns in the Lower Santa
Valley, Peru. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution Press.
1995 Prehispanic Settlement Patterns in the Casma
Valley, North Coast of Peru: Preliminary Results
to Date. Journal of the Steward Anthropological
Society 23(1, 2):189-227.
151 - Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving

Chronological Chart: Ceramic Styles of the Northern Highlands of Peru

Cajamarca Callejn de Huaylas Nepea Valley Casma Valley

Time
Scale Chavn de
Pacopampa Kunturwasi La Pampa Huaricoto Pierina
Huntar

8
400

300

200 Cotojirca III

8
EARLY
INTERMEDIATE 100 Recuay/
PERIOD
AD
8 Moche III-IV

8
BC

9
100 Cotojirca II

8
200 Sotera Stamped circles Huars Huars Chankillo

8
300 Red-on-Orange San Diego

8
400 Expansiva Late Capilla Cotojirca I Janabarriu Kushipampa Pallka

500 Copa Copa Chakinani

EARLY
HORIZON
600
8
La Pampa Early Capilla
8 Urabarriu

8
700 Ofrendas

800 Kunturwasi Modeled, Incised Quitapampa

900 Pacopampa Yesopampa

1000 dolo Huaricoto Chavinoid Las Haldas

Table 1: Chronology and ceramic styles of the northern Highlands of Peru.

13 14
Lab No. Site Register No. Sector Unit Material * C F C BP 1F

AA32484 PAn 5-1 137 3 A Charcoal -24.1 0.75750.0053 2,23055 390-210 BC

AA32480 PAn 5-4 443 Platform I A Charcoal -26 0.92110.0044 66040 AD 1280-1390

AA32492 PAn 5-39 3924 Area 2 C1 Ceramic -23.7 0.68340.0041 3,06050 1410-1265 BC

AA32488 PAn 5-50 5025 II Charcoal -24.6 0.75040.0053 2,30555 480-230 BC

Table 2: Radiocarbon dates for Chonta Ranra Punta (PAn 5-1), Maquellouan Punta (PAn 5-4),
Urpay Coto Site (PAn 5-39), and Quitapampa C (PAn 5-50),calibrated according to
Struiver and Becker 1986:863.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 152

Figure 1: Isabelita rock.

Figure 2: Isabelita rock seen from above (from Ponte 2005: figure 2).
153 - Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving

Figure 3: Isabelita Rock motifs.

Figure 4: Great Stone.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 154

Figure 5: Plan of Great Stone and surrounding circular structure (after Ponte 2005: figure 4).
 155 -

Figure 6: Plan of Am II site (for Great Rock read

Great Stone).
Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 156

Figure 7: Dark Space underneath Great Stone looking east, where offerings were found.
157 - Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving

Figure 8: Profile A-A, Am II site. See Figure 6.

Figure 9: Profile B-B, Am II site. See Figure 6.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 158

Figure 10, Profile C-C, Am II site. See Figure 6.

Figure 11: Section of Mareniyoc mound made by local people during house construction.
159 - Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving

Figure 12: Map of Peru showing Formative sites mentioned in the text. 1. Mareniyoc; 2. Huaricoto;
3. Pallka; 4. Tumshucaico; 5. Pumacayan (Huaraz); 6. Chupacoto; 7. La Pampa; 8. Guitarrero Cave;
9. Kunturwasi; 10. Puemape; 11. Piruro; 12. Pacopampa; 13. Chavn de Huantar; 14. Cerro Sechn;
15. Punkur; 16. Queyash Alto; 17. Kotosh; 18. Puerto Morin; 19. Tembladera; 20. La Galgada;
21. Cupisnique; 22. Cerro Blanco. Garagay, Paracas, Callango, and Ocucaje are off the map. Garagay
is within metropolitan Lima. The Paracas sites are on the Paracas Peninsula on Perus south coast.
Callango and Ocucaje are in the Ica Valley, also on the south coast.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 160

Figure 13: Map of the Callejn de Huaylas showing the distribution of Early Horizon sites.
Key: 1 = Chonta Ranra Punta, PAn 5-1; 4 = Maquellouan Punta, PAn 5-4; 5A = Balcn de Judas,
PAn 5A; 5F = Marcum, PAn 5F; 9 = Piruro II, PAn 5-9; 13 = Tapa Punta, PAn 5-13; 16 =
Wiaq Punta, PAn 5-16; 17 = Quenapun Punta, PAn 5-17; 24 = Shucsha Punta, PAn 5-24; 25 =
Racrish Punta, PAn 5-25; 29 = Oshku, PAn 5-29; 37 = Mareniyoc, PAn 5-37; 39 = Urpay Coto,
PAn 5-39; 49 = Am II, PAn 5-49; 50 = Quitapampa C, PAn 5-50; 58 = Llaca Am, PAn 5-58;
77 = Ain, PAn 5-77; 79 = Castilla Coto, PAn 5-79.
161 - Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving

Figure 14: Map of sites in study area. Key: 1 = Chonta Ranra Punta PAn 5-1; 4 = Maquellouan
Punta, PAn 5-4; 9 = Piruro II, PAn 5-9; 13 = Tapa Punta, PAn 5-13; 16 = Wiaq Punta PAn 5-
16; 17 = Quenapun Punta, PAn 50-1; 37 = Mareniyoc, PAn 5-37; 39 = Urpay Coto, PAn 5-39;
49 = Am, PAn 5-77; 50 = Quitapampa C, PAn 5-50. Scale in kilometers.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 162

Figure 15: Distribution of funerary chambers in the Pierina area.

163 - Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving

Figure 16: View of the setting of the Am II site. The site stands on the ridge to the viewers right and is
covered by trees. The Santa River is in the middle ground.

Figure 17: Some of the lapis lazuli and green chrysocolla beads
found in the Am II E Tomb (scale in one centimeter intervals).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 164

Figure 18: Reconstructed gray bottle from

Tomb E, Am II site, context 49IV2. Scale
is in one centimeter intervals.

Figure 19: Cotojirca I

bowls from Tomb E at the
Am II site.
165 - Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving

Figure 20: Cotojirca I decorated bowl from Tomb E at the Ama II site.

Figure 21: Cotojirca I decorated bowl from Tomb R at the Am II site.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 166

Figure 22: Cotojirca II decorated bowl from Tomb R at the Am II site.

167 - Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving

Figure 23: Cotojirca I sherds from the domestic rubbish heap at the Am II site.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 168

Figure 24: Cotojirca I sherds from the domestic

rubbish heap at the Am II site.

Figure 25: Cotojirca I ceramics from the domes-

tic rubbish heap at the Am II site.
169 - Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving

Figure 26: Cotojirca

I ollas from the
domestic rubbish
heap at the Am II
site.

Figure 27: Cotojirca

I bowls from the
domestic rubbish
heap at the Am II
site.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 170

Figure 28: Plan of Chonta Ranra Punta (after Ponte 2000: figure 3).
171 - Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving

Figure 29: Plan of Maquellouan Punta (after Ponte 2000: figure 6).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 172

Figure 30: Ceramics from the Maquellouan site.

Figure 31: Ceramics from the Maquellouan site.

173 - Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving

Figure 32: Plan of Urpay Coto. PAn 5-39.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 174

Figure 33: Ceramics from the Urpaycoto site.

Figure 34: The Piruro II monolith in its original setting looking towards
the 6,768 m Huascarn peak.
175 - Ponte: Isabelita Rock Engraving

Figure 35: A human face is barely discernable on the north side of the Piruro II monolith.

Figure 36: Plan of Piruro II monolith and surrounding structure.

 STRANGE HARVEST: A DISCUSSION OF SACRIFICE AND MISSING BODY PARTS
ON THE NORTH COAST OF PERU
CATHERINE GAITHER
Metropolitan State College of Denver
JONATHAN BETHARD
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
JONATHAN KENT
Metropolitan State College of Denver
Numerous researchers have discussed the
finds of what they refer to as secondary inter-
ments in funerary contexts around the world
(Dulanto 2002; Hecker and Hecker 1992; Klaus
and Tam 2009; Larson 2001; Millaire 2004;
Nelson 1998; Weiss-Krejci 2001; Verano 1997).
In the Andean region, the finds range from the
jumbled bones that Verano (1997) refers to in
the tombs at Sipn to ritual re-interment de-
scribed by Millaire (2004). This pattern has been
described for numerous sites in Peru dating to
various time periods (Dulanto 2002; Hecker and
Hecker 1992; Klaus and Tam 2009; Millaire
2004; Nelson 1998; and Verano 1997) and may,
therefore, represent a common feature in
mortuary practice, both spatially and temporally,
in this region of the world.
Few researchers, however, have described
finds of the contexts from which these second-
ary interments may have been harvested.
Verano (1997) described the find of complete
bodies with the bones in a jumbled state at the
Moche site of Sipn. He interpreted this as
indicating that some decomposition had taken
place prior to the inclusion of the body in the
secondary context, and suggested that perhaps
the bodies had been stored for future inclusion
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009): 177-194.
VCTOR VSQUEZ SNCHEZ
ARQUEOBIOS, Trujillo, Per
TERESA ROSALES THAM
ARQUEOBIOS, Trujillo, Per and
Universidad Nacional de Trujillo, Trujillo, Per
RICHARD BUSCH
Denver Museum of Nature and Science
in a tomb. Nelson (1998) described undisturbed
burials containing incomplete skeletons at the
Moche site of San Jos de Moro. He attributes
these to an extended funerary rite, whereby the
body was protected from external elements
(such as insects) that sped decomposition, in
order to allow for a transitional component of
the mortuary ritual. This may have included
long-distance travel and rites of re-incorporation
of the individual back into the social order in
accordance with rites of passage as described by
van Gennep (1960). Nelson (1998) notes that
the partial decomposition of the corpse during
this interim period might explain lost body parts,
particularly if long-distance transport was
involved in the ritual. Other researchers (Klaus
and Tam 2009; Millaire 2004; Hecker and
Hecker 1992) have described parts of bodies
included with principal personages in tombs.
Klaus and Tam (2009) noted a preference at the
colonial Chapel of San Pedro de Mrrope for
long bones and skulls. The site of Santa Rita B
in the Chao Valley of Perus north coast also
demonstrates secondary interments in a funerary
context. However, there are some notable and
intriguing differences seen at this north coast
site.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
The site of Santa Rita B also appears to
demonstrate a pattern of ritual re-interment,
which includes isolated body parts interred with
principal personages. Notable at this site, how-
ever, is the presence of what we are calling a
harvested body. This individual demonstrates
missing elements in combination with little or
no evidence for post-interment disturbance,
similar to what Nelson (1998) described at San
Jos de Moro. In contrast to what Nelson (1998)
found, however, there is evidence that Entierro
(Burial) 9 was interred at Santa Rita B shortly
after death and with flesh intact. Not only is the
skeleton well-articulated, there is no evidence of
insect activity, and the bones show crushing
injuries consistent with moist bone impacted by
the placement of several large rocks on top of
the body. Some of the missing skeletal elements
were taken from the body prior to the placement
of the rocks on top of it. Additionally, this
individual appears to be a sacrifice victim rather
than an ancestor or another principal personage,
based upon the atypical position of the body,
including the haphazard manner in which it was
interred, evidence of violent injuries on the
skeleton, and its association with other sacrifice
victims also demonstrating atypical burial
positions and traumatic lesions consistent with
sacrifice. The skeleton demonstrates missing
elements, primarily long bones (which is consistent
with Klaus and Tams description), and not only
is there no evidence of cultural taphonomic
disturbance, but there is, in fact, significant
evidence that the body was not disturbed
post-interment given the placement of the
rocks. This differs from what Dulanto (2002)
describes at Pampa Chica, a Late Initial
Period/Early Horizon site (ca. 700-200 B.C.) in
the Lurn Valley on the central coast of Peru.
He describes tombs containing incomplete
skeletons. The tombs at this site, however, show
clear evidence of re-opening in order to access
the human remains and the remains accessed
appear to have been those of principal
personages. Dulanto (2002) interprets this in the
- 178
context of ancestor worship. This is a different
pattern from what is seen at Santa Rita B and
thus, the reason for this strange harvest is not
yet clear.
Secondary burial deposits are often present
in numerous Andean archaeological contexts,
and scholars frequently frame such features as
part of the ancestor cult, or mortuary practices
that provide continuity between the living and
the dead (Dillehay 1995). Such practices help
enhance collective relationships and legitimize
which resources a particular community controls
(Dillehay 1995; Salomon 1995). As noted by
Klaus and Tam (2009), however, the pattern
one would expect with ancestor worship in-
cludes, at a minimum, successful reproduction
and adult age for those re-interred individuals.
This is not the pattern seen at Santa Rita B with
respect to Entierro 9. The purpose of this paper
is to present the case of Entierro 9, discuss its
possible relevance within the context of Andean
mortuary practice and to further discuss the
possibilities regarding what behavior inferred
from it might mean.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL SETTING
The Santa Rita B archaeological site is on
the western slopes of the Andes of Northern
Peru (Figure 1), in the lower portion of the
middle Chao Valley at an average elevation of
484 m above mean sea level. Its strategic posi-
tion permitted a certain degree of control over
the movement of people, goods, and camelid
herds between the coastal and highland regions
(Kent et al. 1999). See Gaither et al. (2008) for
a more detailed description of the site and its
location.
Now having completed its tenth season, the
Santa Rita B Archaeological Project has been
defining the nature of the human occupation of
the site and investigating selected aspects of its
economic, social, political, and ideological
179 - Gaither et al.: North Coast Sacrifice

history. Most recently (since 2001) excavations
have focused on areas of apparent domestic
architecture, making up complexes of rooms
ranging in number from 10-30 enclosures. One
of these, known as Archaeological Complex
No. 3 (Conjunto Arquitectnico 3, or just CA3)
is a rock-walled compound measuring about 29
m N-S x 25 m E-W, subdivided into
approximately 19 partly or completely enclosed
spaces or rooms (Figure 2).
We have determined that the upper strata of the
site were deposited sometime between AD 1050
and 1280. During our excavations here, several
human skeletons were encountered that pro-
duced calibrated C-14 dates of this time period
and which are the focus of this paper (Table 1).

Lab. Cat. Material Taken From Type of Conventional 13C/ 2F Cal* p

No. No. Personage Radiocarbon 12C
Age (CRA)
Beta- SRB- BONE/ PRINCIPAL A.D. 1134-1271 0.886
ENTIERRO #4 900 + 40 -18.4
217488 560-1 R. RIBS PERSONAGE A.D. 1046-1084 0.113

PROBABLE A.D. 1145-1272 0.928

Beta- SRB- BONE/
ENTIERRO #3 HUMAN 890 + 40 -15.5 A.D. 1049-1079 0.072
217489 561-1 L. RIBS
SACRIFICE

PROBABLE A.D. 1175-1281 0.976

Beta- SRB- BONE/
ENTIERRO #2 HUMAN 850 + 40 -21.6 A.D. 1162-1172 0.024
217490 562-1 R. RIBS
SACRIFICE

*2-sigma age ranges calibrated using the CALIB RADIOCARBON PROGRAM SHcal 04 for the southern hemisphere developed by McCormac
et al., 2004 used in conjunction with Stuiver and Reimer, 1993.
p = Probability of actual calibrated date falling within stated range.

Table 1: Calibrated radiocarbon dates for human bones samples.

ENTIERRO 9 Assignment of sex in subadults based on

Entierro 9 is the partial skeleton of a
sub-adult, possibly male, aged 12 years30
months at time of death. Age estimation is
based on epiphyseal union, dental eruption, and
long bone lengths using standards developed by
both Gaither (2004) and Ubelaker (1999). Both
sets of standards are consistent with this age
estimate. See Table 2 for details on age
indicators in this skeleton. The assignment of
sex as possibly male is based on a very masculine
mandibular morphology.
mandibular morphology does have some support
in the literature. Sutter (2003) demonstrated an
accuracy of 77.6% for sex estimation using
mandibular arcade shape in a study utilizing
prehistoric known-sex subadult mummies from
northern Chile. The glabellar region on the
cranium of this skeleton also appeared robust,
indicating a possible male; however, there are
no studies addressing the accuracy of this mor-
phology for assigning sex in subadults. The rest
of the cranium was ambiguous with regard to
sexually dimorphic characteristics, and the
pelvis was missing.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Skeletal element Age indication in Entierro Number 9
Dental formation All permanent teeth erupted and in wear with
and eruption the exception of the third molar, which has not
yet erupted
Epiphyseal Union All major long bone epiphyses unfused including
the distal humerus
All vertebral arches fused together, and at least
partially, to the centra (see L5)
L5 body to arch partial union
Cervical and vertebral rims unfused
No pelvic elements present
All cranial sutures unfused
Basilar suture unfused
Medial clavicle unfused
Long bone lengths Due to the fragmentary nature of the skeleton,
only one long bone was complete enough to
measure. It was the right ulna = 206 mm.
Table 2: Age Indicators in Entierro Number 9
Missing elements include the left humerus,
radius, ulna, all of the bones of the left hand and
some of the bones of the right hand, the entire
pelvis, the left femur, patella, tibia, fibula, and
all of the bones of the left ankle and foot. The
right fibula and the bones of the right ankle and
foot are also missing (Figure 3). Pathologies
include the presence of cut marks on one right
rib, on one left rib fragment, and on one unfused
sternebra. See Figures 4-6 for photos of the cut
marks on one rib and the sternebra and a draw-
ing of the location of the marks on the two ribs.
The superficial nature of these cut marks as well
as their location on the superior, internal as-
pects of the ribs and the posterior aspect of the
sternebra support the hypothesis that these
marks may have been caused by natural tapho-
nomic processes, which occurred shortly after
death, rather than antemortem trauma. It is
possible, for example, that as the body decom-
posed and the rocks settled, the weight of the
rocks pressing on the bones caused superficial
cut marks on parts of the skeleton. The cut
- 180
Age range possibilities Age estimate
Gaither (2004) = 12 years 21 months 12 years 30
Ubelaker (1999) = 11 years 30 months months = age
range of 9.5-15
years of age
Vertebral arches and bodies to centra fuse in 9-15 years of age
early childhood (by 7 years of age) (Scheuer
and Black 2000)
Pelvic elements fuse between approximately
8-10 years of age (Bass 1995), but all are
missing in this individual
The earliest epiphyseal union in long bones
occurs on the distal humerus, the epiphyses
of which can unite as early as 9 years and as
late as 13 years of age in females and as early
as 11 years and as late as 15 years of age in
males (White and Folkens 2005) the
humerus of Entierro Number 9 is not fused
Basilar suture union usually occurs between
18 and 21 years of age (Scheuer and Black
2000)
Medial clavicle union occurs no later than 31
years of age (Scheuer and Black 2000)
Gaither (2004) = 13 years 12 years
Ubelaker (1999) = 11 years
mark on the sternebra, however, is more sub-
stantial and may be the product of violence.
Additionally, there is other evidence of trauma
on the body, and therefore, it is not possible to
rule out violence as the cause of the cut marks.
Other evidence of trauma includes a peri-
mortem fracture of the right femur (Figure 7)
and possible blunt force trauma to the occipital
region of the cranium. Specifically, the occipital
bone is fractured and partially missing from the
back of the skull. There is also a radiating frac-
ture on the right parietal, running from the
posterior to anterior portion and terminating in
the coronal suture (Figure 8). This suggests
blunt force trauma to the back of the head,
which certainly could have been fatal. This
trauma, in combination with the body position
supports the hypothesis of violent demise. While
there was no evidence of the postmortem dis-
articulation or dismemberment of body parts, it
should be noted that the state of preservation of
skeletal remains at this site is extremely poor.
The bone was extraordinarily fragile, crumbling
181 -
at the slightest disturbance. It is quite possible
that such evidence was not preserved.
The position of the body is not typical of
burials involving principal personages, which
tend to demonstrate a carefully positioned body
and often include grave goods. Burials of princi-
pal personages contemporaneous with Entierro
9 are often in an extended supine position
(Shimada et al. 2004). Entierro 9, however, is
prone (face down) with several large, heavy
rocks placed on top of the body around the time
of death (Figure 9). Given that this is an atypi-
cal burial position and that this individual was
excavated from a funerary context involving no
fewer than two principal personages (Entierros
4 and 8), both of which did demonstrate typical
burial positions, it is likely that this is a sacrifice
victim. It is also interesting to note that, while
there are several missing skeletal elements, there
was no visible stratigraphic evidence of looting
around the area of this skeleton. Additionally,
the missing elements are unusual, particularly
given the position of the body and the presence
of the large rocks. The placement of the rocks
on top of the body around the time of death is
indicated by the position of the rocks nestled
deep in the body cavity (Figure 10) and the
resulting perimortem crushing injuries to the
body (Figure 11). In other words, the way the
body bends as a result of the weight of the rocks
suggests the bone was moist when the rocks
were put in place. This, along with an articu-
lated skeleton, as was the case with Entierro 9,
indicates a primary interment, which occurred
shortly after death. The lack of insect puparia
also supports the hypothesis of a rapid burial
postmortem. The question becomes, how can
we explain the missing skeletal elements?
DISCUSSION
There are at least two possibilities that might
explain these findings. The first is the possibility
that the remains were disturbed in antiquity by
Gaither et al.: North Coast Sacrifice
construction or other cultural transformation
processes that occurred during a later occu-
pation of the site. There is no stratigraphic
evidence for this, but the human remains are so
close to the ground surface that it is possible
such evidence may be very subtle and difficult to
discern. The large rocks on top of the body,
however, appear to have been placed on the
individual shortly after death and they do not
appear to have been moved, as doing so would
most certainly have disturbed the underlying
remains. The fact that the skeleton, particularly
the portion covered by the rocks, was perfectly
articulated indicates this did not happen. A
second hypothesis is that body parts were
harvested from this skeleton for some ritualistic
purpose, prior to interment. Once the appropriate
parts were removed, the body was placed in a
prone position and covered with large rocks.
This was all accomplished very shortly after
death as there are no insect puparia associated
with the body and the crushing injuries resulting
from the placement of the rocks suggests the
bones were still moist upon interment. Entierro
9 presents the most compelling evidence for
harvesting at Santa Rita B, however, there are
other possible harvested bodies at this site.
In addition to Entierro 9, some of the other
sacrifice victims found at Santa Rita B demon-
strate evidence of harvesting. Included among
these is Entierro 5. Although there was a mod-
ern looters pit present near the head of this
subadult,1 the lower body was undisturbed, and
yet, all of the bones of the left ankle and both
feet were missing. This suggests the possibility
that both feet and the left ankle were har-
vested. This individual also demonstrated peri-
mortem cut marks on the ribs, one of which
1
The same aging indicators were used to estimate the age
of this individual as were used for Entierro 9, the
indicators for which can be seen in Table 1. These are
standard aging indicators as per Buikstra and Ubelaker
(1994), Ubelaker (1999) and Gaither (2004).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
completely severed the tip of the rib. There is
also evidence of ritual re-interment at Santa
Rita B. This includes the articulated remains of
body parts. Entierro 10 is one example. This
individual is represented exclusively by the
lower legs and there was no evidence for the
presence of the upper body, nor was there
evidence of any cultural or natural transforma-
tion processes that might have disturbed the
remains. Additionally, there was an articulated
partial left foot with no other associated body
parts present. Entierro 1 was also a partial
skeleton consisting of the cranium of a subadult.
The cranium demonstrated two areas of peri-
mortem blunt force trauma indicating possible
sacrifice, but only a few other scattered bones
were found and those could not be positively
associated with the cranium. Another sacrifice,
an adult male, is complete. This individual
demonstrates injuries consistent with peri-
mortem trauma and interpersonal violence in
the form of superficial cut marks to the sternum
and an unhealed parry fracture.
When considering the bigger picture that is
emerging at this site, it appears that the area
known as CA3 was an important area for ritual
activity. There are two principal burials, and
there is evidence that these individuals were of
a high social status, including Spondylus caches
found near the body of one of these and associ-
ated camelid offerings found with both. Addi-
tionally, one of these bodies, Entierro 4, demon-
strates symmetrical cranial modification and
there is evidence the other one, Entierro 8, also
had an intentionally modified cranium. Thus,
the overall picture that emerges in this area of
Santa Rita B is the presence of two principal
personages (Entierros 4 and 8) accompanied by
sacrifice victims and re-interred body parts from
other contexts. The sacrifice victims are identi-
fied by injuries suggestive of perimortem trauma
(Entierros 5 and 10), and/or haphazard atypical
body positions (Entierros 2, 3, 5, 9 and 10) that
are not consistent with any identified funerary
- 182
practices from this, or any, time period in the
Andean region. In other words, principal per-
sonages are not found buried in these positions,
which supports our interpretation that these are
sacrifice victims.
Verano (1986, 2000) and Bourget (2001)
have described similar treatment of sacrifice
victims at the sites of Huaca de la Luna and
Pacatnam. Those skeletons also demonstrated
atypical body positions and mutilation including
missing body parts. What differentiates the
Santa Rita B remains, however, is the fact that
these sacrifices were excavated from a funerary
context that included no fewer than two princi-
pal personages. In contrast, the sacrifices of
Pacatnam and those of Huaca de la Luna
(Plazas 3A and 3C) involve mass graves of
mutilated remains or ceremonial areas where
mutilated bodies were left exposed (Verano
1986, 2000). At neither site were the bodies
included with principal personages in a funerary
context. Veranos (1986, 2000) interpretation of
those remains as war prisoners or criminals who
faced severe punishment is consistent for those
contexts, but does not appear appropriate for
the finds at Santa Rita B.
It is important in understanding the behav-
ior of sacrifice to distinguish between the types
of sacrifice illustrated by the examples above.
Benson and Cook (2001:ix) define sacrifice as
either giving without receiving or giving up
something valuable that may benefit others. Of
course, the most valuable thing that can be
given up is human life. The distinction between
the sacrifices found in contexts similar to those
of Huaca de la Luna or Pacatnam as compared
to contexts such as that at Santa Rita B lies in
the reasons behind the behavior. While the
behaviors seen at ceremonial centers like Huaca
de la Luna may have played a role in establish-
ing the authority of one group over another, or
had symbolic meaning beyond warfare, such as
the possibility of ritual cannibalism in the Plaza
183 -
3B materials at Huaca de la Luna (Verano
2001), we argue the sacrifices at Santa Rita B
are more likely to have either been offerings in
and of themselves as part of a funeral rite, or
what we, and others, have referred to as retainer
sacrifices (Gaither et al. 2008; Verano 2001).
These are individuals who were to serve the
dead in the afterlife. In both cases, an offering in
and of itself, and a retainer sacrifice, the individ-
uals sacrificed can be seen as something valuable
that is given up in order to benefit others, in this
case the deceased principal personages. The
harvesting of body parts, however, suggests a
level of ritual that goes beyond the idea of a
retainer sacrifice.
Also present at the site of Santa Rita B are
isolated, and often articulated body parts, in-
cluding a skull demonstrating perimortem blunt
force trauma (Entierro 1), articulated limbs
(Entierro 10), an articulated foot (SRB-05 -24 -
FS 4), and several other isolated bones. These
finds support the hypothesis of ritual re-inter-
ment of body parts from other contexts, and
Entierro 9 is consistent with a body that has
been harvested for parts, the location and
purpose of these parts being unknown. The
dating of these finds and the funerary pattern
seen at Santa Rita B and at other sites (Dulanto
2002; Klaus and Tam 2009; Millaire 2004;
Nelson 1998; Verano 1997) support the hypoth-
esis that ritual re-interment is another
pan-Andean mortuary practice. We have argued
before that child sacrifice, retainer sacrifice, and
the practice of including elements or sacrifice
victims that are metaphorically similar to the
deceased are funerary practices evident at Santa
Rita B and other sites throughout the Andes,
both geographically and temporally (Gaither et
al. 2008). We believe, given the evidence emer-
ging here and in other contexts (Dulanto 2002;
Hecker and Hecker 1992; Klaus and Tam 2009;
Millaire 2004; Nelson 1998; Verano 1997), that
ritual re-interment is another of those funerary
practices that occurred in numerous areas in the
Gaither et al.: North Coast Sacrifice
Andean region and persisted throughout time in
this part of the world. The practice is certainly
well described for the Moche culture (Hecker
and Hecker 1992; Millaire 2004; Nelson 1998;
Verano 1997), but the finds at Santa Rita B in
conjunction with the finds from other sites
(Dulanto 2002; Klaus and Tam 2009) extend
the practice temporally as well. Describing the
patterns seen, and defining the temporal and
spatial parameters, is but the first step in the
process of understanding the behavior.
There are at least two hypotheses that may
explain the behavior. Ancestor worship is the
first possibility. While the role of the ancestor
cult is not heavily described in all mortuary
analyses, numerous workers indicate that sec-
ondary deposits of disarticulated and incomplete
skeletal remains are quite common in the Andes
(Buikstra 1995; Carmichael 1995; Dulanto
2002; Klaus and Tam 2009; Millaire 2004;
Nelson 1998; Verano 1995, 1997). Although
such deposits are sometimes only loosely con-
nected with the importance of ancestors, Brown
(1995) argues that such inferences are entirely
probable. For example, Larson (2001) notes that
secondary burials and the presence of incom-
plete skeletal remains in primary interments in
Highland Madagascar are the result of multiple
intrusions into a family tomb. Newly deceased
individuals are placed in the tomb and wound
together with previously deceased family mem-
bers in order to combine them into one great
ancestor (razambe) . Thus, it is entirely
possible, and indeed probable, that one might
find the remains of individuals wound together
as part of the great ancestor who were not, in
fact, anyones ancestor in life. Salomon (1995)
notes that the physical manifestation of the
ancestors remains are often critical in rituals
where living relatives called upon the ancestors
to provide various kinds of favors for typical
day-to-day tasks. Such practices help enhance
collective relationships and legitimize which
resources a particular community controls
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
(Dillehay 1995; Salomon 1995). Given this, it
might not be a requirement that an individual
was an actual ancestor in life; rather simply that
he or she lived and died before other members
of the community.
The pattern seen at Santa Rita B, however,
is not entirely consistent with ancestor worship.
The harvested remains are subadults, as are
most of the secondary interments, and thus,
these individuals would not have been the
ancestors of anyone. Additionally, unlike
thesituation in Highland Madagascar, they also
appear to have been sacrifice victims, or to have
come from sacrifice victims, rather than the
exhumed remains of ancestors or family mem-
bers. Klaus and Tam (2009) also had numerous
subadult interments and rejected the hypothesis
of ancestor worship at San Pedro de Mrrope.
They argue instead that the secondary burials
are associated with pervasive and persistent
Andean metaphors of fertility, whereby mum-
mies and bones are likened to dried seeds and
tubers from which new life can spring forth
(Salomon 1995). Similarly, Arriaza (1995)
hypothesized that the preserved remains of the
Chinchorro, which also included subadults,
some of which were fetuses, could be likened to
a dried fish in a marine society. Though dead,
the preserved remains could still nourish the
living. Within the context of this metaphor, the
dead need not be anyones ancestor. This hy-
pothesis is more consistent with the use of
subadult remains, and would also not preclude
sacrifice. As for other possible interpretations,
such as punishment for criminals or war prison-
ers, the funerary context of these sacrifices
makes those possibilities seem less likely.
Clearly, more work is necessary, both in identi-
fying the specific patterns involved and then in
associating those patterns with an underlying
belief system. As more sites, such as Santa Rita
B, add to our understanding of when, where,
and who was involved in these practices, a
- 184
clearer picture of why these behaviors occurred
should emerge.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We acknowledge the following people and
institutions for their invaluable assistance in helping us to
produce this paper: The students of the 2004, 2005, and
2006 field seasons; Metropolitan State College of Denver;
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Cartographic
Services Laboratory; Haagen Klaus; the California Insti-
tute for Peruvian Studies; and the Institute for Andean
Studies.
REFERENCES CITED
Arriaza, Bernardo T.
1995 Beyond Death: The Chinchorro Mummies of An-
cient Chile. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution Press.
Bass, William M.
1995 Human Osteology: A Laboratory and Field Manual,
4th edition. Columbia: Missouri Archaeological
Society.
Benson, Elizabeth P. and Anita G. Cook
2001 Preface. In Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru, edited
by Elizabeth P. Benson and Anita G. Cook, pp.
ix - xii. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Bourget, Steve
2001 Children and Ancestors: Ritual Practices at the
Moche Site of Huaca de la Luna, North Coast of
Peru. In Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru, edited by
Elizabeth P. Benson and Anita G. Cook, pp. 93-
118. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Brown, James A.
1995 Andean Mortuary Practices in Perspective. In
Tombs for the Living: Andean Mortuary Practices,
edited by Tom D. Dillehay, pp. 391-406. Wash-
ington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library
and Collection.
Buikstra, Jane E.
1995 Tombs for the Living . . . or . . . For the Dead:
The Osmore Ancestors. In Tombs for the Living:
Andean Mortuary Practices, edited by Tom D.
Dillehay, pp. 229-280. Washington, D.C.:
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collec-
tion.
Buikstra, Jane E. and Douglas Ubelaker, editors
1994 Standards for Data Collection from Human Skeletal
Remains. Fayetteville: Arkansas Archeological
Survey Research Series 44.
185 -
Carmichael, Patrick H.
1995 Nasca Burial Patterns: Social Structure and
Mortuary Ideology. In Tombs for the Living:
Andean Mortuary Practices, edited by Tom D.
Dillehay, pp. 161-188. Washington, D.C.:
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and
Collection.
Dillehay, Tom D.
1995 Introduction. In Tombs for the Living: Andean
Mortuary Practices, edited by Tom D. Dillehay,
pp. 1-26. Washington, D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks
Research Library and Collection.
Dulanto, Jalh
2002 The Archaeological Study of Ancestor Cult
Practices: The Case of Pampa Chica, a Late
Initial Period and Early Horizon Site on the
Central Coast of Peru. Archaeological Papers of
the American Anthropological Association 11
(1):97-1 17.
Gaither, Catherine
2004 A Growth and Development Study of Coastal
Prehistoric Peruvian Populations. Ph.D. disserta-
tion, Tulane University.
Gaither, Catherine, Jonathan D. Kent, Victor Vsquez
Snchez, and Teresa Rosales Tham
2008 Mortuary Practices and Human Sacrifice in the
Middle Chao Valley of Peru: Their Interpreta-
tion in the Context of Andean Mortuary Pat-
terning. Latin American Antiquity 19(2): 109-123.
Gennep, Arnold van
1960 The Rites of Passage, translated by Monika B.
Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee. London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Hecker, Gisela and Wolfgang Hecker
1992 Ofrendas de huesos humanos y uso repetido de
vasijas en el culto funerario de la costa nor-
peruana. Gaceta Arqueolgical Andina 6:33-53.
Kent, Jonathan D., Teresa Rosales Tham, and Victor
Vsquez Snchez
1999 Informe final, temporada 1998: Manejo eco-
sustentable y desarrollo cultural del complejo
arqueolgico Santa Rita B. Informe sometido
a la Comisin Tcnica de Arqueologa, Instituto Ubelaker, Douglas H.
Nacional de Cultura, Lima, Per.
Klaus, Haagen D. and Manuel Tam
2009 Surviving Contact: Biological Transformation,
Burial, and Ethnogenesis in the Colonial
Lambayeque Valley, Peru. In Bioarchaeology and
Identity in the Americas, edited by Kelly J.
Knudson and Christopher M. Stojanowski, pp.
126-152. Gainsville: University of Florida Press.
Larson, Pier M.
2001 Austronesian Mortuary Ritual in History:
Transformations of Secondary Burial
Gaither et al.: North Coast Sacrifice
(Famadihana) in Highland Madagascar.
Ethnohistory 48:123-155.
McCormac, F.G., A.G. Hogg, P.G. Blackwell, C. E. Buck,
T. F. G. Higham, and P. J. Reimer
2004 SHCa 104 Southern Hemisphere Calibration
0-11.0 cal kyr BP. Radiocarbon 46(3):1087-1092.
Millaire, Jean-Franois
2004 The Manipulation of Human Remains in Moche
Society: Delayed Burials, Grave Reopening, and
Secondary Offerings of Human Bones on the
Peruvian North Coast. Latin American Antiquity
15(4):371-389.
Nelson, Andrew
1998 Wandering Bones: Archaeology, Forensic Sci-
ence and Moche Burial Practices. International
Journal of Osteoarchaeology 8:192-212.
Salomon, Frank
1995 The Beautiful Grandparents; Andean
Ancestor Shrines and Mortuary Ritual as Seen
Through Colonial Records. In Tombs for the
Living: Andean Mortuary Practices, edited by Tom
D. Dillehay, pp. 315-354. Washington, D.C.:
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and
Collection.
Scheuer, Louise and Sue Black
2000 Developmental Juvenile Osteology. New York:
Academic Press.
Shimada, Izumi, Ken-ichi Shinoda, Julie Farnum, Robert
Corruccini, and Hirokatsu Watanabe
2004 An Integrated Analysis of Pre-Hispanic Mortu-
ary Practices: A Middle Sicn Case Study. Cur-
rent Anthropology 45 (3):369-402.
Stuiver, M. and Reimer, P. J.
1993 Extended 14C Data Base and Revised Calib 3.0
14
C Age Calibration Program. Radiocarbon 35
(1):215-230.
Sutter, Richard C.
2003 Nonmetric Subadult Sexing Traits: A Blind Test
of the Accuracy of Eight Previously Proposed
Methods Using Prehistoric Known-Sex Mum-
mies from Northern Chile. Journal of Forensic
Sciences 48 (5):927-935.
1999 Human Skeletal Remains; Excavation, Analysis,
Interpretation. 3rd edition. Washington, D.C.:
Taraxacum.
Verano, John W.
1986 A Mass Burial of Mutilated Individuals at Pacat-
namu. In The Pacatnamu Papers, Volume 1,
edited by Christopher B. Donnan and Guillermo
A. Cock, pp 117-138. Los Angeles: Museum of
Cultural History, University of California.
1995 Where Do They Rest? The Treatment of Human
Offerings and Trophies in Ancient Peru. In
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Tombs for the Living: Andean Mortuary Practices,
edited by Tom D. Dillehay, pp. 189-228. Wash-
ington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library
and Collection.
1997 Human Skeletal Remains from Tomb 1, Sipan
(Lambayeque River Valley, Peru); and their
Social Implications. Antiquity 71(273):670-683.
2000 Paleontological Analysis of Sacrificial Victims at
the Pyramid of the Moon, Moche River Valley,
Northern Peru. Chungar 32(1):61-70.
- 186
2001 The Physical Evidence of Human Sacrifice in
Ancient Peru. In Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru,
edited by Elizabeth P. Benson and Anita G.
Cook, pp. 165-184. Austin: University of Texas
Press.
Weiss-Krejci, Estella
2001 Excarnation, Evisceration, and Exhumation in
Medieval and Post Medieval Europe. In Interact-
ing with the Dead: Perspectives on Mortuary Ar-
chaeology for the New Millennium, edited by
Gordon F.M. Rakita, Jane E. Buikstra, Lane A.
Beck, and Sloan R. Williams, pp. 155-172.
Gainesville: University of Florida Press.
White, Tim D. and Pieter Folkens
2005 The Human Bone Manual. San Diego: Elsevier
Academic Press.
187 - Gaither et al.: North Coast Sacrifice

Figure 1: Map showing the location of Santa Rita B (after Donnan 1997, figure 1).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 188

Figure 2: Plan view of CA3 showing the locations of the sacrifices and burials.
189 - Gaither et al.: North Coast Sacrifice

Figure 3: Drawing demonstrating missing bones (in black) from Entierro 9.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 190

Figure 4: Cut marks on rib, Entierro 9 (arrows).

Figure 5: Cut mark on sternebra, Entierro 9 (arrow).

191 - Gaither et al.: North Coast Sacrifice

Figure 6: Drawing showing the location of cut marks on the ribs (arrows).

Figure 7: Photo of perimortem fracture of the femur, Entierro 9.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 192

Figure 8: Photo of radiating fracture on the cranium, Entierro 9 (arrow).

193 - Gaither et al.: North Coast Sacrifice

Figure 9: Photo of the rocks covering the body of Entierro 9.

Figure 10: Photo of large rock nestled into the body cavity of Entierro 9.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 194

Figure 11: photo of Entierro 9 after the rocks have been removed. Note the crushing injuries to the
thorax as demonstrated by the depression of the rib cage relative to the neck and head.
 A DESIGN ANALYSIS OF MOCHE FINELINE SHERDS
FROM THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF GALINDO, MOCHE VALLEY, PERU
INTRODUCTION
Museum displays and coffee table books on
the ceramics of complex ancient societies are
dominated throughout the world by whole pots.
The vast majority of ceramics recovered from
archaeological excavations, however, are sherds.
Although the complete artistic composition of
many decorated sherds cannot be determined,
the designs on sherds still have the potential to
shed light on a wide range of cultural issues of
interest to archaeologists. For this reason, it is
essential that archaeologists develop and utilize
techniques that allow for the analysis of designs
on sherds. Design analyses of sherds generally
focus on the identification of design motifs
and/or elements, and the comparison of the
frequencies of these motifs and/or elements in
distinct samples. These analyses focus on motifs
and elements because they are often easily
identifiable on sherds. Motifs can frequently
even be identified on very small sherds, when
the motif has first been identified on larger
sherds. Through this kind of analysis, a variety
of different sherd samples can be compared,
including samples from different regions, poli-
ties, or sites. Such comparisons can elucidate a
number of issues of interest to archaeologists,
most notably interaction (Friedrich 1970; Plog
1980; Redman 1977; Watson 1977). In the case
of stylistic similarities, interaction can take the
form of trade, open lines of communication, or
copying from a distance (Watson 1977).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009): 195-228.
GREGORY D. LOCKARD
Compaa Operadora de LNG del Per S.A.C.
Andean archaeologists have long utilized
comparisons of the artistic styles of contempo-
rary societies to evaluate their level of interac-
tion. In fact, such comparisons led early Andean
archaeologists to formulate the concept of
horizons, which are time periods of widespread
interaction as indicated by similar artistic styles,
including ceramic designs, across a large region
of the Andes (Rowe 1960, 1962; Willey 1948).
The horizon concept has been incorporated into
the chronological framework that is still used by
archaeologists today for the prehistory of the
entire Andean culture area. The utility of com-
paring the ceramic designs of different societies
is therefore well established in Andean archae-
ology, although formal ceramic design analyses
are still rare. Less common still are comparisons
between individual sites within the same society
based on formal design analyses. Such compari-
sons, however, have the potential to provide
valuable information concerning the level of
interaction that existed between contemporane-
ous sites, which is the first step in establishing
their political, cultural, and trade relationships.
Establishing such relationships can in turn lead
to a reconstruction of the history of the societies
of which they were a part, which is one of the
principal goals of archaeology.
The following paper is divided into three
main sections. The first provides an introduc-
tion to the Moche culture, including a brief
description of the site of Galindo and the Phase
V/Late Moche world, as well as a definition of
Moche fineline ceramics. The second section
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
presents a design analysis of Moche fineline
sherds from the site of Galindo. The analysis is
laid out in detail in the hope that it will serve as
a model for future design analyses. The final
section presents a review of published examples
of Galindos dominant painting tradition at
contemporary sites throughout the north coast.
I argue that the proportion of Moche fineline
vessels decorated within this tradition reflects
the level of interaction that existed between
these sites and Galindo.
THE MOCHE
In most ways, the Moche culture (c. A.D.
100-800) of the north coast of Peru represents a
continuation of earlier cultural traditions. With
regard to subsistence, the Moche continued to
expand upon, and maintain, the irrigation canal
networks built by their ancestors (Billman 1996;
Willey 1953: passim). They also continued to
exploit and consume the same maritime re-
sources and domesticated plants as their prede-
cessors, although they did rely more heavily on
domesticated camelids (especially llamas) and
maize (Pozorski 1979). The Moche tended to
have a more dispersed settlement pattern than
preceding populations (Billman 1996; Willey
1953). The vast majority of the Moche popula-
tion, however, continued to live in small houses
similar to those of their immediate ancestors,
and continued to live in small rural settlements.
Although the construction of monumental
architecture increased substantially during
Moche times, Moche monuments were similar
in form and construction technique, if not
function, to those of earlier Gallinazo popula-
tions (Moseley 1992:165-166). The Moche also
continued to produce many of the same crafts as
their ancestors. Earlier Gallinazo domestic
ceramics are, in fact, virtually indistinguishable
from those of the Moche (Billman 1996:293).
With regard to fine-ware ceramics, it has been
argued that the Moche were strongly influenced
- 196
by preceding Gallinazo and especially Salinar
traditions (Kaulicke 1992).
The most significant difference between the
Moche and other north coast cultures is in their
political ideology and the symbols of power used
to communicate this ideology (Bawden 1995,
1996). Archaeologists first defined the Moche
culture by the presence of these symbols of
power, and have continued to use their presence
to identify Moche sites. Moche symbols of power
include a number of architectural features and
artifacts that survive in the archaeological
record. The latter include portable objects made
of gold, silver, copper, stone, shell, wood, and
ceramic materials. Ceramic symbols of power
include figurines and vessels with sculpted,
relief, and/or painted designs that communicate
ideological messages. The most complex mes-
sages are conveyed by painted designs on ce-
ramic vessels, especially those known as Moche
finelines (Alva and Donnan 1993; DeMarrais et
al. 1996; Donnan 1975; Donnan and Castillo
1992, 1994). As we shall see, however, not all
Moche fineline ceramics communicated ideolog-
ical messages (e.g., Donnan 1978; Donnan and
McClelland 1999; Hocquenghem 1987).
The Archaeological Site of Galindo
Galindo is a large urban settlement in the
Moche Valley (Figure 1). Topography and
cultural features (i.e., walls and ditches) divide
the site into at least six distinct zones (Bawden
1977, 1982a). Architectural remains within
each of these zones are relatively homogenous
and functionally differentiated from those of
other areas of the site. One of the zones, desig-
nated Plain B, is dominated by two major plat-
form mounds, the Huaca de las Abejas and the
Huaca de las Lagartijas, and two smaller
civic/ceremonial monuments (Bawden 1977;
Conrad 1974:641-740; Lockard 2005). Another
zone, Plain A1, is dominated by three large
administrative structures (Cercaduras A-C) and
197 -
associated elite residences (Bawden 1977). The
remaining zones are dominated by storage
structures and residences, which are differenti-
ated by status (Bawden 1982b).
THE PHASE V/LATE MOCHE WORLD
Radiocarbon dates from civic/ceremonial
and residential contexts indicate that Galindo
was largely occupied during the eighth century
A.D. (Lockard 2009), which falls within Phase
V of Larcos (1948) Moche ceramic sequence.
Recent research in the Jequetepeque Valley has
led some archaeologists to conclude that the
Moche world was divided into two major regions
at this time: one to the north and one to the
south of the Pampa de Paijan between the
Jequetepeque and Chicama Valleys (Figure 1;
Castillo 2001, 2003; Castillo and Donnan
1994). Due to perceived differences in the style
and sequence of Moche fine-ware ceramics,
these archaeologists now refer to this time as the
Late Moche Period, rather than Phase V, in the
northern Moche region. The northern Moche
region is considered to have been politically
independent from the south, and may itself have
been divided into multiple polities. The Late
Moche Period is contemporaneous with Phase V
in the south, and may also include the later half
of Phase IV. During Phase IV, the southern
Moche region extended as far south as the
Huarmey Valley. By Phase V, however, the
Moche sphere of interaction is believed to have
included only the two northernmost of these
valleys (i.e., the Moche and Chicama Valleys).
A DESIGN ANALYSIS OF MOCHE FINELINE
SHERDS FROM GALINDO
Moche Fineline Ceramics
Moche fineline ceramics are characterized
by dark ochre slip paint applied with fine brush
strokes to a light slip background (Donnan
1992:66) or, less commonly, vice versa. The
Lockard: Moche fineline sherds from Galindo
color of the dark slip paint is usually red or
maroon, but can also be gray or black, especially
during Phase V. The light slip paint is usually
cream, but can also be grayish white (especially
during Phase V) or have a yellowish tint (Don-
nan and McClelland 1999:162). Moche fineline
painting is most commonly associated with
stirrup spout bottles, but also appears on a
number of other vessel forms, including spout
and handle bottles, jars, dippers, and flaring
bowls (i.e., floreros) (Donnan 1992). Phase I and
II fineline ceramics are generally decorated with
geometric motifs or simple depictions of animals
or supernatural beings. During Phases III and
IV, geometric designs become progressively less
common, and depictions of plants, animals,
humans, and supernatural beings become more
complex. During Phase III and especially Phase
IV, the iconography of Moche fineline ceramics
focuses heavily on the activities of elites, includ-
ing deer hunting, ritual running, combat, and
the bleeding, parading, and sacrifice of prison-
ers (Donnan 2001: 129; see also Donnan and
McClelland 1999). The artistic canons of Phase
V will be discussed in detail below.
The majority of the complete Moche fine-
line ceramics housed in museums throughout
the world have been recovered from burials.
Unfortunately, few of these burials have been
excavated archaeologically. Those that have,
however, demonstrate that Moche fineline
ceramics occur in graves of both males and
femalesalmost exclusively those of high status
individuals (Donnan and McClelland 1999:
19). Usually, only one or two vessels are present.
This suggests that Moche fineline ceramics
were not produced in great numbers and were
seldom available to the common people (ibid.).
Archaeologists have excavated ceramic work-
shops at several major Moche sites, including
the Huacas de Moche (Uceda and Armas
1997), Cerro Mayal (Russell et al. 1994a,
1994b), Pampa Grande (Shimada 1994:195-
200), and Galindo (Bawden 1977:202-207). No
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
evidence has been found for the production of
Moche fineline ceramics, however, at any of
these workshops. Moche fineline sherds are
sometimes found in Moche middens, usually at
important centers that have associated pyramid
and palace complexes (Donnan and Mc
Clelland 1999:19). At Galindo, Moche fineline
sherds have been recovered from both low
status and elite residences. Fine-ware ceramics
have been found in increasingly greater num-
bers, however, in higher status residences (Baw-
den 1982b; see below).1
THE GALINDO SAMPLE
Although iconographic analyses of Moche
fineline ceramics are common, these have
almost exclusively been confined to whole or
near-whole vessels. No complete Moche fineline
ceramics, however, have yet been recovered
from Galindo. The sample of Moche fineline
ceramics analyzed in this study (the Galindo
sample) is therefore composed entirely of sherds.
The Galindo sample is actually composed of two
distinct sub-samples. The first sub-sample con-
sists of 217 sherds recovered during the Galindo
Archaeological Project (G.A.P.), which was
directed by the author (Lockard 2001, 2002,
2003, 2005). Of these, 47 were recovered in
2000, 84 in 2001, and 86 in 2002. The second
sub-sample is composed of 153 sherds recovered
from Galindo by Garth Bawden between 1971
and 1973 (Bawden 1977). The actual sherds
recovered by Bawden were not available for this
study. During his original ceramic analysis,
however, Bawden made detailed drawings of
every painted sherd that he recovered. These
drawings are black and white, and it is not
possible to differentiate between Moche fineline
ceramics and other types of painted pottery from
the drawings alone. Bawden analyzed every
1
Unfortunately, Bawden did not differentiate between
Moche fineline ceramics and other types of Moche fine-
wares in his analysis.
- 198
sherd that he recovered (over 23,000), however,
and recorded, among other things, the proveni-
ence and paint colors of each sherd. The Baw-
den sub-sample in the present study includes all
drawings that could be correlated with these
data (i.e., their provenience and paint colors
could be determined from Bawdens notes) and
which meet the color criteria for being Moche
fineline ceramics as defined above. This sub-
sample includes the majority of the Moche
fineline sherds recovered by Bawden, although
it is impossible to determine the exact propor-
tion represented. The sample is not biased to
any particular proveniences or motifs, although
it may be slightly biased toward larger sherds.
During the G.A.P., every sherd recovered
(4,296) was assigned a number that includes the
sherds provenience designation (P.D.), field
sample (F.S.), and a consecutive sherd number
within the F.S. During Bawdens work at Galin-
do, all of the sherds recovered were given a
provenience code, which includes the excava-
tion unit (denoted by a capital letter), feature or
room number, and artifact bag number. For the
purposes of the present study, Moche fineline
sherds from each sub-sample were sorted by
provenience and then consecutively assigned
new sherd numbers. Fineline sherds recovered
during the G.A.P. were numbered from L1 to
L217. Sherds L1 through L47 were recovered in
2000, L48 through L131 in 2001, and L132
through L217 in 2002. Fineline sherds recovered
by Bawden that were included in this study were
numbered from B1 to B153.
The sherds in the Galindo sample come
from a variety of contexts, including residences,
civic/ceremonial and administrative structures,
and surface deposits. In all cases, sherds that
conjoin were counted as a single sherd, even if
they were found in different proveniences.
Sherds that do not conjoin were always counted
separately, even if their context, paste, surface
treatment, and designs suggest that they were
199 -
part of the same vessel. In this paper, drawings
of select sherds in the Galindo sample are pro-
vided. Each sherd is labeled with its new sherd
number and its original sherd number (G.A.P.
sample) or provenience (Bawden sample).
The majority of the Moche fineline
sherds in this study are of the Phase V artistic
style (see Donnan and McClelland 1999:139-
185). While some of the sherds have designs
similar to those of Phases III and IV (see below),
no diagnostic stirrup spout fragments character-
istic of these earlier phases have been recovered
from the site. It should be noted that a number
of the sherds analyzed herein were painted on
both the interior and exterior of the vessel.
When this is the case, fineline painting only
occurs on one side of the vessel. The other side
of the vessel is always painted using a different
technique, usually a white slip design painted
directly on the paste. In the case of sherds that
are painted on both sides, only the side with
fineline painting is included in the analysis.
Results of the Analysis
The results of the design analysis are pre-
sented below in four sections. In the first sec-
tion, the proportion of sherds with geometric
versus figurative designs is presented. The
second section presents the results of a design
analysis of stirrup spout fragments, a unique type
of sherd decorated with distinctive artistic
conventions. The third section presents the
analysis of sherds with geometric designs that
are not stirrup spout fragments, and the final
section presents a subject matter analysis of
sherds with figurative designs.
Geometric Versus Figurative Designs
The first stage in the design analysis was to
separate sherds with figurative designs from
those with only geometric designs. For purposes
of this analysis, sherds were coded as figurative
Lockard: Moche fineline sherds from Galindo
if they depicted: (1) animate objects (i.e., plants,
animals, humans, or supernatural beings) or
clearly identifiable parts thereof (e.g., a mouth);
(2) human artifacts (i.e., tools or accoutre-
ments); or (3) complex, non-repetitive designs
without clearly definable geometric elements.
Sherds were coded as geometric if they depicted:
(1) clearly identifiable, repetitive motifs com-
posed of simple geometric elements (i.e., lines
and shapes); or (2) geometric elements that are
not part of a larger, complex, non-repetitive
design. Sherds in the latter category either
depict lines and/or solid areas only (often fram-
ing lines, see below), or are very small sherds
that most likely depict only a small portion of a
larger, unidentifiable geometric motif.
It should be noted that sherds coded as
geometric do not necessarily bear designs devoid
of meaning. On the contrary, it is well estab-
lished that in many societies, including the
Moche, simple geometric designs may symbolize
complex concepts. It has been argued, for exam-
ple, that repeating wave motifs symbolize the
ocean and/or rivers, and step patterns represent
mountains and/or platform mounds in Moche
iconography (De Bock 2003). Such meanings
are not explicit, however, and therefore cannot
be universally applied. In other words, such
shapes may have had different meanings to
different artists, and for some artists may not
have had any meaning at all. For this reason,
inanimate objects found in nature that can be
simply rendered (e.g., waves) are not by them-
selves deemed to be figurative in this analysis.
While there is obviously some degree of
subjectivity in any attempt to classify designs as
geometric or figurative, the criteria above are
easily applied and appear to follow the precepts
of previous studies in Moche iconography (e.g.,
Donnan and McClelland 1999; McClelland
1997), although standards for differentiating
between figurative and geometric designs are
never explicit in these studies.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 200

Type/Subtype Count Percentage

Geometric
Identifiable Motif 147 39.7%
Identifiable Motif (stirrup spouts) 38 10.3%
Framing lines, solid areas, and hatching 58 15.7%
Geometric elements (i.e., lines, triangles, etc.) only 17 4.6%
Subtotal 260 70.3%
Figurative
Identifiable subject matter 30 8.1%
Identifiable subject matter (stirrup spouts) 2 0.5%
Unidentifiable subject matter 15 4.1%
Subtotal 47 12.7%
Both
Identifiable geometric motif and figurative subject matter 5 1.4%
Identifiable geometric motif and unid. figurative subject matter 1 0.3%
Subtotal 6 1.6%
N/A (no positive design)
Non-Stirrup Spouts 11 3.0%
Stirrup Spouts 3 0.8%
Subtotal 14 3.8%
Indeterminate (too small or badly eroded)
Non-Stirrup Spouts 42 11.4%
Stirrup Spouts 1 0.3%
Subtotal 43 11.6%
TOTAL 370 100.0%

Table 1: Geometric versus figurative sherds (n=370)

As Table 1 demonstrates, 260 sherds in the
Galindo sample contain only geometric designs,
while only 47 contain only figurative designs. In
the case of 43 sherds, it could not be determined
whether the design was geometric or figurative
because the sherd was either badly corroded or
too small. Fourteen sherds did not contain any
designs (i.e., they have only a light slip). These
sherds were included in the total sample because
they were thought to be part of vessels that did
contain positive painting. For example, seven of
the sherds came from directly on top of a pre-
pared floor located underneath a platform
mound (Platform B of the Huaca de las La-
gartijas). In this particular provenience, 20
sherds were recovered. On the basis of paste,
wall thickness, and surface treatment, all of the
sherds appear to come from two Moche fineline
vessels. No other type of sherd (e.g., plain-
wares) was recovered from the provenience.
Although the sherds were clearly part of Moche
fineline vessels, they could not be conjoined to
any of the sherds that contained decoration.
Their design content therefore could not be
determined with certainty. Finally, six sherds
contained both an identifiable geometric motif
and a figurative design.
Stirrup Spout Motifs
Among the many vessel forms represented
in the Galindo sample is the stirrup spout bottle.
Stirrup spout bottles are characterized by the
presence of a cylindrical, hollow arch and verti-
cal upper spout that ascend from the body of the
vessel (Donnan and McClelland 1999:20).
Because of the distinctive form of the stirrup
spout, the artistic conventions used in its deco-
ration are unique in Moche art. For this reason,
stirrup spout fragments were analyzed separately
from all other sherds (i.e., body sherds and the
rim and base fragments of bowls, jars, and flore-
ros). Of the 370 sherds in the Galindo sample,
44 are stirrup spout fragments. Eight distinct
stirrup spout motifs were identified, three of
which have at least one identifiable type (de-
fined on the basis of minor variations within the
motif) (Table 2, Figure 2). In addition, two of
the stirrup spout fragments in the sample have
no positive design, being covered only by a light
201 - Lockard: Moche fineline sherds from Galindo

slip, and one stirrup spout fragment is too cor-

roded to determine what if any motif it once
contained. By far the most common stirrup
spout motif in the Galindo sample is the single
line motif, and the second most common is
wavy lines. All other motifs occur on three
sherds or fewer.

Name Description Count Pct.

Single Lines A single, thick line decorates two to four sides of the arch and/or upper spout 21 47.7%

Wavy Lines Wavy lines decorate the arch and/or upper spout; Type A is a negative design with perpendicular wavy lines 6 13.6%
(n=2), Type B is a positive design with perpendicular wavy lines (n=2), and Type C consists of a repeating
motif of parallel wavy lines (n=2)

Wave Motif Repeating wave motifs decorate the arch and/or upper spout; Two sherds (Type A) do not include 3 6.8%
interstitial elements, while one sherd (Other) does

Wavy Ovals Ovals created with wavy lines decorate the arch and/or upper spout; Two sherds (Type A) have parallel 3 6.8%
long wavy ovals, while one sherd (Other) has perpendicular short wavy ovals

Solid Thick bands of dark paint decorate large portions of the arch and/or upper spout 3 6.8%

Double Lines Two thin lines decorate two to four sides of the arch and/or upper spout 2 4.5%

Beans A repeating bean motif decorates the arch and/or upper spout; these stirrup spout fragments are considered 2 4.5%
to be figurative

Step A step pyramid decorates the base of both sides of the arch (where they meet the body) 1 2.3%

None No decoration 3 6.8%

Indet. Motif could not be determined due to corrosion 1 2.3%

Table 2: Distribution of stirrup spout motifs (n=44). Note: one sherd has two motifs.

Design Analysis of Geometric Sherds
The goal of the third stage of the analysis
was the identification of repeating motifs on
geometric sherds that are not stirrup spout
fragments. Only those sherds containing designs
that are clearly geometric were included in the
analysis. Of the 326 sherds that were not identi-
fied as stirrup spout fragments, 45 contained
only figurative designs and were thus excluded
from this stage of the analysis. Six sherds con-
tained an identifiable geometric motif and a
figurative design and were included in this, as
well as the next stage (figurative subject matter)
of the analysis. An additional 42 sherds were
excluded from the analysis because they could
not be classified as geometric or figurative,
either because they were badly corroded or too
small. Another 11 sherds were excluded because
they did not contain any designs.
The remaining 228 sherds (the geometric
sample) are not stirrup spout fragments and
have designs identified as geometric. Eight
recurrent motifs were identified in this sample.
One or more of these recurrent motifs were
identified on 149 of the sherds in the geometric
sample. Of the remaining 79 sherds, four con-
tain a repeating motif unique to that sherd (clas-
sified as other repeating motif), 58 contain
lines and/or solid areas only, and 17 could not
be classified (due to corrosion or size; Figure 3).
Motif 1. By far the most common motif in the
geometric sample is Motif 1, which occurs on 94
sherds. Motif 1 is a band with a repeating square
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
panel. Each panel is divided into either two
triangular halves or four triangular quarters by
single or multiple straight and/or wavy lines.
Five Motif 1 types were identified on the basis of
how the panels are divided (Table 3 and Figure
4). There were several cases, however, in which
sherds were identified as containing Motif 1 but
not enough of the design was present (as a result
of corrosion or size) to assign it to a type. An-
other characteristic of Motif 1 is the presence of
solid or open interstitial elements within the
triangular halves or quarters of the panels.
Interstitial elements associated with Motif 1 are
solid and open triangles, solid and open L
shapes, solid, open, and mixed step elements,
solid and open serrated triangles, and circles
(Figures 4 and 5).
Type Description
The panel is divided into triangular halves by a
Type A
single wavy line
The panel is divided into four quarters by two
Type B
perpendicular wavy lines
The panel is divided into triangular halves by
Type C
two parallel wavy lines
The panel is divided into triangular halves by
Type D three parallel wavy lines or a central straight
line flanked on either side by parallel wavy lines
The panel is divided into triangular halves by
Type E two central, parallel straight lines flanked on
either side by parallel wavy lines
Type could not be determined due to size and/
Indet.
or corrosion
Table 3: Distribution of Motif 1 types (n=94)
Motif 2. The second most common motif in the
geometric sample is Motif 2, which occurs on 24
sherds. Motif 2 is a repeating wave that forms a
band around the exterior or interior of the
vessel. Three Motif 2 types were identified (Fig-
ure 6). A single, continuous line forms the
repeating wave motif in Type A (Figure 7a-d),
and several, discontinuous lines form the motif
in Type B (Figure 7e). Types A and B are both
associated with interstitial elements that, when
present, are at regular locations and intervals
along the repeating waves. Interstitial elements
associated with Motif 2 are solid and open
- 202
triangles and solid V elements (Figure 6). One
sherd classified as Motif 2 was unique and
therefore could not be typed (Figure 7f). This
sherd has a negative design in which solid, light-
colored waves appear on a dark background.
The waves on this sherd, more than any other
wave motif identified in the geometric sample,
appear to be an ocean locator (Donnan and
McClelland 1999:59). In Moche iconography
studies, locators are objects used in figurative
designs to indicate the setting or location in
which the activity depicted takes place. If this is
the case, the waves on this sherd indicate that
the activity depicted on the vessel takes place
on or near the ocean. The sherd was not classi-
fied as figurative, however, because only waves
are visible. Unlike the wave motif on this sherd,
most of the designs identified as Motif 2, and
Count Pct. especially those with interstitial elements, are
highly stylized and occur in bands alongside
19 20.2%
other repeating geometric motifs, and are thus
16 17.0% clearly geometric as defined above.
17 18.1%
Motif 3. Motif 3, a repeating circle that
13 13.8% forms a band around the vessel, was identified
on 10 sherds. Three types were identified (Fig-
5 5.3% ure 8). In Type A, smaller circles are found
along the edge of larger circles (Figure 9a). If
24 25.5% the smaller circles are interpreted as holes, Type
A appears to depict medallions, reminiscent of
the gold (Alva and Donnan 1993: figures 33, 41,
62, 97, 169, 206, 219 and 226) and copper
(Uceda et al.1994: figure 8.25) medallions used
by the Moche to decorate clothing, earrings,
headdresses, and other elite accoutrements.
Type A is usually a negative design in which
light-colored medallions appear with dark
holes on a dark background. Type B is com-
posed of repeating, plain circles. This type
occurs on only two sherds, both of which have
light-colored circles on a dark background. In
both cases, the sherds are small and probably in
fact depict portions of Type A medallions in
which the holes are absent (Figure 9b). One
sherd classified as Motif 3 was unique and
203 -
therefore could not be typed (Figure 9c). It has
plain circles located within the center of slightly
larger circles (i.e., donut-shapes).
Motif 4. Motif 4, a repeating spiral motif
composed of straight lines at right angles, was
also identified on 10 sherds (Figure 9d).
Motif 5. Motif 5, of which two types were
identified, occurs on 7 sherds (Figure 8). Type A
is composed of repeating solid triangles (Figure
9e) and Type B is composed of repeating open
triangles (Figure 9f).
Motif 6. Motif 6 is a repeating step motif that
occurs in a band. Motif 6 has three types (Figure
8). Only in Type A, however, does the motif
form a major part of the overall design of the
vessel. In Type A, the upper (or outer) step of
the motif is everted and is usually larger than
the other steps (Figure 9g). The step motifs are
either solid or open, and their interiors are
decorated with open triangles. Type B is a
simple, open, repeating step. The motif forms a
thin band around the vessel that divides the
overall design into separate areas, which often
contain figurative designs (Figure 9h). Type B
therefore functions more like a framing line
than a major part of the overall design of the
vessel (c.f. Donnan and McClelland 1999: figure
1.15). Type C is equivalent to Type B in that it
is composed of simple repeating steps and func-
tions like a framing line. In Type C, however,
the step motif occurs along the rim of floreros
(Figure 9i). Most floreros at Galindo have rims
that are notched in a step pattern. When the
rim is smooth, however, the notched step pat-
tern is often replaced by a painted version of the
same pattern along the rim of the vessel (Motif
6C). Type C is therefore a rim decoration asso-
ciated with a specific vessel form, the florero.
Motif 7. The remaining two recurrent motifs
identified in the geometric sample occur on very
few sherds, and therefore should not be consid-
Lockard: Moche fineline sherds from Galindo
ered major motifs in the fineline painting tradi-
tion at Galindo. Motif 7, which occurs on three
sherds, is composed of repeating principal and
secondary (or interstitial) elements (Figure 9j).
The principal element consists of a subdivided
triangular pattern attached to a series of rectan-
gles (containing dots) that form an L shape.
This element has the appearance of a spear or
scepter. The secondary (or interstitial) element,
which appears below each of the principal
elements, is a subdivided triangle that has the
appearance of a shell. The design was classified
as geometric because it is repetitive, stylized,
composed of simple geometric elements, and the
intent of the artist to depict a spear and/or shell
is unclear.
Motif 8. The final recurrent motif identified
in the geometric sample is Motif 8, which occurs
on two florero fragments. These fragments are
from the same provenience and may therefore
be parts of the same vessel. The sherds contain
a series of light-colored scallops on a dark back-
ground in a band around the interior of the
florero (Figure 9k). The design gives the vessel
the appearance of a flower. Once again, how-
ever, the motif is stylized, repetitive, and the
intent of the artist to depict a flower is unclear.
Of the remaining sherds in which none of
the above recurrent motifs were identified, four
contained identifiable repeating motifs not iden-
tified on any other sherd (e.g., Figure 10a). Of
the remaining sherds on which no repeating
motif could be identified, 58 contained lines
and/or solid areas only. Many of these sherds are
small fragments containing what appear to be
framing lines (lines that appear above, below, or
between repeating panels and form the perime-
ter of repeating panels; e.g., Figure 10b) and/or
solid areas (thick bands of solid dark paint; c.f.
Pimentel and Paredes 2003: figure 9.14c).
Others, however, are simple line decorations
(e.g., Figure 10c).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 204

In summary, 19 types of eight recurrent Usually two different motifs were utilized,
motifs were identified in the geometric sample. which alternate when there are more than two
As argued above, however, some of these motifs bands or panels on the vessel. Sometimes,
appear to be either specialized or rare. Of the however, a single motif will occur in multiple
19, twelve types of six motifs occur on multiple bands or panels or more than two motifs will
sherds from different contexts, appear in large, occur on the same vessel. As Table 4 demon-
broad bands or panels, and co-occur with other strates, several of the many possible combina-
recurrent motifs. These are Motif 1, Types A-E; tions of motifs were identified on sherds in the
Motif 2, Types A and B; Motif 3, Type A; Motif Galindo sample.
4; Motif 5, Types A and B; and Motif 6, Type A.
These major motifs form the parts in a geomet-
ric painting tradition utilized at Galindo. This
tradition includes standards of design layout in
which major motifs were utilized together in
varying combinations, and appear in two to five
bands or panels around the exterior (stirrup
spout bottles and jars) or interior (floreros) of
fineline vessels.

Motif 1 Motif 2 Motif 3 Motif 4 Motif 5 Motif 6 Motif 7 Motif 8 Other Figur. TOTALS

Motif 1 3 5 1 1 10

Motif 2 3 1 1 2 7

Motif 3 5 1* 1* 1 7*

Motif 4 1 1

Motif 5 1 1 1 3

Motif 6 1 2 1* 1* 5 9*

Motif 7 1 1

Motif 8 0

Other 1* 1* 1*

Figurative 1 5 6

22*

Table 4: Sherds with more than one motif (n=22). Note: one sherd (*) has three motifs.

Figurative Subject Matter Analysis
The final stage of the design analysis of the
Galindo sample consisted of an interpretation of
the subject matter of figurative sherds. First, the
subject matter of each sherd was determined.
Then, sherds depicting the same or similar
subjects were classified into three main catego-
ries (animals, plants, and human/ anthropo-
morphs) and various subcategories (Table 5).
Over half of the sherds in which a subject mat-
ter could be determined depict animals. Of
these, birds are the most commonly depicted.
Within the bird subcategory, two sherds depict
simply rendered bird heads (e.g., Figure 11a).
Another two sherds depict elaborately rendered
birds, one of which is clearly depicted drinking
from a small bowl (Figure 11b). The other is also
most likely drinking from a bowl, although most
of this portion of the design is missing (Figure
205 - Lockard: Moche fineline sherds from Galindo

11c). All four of these sherds depict birds in a not pictured). The second depicts a deer sur-
naturalistic manner (i.e., they do not share the rounded by vegetation (Figure 11h). This vege-
attributes of other animals and are not tation is a locator, and indicates that the activity
anthropomorphized). There are also a large depicted on the vessel takes place in a scrub
number of sherds in the figurative sample that forest (Donnan and McClelland 1999:104). All
depict patterns used by Moche artists to repre- of these animals are naturalistic, with the excep-
sent bird feathers (e.g., Figure 11d). Feathers tion of the crayfish.
rendered in this manner are associated with
naturalistic and anthropomorphized birds, as Eight sherds in the figurative sample depict
well as with supernatural beings having bird plants. Beans are the most commonly depicted,
attributes. appearing on seven sherds (e.g., Figure 11i).
Based on morphology, the designs depict Lima
Subject matter Count beans (Phaseolus lunatus). The eighth sherd
Animals
Birds
depicts what appears to be a fruit (Figure 11j).
Feathers 9 Although only half of the fruit is visible, it
Bird head (simply rendered) 2
Bird (elaborately rendered, drinking from bowl) 1
appears to be the fruit known in Moche iconog-
Bird (elaborately rendered, drinking from bowl?) 1 raphy studies as the ulluchu. The ulluchu is
Fish 3
often associated with sacrificial themes in
Shell 2
Crayfish (supernatural) 1 Moche iconography (Alva and Donnan 1993:
Deer 2 134), and is clearly distinguishable from other
Animals Subtotal 21
Plants
objects. Nevertheless, the modern species that
Bean(s) 7 the ulluchu depicts has yet to be convincingly
Fruit (ulluchu?) 1 identified (Wassn 1989).
Plants Subtotal 8
Human/Anthropomorphs
Humans The remaining nine sherds on which a
Human hand 1 subject matter could be determined depict
Human wearing a a headdress (other accoutre-
ments are also visible) 1 humans, anthropomorphs, or objects related to
Human (ritual runner?) 1 humans and anthropomorphs (i.e., tools and
Nude male ritual runner (prisoner?) 1
Ritual runner (carrying bag) 1 accoutrements). Five of the sherds contain
Anthropomorphs naturalistic depictions of humans or human
Unidentified anthropomorph (part of torso and
neck visible) 1 body parts. One of these depicts the hand of a
Tools/Accoutrements human figure behind what may be the headdress
Headdress (with hand and leg) 1
or regalia of another figure (Figure 12a). The
Headdress (with leg) 1
Earspool 1 second depicts the head of a human figure
Human/Anthropomorphs Subtotal 9 wearing an elaborate headdress (Figure 12b).
Indeterminate 15
TOTAL
Other accoutrements are also visible on the
53
sherd. The third depicts both legs and the lower
Table 5: Subject matter of figurative sherds (n=53). torso of a human figure (Figure 12c). The fourth
depicts the face and right side of a human figure
Fish are depicted on three sherds in the (Figure 12d). This figure is nude, and can be
figurative sample (e.g., Figure 11e), shells are clearly identified as male. The man carries a
depicted on two sherds (e.g., Figure 11f), and a thin, straight object in his outstretched right
crayfish is depicted on one sherd (Figure 11g). hand. The last sherd depicts the face and left
Lastly, two sherds depict a deer. One is a small hand of a human figure (Figure 12e). This
fragment that only depicts the deers ear (B23, person carries a small bag in his or her out-
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
stretched hand. In front of the person is the
hand of another individual and a flower or star-
shaped object, which may be a locator. These
last three sherds all appear to depict ritual
runners. Ritual runners are generally portrayed
in long lines, and carry bags, branches, or in rare
cases nothing, in their outstretched hands
(Donnan and McClelland 1999:128). One of
the ritual runners is clearly carrying a bag (Fig-
ure 12e), while another may be carrying a
branch (Figure 12d). The last sherd is from the
same provenience (and probably the same
vessel) as the ritual runner carrying the possible
branch, and is therefore also likely a ritual
runner. This is uncertain, however, as the upper
half of the body is not present (Figure 12c).
Ritual runners first appear, but are extremely
rare, in Phase III (Donnan and Mc Clelland
1999: figure 3.13). They become one of the
most common themes in Moche fineline paint-
ing during Phase IV, and continue to be popular
in Phase V (Donnan and McClelland 1999:128,
180). Based on the fact that he is nude, the
person in Figure 12d may be a prisoner. If this is
the case, this sherd depicts a scene in the War-
rior Narrative, in which warriors were captured,
stripped of their clothing, and ultimately sacri-
ficed in rituals such as the one depicted in the
well-known Sacrifice Ceremony (Alva and Don-
nan 1993:127-138; Donnan 1975, 1978:158-
173; Donnan and McClelland 1999:69, 130-
131).
One sherd in the figurative sample was
classified as an anthropomorph. This sherd
depicts a figure that cannot be identified be-
cause only its upper torso and neck are visible
on the sherd (Figure 12f). Finally, three sherds
in the figurative sample depict tools or accoutre-
ments, which were included in the human/
anthropomorph category because of their associ-
ation with these figures (i.e., they are made and
used by humans). Two sherds depict head-
dresses. A human hand and leg are also visible
on one of these sherds (Figure 12g), and a
- 206
human leg is visible on the second (Figure 12h).
The last sherd depicts a round earspool (Figure
12i).
The subject matter of the remaining 15
sherds in the figurative sample could not be
firmly identified. In most cases, the designs on
these sherds resemble figurative objects in
Moche iconography. The sherds are very small,
however, and not enough of the design is there-
fore present to firmly establish what is depicted.
In some cases, objects could be partially identi-
fied, but due to the small size of the sherds the
objects context could not be determined. For
example, one sherd depicts the left side of a
mouth and lower half of a left eye (B12, not
pictured). It could not be determined, however,
whether this face belongs to an animal, human,
or anthropomorph.
As the above analysis demonstrates, the
majority of sherds in the figurative sample at
Galindo contain naturalistic depictions of plants
and animals. Nevertheless, several sherds depict
themes, figures, and objects commonly depicted
during Phases III and IV that have ideological
connotations and/or are related to the activities
of elites. As mentioned above, at least one sherd
(Figure 11b) and probably a second (Figure 11c)
depict a bird drinking from a bowl. According to
Donnan and McClelland (1999:136), this
theme is related to the Warrior Narrative and
symbolizes the drinking of the captives blood
in sacrificial rituals. Another sherd with a design
that may be related to sacrifice depicts what is
most likely an ulluchu fruit (Figure 11j). Ritual
runners are also thought to communicate an
ideological message, and appear on two sherds
(Figures 12d-e) and possibly a third (Figure 12c)
in the Galindo sample. According to Donnan
and McClelland (1999:128), ritual runners are
one of the most common themes during Phase
IV, appearing on 13 percent of the vessels from
this phase in the Moche Archive. One of the
ritual runners is a nude male, and may be a
207 -
prisoner (Figure 12d). If so, this sherd depicts a
scene in the Warrior Narrative, which culmi-
nates in the human sacrificial rituals that legiti-
mated the authority of Moche rulers. Finally,
there are at least four sherds in the Galindo
sample that depict elite accoutrements (Figures
12b, g-i). The presence of these designs in the
Galindo sample demonstrates that, although
considerably less common than in Phase IV, the
depiction of elites and elite activities continued
into Phase V at Galindo.
The Context: Moche Fineline and Figurative
Sherds Recovered During the G.A.P.
The proportion of fineline sherds and fine-
line sherds with figurative designs from G.A.P.
contexts (before refits) is presented in Table 6
(see Bawden 1982b for a discussion of the
proportion of Moche fine-ware ceramics in the
residential contexts he excavated). Not surpris-
ingly, high and moderate status Moche resi-
dences had the highest proportion of fineline
sherds. Fineline sherds were considerably less
common in low status Moche residences. This
indicates that although few of the fineline
ceramics at Galindo communicated traditional
Moche ideological messages, Galindo elites still
maintained tight control over their production
and distribution.
The proportion of fineline sherds with
figurative designs was extremely low in all
contexts but one, Room 1 of Structure 52 (Area
311). Structure 52 is a large, moderate status
residence located on Plain A2. Four units were
excavated just inside the southern entrance.
This area was utilized, presumably after the
residence was abandoned, as a midden. Within
the midden, 62 fineline sherds were encoun-
tered. This amounts to 25.2 percent of the total
number of fineline sherds that were recovered
during the G.A.P.. Of these, 50 percent were
classified as figurative. It is likely that this pro-
portion would have been even higher if it were
Lockard: Moche fineline sherds from Galindo
not for the fact that many of the fineline sherds
are very small, making it difficult to determine
what is depicted on them. In some cases, multi-
ple sherds appear to be from the same vessel.
Based on the color of the slip paints and the
designs on the sherds, however, at least several
different vessels are represented. No more than
one figurative sherd was encountered in any
other area excavated during the G.A.P., despite
the fact that a significant number of fineline
sherds were encountered from several of these
areas. It is unclear why such a high proportion
of fineline sherds and particularly figurative
sherds were encountered in Room 1 of Structure
52. What is clear, however, is that the propor-
tion of fineline sherds with figurative designs
varies considerably by context at Galindo.
Summary
The design analysis of Moche fineline sherds
from Galindo has revealed that two basic paint-
ing traditions were utilized in the decoration of
this ware. One of these is a figurative painting
tradition in which themes and figures character-
istic of Phases III and IV were depicted. The
number of these themes and figures were greatly
reduced, and naturalistic depictions of plants
and animals dominated. Some themes and
figures thought to communicate ideological
messages were retained, however, most notably
ritual runners and birds drinking from bowls.
This Phase V painting tradition is hereafter
referred to as the figurative painting tradition.
The vast majority of Moche fineline ceramics at
Galindo, however, were decorated with a geo-
metric painting tradition in which a small num-
ber of major motifs were utilized. This tradition
also included standard principles of design
layout in which the major motifs were combined
to form the overall design of the vessels.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 208

Fineline Sherds Figurative Sherds

Area Total Total Percentage of Percentage of Percentage of
Count Diagnostics Count Diagnostics Count Diagnostics Finelines
Area 101 (MLSR) 473 473 8 1.7% 0 0% 0%
Area 102 (MLSR) 452 452 28 6.2% 0 0% 0%
Area 103 (SC) 322 322 18 5.6% 0 0% 0%
Area 201 (HL) 100 100 32 32.0% 0 0% 0%
Area 202 (HL) 29 29 6 20.7% 1 3.4% 16.7%
Area 203 (MHSR) 318 318 44 13.8% 1 0.3% 2.3%
Area 204 (MHSR) 213 213 18 8.5% 1 0.5% 5.6%
Area 301 (HA) 58 58 0 0% 0 0% N/A
Area 302 (HA) 40 40 4 10.0% 0 0% 0%
Area 303 (O) 14 14 1 7.1% 0 0% 0%
Areas 304, 305 & 306 (HA) 30 30 2 6.7% 0 0% 0%
Area 307, SA 1 (MLSR) 716 283 10 3.5% 1 0.4% 10.0%
Area 307, SA 2 (CR) 203 203 1 0.5% 0 0% 0%
Area 307, SA 3 (CR) 164 164 2 1.2% 0 0% 0%
Area 307, SA 4-6 (CR) 901 901 0 0% 0 0% N/A
Area 308 (MLSR) 24 24 5 20.8% 0 0% 0%
Area 309 (O) 0 0 0 N/A 0 N/A N/A
Area 310 (MHSR) 78 78 5 6.4% 0 0% 0%
Area 311 (MHSR) 161 161 62 38.5% 31 19.3% 50.0%
TOTALS 4296 3863 246 6.4% 35 0.9% 14.2%

Stratigraphic Cut 101 (SC) 322 18 5.6% 0 0% 0%

Huaca de las Abejas (HA) 128 6 4.7% 0 0% 0%
Huaca de las Lagartijas (HL) 129 38 29.5% 1 0.8% 2.6%
Moche residential contexts
2002 180 9.0% 34 1.7% 18.9%
(MHSR & MLSR)
Chimu residential contexts (CR) 1268 3 0.2% 0 0% 0%
Other (O) 14 1 7.1% 0 0% 0%
TOTALS 3863 246 6.4% 35 0.9% 14.2%

Moche high and mod. status res. (MHSR) 770 129 16.8% 33 4.3% 25.6%
Moche low status residences (MLSR) 1232 51 4.1% 1 0.1% 2.0%
TOTALS 2002 180 9.0% 34 1.7% 18.9%

Table 6: Percentage of fineline and figurative sherds from Galindo contexts. Note: counts are before refits.

A COMPARISON OF THE PAINTING TRADI-
TIONS USED AT GALINDO TO DECORATE
MOCHE FINELINE CERAMICS WITH THOSE
OF CONTEMPORANEOUS MOCHE SITES
Pampa Colorada
A review of design analyses and published
examples of ceramics from other Moche sites
has revealed that the geometric painting
tradition was not unique to Galindo at this
time. On the contrary, ceramics with designs
of this tradition have been recovered from a
number of Phase V/Late Moche sites through-
out the north coast. Their presence is most
striking at a small site (ISCH.206:3) associ-
ated with several prehistoric roads on the
Pampa Colorada, located between the Santa
and Chao Valleys in the southern Moche
region.
Pimentel and Paredes (2003: figure 9.14)
have published two near complete (Table 7),
and one partial, Phase V stirrup spout bottles
recovered from the site. The body of one of
the nearly complete vessels is decorated with
only thick bands of dark paint on the lower
third of the body and upper third of the arch
and spout (Pimentel and Paredes 2003: figure
9.14c). The other nearly complete bottle has
more complex geometric designs (ibid.: figure
9.14b). The decoration of the vessels body
comprises two repeating motifs, both of which
are major motifs identified in the Galindo
sample. The stirrup spout is decorated with
thick bands of dark paint, a stirrup spout motif
(solid) that was also identified in the Galindo
sample.
209 -
No. Reference Form
Donnan 1973, Plate 7E; republished
1 in McClelland et al. 2007, Figure Stirrup spout bottle
3.169b
Shimada 1976, Figure 41; republished
2 Florero
in Shimada 1994, Figure 8.11
Shimada 1976, Figure 51; republished
3 Stirrup spout bottle
in Shimada 1994, Figure 7.35a
4 Ubbelohde-Doering 1983, Plate 56.3 Stirrup spout bottle
5 Shimada 1994, Figure 8.12c Stirrup spout bottle
6 McClelland 1997, Figure 3 Stirrup spout bottle
McClelland 1997, Figure 5; repub-
7 lished in Donnan and McClelland Stirrup spout bottle
1999, Figure 6.133
8 McClelland 1997, Figure 6 Stirrup spout bottle
Donnan and McClelland 1999, Figure
9 Florero
1.8
Donnan and McClelland 1999, Figure
10 Stirrup spout bottle
6.132
Donnan and McClelland 1999, Figure
11 Stirrup spout bottle
6.134
Donnan and McClelland 1999, Figure
12 Stirrup spout bottle
6.135
Pimentel and Paredes 2003, Figure
13 Stirrup spout bottle
9.14b
Pimentel and Paredes 2003, Figure
14 Stirrup spout bottle
9.14c
15 McClelland et al. 2007, Figure 3.169a Stirrup spout bottle
Table 7: Published complete or near-complete Late Moche/Phase V fineline vessels with only geometric designs (n=15)
The partial vessel contains at least two
bands of Motif 1A with open serrated triangle
interstitial elements (ibid.: figure 9.14a). In
addition to these vessels, Pimentel and Paredes
(ibid.: figure 9.12) provide a photo of several
fineline sherds from the surface of the same site.
In the photo, geometric motifs can be identified
on the five largest sherds. All five depict Motif
2A, and at least three include solid triangle
interstitial elements. These sherds provide
evidence that Phase V fineline vessels decorated
with the geometric painting tradition utilized at
Galindo were either traded or produced by
people living well to the south of the Moche
Valley, an area previously thought to have been
abandoned by the Moche at the end of Phase IV
(Bawden 1996:263; Shimada 1994:118).
Pacatnamu
In order to best evaluate the differences
between Galindo fineline ceramics and those of
Lockard: Moche fineline sherds from Galindo
Stirrup Spout Motif Body Motifs/IEs
Geometric Motif 1D with Double Open Triangle IEs (2 bands)
(shield and clubs) Motif 2A with Double Open Triangle IEs (1 band)
Motif 1D with Open Step IEs (1 band)
N/A
Repeating S Motif with Open Triangle IEs
Motif 1C with Open Step (1 band) and Open Triangle (1
N/A band) IEs
Repeating Crescent Motif
Solid Motif 1A with Solid Triangle IEs (2 bands)
Single Lines Motif 4 (1 band)
Wave Motif (Type A) Motif 1E with Open Step IEs (4 bands)
Motif 1C with Open Step IEs (2 bands) and
Wave Motif (Type A)
Motif 3A (2 bands)
Motif 1D with Solid Step IEs (2 bands) and
Wavy Ovals (Type A)
Motif 5A (2 bands)
Motif 1A with Open Serrated Triangle IEs and
N/A
Motif 2A with Open Triangle IEs
Motif 1A with Open Step IEs (2 bands) and
Wavy Lines (Type C)
Motif 3A (2 bands)
Motif 1E with Solid Triangle (2 bands) and Solid Step (1
Wavy Ovals (Type A) band) IEs
Motif 3A (2 bands)
Motif 1E with Solid Step IEs (2 bands) and
Single Lines
Motif 3A (3 bands)
Motif 1C with Serrated Triangle IEs (1 band) and
Solid
Motif 2A with Solid Triangle IEs (1 band)
Solid Solid Area Only (bottom third of vessel)
None Motif 1C with Solid Triangle IEs (2 bands)
other Moche sites, it is necessary to have com-
parable samples from these sites. To be compa-
rable, however, the sample must include all
Moche fineline sherds recovered from a site,
including those with geometric designs. A great
deal of literature has been devoted to the study
of Moche fineline iconography, but the vast
majority of this work focuses on figurative
designs on complete or near complete vessels
(e.g., Donnan 1975, 1978; Donnan and McClel-
land 1979, 1999; Hill 1998; Hocquenghem
1987; McClelland 1990). Unfortunately, very
little attention has been given to geometric
designs, and even less to the design analysis of
sherds. After an extensive review of the litera-
ture on the Moche, only a single design analysis
was encountered in which all Moche fineline
sherds recovered during archaeological excava-
tions were included. This analysis was performed
by Donna McClelland (1997) on a sample of all
Moche fineline sherds recovered during excava-
tions at the site of Pacatnamu in the Jequete-
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
peque Valley between 1983 and 1987 (Donnan
and Cock 1997). The sample is composed of 65
sherds, the vast majority of which are of the
Phase V style (McClelland 1997:277). The
Pacatnamu sample is therefore composed of
sherds that are roughly contemporaneous with
those of the Galindo sample. The Pacatnamu
sample is also comparable to the Galindo sample
in terms of context, with no sherds having been
directly recovered from burials. According to
McClelland (ibid.:265), some of the sherds may
have been from vessels that were associated
with burials that had been looted, but others
clearly were found in Moche refuse. The
following is a reporting of Mc Clellands analysis
of the Pacatnamu sample, which is very similar
to my analysis of the Galindo sample, and a
comparison of her results to those reported
above. The most significant difference between
McClellands analysis and the one presented
above is that stirrup spout fragments were not
analyzed, because no sherds of this type were
found.
Geometric Versus Figurative Designs in the
Pacatnamu Sample
In her analysis of Moche fineline sherds from
Pacatnamu, McClelland first divided her sample
into three categories: sherds with geometric
designs, sherds with figurative designs, and
sherds with unidentified elements (mostly very
small sherds, classified herein as indeterminate).
Table 8 presents the distribution of sherds in
each of these categories in the Pacatnamu
sample.
Type Count Percentage
Geometric 11 16.9%
Figurative 24 36.9%
Indeterminate 30 46.2%
Total 65 100%
Table 8: Geometric versus figurative sherds in the
Pacatnamu sample (n=65)
- 210
Geometric sherds make up only 16.9 percent of
the sample, while figurative sherds comprise
36.9 percent of the sample. I performed a chi-
square analysis on the number of geometric
versus figurative sherds in the Galindo and
Pacatnamu samples. I excluded undecorated
sherds from the Galindo sample, because
McClelland did not include these sherds in her
sample. I considered sherds with both geometric
and figurative designs in the Galindo sample to
be figurative, in order to make the test more
conservative. The test was performed twice, first
on all remaining sherds (X2=78.3; p<.01) and
again on all remaining sherds excluding stirrup
spout fragments, because the Pacatnamu sample
had none (X2= 67.6; p<.01). Both analyses
demonstrate a statistically significant difference
between the samples at the .01 level.
In addition to a significantly greater percent-
age of figurative designs in the Pacatnamu
sample, the proportion of indeterminate sherds
(46.2%) is also significantly greater than in the
Galindo sample (11.6%). Although the reason
for this difference is uncertain, it appears to be
because of the nature of figurative versus geo-
metric designs. Figurative designs in Moche
iconography are often complex, and either cover
the entire surface of the vessel, or are repeated
only a few times around the vessels surface.
Moche geometric motifs, on the other hand, are
often small, occurring numerous times as repeat-
ing panels or bands. Furthermore, Moche geo-
metric motifs appear to be highly standardized,
with only a few geometric motifs (with various
types) occurring on numerous vessels. Moche
figurative designs, on the other hand, are more
varied. As a result, it is typically easier to iden-
tify a geometric motif from a small sherd than to
determine the subject matter of a small sherd
that was part of a large and complex figurative
design. The vast majority of McClellands inde-
terminate sherds (McClelland 1997: figures 38
and 39) appear to be parts of complex figurative
designs. These sherds were not considered to be
211 -
figurative, however, because the sherds are too
small to determine what is depicted. As a result,
the proportion of sherds from vessels with
figurative designs is likely to be substantially
higher than the 36.9 percent of sherds in which
a figurative subject matter could be determined.
Under the standards I employed in the analysis
of the Galindo sample, only one of the sherds in
McClellands unidentified elements category
would have been classified as geometric (the
sherd depicts a spiral motif, see McClelland
1997: figure 39), while several would have been
classified as figurative with indeterminate sub-
ject matter.
Design Analysis of Geometric Sherds in the
Pacatnamu Sample
Despite the fact that the Galindo sample is
significantly different from the Pacatnamu
sample in terms of the proportion of geometric
versus figurative designs, a comparison of the
geometric motifs present in both samples sug-
gests that similar artistic conventions were
employed at the two sites in the painting of
geometric designs. All 11 sherds classified by
McClelland as geometric depict major motifs
identified in the Galindo sample (Table 9).
Type Count Percentage
Motif 1 8 72.7%
Motif 2 2 18.2%
Motif 3 1 9.1%
Motif 4 1 9.1%
Motif 5 1 9.1%
Table 9: Distribution of geometric motifs in the
Pacatnamu sample (n=11). Note: two sherds
have two motifs
As is the case in the Galindo sample, Motif 1 is
by far the most common, appearing on eight
sherds. Among these, one is Type C, three are
Type D, and the type of the remaining four
could not be determined. Three have solid
triangle interstitial elements, two have open
Lockard: Moche fineline sherds from Galindo
triangles, and the interstitial elements of the
remaining three could not be determined. Motif
2A appears on two sherds, both with open
triangle interstitial elements. Motifs 3A, 4, and
5A are also present, each appearing on a single
sherd. Two of the sherds in the Pacatnamu
sample contain two motifs. One contains Motif
1C and Motif 2A, and the other contains Motif
1 (type indeterminate) and Motif 3A. The
geometric sherds in the Pacatnamu sample also
share the design layout characteristics of the
geometric painting tradition utilized at Galindo.
It is unclear at this time whether these ceramics
were produced at Pacatnamu or are trade-wares
from Galindo or another Phase V/Late Moche
site. In either case, the presence at both sites of
Moche fineline ceramics decorated with the
geometric painting tradition suggests that the
two sites had some degree of interaction.
Figurative Subject Matter Analysis of the
Pacatnamu Sample
As part of her analysis, McClelland identi-
fied the subject matter of the sherds with figura-
tive designs in the Pacatnamu sample. There
are two sections in the analysis. In the first, she
uses the Moche Archives at U.C.L.A. to match
sherds to specific themes and figures in Moche
fineline iconography. According to McClelland,
the Tule Boat theme is depicted on six sherds,
the Strombus Monster is depicted on four
sherds, and the Triangular Head and Running
Figures are each depicted on one sherd. All of
these sherds, which make up 18.5 percent of the
total sample, can be argued to depict ideological
themes or figures, especially the Tule Boat
theme, Strombus Monster, and Running Figures
(see Donnan 1978; Donnan and McClelland
1999; McClelland 1990). McClelland classified
an additional ten sherds as depicting nonspe-
cific design elements. These sherds could not
be correlated with specific Moche themes or
figures, but their content could be determined
to varying degrees. These sherds, according to
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
McClelland, depict an additional possible
Strombus Monster, a lower leg, a flower, a
possible runner, feline pelage markings, feathers
(on two sherds), fox-headed snakes, a human/
anthropomorphic head, and a possible
anthropomorphized fish. If her interpretations of
the subject matter of these sherds are correct, at
least five additional sherds could be argued to
depict ideological themes or figures (the possible
Strombus Monster, the possible runner, the fox-
headed snakes, the anthropomorphic head, and
the possible anthropomorphized fish).
McClelland classified an additional two sherds
as figurative with indeterminate subject matter.
The majority of the sherds in the Galindo
figurative sample depict naturalistic plants and
animals. The majority of the sherds in the
Pacatnamu figurative sample, on the other
hand, depict portions of complex supernatural
themes and figures. Some of these designs
appear to be part of the traditional figurative
painting tradition (e.g., a ritual runner; McClel-
land 1997: figure 21). Other sherds in the
Pacatnamu figurative sample, however, are
characteristic of another Late Moche figurative
painting tradition, known as the Moro Style,
which is unique to the northern Moche region
(Castillo 2001:319-320, 2003:101-102; Donnan
and McClelland 1999:139; see below).
Pampa Grande
The geometric painting tradition was also
utilized in the decoration of ceramics recovered
from the site of Pampa Grande, although their
prevalence is still unclear. All of the geometric
designs on Moche fineline ceramics from Pampa
Grande published by Shimada (1994) in his
book on the site, however, are motifs that occur
on sherds from Galindo (Table 7). All but one
of the motifs in this admittedly small number of
ceramics are major motifs in the Galindo sam-
ple. Only three vessels with geometric designs
are published in the book. The first is a stirrup
- 212
spout bottle with two bands of Motif 1C, one of
which has open triangle and the other of which
has open step interstitial elements (ibid: figure
7.35a). In between is another repeating motif,
composed of repeating crescents, which has
been identified at Galindo but is not in the
Galindo sample (the drawing could not be
correlated with provenience and/ or paint color
data). The stirrup spout on the vessel does not
appear to have been decorated. The second
vessel is a florero with a single band of Motif 1D
with open step interstitial elements (ibid.: figure
8.11). A second band below depicts a repeating
S motif (identified on only a single sherd in
the Galindo sample) with open triangle intersti-
tial elements. The final vessel is another stirrup
spout bottle (ibid.: figure 8.12c). The stirrup
spout is decorated with single lines, and the
body is decorated with only a single band of
Motif 4. It is unclear at this time what percent-
age of the geometric motifs that decorate Pampa
Grande fineline ceramics are major motifs in the
geometric painting tradition utilized at Galindo.
The above analysis of the three vessels pub-
lished in Shimadas book on Pampa Grande does
demonstrate, however, that at least some geo-
metric motifs were utilized at both sites. Galindo
and Pampa Grande therefore appear to have
had at least some degree of interaction.
San Jos de Moro
Interestingly, Moche fineline ceramics
decorated with the geometric painting tradition
are almost completely absent at the Late Moche
site of San Jos de Moro. McClelland et al.
(2007) have recently analyzed a sample of 255
Moche fineline vessels or large sherds that are
attributable to San Jos de Moro with varying
degrees of certainty.2 Of this sample, only two
2
For 21 percent of the sample, the vessel or sherd was
excavated at San Jos de Moro. For 43 percent of the
sample looters recall finding the vessel and could describe
its context and/or location at the site. For 5 percent of the
213 -
stirrup spout bottles (less than one percent)
contain solely geometric designs (ibid. 2007:
151). Furthermore, only one of these bottles was
recovered from San Jos de Moro. This bottle
has two bands of repeating Motif 1C panels with
solid triangle interstitial elements (ibid.: figure
3.169a). The second bottle in the San Jos de
Moro sample, which was recovered from a grave
at the site of Cenicero in the Santa Valley, has
two bands of repeating Motif 1D panels with
double open triangle interstitial elements on
either side of a band of repeating Motif 2A
designs with the same interstitial elements (ibid.
Figure 3.169b). The lack of Moche fineline
ceramics with designs of the geometric painting
tradition at San Jos de Moro may indicate that
Galindo did not have as much interaction with
the site as it did with other sites on the north
coast. Alternatively, it may be the result of the
fact that most, if not all, of the ceramics in the
San Jos de Moro sample were recovered from
tombs or caches (ibid.:7), whereas none of the
sherds in the Galindo sample are from these
sorts of contexts.
Almost all of the fineline vessels recovered
both illegally and archaeologically from San Jos
de Moro were decorated with the Moro Style of
fineline painting. According to Luis Jaime
Castillo (2001:319-320; see also Castillo
2003:101), the Moro Style differs from the
Phase IV figurative painting tradition in the
southern Moche region in the following ways:
(1) a reduction in the number of iconographic
themes; (2) a new emphasis on maritime theme-
s; (3) a high frequency of depictions of the
Priestess or Supernatural Woman; and (4)
sample the vessel was painted by an artist who had paint-
ed another vessel that was excavated at the site. For 7
percent of the sample the vessel was recorded in the hands
of a dealer or knowledgeable collector who was confident
that it was from the site. For the remaining 23 percent of
the sample, no provenience was available, but the vessel
form and painting style are consistent with known vessels
from the site.(McClelland et al. 2007:7).
Lockard: Moche fineline sherds from Galindo
an almost complete disappearance of human
beings in favor of supernatural beings. In addi-
tion, the scenes depicted are few and repeti-
tive: the Burial Theme, the combat between
supernatural beings, the navigation of the reed
rafts, the Priestess on a crescent moon, and the
anthropomorphized wave (Castillo 2001:320;
see also Castillo 2003:101). None of the figura-
tive sherds in the Galindo sample could be
identified as depicting any of these scenes. In
the Pacatnamu sample, on the other hand,
McClelland identifies five sherds (1997: figure
11) as being part of tule boat scenes (the reed
raft of Castillo), and identifies another sherd
(ibid.: figure 13) as being part of a rayed cres-
cent tule boat (the crescent moon of Cas-
tillo). Both of these scenes are associated with
the Priestess in the fineline painting tradition at
San Jos de Moro (Castillo 2003:102).
In addition, the Moro Style is characterized
by extremely elaborate decoration. Background
filler elements were often used to fill in the
empty spaces around the principal figurative
designs. In general, the figurative designs in the
Galindo sample are not as elaborate as those of
San Jos de Moro. The figurative designs in the
Pacatnamu sample are generally more elaborate
than those of Galindo, but not as elaborate as
those of San Jos de Moro. Background filler
elements are absent in the Galindo sample,
present but rare in the Pacatnamu sample, and
common at San Jos de Moro.
Non-provenienced Phase V/Late Moche Fineline
Vessels with Only Geometric Designs
Despite the fact that hundreds of complete
or near complete Phase V/Late Moche fineline
vessels have been published to date, very few of
these contain only geometric designs (Table 7).
In addition to the vessels described above
(McClelland et al. 2007: figures 3.169a and
3.169b; Pimentel and Paredes 2003: figures
9.14b and 9.14c; Shimada 1994: figures 7.35a,
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
8.11 and 8.12c), a review of Moche literature
found only three publications with such vessels.
In her design analysis of fineline sherds from
Pacatnamu, McClelland (1997) publishes, as
comparatives, three complete Phase V stirrup
spout bottles with only geometric designs. As all
of the geometric designs identified by Mc
Clelland in the Pacatnamu sample are major
motifs in the geometric painting tradition uti-
lized at Galindo, it is not surprising that all of
the geometric designs on the comparative
vessels are as well. In addition, however, the
stirrup spouts on these three vessels are all
decorated with stirrup spout motifs identified in
the Galindo sample. An additional whole vessel
from Pacatnamu, which depicts two bands of
Motif 1A with solid triangle interstitial ele-
ments, has been published by Ubbelohde-
Doering (1983: Plate 56.3).
In their seminal work on Moche fineline
painting, Donnan and McClelland (1999)
publish five complete Phase V vessels with only
geometric designs, one of which (figure 6.133) is
the same vessel as one of the comparatives in
McClellands (1997: figure 5) analysis of
Pacatnamu sherds. Four of these are stirrup
spout bottles attributed to a single artist (the
Geometric Painter). All of the designs on the
bodies of these bottles are major motifs identi-
fied in the Galindo sample. All four vessels also
contain stirrup spout motifs utilized by Galindo
artists. In addition to these stirrup spout bottles,
Donnan and McClelland (1999: figure 1.8) also
publish a complete florero with only geometric
designs. Both of the motifs on this vessel are
major motifs identified in the Galindo sample.
Unfortunately, the context of all but one of
these vessels (Ubbelohde-Doering 1983: plate
56.3) is unknown. It is possible that all seven of
these vessels came from Galindo itself. As a
result, these vessels unfortunately provide little
information on the distribution of the geometric
painting tradition utilized at Galindo.
- 214
CONCLUSION
The preceding literature review indicates
that there were at least three painting traditions
utilized in the decoration of Phase V/Late
Moche fineline vessels. Two of these, the geo-
metric painting tradition and the traditional
figurative painting tradition, were utilized at
Galindo. The Moro Style was not utilized at
Galindo, and appears to be unique to the north-
ern Moche region. The preceding literature
review also indicates that the geometric painting
tradition was widespread, although never as
dominant at other sites as it was at Galindo,
with the possible exception of the small site
(ISCH.206:3) on the Pampa Colorada. Because
Moche fineline sherds are rarely analyzed or
published, however, it is unclear exactly how far
to the north and south the tradition extended,
and how extensive it was in these areas. Its
frequency at most of the sites in which it has
been documented is also unknown. The pres-
ence of the geometric painting tradition in the
decoration of Moche fineline ceramics at sites
such as Pacatnamu and Pampa Grande, how-
ever, indicate that there was at least some
degree of interaction between Galindo and these
sites. As more data on the presence and preva-
lence of the various painting traditions utilized
to decorate Moche fineline ceramics at different
Phase V/Late Moche sites are obtained and
published, the extent of this interaction will no
doubt become increasingly clear.
The form of interaction that existed be-
tween Moche sites with fineline ceramics deco-
rated with the various Phase V/Late Moche
painting traditions also remains unclear at this
time. In order to address this issue, compo-
sitional analyses are required to first determine
whether sherds decorated with these traditions
were produced at a single or multiple locations.
If the analyses indicate that ceramics decorated
with a certain tradition were produced at a
single location, then trade is indicated. If trade
215 -
is indicated, the preponderance of the geometric
painting tradition at Galindo relative to other
major sites indicates that they were most likely
produced at or near Galindo. If compositional
analyses indicate that fineline ceramics deco-
rated with a particular painting tradition were
produced at multiple locations, on the other
hand, then open lines of communication and/ or
copying from a distance are indicated. The
degree of standardization in motifs and design
layout indicates that the former is more likely
the case for the geometric painting tradition.
While compositional analyses are crucial to
understanding the form of interaction that
existed between sites with fineline ceramics
decorated with the various Phase V/Late Moche
painting traditions, more chronometric dates are
required to understand their origin and spread.
Chronometric dates are in fact completely
lacking at some Phase V/Late Moche sites, and
inadequate at others. More chronometric dates
from Phase V/Late Moche contexts will help
elucidate the origin and spread of the various
painting traditions of this time, which will lead
to a better understanding of the political, cul-
tural, and trade relationships that existed be-
tween the sites that produced them. Establishing
such relationships will in turn aid archaeologists
in their quest to write the final chapters in the
history of the Moche people.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my
dissertation committee, Garth Bawden (chair), Jane
Buikstra, the late Robert Santley, and Luis Jaime Castillo,
for their support during my dissertation research, of which
this paper is a part. I would also like to thank George
Gumerman IV for his support and collaboration during
the Galindo Archaeological Project (G.A.P.). The G.A.P.
was largely funded by a National Science Foundation
Dissertation Improvement Grant (BCS-0120114). Addi-
tional financial support was provided by two Maxwell
Center for Anthropology research grants, a Student
Research Allocation Committee grant awarded by the
Graduate and Professional Student Association at the
University of New Mexico, and a Graduate, Research,
Lockard: Moche fineline sherds from Galindo
Project, and Travel grant awarded by the Office of Gradu-
ate Studies at the University of New Mexico. Finally, I
would like to thank my friends and family, and especially
my wife, Hannah D. Lockard, and our daughters Fiona
and Sarah, for their unwavering and all-encompassing
support.
REFERENCES CITED
Alva, Walter and Christopher Donnan
1993 Royal Tombs of Sipn. Los Angeles: Fowler Mu-
seum of Cultural History, University of Califor-
nia, Los Angeles.
Bawden, Garth
1977 Galindo and the Nature of the Middle Horizon in
Northern Coastal Peru. Ph.D. dissertation, Har-
vard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1982a Galindo: A Study in Cultural Transition During
the Middle Horizon. In Chan Chan: Andean
Desert City, edited by Michael Moseley and Kent
Day, pp. 285-320. Albuquerque: University of
New Mexico Press.
1982b Community Organization Reflected by the
Household: A Study of Pre-Columbian Social
Dynamics. Journal of Field Archaeology 9(2):165-
181.
1995 The Structural Paradox: Moche Culture as
Political Ideology. Latin American Antiquity
6(3):255-273.
1996 The Moche. The Peoples of America series.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers.
Billman, Brian
1996 The Evolution of Prehistoric Political Organization
in the Moche Valley, Peru. Ph.D. dissertation,
University of California, Santa Barbara.
Castillo, Luis Jaime
2001 The Last of the Mochicas: A View from the
Jequetepeque Valley. In Moche Art and Archaeol-
ogy in Ancient Peru, edited by Joanne Pillsbury,
pp. 307-329. Studies in the History of Art 63.
Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts,
Symposium Papers 40. Washington, D.C., Na-
tional Gallery of Art.
2003 Los ltimos mochicas en Jequetepeque. In
Moche: Hacia el Final del Milenio, Volume 2,
edited by Santiago Uceda and Elias Mujica, pp.
65-123. Trujillo, Per and Lima:Universidad
Nacional de Trujillo and Pontificia Universidad
Catlica del Per-Fondo Editorial 2003.
Castillo, Luis Jaime and Christopher Donnan
1994 La ocupacin Moche de San Jos de Moro,
Jequetepeque. In Moche: Propuestas y Perspecti-
vas, edited by Santiago Uceda and Elias Mujica,
pp. 93-146. Travaux de lInstitut Franais dtudes
Andines 79. Universidad Nacional de La
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Libertad-Trujillo, Lima: lInstitut Franais
dtudes Andines, and Lima: Asociacin Perua-
na Para el Fomento de las Ciencias Sociales.
Conrad, Geoffrey
1974 Burial Platforms and Related Structures on the
North Coast of Peru: Some Social and Political
Implications. Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard Univer-
sity, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
De Bock, Edward
2003 Templo de la escalera y ola y la hora del sacrificio
humano. In Moche: Hacia el final del milenio,
Volume 1, edited by Santiago Uceda and Elias
Mujica, pp. 307-324. Trujillo, Per: Universidad
Nacional de Trujillo and Lima: Pontificia
Universidad Catlica del Per-Fondo Editorial.
DeMarrais, Elizabeth, Luis Jaime Castillo, and Timothy
Earle
1996 Ideology, Materialization, and Power Strategies.
Current Anthropology 37(1):15-31.
Donnan, Christopher
1973 Moche Occupation of the Santa Valley, Peru.
University of California Publications in Anthro-
pology 8. Berkeley: University of California Press.
1975 The Thematic Approach to Moche Iconography.
Journal of Latin American Lore 1(2):147-162.
1978 Moche Art of Peru. Fowler Museum of Cultural
History, University of California, Los Angeles.
1992 Ceramics of Ancient Peru. Fowler Museum of
Cultural History, University of California, Los
Angeles.
2001 Moche Ceramic Portraits. In Moche Art and
Archaeology in Ancient Peru, edited by Joanne
Pillsbury, pp. 127-139. Studies in the History of
Art 63. Center for Advanced Study in the Visual
Arts, Symposium Papers 40. Washington, D.C.:
National Gallery of Art.
Donnan, Christopher and Luis Jaime Castillo
1992 Finding the Tomb of a Moche Priestess. Archae-
ology 6(45):38-42.
1994 Excavaciones de tumbas de sacerdotisas Moche
en San Jos de Moro, Jequetepeque. In Moche:
Propuestas y Perspectivas, edited by S. Uceda and
E. Mujica, pp. 415-424. Travaux de lInstitut Fran-
ais dEtudes Andines 79. Trujillo, Per:
Universidad Nacional de La Libertad-Trujillo
and Lima: lInstitut Franais dtudes Andines
and Lima: Asociacin Peruana Para el Fomento
de las Ciencias Sociales.
Donnan, Christopher and Guillermo Cock, editors
1997 The Pacatnamu Papers, Volume 2: The Moche
Occupation. Fowler Museum of Cultural History,
University of California, Los Angeles.
- 216
Donnan, Christopher and Donna McClelland
1979 The Burial Theme in Moche Iconography. Studies
in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology 21.
Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks.
1999 Moche Fineline Painting: Its Evolution and Its
Artists. Fowler Museum of Cultural History,
University of California, Los Angeles.
Friedrich, Margaret
1970 Design Structure and Social Interaction: Ar-
chaeological Implications of an Ethnographic
Analysis. American Antiquity 35(3):332-343.
Hill, Erica
1998 Death as a Rite of Passage: The Iconography of
the Moche Burial Theme. Antiquity 72:528-538.
Hocquenghem, Anne Marie
1987 Iconografa mochica. Lima: Fondo Editorial de la
Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Per.
Kaulicke, Peter
1992 Moche, Vics Moche y el Mochica Temprano.
Bulletin de lInstitut Franais dtudes Andines
21(3):853-903.
Larco, Rafael
1948 Cronologa arqueolgica del norte del Per. Biblio-
teca del Museo de Arqueologa Rafael Larco
Herrera, Hacienda Chicln. Buenos Aires: Socie-
dad Geogrfica Americana.
Lockard, Gregory
2001 Informe de excavaciones del Proyecto Galindo
2000. Unpublished preliminary report presented
to the Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Lima.
2002 Informe de excavaciones del Proyecto Galindo
2001. Unpublished preliminary report presented
to the Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Lima.
2003 Informe de excavaciones del Proyecto Galindo
2002. Unpublished preliminary report presented
to the Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Lima.
2005 Political Power and Economy at the Archaeological
Site of Galindo, Moche Valley, Peru. Ph.D. disser-
tation, University of New Mexico.
2009 The Occupational History of Galindo, Moche
Valley, Peru. Latin American Antiquity 20(2):279-
302.
McClelland, Donna
1990 A Maritime Passage from Moche to Chimu. In
The Northern Dynasties: Kingship and Statecraft in
Chimor, edited by Michael Moseley and Alana
Cordy-Collins, pp. 75-106. Washington, D.C.:
Dumbarton Oaks.
1997 Moche Fineline Ceramics at Pacatnamu. In The
Pacatnamu Papers, Volume 2: The Moche Occupa-
tion, edited by Christopher Donnan and Guiller-
mo Cock, pp. 265-282. Fowler Museum of Cul-
tural History, University of California, Los An-
geles.
217 -
McClelland, Donna, Donald McClelland, and Christopher
Donnan
2007 Moche Fineline Painting from San Jos de Moro.
Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of
California at Los Angeles.
Mosely, Michael
1992 The Incas and their Ancestors. London: Thames
and Hudson.
Pimentel, Victor and Mara Isabel Paredes
2003 Evidencias Moche V en tambos y caminos entre
los valles de Santa y Chao, Per. In Moche: Hacia
el final del milenio, Volume 1, edited by Santiago
Uceda and Elias Mujica, pp. 269-303. Universi-
dad Nacional de Trujillo, Per and Pontificia
Universidad Catlica del Per-Fondo Editorial3.
Plog, Stephen
1980 Stylistic Variation in Prehistoric Ceramics: Design
Analysis in the American Southwest. New Studies
in Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Pozorski, Shelia
1979 Prehistoric Diet and Subsistence of the Moche
Valley, Peru. World Archaeology 2(2):163-184.
Redman, Charles
1977 The Analytical Individual and Prehistoric
Style Variability. In The Individual in Prehistory:
Studies of Variability in Style in Prehistoric Tech-
nologies, edited by James M. Hill and Joel Gunn,
pp. 41-53. New York: Academic Press.
Rowe, John
1960 Cultural Unity and Diversity in Peruvian Ar-
chaeology. In Men and Cultures, Selected Papers,
5th International Congress of Anthropological and
Ethnological Sciences, edited by Anthony F. C.
Wallace, pp. 627-631. Philadephia: University of
Pennsylvania Press.
1962 Stages and Periods in Archaeological Interpreta-
tion. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology
18(1):40-54.
Russell, Glenn, Banks Leonard, and Jess Briceo
1994a Produccin de cermica Moche a gran escala en
el valle de Chicama, Per: El taller de Cerro
Mayal. In Tecnologa y organizacin de la produc-
cin de cermica prehispnica en los Andes, edited
by Izumi Shimada, pp. 201-227. Lima: Fondo
Editorial de la Pontificia Universidad Catlica
del Per.
1994b Cerro Mayal: Nuevos datos sobre produccin de
cermica Moche en el valle de Chicama. In
Moche: Propuestas y Perspectivas, edited by San-
tiago Uceda and Elias Mujica, pp. 181-206.
Travaux de lInstitut Franais dtudes Andines 79.
Trujillo, Per: Universidad Nacional de La
Libertad-Trujillo and Lima: lInstitut Franais
Lockard: Moche fineline sherds from Galindo
dtudes Andines and Asociacin Peruana Para
el Fomento de las Ciencias Sociales.
Shimada, Izumi
1976 Socioeconomic Organization at Moche V Pampa
Grande, Peru: Prelude to a Major Transformation
to Come. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Ari-
zona, Tucson.
1994 Pampa Grande and the Mochica Culture. Austin:
University of Texas Press.
Ubbelohde-Doering, Heinrich
1983 Vorspanische Graber von Pacatnam, NordPeru.
Materialen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden
Archologie 26. Berlin: Verlag C.H. Beck, Ber-
lin.
Uceda, Santiago and Jos Armas
1997 Los Talleres Alfareros en el Centro Urbano Mo-
che. In Investigaciones en la Huaca de la Luna
1995, edited by Santiago Uceda, Elias Mujica,
and Ricardo Morales, pp. 93-104. Facultad de
Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Nacional de La
Libertad-Trujillo, Per.
Uceda, Santiago, Ricardo Morales, Jos Canziani and
Mara Montoya
1994 Investigaciones sobre la arquitectura y relieves
polcromos en la Huaca de la Luna, valle de
Moche. In Moche: propuestas y perspectivas, edited
by Santiago Uceda and Elias Mujca, pp. 251-
303. Travaux de lInstitut Franais dtudes An-
dines 79. Universidad Nacional de La Libertad-
Trujillo, Instituto Francs de Estudios Andinos,
and Asociacin Peruana Para el Fomento de las
Ciencias Sociales (Lima).
Wassn, Henry
1989 El ulluchu en la iconografa y ceremonias de
sangre Moche: La bsqueda de su identificacin.
Boletn del Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino
3:25-45.
Watson, Patty Jo
1977 Design Analysis of Painted Pottery. American
Antiquity 42(3):381-393.
Willey, Gordon
1948 Functional Analysis of Horizon Styles in Peru-
vian Archaeology. In A Reappraisal of Peruvian
Archaeology, edited by Wendell Bennett, pp. 8-
15. Society for American Archaeology Memoir 4,
Menasha, Wisconsin.
1953 Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Viru Valley,
Peru. Smithsonian Institution Bureau of Amer-
ican Ethnology Bulletin 155. Washington, D.C.:
United States Government Printing Office.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 218

Figure 1: Map of the north coast of Peru, indicating the location of sites mentioned in the text.
219 - Lockard: Moche fineline sherds from Galindo

Figure 2: Examples of stirrup spout motifs and their associated types.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 220

Figure 3: Distribution of motifs in the geometric sample (n=228).

Note: Some sherds have more than one motif (see Table 4).
221 - Lockard: Moche fineline sherds from Galindo

Figure 4: Examples of Motif 1 types and interstitial elements.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 222

Figure 5: Distribution of Motif 1 interstitial elements (n=94).

Figure 6: Distribution of Motif 2 types and interstitial elements (n=24).

223 - Lockard: Moche fineline sherds from Galindo

Figure 7: Examples of Motif 2 types and interstitial elements.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 224

Figure 8: Distribution of Motif 3 (n=10), Motif 5 (n=7), and Motif 6 (n=16) types.
225 - Lockard: Moche fineline sherds from Galindo

Figure 9: Examples of Motifs 3-8 and their associated types.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 226

Figure 10: Examples of sherds with other repeating motifs and sherds with lines and solid areas only.
227 - Lockard: Moche fineline sherds from Galindo

Figure 11: Examples of sherds depicting animals and plants.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 228

Figure 12: Examples of sherds depicting humans, anthropomorphs, and tools/accoutrements.

 MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE: A STUDY OF TWO NASCA MOTIFS
INTRODUCTION
Studies of Nasca art (100 B.C.-A.D. 750)
have largely focused on the slip-painted fine-
ware of this civilization. It is generally accepted
that these polychrome vessels are carriers of
religious ideology. The analysis of this cultures
art has included the identification and definition
of descriptive types (e.g.: Proulx 2006; Roark
1965; Seler 1961) as well as iconographic studies
based on comparative archaeological data (Car-
michael 1992) or on ethnographic analogies
(Proulx 2001).1 Through these approaches, the
importance of agriculture and fertility and the
association of death imagery with agricultural
abundance has been well documented.
In this study I focus primarily on the eye-
shaped navel on the Anthropomorphic Mythical
Being as it is depicted in Phases 3, 4, and 5 of
the Nasca sequence, and on a related arrange-
ment I am calling the Corn Configuration. I
propose that the eye motif is a sign that refers to
sprouting potential and seed-like qualities.
Through an analysis of substitution and abbrevi-
ation patterns, I demonstrate that the meaning
of this eye-shaped sign is applicable to different
figure types, so that it is not an exclusive trait of
the Anthropomorphic Mythical Being, but
carries this meaning regardless of where it is
depicted. Nasca artists used the eye sign as an
indicator of plant forms (phytomorphs). This
identification is in agreement with what we
know about Nasca mythical iconography, due to
the clear association between many mythical
1
The history of the research of Nasca art has been
thoroughly summarized by Silverman and Proulx (2002).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009): 229-247.
ANA NIEVES
Northeastern Illinois University
beings and agriculture (see Carmichael 1992,
1994; Proulx 1989). However, thus far icono-
graphic studies have relied only on iconic2
representations of plants, fruits, and vegetables
as signifiers of agricultural abundance, failing to
acknowledge the possibility of a more complex
metaphoric strategy involving signifiers that do
not resemble the signified.
WHOLENESS AND FRAGMENTATION
Before embarking on an analysis of the eye-
shaped navel on the Anthropomorphic Mythical
Being and the Corn Configuration, it is impor-
tant to address the relationship between Nasca
painted representations per se and the objects on
which they are depicted, because this affects
how viewers experience Nasca art in general.
The relationship between painted images and
the ceramic vessels that support them has been
largely omitted from studies and interpretations
of Nasca iconography. The main reason for this
oversight is possibly that iconographers rely on
line drawings for the analysis of Nasca images
(for example, Figures 1a, 1b, 8-12). In part this
is due to the easier reproduction of line drawings
(vis--vis photographs) in publications as well as
the readability of the figures as a whole, with
all their identifying attributes.
The main problem with using such drawings is
that information is invariably lost. Rollout
drawings, in particular, disregard the three
dimensionality of the vase and the relationship
2
I am using the term iconic in its most traditional and
basic definition in art historical writing, which is to equate
the term with the naturalistic representation of an object.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
of the painted figures to the shape of the vessel.
For example, there are Nasca bowls that depict
fish in their interiors, as if one were looking into
containers full of water while fish swim inside
them (Proulx 2006:150-151). The artists who
painted these bowls took the experience of the
viewer looking at them into account, but this is
lost in a line drawing of the same fish motif. In
a similar vein, one could argue that the relation-
ship between the painted image and the shape
of the vessel also adds a level of complexity to
the representation of Nasca mythical beings,3
which is also lost in line drawings.
A recurring figure in Nasca iconography, the
Anthropomorphic Mythical Being (Figures 1-4),
is a masked creature that has received many
names in various publications. Henceforth I am
simply referring to this being as AMB, because
this is the abbreviation used in Proulxs Source-
book of Nasca Ceramic Iconography (Proulx
2006). The AMB is always depicted with a
mouth-mask and a headdress, round ear orna-
ments, and a necklace.4 It is often shown hold-
ing or carrying trophy heads and/or holding a
club. The AMB often wraps around the exterior
of vessels. When this is the case, its entire body
is not visible at once. Because of the practicality
of the rollout drawing in describing the main
traits in the iconography, we have grown accus-
tomed to seeing the entire body simultaneously,
as a whole (Figures 1a and 1b), but this is rarely
the experience of the viewer when holding an
actual object. To view the entire AMB, the
viewer must rotate the vessel (Figures 2-4). As
one portion of its body is visible, others are
hidden. One could, therefore, see the very
identifiable face of the AMB (Figures 2a, 3a,
3 ondary forms that the main figure itself is
In studies of Nasca art the term mythical beings refers
to elaborate creatures that combine a number of elements
such as a necklace, mouth-mask and a forehead ornament
(Silverman and Proulx 2002:137).
4
Donald Proulx (2006:62-79) outlined the variations in
which this being appears in Nasca art.
- 230
and 4a), but not the objects on its body. Con-
versely, one could also see the torso and a
portion of the figures streamer or extension
(Figures 2b, 3b, and 4b) without a clear view of
the head. In Figure 3b, for example, the image
simply appears to consist of a series of horizontal
bands with other motifs on them. The main
figure is not immediately apparent and could
even be overlooked by an uninformed viewer.
However, the smaller motifs on its body are easy
to read and immediately identifiable (heads,
banded layer, single eye). From this side it is
impossible to tell that the eye is the navel of the
main figure, but its central location makes this
motif stand out. This is a sharp contrast from
rollout line drawings of this motif where the eye
gets lost as a secondary motif within the larger
body of this being. In rollout drawings (Figure
1a) the eye lacks the emphasis it has when the
body of the AMB wraps around a vessel. The
result of this obstruction is, to some degree, a
fragmentation of the body of the AMB, where
seemingly secondary motifs dominate the
composition, at least when seen from one side.
Fragmentation allows the "secondary" motif to
exist on its own, becoming the focal point of one
side of the vessel (Figures 2b and 3b). From this
viewpoint, the wholeness of the AMB's body
seems irrelevant, as the focal point has shifted to
this eye-shaped motif.
In her study of Paracas Necropolis embroi-
deries, Dwyer (1979) discussed a similar situa-
tion where principal figures and secondary
figures compete for the viewers attention in
Early Intermediate Period 2 (EIP 2) embroidered
motifs. According to Dwyer:
There may be such a multiplication of sec-
difficult to discern. . . In some cases, the
principal figure seems to be merely a vehi-
cle for carrying these multiple motifs, and
is constructed merely by the juxtaposition
of many secondary thematic elements. In
231 -
other cases, a secondary figure may
have such significance for the design
that it is greatly enlarged and has sec-
ondary figures of its own. Since the
secondary elements seem to carry a
substantial part of the designs mean-
ing, the artists focus was upon render-
ing each of them as carefully and as
clearly as possible (ibid.: 121).
The aesthetic described by Dwyer in EIP 2
embroideries is the same as that of Nasca slip-
painted pottery representations described above.
The fact that the main figure wraps around the
vessel and that visibility of the figure is partially
obstructed adds some importance to the sec-
ondary motifs on this being. The eye-shaped
navel, often assumed to be a secondary motif,
is the focal point of the composition on one side
of the vessel.
The fragmentation of the AMB through the
partial obstruction of its body, as described
above, occurs primarily in Phase 3 (e.g. Proulx
1968: plate 1a), Phase 4 (e.g. Proulx 1968: plate
2b), and Phase 5 (Figures 2-4) of the Nasca
sequence. During Phase 5, it coexists with
another type of fragmentation, best explained as
a pars pro toto representation of some mythical
beings (e.g. the Bloody Mouth motif as a repre-
sentation of an abbreviated Mythical Killer
Whale motif). In Nasca 5 pars pro toto represen-
tations, the wholeness of the mythical being is
not relevant, and only portions of this being
become the focal point. It can be argued that
fragmentation of Nasca mythical beings also
occurs in late Nasca phases, where the repeti-
tion of secondary motifs cause the virtual
dissolution of the main figure's body.
Catherine Allen (1981) attempted to work
with this particular characteristic of Nasca art
by applying a linguistic approach to the imagery.
Allen described Nasca art as:
Nieves: Two Nasca Motifs
a complex and highly structured icono-
graphic system. In other words, one may
recognize a finite set of design motifs,
which are interrelated according to recog-
nizable combinatory rules (Allen 1981:
44).5
She admitted that there are limitations in the
study of Nasca art, however, because the refer-
ents for many of the Nasca figures may not be
obvious to the audience. According to Allen:
in Nasca iconography we have access to
the syntactic dimension of a semiotic sys-
tem; we have very limited access to the
semantic dimension; and the pragmatic
dimension is closed to us (Allen 1981:46).
In her analysis of the structure of Nasca
signs, Allen nevertheless defined some motifs as
major motifs and others as secondary. In this
structure:
subsidiary elements have a kind of adjecti-
val function, apparently modifying, or
providing information about, the major
motifs (Allen 1981:47).
She focused on how two of these motifs, the
mouth-mask and the trophy head, were used
within the larger figures, arguing for the employ-
ment of visual metonymy in Nasca art. Allens
study is innovative in her attempt to draw
attention to these motifs, and in proposing a
methodology that would elucidate the internal
5
Recent evidence suggests that Nasca polychrome
ceramics were manufactured in restricted locations during
the early Nasca phases. These wares were likely to have
been manufactured at Cahuachi and redistributed to other
locations (Vaughn and Neff 2000; Vaughn et al. 2006).
Religious specialists, according to Vaughn and Neff
(2000), were active in pottery manufacture. If this is the
case, then the consistency and regularity in Nasca iconog-
raphy could be explained by its centralized production and
limited number of artists/priests involved in the creation
of these vessels.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
logic of Nasca images. The approach to be
demonstrated here is closely related to Allens
approach, because it also involves the analysis of
the internal structure of Nasca imagery and
demonstrates a metonymic relationship between
signs. I also focus on the internal relationship
between signs (the combinatory rules), because
this structure sheds light on associations that
Nasca artists themselves made. However, I push
Allens ideas even further and argue for the
existence of recurring Nasca symbols in which
the signifier does not resemble the signified.
Even when plants or vegetables are not repre-
sented in a naturalistic manner alongside Nasca
mythical beings, the simple addition of these
subtle signs would have served to evoke the
ideas of vegetation and plants to the initiated
audience. The fragmentation that occurs when
the larger figures wrap around vessels allows
these signs to be viewed independently from
these mythical beings. Because these signs carry
their own meanings and associations, they not
only can exist as independent symbols, but their
meaning is also transferable to other beings.
THE EYE-SHAPED SEED MARKER
There have been various hypotheses pro-
posed to explain the significance of the AMB in
Nasca art. The AMB is also known by other
names, depending on the interpretations sup-
ported by each scholar. Mara Rostworowski
(1992), for example, identified the AMB as the
god Con, a coastal deity who turned the coast
into a desert. This god is described as having no
bones and having the ability to move swiftly
across large distances and perhaps even fly (ibid.:
21). The characteristics that lead Rostworowski
to associate the AMB with Con include the fact
that the AMB sometimes looks as if it is flying,
with its body extended horizontally, as well as
the occasional representation of the AMB with
wings. Based in part on the same traits, Ralph
Can (1985) argued that this figure represents a
shaman in flight. Other scholars preferred a less
- 232
specific term to refer to this being. Proulxs
(1968, 2006) name for this being, the Anthro-
pomorphic Mythical Being, emphasizes the
human qualities of its body. Roark (1965) also
argued that the earlier versions of this being
represented masked men, while later versions
depicted supernatural beings. According to
Roark, although other mythical beings are
composite creatures, this beings body is purely
human (ibid.: 17).6 This stands in direct oppo-
sition to Selers (1961 [1923]) identification of
this figure as a Cat Demon due to the shape of
its mask that resembles whiskers. However,
because of the occasional depictions of this
being holding or carrying plants, Seler also refers
to it as a Vegetation Demon, one of the
Bringers of Foodstuffs (ibid.: 206). Proulx
separated the AMB into types, based in part on
the signifier or streamer attached to each
AMB. Although most were associated with
animals, there is one type of AMB that clearly
includes a plant signifier. I support the idea
that the AMB is a composite creature, and that
one of its primary non-anthropomorphic traits is
that of a seed or plant. However, I argue that
this figure could still represent a plant or seed
even when plants are not naturalistically repre-
sented. A close inspection of the motifs that are
associated with the AMB will substantiate this
proposition.
Although the relationship of the AMB to
agriculture is visible in its association with the
sprouting head motif that is occasionally shown
on the AMBs back (Figures 1a, 1b, and 4b), a
recurring symbol which is by far more subtle
gives this figure phytomorphic qualities that are
present even when other plants or vegetables
are not. This trait, which appears very often on
the torso of the AMB, is the eye-shaped navel.
The navel is not usually represented on the
6
According to this author, the signifier (streamer that
is attached to the back of the AMB) is the only portion of
this creature that has any non-anthropomorphic
characteristics.
233 -
standing AMBs but on the depictions of this
being in an extended pose, belonging to Phases
3 (e.g. Proulx 1968: plate 1a), 4 (e.g. ibid.: plate
2b), and 5 (Figures 2-4). It is rare to find the
eye-shaped navel among winged AMBs, but it is
present in some of such representations. When
present, the eye-shaped navel is usually large
enough to be immediately identified by the
viewer.
The identification of the navel as an eye is
made here based on its appearance. It is usually
lens shaped, although there are examples of
circular eye-shaped navels. The interior of this
shape is always white, outlined with a dark
contour, and has a dark dot (pupil) in the
center. When this eye-shape navel is lens
shaped, the pointed ends are aligned to one of
the dark stripes that run along the torso of the
AMB. Although there are several ways that
Nasca artists represented eyes, especially to
differentiate between the eyes of trophy heads
and those of mythical beings, there is a connec-
tion made by Nasca artists between the AMBs
own eyes and its eye-shaped navel as they usu-
ally have the same shape within a single cup
(see Figures 1a, 2, and 4, for example). Few
scholars have mentioned the eye-shaped navel
or speculated on its significance. Seler (1961:
191) described it as an eye or a hole. Roark
simply points out that the navel is drawn in the
same manner as the eyes (Roark 1965:22) but
does not give any reason for this association.
Although at first this motif seems peculiar,
the significance of this type of marking is evi-
dent if one considers the many representations
of seeds in Nasca art (Figures 5 and 6). These
motifs, which have been labeled as beans, are
usually depicted in the shape of a drop with a
pointed end. According to Proulx:
[these] are always drawn in multiples, with
one end of the seed pointed and the oppo-
site end somewhat larger and more round-
Nieves: Two Nasca Motifs
ed. The oval-shaped scar or hilum, where
the seed was originally attached to the
pod, is clearly drawn on the edge of the
bean (Proulx 2006:164).
The hilum is depicted as an outlined semicircu-
lar form around a dark spot. In fact, this resem-
bles an eye with an eccentric or pendant pupil.
The resemblance to an eye does not appear to
be coincidental, because some beans are even
represented with two hila (Figure 7), an impossi-
bility in nature. Visually, however, the pairing of
the hila makes this type of seed resemble a head.
These drop-shaped motifs are usually re-
ferred to as beans. However, I prefer to use the
more generic term seeds. The pointed end on
these seeds shows that Nasca artists were not at-
tempting a naturalistic depiction of a bean or a
seed (beans do not have sharp points), but a
very abstracted or stylized one.7 Often, this
point is emphasized by the addition of a line that
separates this portion of the seed from the
rounded lower portion. Sometimes the point is
painted a different color than the rest of the
seed, making this pointed form stand out even
more (see Figures 6 and 7).
Evidence that the hilum marker on these
seeds is shown as, or compared to, an eye can be
found on Figure 8, which depicts an extended
figure with a drop-shaped seed as part of its
body. In this representation, the hilum is shown
attached to a stem that takes the form of two
serpents. More importantly, however, the hilum
is executed exactly in the same way as the
upturned eyes of the main figure.8 Furthermore,
7
These motifs are so abstracted that they have confused
scholars such as Seler (1961), who identified them as
dates.
8
In Figure 8 the eye-shaped navel repeats the shape of the
main figures eyes as well as the eye shown on the breech-
cloth. It is likely that the breechcloth eye is another
fertility reference due to its strategic placement on the
genital area.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
the eye-hilum is located in the middle of this
figures torso, where one would expect to find a
navel. The hilum is the point of union between
seed and plant, an important nexus crucial for
the seeds ability to live and eventually germi-
nate. Since the navel can also be seen as a point
of attachment, its association with a hilum
demonstrates a visual parallel between seeds and
humans.
Iconographic evidence further supports the
identification of the eye-shaped navel as a seed
marker on the AMB specifically. On one exam-
ple published by Seler (1961), shown on Figure
9, a very identifiable shape of a seed substitutes
for the AMBs body. In this case the beans
hilum, done in the shape of an upturned eye,
also coincides with the placement of the navel.
The stripes on the bean echo the longitudinal
bands on the torso of the AMB (Figures 1-4). In
other words, Figure 9 shows the longhand
version of the AMBs torso. In other representa-
tions of the AMB (such as those seen in Figures
1a and b), the eye-hilum marker, without the
rest of the beans shape, stands in for an abbre-
viated bean or seed. This is a clear example of
visual synecdoche, a part (the hilum) standing
for the whole (the seed). At the same time, by
placing the eye-hilum on the AMB, the artists
have symbolically charged this figure with
agricultural references. This navel-eye is also a
metaphor, because an eye does not naturalisti-
cally represent a navel or a seed.
In the example on Figure 1b, the eye-hilum
relates another anthropomorphic being to a
seed. In this image, the AMB holds a smaller
anthropomorphic figure that is wearing neither
clothing nor ornaments. It has a clear eye-shap-
ed navel, however. This is a decapitated individ-
ual who also happens to be sprouting corn out of
its neck and chili peppers from its fingertips.
The eye-shaped navel not only ascribes the
sprouting potential of a seed to the AMB, it also
does this for the decapitated individual.
- 234
The eye-shaped navel is therefore a symbol
that relates the Nasca AMB to a seed or, at the
very least, attributes plant-like qualities to this
being, even when other iconic representations of
plants are not present. Another aspect of the
AMBs iconography that supports this associa-
tion between this figure and seeds or plants
involves the depiction of mice that are often
shown approaching the AMB or nibbling parts
of its body (Figure 1b, for example). According
to Proulx, rodents like these are most often
depicted:
nibbling on corncobs with their large jaws.
. . They are almost always painted black,
on a white background. Rodents are never
painted singularly; they always occur in
multiples, in imitation of their natural pro-
clivity to live in packs (Proulx 2006:144-
145).
Undoubtedly the Nasca had observed the be-
havior of mice in agricultural fields and were
familiar with the threats they posed. In his
discussion of rodent imagery in Moche art,
Steve Bourget stated that rodents:
represent probably the most dangerous
pest for preindustrial agriculture. The re-
productive cycle of rodents is very rapid;
on average, the gestation period is about
20 days, and the female will give birth to
up to 8 pups per litter. The pups reach
maturity in 5 to 8 weeks. A single female
may produce up to 56 offspring annually.
Therefore, in optimal conditions, a single
pair of rodents and their offspring may pro-
duce a population of more than 50 rodents
in less than 120 days, a period correspond-
ing to the average time needed for maize
to reach maturity. . . A small population of
rodents at the beginning of the agricultural
season could thus literally, physically, and
metaphorically outgrow the crops and de-
235 -
stroy everything long before harvest time
(Bourget 2006:145-146).
These depictions of multiple rodents eating
crops are, therefore, showing a rather dangerous
scenario. Through the interchangeable repre-
sentation of the mice eating corn-cobs and the
AMB, Nasca artists have established a visual
link between the AMB and the seeds within the
corn-cob. However, I would argue that the
juxtaposition of the AMB and the rodents is
comparable to other juxtapositions of death and
agricultural fertility imagery in Nasca art (e.g.
Sprouting Heads and Harvester figures). The
fertility of mice depends on the crop, but their
abundance also threatens to destroy it, so life
and death are again related concepts embodied
in the AMB.
It is important to point out that even when
plants are not naturalistically represented, the
eye-shaped navel as seed marker is always a
reminder of this AMBs plant-like qualities (see
Proulx 1968: plate 2, 1989: plates xxvi-xxviii;
Townsend 1985: figure 20; inter alia). Any
attempt to categorize Nasca iconography should
include this eye-shaped sign as a reference to
agriculture and fertility,9 even if the eye is not
an iconic reference to plants in any way. How-
ever, this is not the only example in Nasca art in
which a seemingly anthropomorphic figure also
becomes phytomorphic through the incorpora-
tion of specific signs on its body. A related case
9
A recently excavated Nasca 5 jar from La Tiza (Conlee
2007) depicts a plant emerging from the top of a trophy
head. The plant has two eye-shaped signs on a striped
surface, which Proulx correctly identified as the AMB's
striped tunic (ibid.: 443). It is interesting to note that, in
this particular example, the eye-shaped navel has been
doubled. By having the eye appear twice, the sign is no
longer read as a navel on a torso. In this case, it is clearly
read as eyes on a plant. The addition of these eyes to the
plant turns the plant into a living being, but their presence
also reinforces the identification of this as a plant that can
produce seeds and, therefore, the eyes refer to seeds,
sprouting, and agricultural abundance.
Nieves: Two Nasca Motifs
involves the iconography of the Nasca Mythical
Harvester.
THE CORN CONFIGURATION
Harvesters are a common motif on Nasca
vases. They stand frontally, wear a conical or
pointed hat, and hold plants or agricultural
tools in their hands. Roark (1965:26) described
the Harvester figure (Figure 10) as a human, not
a mythical, figure due to the absence of animal
traits on its body, as well as the relatively small
amount of ornament proliferation10 seen with
this figure. However, Patrick Carmichael (1994)
argued that these are not simply depictions of
people involved in agriculture, but are instead
representations of the dead, closely associated
with agricultural abundance and fertility. He
based this association with death on the lines
that often decorate the mouths of Harvester
figures (resembling the spines which go through
the lips of trophy heads), their upturned eyes
(also part of trophy head representations), and
the markings on their chests (which make these
figures appear skeletal). According to Car-
michael, these images portray the dead bringing
the products of the harvest.
Proulx (1989:150) pointed out that there is
a more elaborate type of Harvester that, besides
having the conical hat and plants, also has a
necklace that is associated with mythical crea-
tures as well as a face that is painted with
spots (ibid.: 150). He named this type of figure
the Mythical Harvester (Figure 11). The Mythi-
cal Harvester differs from regular depictions of
Harvesters. This figures eyes are wide open,
much like the eyes of the AMB. Its lips are not
shown with spines, unlike those of regular
Harvesters. Skeletal markings are not shown on
its body either. These are the essential charac-
teristics with which to relate this figure to
10
Proliferation refers to the extensions, rays, volutes, and
other motifs that radiate from figures in Nasca art begin-
ning with Phase 5.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
representations of the dead, as Carmichael did
with other Harvester figures. At the same time,
the Mythical Harvesters pointed hat, posture,
and plants are definite indications that this
figure is a more elaborate version of the Har-
vesters. Carmichael did not address the iconog-
raphy of the Mythical Harvester in his study.
One of the most revealing versions of the
Mythical Harvester, shown in Figure 11, is in
the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.
The image of this Mythical Harvester appears
wrapped around the bottom of a cup. It wears
the conical hat and a necklace, and holds plants
of different types.11 In this particular example of
the Mythical Harvester, the artist has estab-
lished a relationship between the figure and the
corn-cobs that adorn its waist. Each corn-cob is
marked with an X, which represents the leaves
wrapped around the cob. Also in each corn-cob,
individual kernels are depicted as circular
shapes. The Mythical Harvester on this vase
also has an X on its torso. The shape of its hat
repeats the shape of the cob. Consistent with
this figures iconography, this Mythical Har-
vesters face is covered with round spots or dots.
Although Proulx interprets these dots as facial
paint possibly representing decorations worn
during harvest festivals (Proulx 2006:93), I
propose that the equation made between the
shape of this Mythical Harvester and the shape
of corn-cobs indicates that the dots on the face
of the Mythical Harvester correspond to the
dots on the corn-cob, i.e. the kernels. At least in
part, Nasca artists represented the Mythical
Harvester as an anthropomorphic corn-cob.
Although there are several ways in which Nasca
artists represented corn, this particular artist
purposefully repeated the same traits on both
the larger figure and the corn-cobs on its body.
This combination of traits (the X marking, the
11
Unlike the images of the AMB, the Mythical Harvester
is often assigned a specific sex by Nasca artists, because a
penis is sometimes suggested by the inclusion of a fruit or
plant in the pubic area (in this case, a chili pepper).
- 236
circular spots as corn kernels, and the pointed
Harvester hat) constitutes what I am defining
here as the Corn Configuration. At least one of
these traits, along with the necklace, is always
present on the Mythical Harvester, associating
this figure with the shape of corn. Although
there may be subtle changes in the different
motifs shown on its body, variations of figure
can still be cross-referenced with the Art Insti-
tute Mythical Harvester. This is the most widely
reproduced example, although other versions
have been published by Tello (1959: figure 105)
and by Rickenbach (1999:341-342).
Interestingly, the X marking is not limited to
representations of corn and Mythical Harvest-
ers. Some beans or drop-shaped seeds are also
decorated with an X (Proulx 2006: figure
5.231). Another motif that has the X marking is
the kidney-shaped fruit (Proulx 2006:165-166).
An Effigy Harvester in Figure 12 differs in some
ways from the Art Institute example. This
Harvester does not have the X or the conical
hat, but it still displays dots on its face. It is also
shown holding corn. Furthermore, its eyes are
located within two depictions of corn-cobs. The
artist has placed corn-cobs (which are full of
seeds) over the eyes of the main figure, equating
both. The juxtaposition of eyes and corn-cobs
reinforces the eye-seed metaphor.
It is interesting to note as well that the
pointed shape of the Harvester hat (Figures 10-
12) parallels the pointed shape of a seed in
Nasca art. Although speculative, I believe that
further research may indicate a connection
between this shape and the concept of fertility
or potential for sprouting.
An example of the Effigy Harvester, pub-
lished by Zuidema (Figure 13) shows this figure
with corn-cobs around the eyes and the facial
kernel markings. Below the streamers that
emerge from its mouth, the artist reinforces the
plant/seed symbolism through the inclusion of
237 -
an eye-shaped navel marking. This is the only
Mythical Harvester identified in the literature as
a corn-related deity. Zuidema (1972:50) called
this figure a Maize god due to the cobs around
its eyes. However, the eye-shaped navel and the
facial kernel markings also reinforce this figures
association with seeds and plants.
As was demonstrated with the eye-shaped
seed marker, Nasca symbols do not necessarily
resemble their referents. Therefore, other plants
need not be shown for the Corn Configuration
to symbolize agricultural fertility. A cup in the
collection of the Universidad Nacional Mayor
de San Marcos in Lima (Figure 14) is probably
the best example of this. In this representation,
the central figure, which wraps around the
bottom of the cup, has a necklace and wears a
pointed hat. Two figures cross to form an X over
its face. These characteristics alone relate this
central figure to the Corn Configuration. How-
ever, the shape of the hat and the X marking are
not the only plant symbols here. Not only does
the body of the figure also have an eye-shaped
navel, but the two smaller figures that cross
each other display seed markers. In fact, the
artist makes a small visual pun with the seed
marker, because the eyes of the larger figure are
also the navels of the smaller figures. The cross-
ed figures have even been provided with an
extra navel so that the viewer associates one
pair of eyes with the central figure and still sees
a navel on each of the crossed figures. It is
important to note that there are no other refer-
ences to agriculture on this cup. No plants,
fruits, or vegetables are represented in a natural-
istic manner on this vessel. Yet, due to the
incorporation of the Corn Configuration and
the seed markers, the observer, already initiated
in this subtle symbolism, can understand that
agricultural abundance is very much a part of
this representation.12
12
Ethnographic and linguistic evidence from the Andean
region provide comparable examples for the visual argu-
ment presented here. For instance, the link between the
Nieves: Two Nasca Motifs
CONCLUSIONS
Several conclusions can be drawn from the
identification of the seed marker and the Corn
Configuration. The fragmentation of the Nasca
mythical beings bodies that occurs as a result of
the placement of the figures around the cups
allows these signs to exist independently of the
larger figures. These signs can, therefore, exist
and carry meaning independent of the larger
figures, a meaning that is transferable to other
figures as well, as is demonstrated here.
Although the Corn Configuration is specific
in its direct references to the shape of a corn-
cob, the seed marker is not a naturalistic repre-
sentation of a bean or seed. The eye-hilum is
shown on the tear-shaped motif that is usually
assumed to be a bean, and yet it would be care-
less to call the eye a bean marker because: (1)
it is represented alongside the Corn Configura-
tion as well, and (2) the AMB is clearly associ-
ated with corn when depicted with rodents
eating its body. The eye as a sign seems to
indicate sprouting potential, the essence of a
seed, more than a specific type of seed.
eye and agriculture is also present in the Quechua lan-
guage. The word awi, which means eye, can refer to
the nodule from which something sprouts (Margot Beyers-
dorff, personal communication, 1998) or to a seed or even
a spring (Classen 1993:110). awi can also refer to dents
or holes, but always in relation to plants or vegetables.
Examples of this are the eyes of the potato, the black
holes on bark, and the holes in the ground into which
seeds are deposited (Herrero and Snchez Lozada 1983:
258; Beyersdorff 1984:67). Furthermore, the awi corn
and the awi potato refer to the seed corn and the seed
potato, i.e. the seed separated to start the crop (Margot
Beyersdorff, personal communication, 1998). In Quechua
the eye is, therefore, associated with sprouting, agricul-
ture, and the seeds themselves. According to Classen
(1993:19), the Aymara term nayra evokes similar associa-
tions. Finally, like the Andean concept of mallki, a term
that refers to both trees and ancestors, the AMB and the
Mythical Harvester relate plant forms and humans, as well
as life and death (ibid.: 89-90; Gonzlez Holgun
1952:632).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
The incorporation of the eye-shaped
seed marker and the Corn Configuration into
the bodies of the AMB and the Mythical Har-
vester is important for the understanding of
these Nasca supernatural beings. These signs are
not simply appendages or decorating elements;
they transform the beings of which they are part.
Therefore, one of the essential aspects of the
AMB and the Mythical Harvester is that of
plants. However, these figures are not simply
associated with plant forms, they are plants.
While both the AMB and the Mythical Har-
vester have strong connections to death icono-
graphy, life and fertility are represented on their
bodies through the incorporation of the eye-
shaped seed marker and/or the Corn Configura-
tion. Like seeds, which appear to be dry and
dead only to become green, moist, and full of life
when planted, these beings embody the agricul-
tural cycle of life from death13 even when other
naturalistic depictions of plants are not present.
The link between the eye, agriculture, and
death is also present in a Nasca motif identified
by Proulx as motif TH-3 or Symbolic Eye Form
of Trophy Head (Proulx 2006:109), part of the
iconography of Nasca Phases 5 and 6. Fragmen-
tation is particularly important during Nasca 5,
as pars pro toto representations are common in
the iconography alongside the type of fragmen-
tation described above. Proulx described this
Symbolic Eye as an abbreviated trophy head,
consisting only of the upturned eye and carrying
cord (Figure 15). It seems to be significant,
however, that the eye is used as a substitution
for the entire head, and even more significant
that the eye has an upturned or pendant pupil.
As it is demonstrated above, drop-shaped seeds
also have a pendant or eccentric pupil as a
hilum. Because this is a trait of trophy head
iconography, this motif seems to fully conflate
13
Salomon and Urioste (1991:16) discuss the importance
of the life cycle of plants in relation to that of humans and
the significance of this relationship to the treatment of
ancestors among Andean groups.
- 238
the trophy head with the seed. In fact, this
could be an abbreviated version specifically of
the Sprouting Head motif. The eye-shaped sign
continues to be used as part of the visual vocab-
ulary of Nasca artists through Nasca Phase 7
(see ibid.: 109-111). Although later phases of
Nasca art need further study, as a research
hypothesis I propose that the eye sign maintains
these same meanings and associations through-
out the rest of the Nasca sequence, regardless of
the changes in style.
The seed marker and the Corn Configura-
tion are both icons and symbols. The use of the
eye to stand for the whole seed also involves a
synecdochic relationship. At the same time
these motifs act as symbols of agriculture and
fertility, transforming their wearers even when
naturalistic fruits and vegetables are not de-
picted. Formerly, the lack of representations of
plants on some Nasca polychrome vessels has
been used as evidence of the dichotomy be-
tween warfare and agriculture in Nasca art
(Roark 1965; Proulx 1989), yet to the initiated
observer, the simple representation of an eye
may have been sufficient to evoke the ideas of
seeds, plants, sprouting potential, or agricultural
abundance.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The ideas in this article were originally presented at
a seminar led by Dr. Terence Grieder at the University of
Texas at Austin. A later version of that paper was pre-
sented in 2000 at the Nineteenth Annual Northeast
Conference on Andean Archaeology and Ethnohistory.
Dr. Donald Proulx and Merchant Adams read versions of
this manuscript in various stages of completion.
REFERENCES CITED
Allen, Catherine
1981 The Nasca Creatures: Some Problems of Iconog-
raphy. Anthropology 5:43-70.
Beyersdorff, Margot
1984 Lxico agropecuario quechua. Cusco: Centro de
Estudios Rurales Andinos Bartolom de las
Casas.
239 -
Bourget, Steve
2006 Sex, Death, and Sacrifice in Moche Religion and
Visual Culture. Austin: The University of Texas
Press.
Can, Ralph
1985 Problemas arqueolgicos e iconogrficos: En-
foques nuevos. Boletn de Lima 37:38-44.
Carmichael, Patrick
1992 Interpreting Nasca Iconography. In Ancient
Images, Ancient Thought: The Archaeology of
Ideology (Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Chacmool
Conference), edited by A. Sean Goldsmith, S.
Garvie, D. Selin, and J. Smith, pp.187-297.
Calgary, Alberta, Canada: University of Calgary
Archaeological Association.
1994 The Life and Death Continuum in Nasca Imag-
ery. Andean Past 4:81-90.
Classen, Constance
1993 Inca Cosmology and the Human Body. Salt Lake
City: University of Utah Press.
Conlee, Christina A.
2007 Decapitation and Rebirth. Current Anthropology
48:438-445.
Dwyer, Jane P.
1979 The Chronology and Iconography of Paracas
Style Textiles. The Junius B. Bird Pre-Columbian
Textile Conference (May 19th and 20th, 1973),
edited by Ann Pollard Rowe, Elizabeth P. Ben-
son, and Anne Louise Shaffer. Washington,
D.C.: The Textile Museum and Dumbarton
Oaks.
Gonzlez Holgun, Diego
1952 [1608] Vocabulario de la lengua general de todo el
Per llamada lengua qquichua o del inca. Lima: Im-
prenta Santa Mara, Universidad Nacional
Mayor de San Marcos.
Herrero, Joaqun and Federico Snchez de Lozada
1983 Diccionario quechua: Estructura semntica del
quechua cochabambino contemporneo. Cocha-
bamba, Bolivia: C.E.F. Co.
Proulx, Donald
1968 Local Differences and Time Differences in Nasca
Pottery. University of California Publications in
Anthropology 5. Los Angeles: University of Cali-
fornia Press.
1989 A Thematic Approach to Nasca Mythical Ico-
nography. Faenza: Bollettino del Museo Intern-
azionalle delle Ceramiche di Faenza 75(4-6):141-
158, plates XXIII-XXXI.
2001 Ritual Uses of Trophy Heads in Ancient Nasca
Society. Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru, edited by
Elizabeth P. Benson and Anita G. Cook. Austin:
The University of Texas Press.
Nieves: Two Nasca Motifs
2006 A Sourcebook of Nasca Ceramic Iconography:
Reading a Culture Through its Art. Iowa City: The
University of Iowa Press.
Rickenbach, Judith
1999 Nasca: Geheimnisvolle Zeichen im Alten Peru.
Vienna: Museum fr Vlkerkunde.
Roark, Richard Paul
1965 From Monumental to Proliferous in Nasca
Pottery. awpa Pacha 3:1-92, Plates I-XVI.
Rostworowski, Mara
1992 Pachacamac y el seor de los milagros. Lima:
Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
Salomon, Frank and George L. Urioste
1991 The Huarochir Manuscript: A Testament of An-
cient and Colonial Andean Religion. Austin: The
University of Texas Press.
Seler, Eduard
1961 [1923] Die buntbemalten Gefsse von Nasca im
sdlichen Peru und die Hauptelemente ihrer
Verzierung. In Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur
Amerikanischen Sprach und Altertumskunde. Graz,
Austria: Academische Druck- U. Verlagganstalt.
Silverman, Helaine, and Donald Proulx
2002 The Nasca. Malden, Massachusetts and Oxford,
England: Blackwell Publishers.
Tello, Julio C.
1959 Paracas, Volume 1. Lima: Universidad Nacional
Mayor de San Marcos and New York: Institute
of Andean Research.
Townsend, Richard F.
1985 Deciphering the Nasca World. The Art Institute
of Chicago Museum Studies 11(2):117-139.
Vaughn, Kevin and Hector Neff
2000 Moving Beyond Iconography: Neutron Activa-
tion Analysis of Ceramics from Marcaya, Peru,
an Early Nasca Domestic Site. Journal of Field
Archaeology 27(1):75-90.
Vaughn, Kevin, Christina A. Conlee, Hector Neff, and
Katharina Schreiber
2006 Ceramic Production in Ancient Nasca: Prove-
nance Analysis of Pottery from the Early Nasca
and Tiza Cultures through INAA. Journal of
Archaeological Science 33:681-689.
Zuidema, R. T.
1972 Meaning in Nasca Art: Iconographic Relation-
ships Between Inca, Huari, and Nazca Cultures
in Southern Peru. rstryck 1971, pp. 35-54.
Gteborg, Sweden: Gteborgs Ethnographical
Museum.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 240

Figure 1a and 1b: Line drawings of two vessels depicting the Anthropomorphic Mythical Being (AMB)
with the Sprouting Head motif (after Carmichael 1994: figures 17 and 19).

Figure 2a (left) and 2b (right): Anthropomorphic Mythical Being wrapped around a double-spouted
vessel. Peru, Nasca culture, vessel, date unknown, ceramic and pigment, 4c inches (10.5 cm) high, 7e
inches (19.4 cm) wide, Kate S. Buckingham Endowment, 1955.2127, The Art Institute of Chicago.
Photography The Art Institute of Chicago.
241 - Nieves: Two Nasca Motifs

Figure 3a (left) and 3b (right): Anthropomorphic Mythical Being around a jar.

Peru, South Coast, Cahuachi, Nasca Culture, Collar jar, ceramic and pigment,
5 inches (12.7 cm) high, 5 inches (13.8 cm) wide,
S.B. Williams Fund and Edward E. Ayer Endowment in memory of Charles L. Hutchinson,
1956.1178, The Art Institute of Chicago. Photography The Art Institute of Chicago.

Figure 4a (left) and 4b (right): Anthropomorphic Mythical Being around a bowl. Peru, Nasca culture,
bowl, ceramic and pigment, 3e inches (9.2 cm) high, 5 inches (14 cm) wide,
Kate S. Buckingham Endowment, 1955.1933, The Art Institute of Chicago.
Photography The Art Institute of Chicago.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 242

Figure 5: Vessel depicting seeds. 1953 The Field Museum, A94576, object number 170527.

Figure 6: Vessel depicting seeds, with points highlighted in black. 1953 The Field Museum, A94580,
object number 170536.
243 - Nieves: Two Nasca Motifs

Figure 7: Depiction of seed with two hila (from Proulx 1968: plate 24b).

Figure 8: Extended figure with a seed as part of its torso (from Seler 1961: figure 403).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 244

Figure 9: Anthropomorphic Mythical Being with a seed as part of its torso

(from Seler 1961: figure 404).

Figure 10: Harvester Figures (after Carmichael 1994: figures 15 and 13).
245 - Nieves: Two Nasca Motifs

Figure 11: Mythical Harvester Figure and detail of corn-cobs on its waist. Shallow flared bowl, 10.8 cm
high, 1955.1929, The Art Institute of Chicago,
(drawing by Joanne Berens; after Townsend 1985: figure 7).

Figure 12: Effigy Harvester without the conical hat (from Tello 1959: figure 92).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 246

Figure 13: Effigy Harvester, Museum of World Culture, Sweden

(acquisition number: 35.32.3; from Zuidema 1972: figure 9).

Figure 14: Composition with multiple figures (after Tello 1959: lmina LXXXV).
247 - Nieves: Two Nasca Motifs

Figure 15: Motif TH-3: Symbolic Eye Form of Trophy Head

(Proulx 2006:109; from Seler 1961: figure 202).
 EARLY COTTON NETWORK KNOTTED IN COLORED PATTERNS
Since the beginning of fabric production on
Perus south coast, knotting and network have
been integral to the body of textiles (Engel
1963: 30-51; Gayton 1967:6-9; King 1965:223-
224, 236; ONeale 1932:62-66, 1942:157-159;
Yakovleff and Muelle 1932:34-50). When
reporting on early textiles from Hacha, Gayton
(1967:6) noted that netting techniques were
considerably more advanced than those of
weaving. While there are numerous types of
early netting from Peru, this article seeks to
bring only one of them to attention, network
from the south coast that was knotted in col-
ored cordage. With their advanced knowledge
of dyeing yarn in an enormous range of colors
(Gayton 1961: 115), it is little wonder that early
coastal people of ancient Peru incorporated the
colored patterning of knotted network into their
artistic and practical endeavors.
The major focus of this report is on four
ancient fishing nets of remarkable size, design,
and coloration. All are close to six meters in
length and are double-sided. That is, they are
shaped like long sacks that open across the top
and are closed along the sides and bottom. All
are constructed of cotton cordage knotted in a
meshwork of simple, overhand knots forming
blocks (rectangles) of various colors. Irregular
shaped appendages open into the bottom of the
nets (Figures 1-4).
A colleague, Nanette Skov, and I first be-
came aware of these extraordinary nets in June
1997 while working in textile conservation at
the Museo Regional de Ica. Their owner, Sr.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009): 249-275.
Grace Katterman
California Institute for Peruvian Studies (CIPS)
Guillermo Cabada of Nazca, sought treatment
for them through the museum and Skov was
referred to him. A heavy encrustation of salt
weighted and embrittled the net cordage, ob-
scuring the patterns and endangering their
fragile structure. Before treatment, Skov tested
the dyes and determined that they were not
fugitive. The only place large enough to contain
the nets was a swimming pool at the home of a
local hotel owner. There Skov immersed the
nets in clean water to dissolve the salts, rinsed
them, and laid them out on the deck to dry.
When wet, the colors of the net patterns deep-
ened significantly. Brilliant images of birds, fish,
plants, animals, and other motifs, knotted in an
array of contrasting purple, turquoise, cream,
and orange cordage, entirely covered the surface
of two of the nets. The other two had been
knotted in large colored rectangles, without
images. As the nets dried, the depth of their
coloration rapidly disappeared.
While the nets were drying after treatment,
I took photographs (Figures 5-11) and asked
questions about their origin. They were so large
it was impossible to capture the full scope of
their appearance with the camera from close up.
Not only was their size and coloration unique,
but the fact that there were four of them was
somewhat overwhelming. Having a previous
acquaintance with ancient fishing nets from the
Acar Valley, I hoped to study how the knots
were tied, how the colored images were created,
and retrieve other pertinent technical informa-
tion.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
According to the owner, all four nets came
from an isolated section of beach north of the
mouth of the old Ica River. The Pan American
Highway veers away from the coast through this
region to pass through the cities of Ica and
Nazca. Despite the lack of roadway through the
rough coastal terrain, the region is a popular
fishing area for local people and evidently the
discovery of the nets took place during such an
expedition.
Skov and others who visited the region with
Cabada said that the site was about two kilome-
ters south of a large cave near the waters edge
(personal communication). Skove recalls walk-
ing south from the cave to an area with a large
shell mound. Past it, she was shown the remains
of a few walls in the sand. the area was fronted
by a small natural inlet from the ocean where
she watched a local fisherman catch fish by
hand in the shallow water.
In a published reportof the coastal region
from the Pisco River on the north to the Ica
River on the south, Frdric Engel describes the
area by the cave (1991:151-153) and includes a
profile of it and the hill behind it in figure 126.
He indicates the cave as Site VI-550 on his map
in the end-fold places a cluster of sites abut 1.5
to 2 km. south of the cave. These incude the
shell mound (VI-580) and two other sites (VI-
560 and VI-565). Engel notes only shells or
shells and ceramic fragments at these sites.
Cabada did not know if the site where he found
the nets was one Engel described, or a previ-
ously unknown site. While the Ica River seldom
flows to the coast today, early settlements
suggest that its lower regions were more fertile
in the distant past.
Cabada has stated that three of the nets
were stored together in a pit in the sand where
they had been dropped, one on top of the other.
The pit was about a meter and a half deep and
lined with a dark tar-like substance that kept it
- 250
from caving inwards. An offering of three small
gourds and the leg bone of a llama were placed
on top of the last net. The dark stain from the
decaying llama bone is visible in several places
on the left side of Net 1. A niche in the side of
the pit held pelican feathers, perhaps in homage
to the bird's expert fishing abilities. The pit was
adjacent to a series of rock-walled, oval-shaped
rooms. Net 4, the most torn and faded, was
found in a walkway adjoining the oval-shaped
rooms. Many broken and faded pieces of simi-
larly patterned netting lay discarded in the sand
along the wall of a nearby plaza.
The following year, I arranged to take pho-
tographs of the nets from the second story
balcony of a local school. Even at this distance,
I experienced difficulty in covering their entire
lengths and widths with a regular lens and the
resulting photos are composites (Figures 1-4).
At the time, Cabada was in the process of
opening a small museum in Nazca that featured
the nets and other marine related items and
trade goods found in the same region of the
south coast. He called it the Museo Arqueol-
gico de Nazca. The enterprise was on the south
side of the ovalo (traffic circle) on the Pan
American Highway. It remained in operation
only a few months.
DESCRIPTION OF THE NETS
Net 1. Net 1 measures 5.9 m in length and
2.64 m in width, including the half-circular
appendage at bottom center (Figure 1). The
appendage is actually a large rectangle, gathered
along the sides to fit as it was knotted to the
main section. The body of the net is composed
of blocks (rectangles) of colored images so
closely knotted that the tip of my little finger
barely fitted inside the meshwork. A row of
double-sided knotting in white cordage joins the
perimeter of each block to its neighbors. This
white cordage can be followed throughout the
nets as it knots the sides of each block to adjoin-
251 -
ing ones (Figure 6). In addition, remnants of a
heavier, wider-spaced mesh surrounds the tops
of the nets (Figure 7), enlarging into a rectangu-
lar extension at each end (Figure 8).
The same images are repeated throughout
the net many times in the same size and color
scheme. Plants and seaweed, in orange or purple
cordage on a white background (Figure 9) are
the most numerous. Fish, in purple with orange
eyes on a cream background, are also well
represented (Figure 10), as are birds. The latter
are turquoise with white outline and orange eyes
on an orange background (Figure 11). The
humpbacked animal (Figure 12) and the simpli-
fied sun-face (Figure 13), in purple with a cream
outline on an orange background, are rarely
represented. The fox (Figure 14), in purple with
orange eyes on a white ground, is also rare. In
comparison with charts in the Munsell Book of
Color (1973), the coloration in the net (when
dry) compares with the following range of hues:
purple: 5RP-5/4 and 714; orange: 2.5YR-616,
6/8, and 7/4; turquoise: 2.5B-8/2; and cream:
2.5Y-8/2.
The smaller images are scaled to half, a
fourth, or a third the size of the larger ones so
that the various sizes of knotted images fit well
together, like patchwork. For instance, the bird
motif (Figure 6, upper right) is twice the length
of the fish (Figure 6, lower right and left). The
fox (Figure 14) is the same length as the bird,
but half its width, and so forth. The images are
not always easy to see in the black-and-white
photographs because of the similarity of their
grayscale values. Holding the photographs at
arm's length allows better differentiation. For
more clarity, Figures 12, 13 and 14 are drawings,
rather than photographs, of the images. Not all
images in the nets are represented in the illus-
trations or the photographs incorporated into
this paper.
Katterman: Knotted Cotton Network
Net 2. Net 2, with a similar half-circular
appendage at bottom center, is composed of the
same knotted images that appear in Net 1. This
net is 6.1 m long and 2.67 m wide, including the
central bag. A check of the color hues with
Munsell Book of Color provides the following
comparisons: turquoise: 2.5B-7/2; purple: 5RP-
5/ 4; orange: 10R6/6 and 5YR-6/6; and cream:
2.5Y-8/2. While all the nets show holes in the
knotwork, only Net 2 shows repair to broken
areas. The broken areas were not re-knotted
with cotton cordage, but repaired with woolen
yarn crudely looped a number of times over the
edge of the breakage and pulled tight.
The colored cordage was pre-dyed before
tying. The simple overhand knots that make up
the nets were formed by the active end of the
cordage being looped around the vacant spaces
between the knots of the previous row (Figure
17a), passed through the loop (Figure 17b) and
pulled tight (Figure 17c). In Nets 1 and 2, the
knots are spaced from 0.8 to 1.0 cm apart. In
Nets 3 and 4, the knots are distanced from 1.7
to 2.2 cm from one another.
The heavy, wider-spaced mesh (3.5 to 4.0
mm) that appears around the tops of the nets
(Figure 7) and enlarges into rectangular exten-
sions at the corners (Figure 8), is knotted from
4.5 to 5.0 cm apart. Here the cordage is 4z-s,
replied Z. Local fishermen suggested that during
use, a heavy throwing rope, termed el tiro, would
most likely have been laced through the heavier
network at the top as a handling device. The
fishermen also told me that there would be
problems catching fish with such large nets
knotted in small mesh. The weight of the
soaked cordage alone would make the nets
difficult to control in the water. The small mesh
would inhibit the flow of the ocean current,
causing them to be caught up and pulled along.
Such close network would be appropriate only
for very small fish like anchovies, or crustaceans
such as shrimp. They suggested that better
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
handling was most likely the reason for the leg
and bag extensions on the bottom. Instead of
the fish heading into one corner and throwing a
net off balance, the appendages would provide
places for them to run, keeping the net in bal-
ance. They also suggested that rocks placed in
the bottom extensions would help overcome the
natural buoyancy cotton has when first intro-
duced into the water. Even small rocks would
cause the lower extremities to sink, help posi-
tion them upright and steady them against the
ocean current.
Blocks of Plain Color. Nets 3 and 4, with
extensions resembling legs, were entirely com-
posed of blocks of plain orange, turquoise and
purple cordage pre-dyed before knotting. The
directionality of the knotting sequence of a
block of colored netting can be determined by
noting which rows of knots were tied onto
previous rows. Knotted mesh has a natural
tautness in the direction the cordage was tied,
but it will stretch or collapse in the opposite
direction when pulled. Taking these two factors
into account, it is possible to determine the
sequence of knot tying by locating the finishing
knot and following the directionality of the
knotting sequence backwards.
The knotting of the colored blocks usually
began and ended in the same place. In other
words, the blocks of network were knotted in
such a way that the two ends of the cordage met
one another at the finish to be tied off together.
The first row of knots began close to the tail end
with 15 or 20 cm left passively dangling. Figure
17a shows the beginning of the knotting process,
with the tail end marked with hatching. Knot-
ting with the opposite, open end continued, one
row after the other, until the appropriate size of
knotted rectangle was almost achieved (Figure
17b). To form the last row, the net maker would
turn the block of network, knot around the
corner and continue the last row of knots along
the side, working toward the corner with the
- 252
dangling tail end. This means that the last row
of knots on the plain blocks was knotted per-
pendicular to the other rows of network. Two or
three knots away from the corner, the net maker
would drop the main cordage and pick up the
tail end, knot it over to the main cordage and
join the two together in the final knot (Figure
17c). The tail end of the knot was secure, but
the open end required an additional knot to
keep it from unraveling before it was cut off.
The end knot was generally close to, but never
exactly at the corner of a block of network. The
corner space was reserved for the two additional
knots scheduled to be tied there when the
blocks were joined to one another by the dou-
ble-sided row of knotting in white cordage.
Patterned blocks of color. The knotting of the
colored images involved a technique somewhat
more complicated than that of the plain blocks
of network. Two or three colors of cordage were
utilized in a design. Again, the tying of one color
of cordage onto another indicates that the
tie-ons were the later addition. Taking this into
account, along with the directionality of the
knots and the location of the end and beginning
knots (as discussed above), the tying sequence
of the various colors of cordage can be followed
from knot to knot throughout an image (Figure
18). A description of the knotting sequence of
a plant image, tied in two colors, follows.
The plant image was so constructed that a
beginning knot on the upper left side tied the
two colors together and a finishing knot on the
bottom right side, tied them off. Each color of
cordage, in this case, turquoise and orange, was
carried uncut throughout the entire sequence in
a skillful synchronization of the placement of
the knots of each color. The tying of the tur-
quoise knots onto orange cordage where the
colors meet indicated that the orange cordage
was knotted first. Figure 18a shows the configu-
ration of the orange cordage (in black) with the
turquoise cordage (in white) tied on at the top
253 -
and the beginning row of knots worked across.
Figure 18b shows the appearance of the com-
plete block of network once the knotting of the
turquoise cordage was completed. In studying
the knotting process, it was intriguing to see
how an experienced net maker would have
known the knotting sequence for the orange
cordage to follow, leaving vacant spaces for the
turquoise cordage to enter, fill in with knots,
exit, and continue onward in perfect alignment
with the knotting sequence laid down in orange
cordage. The complicated colored patterns in
the nets are the products of skilled craftsmen
well experienced in tying the circuitous se-
quences required to make them.
Sometimes the direction of knot tying was
reversed in a series of images to give variation.
Repeats of the fish motif, for example, were
sometimes knotted from the top downward
(Figure 10, lower half) and other times from side
to side (Figure 10, right). While the same num-
ber of knots was used in both instances, fish tied
from side to side are thinner than those tied top
to bottom. The difference in configuration
results from the network being more elastic in
the direction opposite to that in which it was
tied.
A SEARCH FOR IDENTITY
In a search for the cultural identity of the
four nets, several approaches seemed worthy of
pursuit. The first involved the identification of
cultural influences known to exist in the region
of their discovery. The second pursuit centered
on the similarities in the presentation and
arrangement of iconographic features in the
images in the nets that suggest cultural affilia-
tions with known south coastal cultures. Lastly,
a search for similar examples of early coastal
netting worked in colored cordage seemed in
order. For various reasons, radiocarbon dates
could not be provided.
Katterman: Knotted Cotton Network
The region of discovery. Although traces of a
number of small ancient settlements dot the
desert area of the discovery of the nets by the
mouth of the old Ica River (Engel 1991:153-158
and end-fold map), no strong cultural impact
has been reported for the region. Similar to most
of the Peruvian coastline, this area is a veritable
desert, although it was most likely wetter in the
distant past. In the Callango Basin, about 15 km
inland from the mouth of the old Ica River,
evidence of former cultivated areas accompany
habitation sites dating to the Paracas occupation
(Massey 1991:319). A few kilometers further
inland, the Ocucaje region developed a strong
local component of Early Paracas culture (King
1965:259-276; Sawyer 1961) that lasted through
late Paracas into the early Nasca period
(DeLeonardis 2000:364; Massey 1991:320-329).
Ocucaje played an important role in the deter-
mination and spread of cultural forms and ideas
in the area. Types of weaving, embroidery styles,
and iconographic images found there (Kajitani
1982: plates 11, 12, 20-23, 42) are similar to
those found on the Paracas Peninsula, indicat-
ing cultural contact between the two regions.
The contact was most likely by sea, with the
entry into the Ica Valley through the area at the
mouth of the Ica River, close to the area where
the four large nets were found.
The Paracas occupation extended into more
fertile areas futher up the Ica River as well as
along the inland tributaries of the Nasca River
to the south, and the valleys that surround the
Pisco and Canete Rivers to the north
(DeLeonardis 2000:365-367, figure 3; Paul
1991:2-8, figure 111). The most significant
manifestations of the Paracas people, however,
are the elegant burial garments recovered from
several cemeteries on the Paracas Peninsula,
approximately 120 kilometers up the coast from
the mouth of the old Ica River bed. Tello and
Meja (1979) and Yacovleff and Muelle (1932)
subdivided the Paracas culture according to the
two burial styles they found there. The earlier
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
cemetery style is called Paracas Cavernas, and
the style with later, more culturally advanced
burials, is known as Paracas Necropolis. Later
Menzel, Rowe, and Dawson (1964) utilized
ceramics from the Ica Valley to develop a chro-
nological framework for the Paracas culture that
they termed the Ocucaje Sequence.
The images in the nets. It is interesting to note
that, except for the open, longitudinal side view
of the mouth, the fish (Figure 10) and the bird
(Figure 11) are represented in a naturalistic and
recognizable manner, as if viewed from above.
The inclusion of a longitudinal mouth in an
otherwise dorsal view of the head of a creature
has a lengthy tradition in Peruvian motifs. It
became a conventionalized presentation in both
textile and ceramic portrayals by the Paracas
Cavernas period. Articles concerning the ico-
nography of the period by Carrin Cachot
(1931:7, figure 2), Engel (1966:187, 195, figures
51B and 55D), King (1965:215, figure 37b),
ONeale (1942:162, figure 11 and plate 1), and
Paul (1990, plate 21) all include the longitudi-
nal mouth in images in an otherwise dorsal view
of the creatures.
Like the bird and fish, the image of the fox
(Figure 14) also has a realistic portrayal, but
viewed from the side, rather than the top. The
eyes, however, are paired, as if viewed from the
front and placed slightly off center behind the
open mouth, similar to the conventionalized
arrangement of the facial features of the bird
and fish. Of further interest is the strange ar-
rangement of the fox's legs. They point outward
in opposing right angles to one another. This
awkward, but eye catching, symmetry was
perhaps intended to provide visual stability to
the lower part of the figure.
In his study of the iconography of early
Paracas ceramics, Sawyer included two examples
of foxes from the middle Paracas period with a
similar arrangement of the facial features (1961:
- 254
289-292, figures 8i and 8j.) He notes that earlier
Paracas foxes show Chavn influence, while later
ones are more naturalistic. He makes the point
that images of the fox were presented with the
head in side view while the head of the feline
was shown frontally. In the ceramic art of the
Ica Valley, foxes were presented in profile with
paired eyes, and/or paired ears, facing forward
only after Chavn influence waned, and before
the more naturalistic representations of early
Nazca became popular. The fox image in the
nets seems to agree with the portrayal of foxes
in stylized form after the waning of Chavn
influence that Sawyer relates for the Ica Valley.
The time periods of Sawyer's sequence have
been superseded by more recent work (Paul
1991: 8-15), but the coverage and directionality
of his iconographic study remains the most
thorough for the representation of animals from
early Paracas through early Nazca time.
Another creature depicted in the nets, a
humpbacked animal in profile (Figure 12), has
been stylized to the point that it is no longer
identifiable. The crested head and linear propor-
tions of similar widths that form the limbs and
body suggest that this animal comes from the
realm of myth rather than from the natural
world. Similar to the fox, its head is in profile,
with both eyes presented in front view, above
the longitudinal mouth. The front and back legs
are also positioned outward in opposite direc-
tions, a stance that most likely originated in the
Chavn presentations of supernatural felines in
profile (Figure 19).
The stance became well enough accepted to
influence the representation of animals in the
emerging Paracas culture. By Paracas Cavernas
times, the opposing right-angled stance became
conventionalized in the representations of a
humpbacked animal tied in close-knotting, the
favored multi-colored technique for the produc-
tion of the center section of turbans and head-
band at Ocucaje (King 1965:343, figures 81a, b,
255 -
c, h). The technique of close-knotting involves
simple overhand knots like those in fish-netting,
but spaced so closely together that a needle is
required to accomplish the task. The results are
so tightly knotted that it no longer resembles
netting, but becomes a type of heavy, solid fabric
(see O'Neale 1942 figure 7; Paul 1990: plate 9).
Another example of a humpbacked animal with
the legs at opposing right angles comes from a
close-knotted headband from the Cavernas
Cemetery that is on display in the Julio C. Tello
Museum in the Paracas Reserve (Figure 20).
The Museo Nacional de Arqueologa, Antro-
pologa y Historia (MNAAH) in Lima also has
two close-knotted headbands from Cavernas
with a similar presentation of feline-like figures
(Tello and Meja 1979:185-187, figure 47-1, 2).
Felines with a humpback and legs at right
angles to one another were also included in
linear style images embroidered on the large
mantles from the Paracas Peninsula (Figure 21;
Kajitani 1982: figure 29). They appear as sec-
ondary figures or fillers relegated to corner
positions accompanying rows of long serpents
ending in feline heads (Anton 1972: figure 46;
Carrin Cachot 1931: figures 9I and 9J). Smaller
felines with humpbacks and right angled legs
also appear within the bellies of embroidered
felines in the Paracas mantles (Anton 1972:
25-26, figures 7E, 8A) and the interior of linear
style Occulate Felines and other mythological
beings (ibid.: 26, figure 8E; O'Neale 1942:156,
figure 3).
Other images in the nets present more
rectilinear arrangements. One motif shows a
stepped center with pairs of rays, ending in
volutes, extending from the top and bottom
(Figure 13). The purple image, outlined in
white, contrasts strongly with the orange ground
it is set against. This motif, paired in the nets, is
most likely an abbreviated rendition of the
sun-face motif. In its most recognizable form,
the Paracas sun-face consists of two eyes and a
Katterman: Knotted Cotton Network
mouth within a rectangular or diamond shaped
face. Long paired rays, ending in volutes, emit
from its top, bottom, and sides (Engel 1966:
figures 51B and 61, top; King 1965: 227, figures
22b, 76a, 76c; O'Neale 1942:160, figure 8e).
Sometimes the facial features were abbreviated
to a pair of eyes (King 1965:332, figure 76b) or
left out entirely (O'Neale 1942:160, figure 8d)
in a manner similar to the representation of the
rayed image in the nets.
Other network. While the small-sized mesh
in the nets seems impracticable to local fisher-
men today, Sandweiss (1992:79-85) reports
finding similar network fragments with mesh
measuring 1.0-1.7 cm on a side in his excava-
tions of Inca period ruins near Tambo de Moro
and at other sites in the Chincha area. Sand-
weiss cites Coker (1908:99-115) who investi-
gated fishing and network from the Pisco,
Chilca, Malla, and Cerro Azul regions, among
other places.
In twentieth century Peru fish-nets were
classified by mesh size and named for the com-
mon fish species each size was best suited to
catch. Those with very small mesh, 0.75 cm on
a side or cuadrado, were called anchoveteras for
the anchovy they gathered., and nets from 1.5
to 2.0 cm on a side were called pejerreyeras for
the pejerrey, a slightly larger fish (ibid:105;
Sandweiss 1992: Table 15). These are very close
to the sizes of the meshes of the nets discussed
above. Mesh size in Peru is commonly measured
by the distance between knots or the number of
fingers that can be inserted into a section of
mesh (ibid.: 180).
The investigation of traditional fishing and
fishing culture of the Muchik by Victor Antonio
Rodrguez Suy Suy (1997:43-65) provides an
account of how such large nets with the central
bag extensions were utilized throughout time by
coastal fishermen in northern Peru. According
to Rodrguez, they were a type of chinchorro de
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
orilla or shore net used when the fish were
running in great numbers and could easily be
caught close to the edge of the ocean. To be put
to use, the heavier mesh surrounding the top of
the nets (Figures 7 and 8) was laced with a large
rope, weighted with rocks on the bottom, and
secured to a pole at each end. Two fishermen,
one at each pole, carried the net into the water
until it became waist deep (Figure 22). Mean-
while, two other fishermen remained on shore
holding long ropes attached to the poles on the
sides that studied and guided the net. Once the
net was opened by positioning the poles upright,
the men on shore slowly tugged on their ropes
while those at the poles pushed the net toward
shore as they kept the poles vertical. As the net
was slowly brought to shore, the fish were gath-
ered into the bag in the bottom. The use of this
kind of net for fishing further out in the ocean
required three fishermen, each in his own totora
raft (Figure 23). The fisherman furthermost out
in the ocean took care of the net, while the
others at the ends of the ropes slowly pulled the
net toward shore, trapping the fish as they
moved toward land.
Rodrguez names and explains the utility of
several other types of nets that were used
through time on the north coast, but a type of
net with the leg-like extensions, found in Nets
3 and 4, was not among them. Nor does he
mention any sort of color or design knotted into
the nets from the north coast. A net with two
leg extensions, however, is on display at the
Julio C. Tello Museum in the Paracas Reserve
(Figure 24). It comes from the Cavernas area of
the Paracas Peninsula. While this net is much
smaller than those discussed here, its overall
shape with the leg-shaped extensions indicates
that such nets were utilized by the fishermen of
the early Paracas culture.
Also on exhibit at Julio C. Tello Museum is
a well preserved net tied in colored cordage
(Figure 25). This oval net (MP-689) is from the
- 256
Cavernas Cemetery area of the Paracas Penin-
sula. It measures 1.99 m in length and .43 m in
width and is knotted throughout in simple
overhand knots. A detail of the colorful pattern
(Figure 26) presents repeats of a double-headed
serpent and sun-face motif integrated into a
flowing rhomboidal design across the surface of
the net. The design arrangement pairs horizon-
tally opposing serpent heads with linear bodies
zigzagging between white, serrated diamonds
containing the sun-face image in orange. A
neutral ocher color forms the background knot-
work. The heads of the serpents, in black, white,
or orange cordage, are presented dorsally, from
above, with a pair of eyes in between an open
mouth. While the rhomboidal arrangement of
the serpent and sun- face motifs in the Julio C.
Tello Museum net is considerably more sophisti-
cated than the individualized motifs in Nets 1
and 2, the serpent and fish heads and the
sun-face motif are presented in a similar con-
ventionalized manner. Engel includes a drawing
of a portion of the net pattern in his book on
Paracas (1966: 187, figure 51B).
An almost identical arrangement of the
serpent and sun-face pattern within the serrated
diamond is depicted by Dwyer (1979: figure 11)
in a woven double cloth from the Cavernas
Cemetery on the Paracas Peninsula. King also
shows the serpent and sun-face pattern (minus
the facial features) in a tunic from the site of
Ocucaje in the lower Ica valley (1965:215,
figure 37b). While the colorful tunic was closely
looped rather than knotted, the appearance of
a similar pattern arrangement in the tunic from
the site of Ocucaje, and the Julio C. Tello
Museum net and double cloth from the Caver-
nas area of the Paracas Peninsula, 120 km up
the coast, indicate that the two areas were in
contact with one another. The contact would
most likely have been by sea, and if so, it would
have involved entrance into the Ica Valley at
the mouth of the old Ica River bed close to
where the four large patterned nets were found.
257 -
In continuing the search for further informa-
tion about nets tied in colored patterns, I visited
several museums in Lima. The Peruvian Gold
Museum (el Museo del Oro del Per) had a
small net on display (Exhibit 5131) composed of
rectangular sections of network tied in simple,
overhand knots. Each section was knotted in a
different shade of brown: medium brown, dark
brown, orange-brown, gray-brown, and light
brown (tan). The net was made of cabuya
(maguey fiber) and measured 52 cm in length by
25 cm across the top. Photography of the net
was not allowed, but a sketch of it appears as
Figure 27. Like the nets discussed here, a row of
double-sided knotting (this time in dark brown
cordage) joined the perimeter of each colored
block to those of its neighbors. While no pro-
venience or other information about this net is
available from the museum, it was gratifying to
locate another net tied in blocks of colored
network joined together in the same manner as
thenets discussed here. Cabuya, cactus, and
other plant fibers were utilized for net making
before cotton became readily available (Rostwo-
rowski 1981:102). The existence of the cabuya
net indicates that network tied in blocks of
various colors was indeed a very old form of
artistic expression.
In 2002, conservator Elba Manrique Pereyra
and her assistant, Maribel Medina, at the Museo
Nacional de Antropologa, Archaeologa y His-
toria in Lima graciously allowed me to study
their network collection from the Paracas area.
I was shown specimens of fishing nets included
in the report of the Cavernas burials by Yacov-
leff and Muelle (1932:32-40). These nets were
further studied and described by O'Neale (1932:
62-63). All but one were plain fishing nets
knotted in cream or whitish cotton. The one
exception, MN85610, had been knotted in
cordage with a blue tinge at one end, but no
pattern was involved.
Katterman: Knotted Cotton Network
In addition to the Cavernas nets, the staff
showed me 21 other nets in their collection
from south coastal areas. Of these, three
fragments of network had been knotted with
sections of dyed cordage. Specimen 5303U,
measuring 12.5 by 13.5 cm, was knotted of
vegetal fiber, possibly maguey. Only bits of a
stepped design in green cordage remained along
the right side. The provenience was not known.
Another specimen, EU/773, from region sur,
measures 53 cm long and about half as wide
across its fragmented side. A design of small
rectangular blocks, knotted in orange, green,
and brown camelid cordage, aligned vertically as
crosses on a white ground (Figure 28). A third
specimen, 74427, showed bits of beige, dark
green, and orange cordage knotted along one
side, but not enough remained to discern a
pattern. No provenience was listed. All three of
the specimens with colored sections were knot-
ted in simple, overhand knots ranging from 0.6
to 1.3 cm on a side, or close to the spacing of
the other nets with colored yarn discussed
above.
I was also shown other examples of network
from the south coast that had been knotted in
diagonal arrangements of plain white cordage to
form attractive chevron or diamond-shaped
patterns. These were not fishing nets but fancy
headdresses or hoods like the ones King
(1965: 230- 232) describes in her assessment of
different kinds of nets from Ocucaje. While
none of the examples in MNAAH had been
knotted in colored cordage, King describes a
hood from Ocucaje with diamond shapes con-
taining the image of a skull knotted in contrast-
ing arrangements of red with dark blue cordage
and blue- green with cream cordage (Figure 29).
In her summary of network found at Ocucaje,
King mentions that elaborate multi-colored
patterning is also found, but the hood with the
skull pattern is the only specimen of spaced
knotwork in colored cordage that she includes
in her catalogue.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
When I returned to MNAAH the following
year, the museum staff informed me that they
had located another example of network knot-
ted in colored cotton cordage (27154). The
knots were tied at distances of 0.45 to 0.5 cm on
a side of the mesh. The cordage could not be
analyzed beyond determining that the final ply
was in the Z direction with a diameter of 0.7 to
0.8 cm. The net was from the site of Cabeza
Larga, a well known Cavernas Cemetery on the
Paracas Peninsula. Although all of the upper
end and parts of the lower end were missing, the
intact sides suggested that the net had originally
been rectangular in shape (Figure 30). It mea-
sured 24 cm from side to side and 49 cm along
what remained of its length. The mesh had been
tied in simple overhand knots forming the
familiar image of the serpent and sun-face
design in dark brown on yellow-ocher back-
ground. This time, the quadruple lines of the
body of a pair of double-headed snakes define a
large central diamond filled with the image of
the sun-face. The serrated inner lines of the
snake's body angle into smaller half-diamond
shapes on the sides where they end in the head
of a serpent. The image of a fish with a similar
head, next to the serpent head, faces the oppo-
site direction. Both heads are presented dorsally,
from above, with a pair of eyes above an open
mouth in the same conventionalized arrange-
ment discussed above in the oval net from the
Julio C. Tello Museum and the images in Nets
1 and 2. The inclusion of similar iconographic
images in the same technique of knotting col-
ored cordage seems to provide a link between all
the nets discussed above.
DISCUSSION
The four large fishing nets discussed here,
the oval net from Julio C. Tello Museum in the
Paracas Reserve, the hood from Ocucaje (King
1965:235), the cabuya net from the Peruvian
Gold Museum, one rectangular piece, and
several fragments of netting in the NMAAH
- 258
represent the examples of patterned nets tied in
dyed cordage that I could locate. Although few
in number, these examples are sufficient to
define the technique and highlight its artistic
attributes. While there is no certainty as to the
cultural affinity of the four nets, the knotting
technique and iconography indicate that they
most likely pertain to the Paracas Cavernas era.
Very little is known about the ancient south
coastal fishing cultures of Peru that produced
colorfully patterned nets like these. Those who
have studied these cultures point out that they
dwelt apart in coastal villages (Sandweiss 1992)
more connected to one another than to other
communities further inland (Rostworowski
1981:82-103). They were never well integrated
into the mainstream cultural events, and their
lifestyle, language, ceremonies, and beliefs were
essentially their own.
The utility of the production of such large
colored nets comes into question. Considerably
more labor would have been expended in the
construction of the knotted patterns than was
required for knotting ordinary fishing nets. The
knotting of the colored patterns would have
required a group of skilled craftsmen with
shared knowledge of the intricate tying se-
quences. Their production and utilization indi-
cates community involvement on several social
levels. In addition to the many individuals
needed to work on their construction, signifi-
cant planning and coordination would have
been required to fit all the pieces together to
make the nets. The fact that all four nets are
close to six meters in length, varying only a few
centimeters from one another, suggests that
specific measurements guided their construc-
tion.
Cooperative involvement would also have
been required in their use. In describing the
traditional use of similar large nets on the north
coast, Rodrguez (1997:43-64) indicated that
259 -
three or four men would have worked together
to position the nets offshore and gather in the
catch. The utility of such large nets was evi-
dently reserved for times of abundant running of
the fish close to the shore. When great numbers
of fish appeared, the call to service of the nets
would have been a time of excitement and
celebration. It is easy to imagine the delight of
the ancient fishing villagers when they wit-
nessed the color of the images in the nets magi-
cally deepen as they were immersed in the
water. Perhaps the colored patterns attracted
the fish. An abundant catch would likely have
been followed by feasting and thanksgiving,
commemorated in a ceremonial manner. In
terms of such rewards, the tying of the compli-
cated colored patterns seems worthy of the labor
expended.
The storage of the nets in a specially
prepared pit under an offering of gourds and
llama bones implies they were not being used
every day, but were ritually put away until a
subsequent event of consequence called for
their unearthing. The ritual care of the nets
suggests the elevation of normally utilitarian
fishing gear to ceremonial status. The status, in
turn, indicates an organized homage to fishing,
the sea, and creatures within it. Certainly the
effort expended to knot the patterns and assem-
ble the nets went far beyond that needed simply
to catch fish to sustain the local economy. The
nets were more than ceremonial showpieces,
however. They display signs of extensive use.
One indication of the unusual status of the nets
in a socially stratified context is the unskilled
repair done to broken sections. Woolen yarn
was very crudely looped around the sides of the
holes in Net 2, tightly pulled and knotted. This
type of repair caused unsightly bunching of the
surrounding network, and makes sense only if
quick action had to be taken, such as that
required during an ongoing ceremony. Had real
fishermen been in charge of the ceremony, good
repairs would most likely have been made to
Katterman: Knotted Cotton Network
broken areas at a later date, but this never
occurred. (For a description of traditional net
repair by fishermen, see Sandweiss 1991:83-84.)
This suggests that the ones in charge of the nets
during ceremonial use were not the ones who
made them or the holes would have been re-
paired correctly, or, possibly, there may have
been a prohibition against repair of a ceremonial
object.
REFERENCES CITED:
Anton, Ferdinand
1972 The Art of Ancient Peru. New York: Putnam.
Carrin Cachot, Rebeca
1931 La indumentaria en la antigua cultura de Para-
cas. Wira Kocha: Revista Peruana de Estudios
Antropolgicos. 1(1):37-86.
Coker, Roberto E.
1908 Condicin en que se encuentra la pesca marina
desde Paita hasta Bahia de la Independencia
(conclusin). Chapter 7, La pesca en Chilca,
Bujama (Mala), y Cerro Azul. Boletn del Minis-
terio de Fomento. 6(5):99-115 (incorrectly printed
as 7[5]). Lima: Direccin de Fomento, Imprenta
del Estado, Escuela de Artes y Oficios.
DeLeonardis, Lisa
2000 The Body Context: Interpreting Early Nasca
Decapitated Burials. Latin American Antiquity
11(4):363-386.
Dwyer, Jane P.
1979 Chronology and Iconography of Paracas-style
Textiles. In The Junius B. Bird Pre-Columbian
Textile Conference, edited by Ann Pollard Rowe,
Elizabeth P. Benson, and Anne-Louise Schaffer.
pp. 105-128. Washington, D.C.: The Textile
Museum and Dumbarton Oaks.
Engel, Frdric
1963 Preceramic Settlements in Peru. In Transactions
of the American Philosophical Society 53 (3):20-51.
1966 Paracas: Cien siglos de cultura peruana. Lima:
Editorial Juan Meja Baca.
1991 Desierto en tiempos prehispanicos: Ro Pisco, Para-
cas, ro Ica. Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey:
Humanities Press.
Gayton, Anna H.
1961 The Cultural Significance of Peruvian Textiles:
Production, Function, Aesthetics. Kroeber An-
thropological Society Papers 25:111-128.
1967 Textiles from Hacha, Peru. Nawpa Pacha 5:1-14.
Kajitani, Nobuko
1982 Andesu No Senshoku. Senshoku no Bi (Textile
Art) 20:9-99. Kyoto, Japan: Shikosha Publishing.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Published in English as Textiles of the Andes: Text
and Captions. Kyoto, Japan: Shofin (1982) and by
Kyoto, Japan: Horikawa-Dori (1982?), the latter
distributed by New York: Kinokuni-ya of Tokyo-
Sheton.
King, Mary Elizabeth
1965 Textiles and Basketry of the Paracas Period, Ica
Valley, Peru. Ph.D. dissertation, University of
Arizona, Tucson.
Lumbreras, Luis G.
1974 The People and Cultures of Ancient Peru, trans-
lated by Betty J. Meggers.Washington, D.C.:
Smithsonian Institution Press.
Massey, Sarah A.
1991 Social and Political Leadership in the Lower Ica
Valley: Ocucaje Phases 8 and 9. In Paracas Art
and Architecture, edited by Ann Paul, pp. 313-
415. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.
Menzel, Dorothy, John H. Rowe, and Lawrence E.
Dawson
1964 The Paracas Pottery of Ica: A Study in Style and
Time. University of California Publications in
American Archaeology and Ethnology 50.
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Califor-
nia Press.
Munsell Color Company
1973 The Munsell Book of Color. Newburgh, New
York: A Munsell Color Prouduct.
O'Neale, Lila M.
1932 Tejidos del perodo primitivo de Paracas. Revista
del Museo Nacional 1/2:60-80.
1942 Textile Periods in Ancient Peru: II, Paracas
Cavernas and the Grand Necropolis. University
of California Publications in American Archaeology
and Ethnology 39(2): i-vi, pp. 143-189, 5 plates.
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Califor-
nia Press.
- 260
Paul, Ann
1990 Paracas Ritual Attire: Symbols of Authority in
Ancient Peru. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press.
1991 Paracas: An Ancient Cultural Tradition on the
South Coast of Peru. In Paracas Art and Architec-
ture, edited by Ann Paul, pp. 1-34. Iowa City:
University of Iowa Press.
Rodrguez Suy Suy, Victor Antonio
1997 Los pueblos muchik en el mundo andino de ayer y
siempre. Lima: PRATEC.
Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, Mara
1981 Recursos naturales renovables y pesca: Siglos XVI y
XVII. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
Sandweiss, Daniel H.
1992 The Archaeology of Chincha Fishermen: Specializa-
tion and Status In Inka Peru. Bulletin of the Carne-
gie Museum of Natural History 29.
Sawyer, Alan R.
1961 Paracas and Nasca Iconography. In Essays in
Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology, edited by
Doris Z. Stone, Gordon F. Ekholm, Junius B.
Bird, and Gordon R. Willey, pp. 269-298. Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Tello, Julio C. And Torbio Meja Xesspe
1979 Paracas, segunda parte: Cavernas y necrpolis.
Publicacin Antropolgica del Archivo Julio C.
Tello. Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de
San Marcos and New York: Institute of Andean
Research.
Yacovleff, Eugenio and Jorge C. Muelle
1932 Una exploracin en Cerro Colorado: Informe y
observaciones. Revista del Museo Nacional 1/2:31-
59.
261 - Katterman: Knotted Cotton Network

Figure 1: Net 1. Length 5.9 m, width 2.64 m. Cotton cordage (z-s--Z) knotted in blocks of turquoise,
purple, orange, and natural cream color containing images of local flora and fauna.
Photo consists of multiple overlapping images.

Figure 2: Net 2. Length: 6.1 m, width: 2.67 m. Cotton cordage (z-s-Z) knotted in blocks of turquoise,
purple, orange, and natural cream color containing images of local flora and fauna.
Photo consists of overlapping images.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 262

Figure 3: Net 3. Length 6.30 m, width 2.8-2.31 m. Cotton cordage (z-s-Z) knotted in blocks of plain,
turquoise, purple, orange, and natural cream, without images. Photo consists of overlapping images.

Figure 4: Net 4. Length 5.87 m, width: 2.24-2.4 m. Cotton cordage (z-s-Z) knotted in blocks of plain
color, now mostly faded. Photo consists of overlapping images.
263 - Katterman: Knotted Cotton Network

Figure 5: Net 2 being straightened by Nanette Skov.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 264

Figure 6: A section of Net 1 showing the outline of the white yarn

used to knot the blocks of colored images together.

Figure 7: Mesh with knots 5.5cm apart surrounds the

tops of the nets.
265 - Katterman: Knotted Cotton Network

Figure 8: Wider section of mesh at the ends of net.

Figure 9: Section of plant images, Net 2.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 266

Figure 10: The fish image, Net 1.

Figure 11: The bird image, Net 2.

267 - Katterman: Knotted Cotton Network

Figure 12: The humpbacked animal, Net 1.

Figure 13: The sun-face image, Net 1.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 268

Figure 14: A pair of fox images, Net 1.

Figure 15: Replied cordage used to tie the nets.

Figure 16: Steps involved in tying a simple overhand knot.

269 - Katterman: Knotted Cotton Network

Figure 17: a) The first row of knot-work for a block of

netting in colored cordage; b) the block of netting before
completion of the last row of knot-work; c) the block of
netting turned 180 degrees, the tail end knotted over to
meet the final row of knot-work and the two ends of
cordage tied together in the final knot.

Figure 18: a) The knotting of a plant image with the dark

base color completed and the addition of the lighter sec-
ond color beginning to be tied along the top; b) the com-
pletion of the knotting of the lighter color to the dark base
color of the plant image.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 270

Figure 19: Chavn representation of a super-

natural feline in profile (after Lumbreras
1974: figure 11).

Figure 20: Image of a hump-

backed animal on a close-
knotted headband from a
Cavernas Cemetery, on dis-
play in the Julio C. Tello Mu-
seum in the Paracas Reserve.

Figure 21: Feline image embroidered on a

mantle from the Paracas Peninsula (after
Paul 1990:71, figure 6.6).
271 - Katterman: Knotted Cotton Network

Figure 22: A traditional Muchick fishing net, with the bag extension, in use close to the shore by four
fishermen (after Rodrguez 1997: figure 4B).

Figure 23: A traditional Muchick fishing net, with the bag extension tended by fishermen in totora boats
farther out to sea than those in Figure 22 (after Rodrguez 1997: figure 4C).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 272

Figure 24: Net with leg extensions, Julio C. Tello Museum, Paracas Reserve.
273 - Katterman: Knotted Cotton Network

Figure 25: Oval net (MP-689) Cavernas Cemetery, Paracas Peninsula, in the Julio C. Tello Museum,
Paracas Reserve.

Figure 26: Detail of the iconographic images in the oval net (MP-689)
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 274

Figure 27: Sketch of a net of dyed cabuya

fiber, knotted in different shades of brown, on
display in the Gold Museum of Peru, Exhibit
5131.

Figure 28: Sketch of Net EU/773 in the

Museo Nacional de Arqueologa, Antropolo-
ga y Historia (Lima) with a design of rectan-
gular blocks executed in camelid cordage ver-
tically aligned as crosses on a white ground.
275 - Katterman: Knotted Cotton Network

Figure 29: Sketch of a section of a hood from Ocucaje knotted in red, blue, green, and cream cordage
(after King 1965: figure 45).

Figure 30: Net (27154) from Cabeza Larga in the Museo Nacional de Arqueologa, Antropologa y
Historia, Lima knotted in dark brown and yellow-ocher cordage.
 CLIMATE, AGRICULTURAL STATEGIES, AND SUSTAINABILITY
IN THE PRECOLUMBIAN ANDES
INTRODUCTION
Throughout ancient South America, mil-
lions of hectares of abandoned farmland attest
that much more terrain was cultivated in
precolumbian times than at present. For Peru
alone, the millions of hectares of abandoned
agricultural land show that in some regions 30
to 100 percent more terrain was cultivated in
precolumbian times than at present (Clement
and Moseley 1991:425). While many cultural
explanations for agrarian collapse can be formu-
lated, the most compelling reason for the loss of
cultivatable land is changing climate, including
shifting rainfall patterns and amounts. Agricul-
ture was expanded many times in many places
when conditions favorable to land reclamation
were perceived by past populations. When
climatic trends led to diminished water supplies,
temporary or permanent agrarian regression
ensued, with consequences for social structure.
Ancient Andean civilizations utilized a wide
diversity of agricultural techniques in different
ecological zones, and developed agriculural
strategies consistent with local climate patterns,
hydrological characteristics, soil and crop types,
and local labor supply. The strategies chosen
depended upon a societys hydraulic engineer-
ing, surveying, and civil engineering skills com-
bined with its perception of ecological and
hydrological conditions. Taken together, these
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009): 277-304.
CHARLES R. ORTLOFF
University of Chicago
and
MICHAEL E. MOSELEY
University of Florida
allowed each society to design and manage
complex water supply networks and to adapt
them as climate changed. While shifts to marine
resources, pastoralism, and trade may have
mitigated declines in agricultural production,
damage to the sustainability of the main agricul-
tural system often led to societal changes and/or
additional modifications to those systems.
To achieve agricultural sustainability, An-
dean administrators needed to record changes in
climate patterns, weather events, and natural
disasters, then conduct analyses to plan modifi-
cations allowing agricultural systems to function
in the face of changing water supplies. Modifica-
tions took the form of physical alteration of
existing water delivery systems, and the devel-
opment of new agro-systems suitable to new
hydrological conditions. When climate deterio-
rated beyond a systems ability to make modifi-
cations to maintain sustainability, field system
abandonment was an inevitable outcome. A
sustainable agricultural base, on the other hand,
can lead to overall population growth and
patterns of population concentration and/or
dispersal, with specialized labor to work and
manage the system. Such a division of the work-
force underlies urban centers that controlled
and administered adjacent agricultural zones
and may have exerted centralized control of
labor.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Even if water supplies are adequate for
sustainable agriculture, inappropriate strategies
of agro-engineering and labor management can
interrupt the development of otherwise well-
functioning societies. Agricultural sustainability
requires administrative skills to guide adaptive
technical innovations in the design and manage-
ment of an agricultural system to maintain high
yields in spite of changing weather and climate.
A degree of flexibility to modify an agricultural
system should, therefore, be part of the original
design of a system if knowledge of prior weather
and climate patterns, and their consequences for
sustainability, exists. As an integral part of
system design and the potential for innovative
and adaptive design change, an understanding
of the dynamics of water flow from original
highland rainfall sources to lowland and coastal
regions must be in place. The effects of exces-
sive rainfall or drought are disproportionately
felt in the highlands compared to the run-off
dependent coastal field systems. The differences
arise from altitude-dependent soil types and
their water infiltration and water retention
characteristics, soil saturation levels, and poros-
ity, as well as transport, evaporation, and seep-
age loss rates from water source to final destina-
tion for agricultural use. Based upon such con-
siderations, reconstructions of interactive,
climate-related, and societal-dependent struc-
tural factors have a hydrological component and
are thus key to understanding highland-lowland
interactional dynamics and their possible rela-
tion to Andean development.
THE SETTING: REGIONAL CLIMATE NORMS
The central Andes consists of parallel east-
ern and western cordilleras. In the north-central
Andes the higher eastern range and the lower
western range enclose intermontane uplands
that drain mostly into the Amazon and its
tributaries. In the southern altiplano region
rainfall drainage is mostly into Lake Titicaca
with a high degree of infiltration that maintains
- 278
high groundwater levels on the altiplano
throughout wet and dry seasons. Drainage from
western cordillera rainfall is mostly directed to
coastal river valleys (Figures 1, 2) with outflow
to the Pacific Ocean with the exception of the
intermontane source of the Santa River.
Biotic diversity is pronounced in the many
highly varied ecological zones of Peru. For
example, with 35 of the worlds life zones, Peru
contains the largest number of ecological zones
of any country on earth (Per, ONERN 1976;
Tosi 1960). However, diversity is asymmetrically
distributed by altitude, latitude, and longitude.
As in all mountain ranges, ecological zones are
stratified by altitude and far fewer species of
plants live at high elevations than at low ones.
The Andean mountain ranges form South
Americas continental divide. Normally, all
rainfall in the eastern cordillera comes from the
Atlantic Ocean with a longitudinal gradient in
precipitation. Fronting the Amazon Basin, the
high eastern Andean escarpment receives
abundant precipitation, creating a rain shadow
to the west. Consequently, bio-diversity is
greatest along the lower eastern flanks of the
eastern cordillera. The eastern escarpment is
exceptionally steep and therefore difficult to
farm. Because the eastern watershed reaches
deep into the intermontane sierra, it receives
and discharges approximately 90% of all mois-
ture in the range. Sierran basins have relatively
modest slopes amenable to rainfall and runoff
farming. Cultivation, in conjunction with the
use of high altitude grasslands for herding,
sustains agro-pastoralism and was the basis for
large sierran populations in prehispanic times.
DROUGHT EVENTS
Analysis of the ice cores from the southern
region Quelccaya peak (Thompson et al. 1985,
1986, 1994) and from the north Andean Huas-
carn mountain (Thompson et al. 1995a), and
279 -
analysis of the Lake Titicaca sediment cores
(Abbott et al. 1997; Binford et al. 1997; Ortloff
and Kolata 1993; Seltzer 1991) reveals dramatic
climate shifts. The Quelccaya ice cores indicate
periods of wet and dry climate, as well as dust
maxima, over a 1500 year span of time. The
Huascarn ice cores show similar climate varia-
tions with dust concentration events character-
izing dry periods. The Lake Titicaca sediment
cores present limnological data corroborating
the major wet and dry period climate shifts
found in the Quelccaya and Huascarn ice core
data (Ortloff and Kolata 1993:200). Initial
analysis of the cores documents a 25 to 30
percent decline in precipitation between 563
and 594 C.E. (Shimada et al. 1991:261). This
drought is notable for both its rapid onset and
exceptional severity (Schaaf 1988; Shimada et
al. 1991:248, 261-262). A protracted precipita-
tion downturn between 1100 and 1500 C.E.
occurred when rainfall was, on average, 5 to 15
percent below previous norms before precipita-
tion returned to long term averages around
1700 C.E.
The limnological cores from Lake Titicaca
have provided a 3500 year record of precipita-
tion induced lake level variation. These cores
show early Holocene aridity, mid-Holocene lake
filling around 1400 B.C.E., drought-induced
lake level low stands at about 900-800 B.C.E.
and 400-200 B.C.E., as well as at 1-300 C.E. and
1100-1450 C.E. (Abbott et al. 1997; Binford et
al. 1997).
Huascarn ice cores from northern Peru
reveal a glacial record of climatic conditions
extending back to late Pleistocene times
(Thompson et al. 1995). Evidence of the
drought beginning around 1100 C.E. is also
found in dust maxima and elevated temperature
variations seen in the Huascarn cores.
To reconstruct the effects of changing
climate on Andean highland and coastal societ-
Ortloff & Moseley: Agricultural strategies
ies we review the record of cultural change
through time using the Uhle-Rowe chronologi-
cal sequence. The sequence begins with Forma-
tive and Preceramic Periods of long duration (c.
9500-1800 B.C.E.), and continues with the
Initial Period (IP; 1800-900 B.C.E.), the Early
Horizon (EH; 900-200 B.C.E.), the Early Inter-
mediate Period (EIP; 200-600 C.E.), and the
Middle Horizon (MH; 600-1000 C.E.). This last
division is followed by the Late Intermediate
Period (LIP; 1000-1476 C.E.), then climaxed by
the Late Horizon (LH; 1476-1534 C.E.).
Climate data show that early and middle
phases of the EIP climate were sufficiently stable
to provide adequate water resources for the
development of canal based irrigation agricul-
ture by the Peruvian north coast Gallinazo and
Moche polities, as well as by the south coast
Nasca and central coast Lima polities. Highland
Wari and early phase Tiwanaku also flourished
during this time, reinforcing the conclusion that
water supplies and runoff were adequate in both
the coastal and highland zones, although agri-
cultural techniques varied greatly from locale to
locale.
Towards the end of the EIP, a dry period
(Thompson et al. 1985:973) apparently played
some role in the decline of the Moche state
around 640 C.E. (Shimada et al. 1991), as well
as in the collapse of Recuay and Lima polities,
and that of the south coast Nasca polity. During
the MH there was a dramatic expansion and rise
in influence of the highland Tiwanaku and Wari
states with their highland-adapted agricultural
strategies and plentiful water supplies. By con-
trast, in coastal areas there was a decline in the
area of irrigated land and highland states ex-
panded into coastal regions (e.g., Tiwanaku
colonies in the Moquegua Valley and Wari
influence on southern coastal regions, at Cerro
Bal in the Moquegua Valley, and at Beringa in
the Majes Valley; Owen 2007:287-289; 291-
292, 305-316, 321-325; Tung 2007:254-255).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Towards the end of the Middle Horizon the
decline of the Tiwanaku and Wari states (c.
1000-1200 C.E.) may have been due to a pro-
longed drought. Chimu, Chancay, and Ica-
Chincha societies continued to sustain their
agricultural bases through efficient use of limited
irrigation water supplies, and dependence upon
marine resources.
Late kingdoms in the altiplano (the Lupaqa,
Colla, and minor local groups) arose concur-
rently with the fragmentation of the dominant
Tiwanaku state. Towards the end of the LIP, a
decline in agricultural productivity in the Chimu
Moche Valley region is associated with sierra
rainfall decline as shown by sequential canal
cross-section area decreases and flow rates
(Ortloff et al. 1985:78, 86-89, 94, 96-97). High-
land polities (Wanka, Chanca, and early Cusco)
arise in this period, but are of lesser regional
influence compared to the Chimu state. A shift
to a wetter period during the start of the Late
Horizon (Thompson et al. 1985:973, 1986: 364,
1994:85) was followed by political dominance of
the highland Inca state over coastal, highland,
and altiplano regions extending from present-
day Ecuador to mid-Chile.
Significantly, the Titicaca lake cores, Quel-
ccaya ice cores, and Huascarn dust maxima are
concordant in their documentation of a long-
term decline in rainfall levels beginning around
1100 C.E. This decline appears to be an Andean
expression of the worldwide perturbations in
rainfall and temperature known as the Medieval
Warm Period. The long duration of this dry
period allowed coping strategies to be developed
over many centuries. Drought defensive re-
sponses that can be inferred from the archaeo-
logical record can be viewed as a measure of a
societys accomplishments in technical innova-
tion to reconfigure agro-systems towards greater
sustainability under climate stress.
- 280
Rainfall farming is more efficient than
canalized runoff farming (per unit of water
input) because of the evaporation and seepage
associated with rivers and canals. In the arid
sierra at elevations around 2250 m, the Moque-
gua Rivers flow forfeiture reaches 4 percent per
kilometer (Williams 1997). Mountain runoff is
greatly diminished by the time it reaches the
lower coastal valleys. Drought, therefore, always
has a more severe effect in coastal desert zones
than in mountain headwater zones. On the
other hand, when water is adequate, irrigated
farming produces far higher yields on average
than rainfall farming. Thus, there is substantial
investment in irrigation reclamation during
protracted episodes of normal or above normal
precipitation. However, growth is not sustain-
able when long term precipitation rates decline
on the order of 5 percent or more from average
because runoff drops disproportionately. Conse-
quently, over the millennia, populations de-
pendent on irrigation agriculture have repeat-
edly pulsed outward over arid landscapes in wet
periods and defensively reconfigured in times of
rainfall and runoff decline. This process is
reflected in ruins of vast agrarian works that
blanket the arid Andean landscape.
ADAPTATION TO PROTRACTED DROUGHT
The recurrence of protracted drought raises
the probability that indigenous populations
reacted to episodic dessication in patterned ways
based on prior experiences, and that some of
these responses are evident from the archaeo-
logical record. A very high degree of subsistence
mobility characterizes highland agro-pastoral
adaptations because they are based upon the
exploitation of multiple, dispersed ecological
zones stratified by altitude (Murra 1972). An-
nual hazards associated with short growing
seasons and poorly developed mountain soils
include topsoil erosion, erratic precipitation,
temperature fluctuations, saturated soils, frost,
and hail. Mediation requires rapid transmission
281 -
of information so that agricultural and pastoral
activities can be reprogrammed on short notice
(Earls 1996:302, 304-305). It also requires
preserving, storing, and stockpiling food reserves
because poor harvests are frequent (Orlove and
Guillet 1985:10). Drought exacerbates many
negative factors affecting human adaptations in
the central Andes and contributes to declines in
productivity, botanical variability, and increas-
ing distances between valued commodities.
Large, dense population areas are also af-
fected by drought because these had long tradi-
tions of complex social organization, culminat-
ing with the LH Inca imperium. Inca political
formation was a slow process that began shortly
after 1000 C.E. with the gradual consolidation
of local ethnic groups (Bauer 1992:1, 40-48, 72,
90-94, 109-123, 124-139, 149-147). Thus, the
nascent polity was formulated and grew during
the long periods characterized by low average
rainfall. After 1400 C.E., as average rainfall
levels increased, the Inca adapted corporate
styles of art, architecture, and construction on a
monumental scale both in the capital region and
in the provinces. Corve labor was employed for
large-scale agrarian reclamation of land that was
not farmed, or that was underutilized. Initially,
much of the reclaimed terrain was at high
elevations along the eastern Andean escarp-
ment, utilizing terracing in high rainfall zones,
although such terracing was a drought response
at the folk level. Later, as rainfall levels in-
creased even more above normal, corve labor
was used to reopen farming in lower, warmer
elevations where conquered communities were
often resettled. Therefore, certain Inca corve
policies over time may be considered as adapta-
tions to both drought and to increased rainfall.
Inca food storing and stockpiling are unsur-
passed in the annals of South American civiliza-
tions (LeVine 1992:15). The monumental
construction and prominent display of ware-
houses (qollka) frequently surpassed the quality
Ortloff & Moseley: Agricultural strategies
and placement of commoners houses. Erected
in rows, hundreds, and in some cases, thousands
of qollka were strategically positioned on high
hills and could be seen from great distances.
Although prominently displayed for reassurance
that the state provided contingency food sup-
plies, their locations on mountainsides also
provided cold air currents to help preserve food
quality by removal of heat that serves as a
catalyst for the spoilage of organic material
(Morris 1992; Rowe 1946). Although the stores
were generally used for state purposes, they were
also used to mitigate food shortages among the
common people (Rowe 1946:266-267).
In contrast, the coastal Chimu polity re-
sponded to low rainfall periods by contracting its
agricultural base commensurately with its lower
water supplies. While canals were infilled to
create smaller channels during drought, no
evidence of the reverse process is evident for the
late MH to LH times when water supplies
increased. This may be attributed to the domi-
nation of the north coast by the Inca and the
disassembly of the Chimu states agricultural
multi-valley domains to suit Inca political goals
for the region.
In EIP times, it appears that some shift from
the Mochica capital in the Moche Valley center
occurred to incorporate, through conquest,
larger northern valleys, the Jequetepeque and
Lambayeque in particular, with rivers less sub-
ject to flow rate intermittency and large land
areas suitable for agriculture. In the late LIP, a
similar expansion into northern valleys by the
Chimu, who were centered at Chan Chan, in
the Moche Valley, had, as its goal, an increase
in agricultural sustainability to support an
expanding population. This expansion was likely
driven by similar drought effects that challenged
agricultural sustainability in the Moche Valley
with its small land area and intermittent river
water supplies. Territorial expansion into large,
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
irrigable valleys is also a coping strategy, albeit a
last resort when innovation is lacking.
HIGHLAND AGRICULTURAL STRESS AND
RESPONSE
Recent work has postulated that the 1100
C.E. drought played a role in the collapse of the
Tiwanaku polity centered around Lake Titicaca
(Kolata and Ortloff 1996:110, 151; Ortloff and
Kolata 1993). This is premised upon the fact
that the agricultural base of Tiwanaku was
anchored in some 80 square kilometers of raised
fields in the extensive low-lying areas along lake
margins north of Tiwanaku (Binford et al. 1997:
235, 243, 245). The raised field mounded ridges
are elevated 1-1.5m above the water table and
have planting surfaces 2-10 m wide that range
from 10 m to 200 m long (Kolata and Ortloff
1996:118). Built in parallel row segments, each
ridge is separated from the next by a depressed
trough of similar dimensions that held slow
moving spring-supplied or standing ground
water which is essential to the high productivity
of ridged field systems (Kolata 1996:118-120).
Warmed during the day by solar radiation
absorbed by dark, decomposing organic material
in the water troughs, heat is released during cold
nights into the soil mounds to maintain internal
mound temperatures near the freezing point, but
insufficiently cold to cause a phase change to
ice, thus limiting damage to root crop biomass.
The mound phreatic zones are also effective in
collecting and storing solar radiative heat due to
the high specific heat of moist soils (Kolata and
Ortloff 1989: 252, 256-260).
As lake and runoff levels declined after 1100
C.E., the water table subsided, desiccating raised
field systems and reducing their thermal storage
potential. By the time the lake fell to its -12m
low-stand, more than 50,000 hectares of raised
fields had been abandoned. The population of
Tiwanakus urban core dispersed to utilize
- 282
higher fields located near high water table zones,
and occupy small rural settlements (Alberracn-
Jordn and Mathews 1990:146-148).
While creation of small sunken gardens as a
drought response was tenable in limited regions
of the land-locked Titicaca Basin, where water
was not far below the ground surface, this was
not an option in most sierra basins with steep
drainages. Along the western Andean escarp-
ment there were few means to compensate for
food loss in the dry sierra below 2000 m. Here
slopes are steep, ground- water is deep below the
land surface, runoff is limited, and natural
vegetation is sparse. In this region of the
Moquegua Basin, Tiwanaku colonies and later
post-Tiwanaku Chirabaya populations depend-
ent upon rainfall and irrigation agriculture
declined significantly during the post-1100 C.E.
dry period (Ortloff 1989:472-475, 477).
Unlike the coastal valleys, where
tectonically-induced river down-cutting forced
farmers to shift their river canal inlets to lower
altitudes downstream to channel water into
canals (Ortloff et al. 1985:77-78, 85, 90-91, 96-
97), sierra farmers shifted to higher elevations in
pursuit of higher rainfall rates and pre-drought
quantities of subsurface water supplying moist
pasture lands at altitudes about 100 to 400 m or
more above the normal level of cultivation.
There were many constraints on the uphill
pursuit of rainfall and soil moisture. Fewer types
of crops can be grown at higher elevations
because soil quality decreases and the frequency
of frost, hail, and erosion increases. While
terracing can provide planting surface stability,
the labor investment is high and time consum-
ing to implement and thus does not constitute
a short-term solution to climate variation. In the
central highlands of Peru, by about 1300 C.E.
colder, dryer climate conditions forced a down-
ward shift of as much as 150 m in the altitude
distribution of natural vegetation zones relative
283 -
to todays levels (Seltzer and Hastorf 1990:402,
405-408, 410).
Thus, as highland people moved agriculture
and pastoralism into higher, wetter altitudes, the
elevations at which plants, pasture, and crops
could grow diminished, and drought-response
farming moved from gentle to steep inclines. To
reclaim upland mountain slopes, agriculturalists
constructed terraces over a span of many gener-
ations to control soil loss and regulate moisture
levels for specific crops. Along the Pacific water-
shed and sierra zones, terracing was combined
with canal irrigation to capture high elevation
runoff streams. In addition to permitting crop
cultivation at higher altitudes, terracing was
widely used to move farming eastward into the
Atlantic watershed. Even during drought this
region was better watered than the rest of the
central Cordillera. Hence terracing allowed
farming to expand into less extreme elevations
where more types of crops can grow.
Over the course of many drought-influenced
centuries in the latter part of the LIP, millions of
terraces were built to reclaim vast areas of the
Andean uplands in the eastern escarpment.
Whereas both agrarian productivity and popula-
tions declined along the lower Pacific water-
shed, the drop in rainfall was a major catalyst for
economic and demographic radiation into the
upper and eastern highlands, culminating by
about 1400 C.E. in large populations at high
altitudes. Because normal sierra runoff farming
produces higher yields than sierra rainfall farm-
ing, as the drought mitigated during the Little
Ice Age, farmers reverted to lower, warmer
settings better for plant growth. Thus, where
mobility was possible, population concentrations
shifted to maintain agricultural sustainability.
For cases for which large fixed investment in a
specialized agricultural method was tied inti-
mately to the landscape (altiplano raised fields
and coastal irrigation networks, for example),
Ortloff & Moseley: Agricultural strategies
innovation applied to these fixed systems was
the only option for maintaining sustainability.
To augment agrarian tax revenues, the Inca
imperium often forcibly resettled conquered
high altitude communities on lower terrain
made more productive by increased rainfall, soil
moisture, and runoff. Although post-LH precipi-
tation rose above long term normal levels,
demographic decimation in the wake of Euro-
pean pandemics left Spanish overlords with few
people to farm large expanses of arable land.
Because above normal rainfall and runoff per-
sisted until about 1700 C.E., remnants of the
indigenous population could still be forcibly
relocated to even lower elevations. This facili-
tated political control and religious conversion
and imposed cultivation of Old World cultigens
intolerant of extreme altitudes. If the drought
had not broken neither Inca nor Castilian
resettlement policies would have been tenable.
Thus, during the last millennium, farming,
and the millions it supports, have shifted over
the elevated slopes of the Andean range in
concordance with long term changes in rainfall
and runoff, with political boundaries set as
constraints. This story of climate change and
human response over the mountain landscape is
shown in ubiquitous terraces, fields, and ruins of
past agrarian endeavors during EIP to LH times.
REGIONAL ADAPTIVE AGRICULTURAL
STRATEGIES
The adaptive strategies used to defend agro-
production in the face of drought, excessive El
Nio rainfall, or the presence of above-average
rainfall over time, are summarized in Table 1
and Figure 3. Specific to different geographic
sectors and cultural periods, these strategies
represent sustainability programs devised to
protect agricultural fields and water supply
systems. The defensive measures give direct
evidence of cultural memory of responses to past
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 284

catastrophic events and constitute evidence of

the importance of such events in shaping the
technological response pattern relevant to
specific areas and polities.

Table 1 - Regional and Adaptive Agro-engineering Technological Strategies

EH EIP MH LIP LH

North Sierra

high rainfall

drought 11 19 11, 19 11

Southern
Altiplano

high rainfall 5, 8 2, 5, 8, 12, 14 6, 14 6

drought 8, 12 3, 5, 8, 12, 13, 19 4, 6, 7, 8, 13, 14 7, 19

North Coast

high rainfall 2 2 1 1, 5, 16

drought 4, 11, 17, 18 3, 4, 11, 17, 18 3, 4, 12, 15 3, 4, 7, 10, 15, 16, 18

South Coast
small valleys

high rainfall 17 1, 2

drought 18 9, 18 4, 9, 10 4, 9, 10 9

Key: A dash indicates lack of available information.
1. Canal hydraulic controls: canal inlet blockage
from rivers to regulate canal intake flow rate;
use of canal overflow weirs (downhill water
spillage from canals) triggered by El Nio-in-
duced canal flow rates exceeding design capac-
ity, i.e., excessive rainfall-induced canal flows
activate supercritical chokes causing side over-
fall weirs to activate to release excess flows;
stream-wise alteration of canal slope, wall
roughness, and cross-section shaping to alter
flow height and velocity; dividing canal flow
into two separate streams at different slopes and
velocities, then recombining to induce a hydrau-
lic jump in a single channel used as an energy
dissipation method to slow flow velocity;
coupling of intra- to inter-valley canals as a
means of reactivating dessicating intra-valley
canals. They redirected water in excess of that
required for available arable land, directing flow
from large rivers to adjacent valleys of political
importance to increase the latters agricultural
footprints and increase local sources of food.
Examples present in Chimu Chicama-Moche
Inter-valley, Lambayeque-Supe-Leche Inter-
valley, and Chilln-Rimac-Lurin (Lima) Inter-
valley complexes (Kosok 1965: map page 24,
map page 86 figure 8 page 90, map page 146;
Ortloff 1993: 345, 347-351, 356, 2009; Ortloff
et al. 1982:581, 583-588, 591-593, Ortloff et al.
1985).
2. Flood diversion channels: used mainly in the
Tiwanaku and Lukurmata areas of the Bolivian
altiplano to intercept and shunt excessive
285 -
rainfall runoff from adjacent hill slopes directly
into Lake Titicaca (Kolata and Ortloff 1996:
115, 121, 147, 149-50; Ortloff 1996) in order to
modulate ground water level with respect to
planting surfaces. Some application to Moque-
gua Valley mountain region terraces (in Wari
and Tiwanaku colonies) to divert excessive
rainfall runoff in terrace supply canals into
downhill spillage channels draining into
quebradas. Use of Pre-Moche or Moche Great
Trenches for flood water diversion (Ortloff
2009).
3. Ground water recharging: north coast Moche
and Chimu sunken gardens (wachaques) and
Chan Chan compound wells (Ortloff 1993)
activated by canal water seepage from field
systems; Tiwanaku and Pampa Koani use of
spring-fed canals to deliver water to local raised
field water troughs to alter local water table
height and chemical nutrient composition
(Ortloff 2009).
4. Springs, wells, and minor sunken gardens:
Moche Valley pukio (spring) systems; north
coast Chimu wells in Chan Chan (Ortloff 1993:
343, 356, 364) and use by earlier north and
south coast cultures; minor sunken garden
systems (cochas)in late to post-Tiwanaku (Kola-
ta and Ortloff 1996:134). Use of perpetual
pukio-sourced canals for valley bottom agricul-
ture at Caral and other sites in the Supe Valley
(Ortloff 2009).
5. Runoff interception and river canal shunts to
modulate groundwater levels: Tiwanaku and
Pampa Koani raised field systems (Ortloff 1996:
156, 157, 159, 166; Kolata and Ortloff 1996:
128, 134-137, 148-151) laced with main canals
having elevated weir structures that activate at
high water to drain excessive runoff water
directly to Lake Titicaca; possible Chiripa
antecedents; Chimu canal systems near Farfn
(Jequetepeque Valley) with trenches uphill of
canal systems to intercept rainfall runoff from
Ortloff & Moseley: Agricultural strategies
mountainous terrain (Ortloff 2009) diverted
into quebradas to limit inflow damage to major
canals.
6. Terrace agriculture: post-Tiwanaku V, high-
land Wari, Inca polities, planting surfaces
moved to higher elevations during low average
rainfall periods. Use of high elevation canals
supplied by snowmelt channeled water to irri-
gate terrace systems (Ortloff 2009).
7. Sunken gardens (cochas): used by late and
post-Tiwanaku V altiplano cultures to supple-
ment pasturalism-derived food supplies. Chimu
coastal wachaques near Chan Chan (Moseley
and Deeds 1982:31, 33, 35).
8. Lake Titicaca raised field agricultural zone shifts
to incorporate the optimum raised field moisture
levels for subsiding or increasing lake and rainfall
level: optimization method applied to field
systems on Pampa Koani (Ortloff 2009).
9. Underground galleries and channels collecting
groundwater for surface field agriculture:(south
coast Nasca galleries (Schreiber and Lancho
1995; 2006).
10. Canal and river seepage utilization: north coast
Chimu (Chan Chan wells, aquifer recharge from
field system seepage; Ortloff 1993:356, 363);
Moquegua Valley Chirabaya coastal ground seep
agriculture (Clement and Moseley 1991:430,
434-435, 441); north coast valley mouth agricul-
ture at Casma, Vir, and Moche Valleys.
11. High and mid-sierra reservoir and lagoon water
storage and transport to coastal valleys: Chimu,
lower Jequetepeque and Lambayeque Valley
systems; also Moche Nepea and San Jos
reservoirs and use in mid-sierra farming. Proba-
ble water delivery by geological fault (or canals)
to the Supe Valley to maintain high water table
and springs to support Caral agricultural base
(Villafana 1986; Ortloff 2009).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
12. Canal collection and diversion of runoff to
modify ground water profiles: Pampa Koani
Tiwanaku systems area on the Taraco peninsula
(Ortloff 1996).
13. Snow-melt water collection channels directed to
mountainside terraces: Upper highlands Moque-
gua Valley drainage, post-Tiwanaku V,
Estuquea and Wari terracestechnique used in
elevated temperature periods to provide water
in the highlands.
14. Shift to terrace agriculture when Lake Titicaca
completely covers raised fields:Late post-Tiwana-
ku, possible reuse of early Tiwanaku terraces in
Inca times.
15. Multi-valley transport/distribution canals:
Chicama-Moche Inter-valley canal, Motupe-
Leche-Lambayeque inter-valley canals, Lima
complex (Chilln-Rimac-Lurn inter-valley
canals) used as possible drought remediation
measure based on redistribution of excess water
beyond that needed for valley agriculture, to
large land areas in adjacent valleys with small,
intermittent rivers (Kosok 1965: map page 34,
figure 8, map page 146).
16. Hydraulic efficiency improvements in canal
design by cross-section, slope, and wall roughness
changes: (Ortloff 1993:345, 347-351, 356, 2009;
Ortloff et al. 1982, 1985); canal hydraulic design
changes to maximize low canal flow rates during
droughts. Improvements also include canal
spatial relocations related to river down-cutting
and inlet stranding.
17. Lomas farming: fog condensation agriculture
in coastal, natural surface fieldyields amplified
during wet periods (Moseley 1992a:41).
18. Adaptions toward a marine resource base: For
drought affected land regions with access to
marine resources this shift can provide an addi-
- 286
tional protein source (Moseley 1992b:5, 7, 10-
12, 16, 22, 33).
19. Adaptions toward sierra pastoralism: As a
drought response, the shift from land agriculture
to high sierra animal herding can provide addi-
tional food resources.
The adaptive strategies set out in Table 1
indicate conscious efforts to control water
supplies by a variety of technologies specific to
different geographical areas and agricultural
systems. While many of these strategies are
related to observation of long-term climate
trends (3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19)
others provided specific defenses against short-
term El Nio related flooding (1, 2, 3, 5, 12, 14),
and drought events (1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11,
12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19). Table 1 indicates
a library of agro-engineering responses to both
long and short term climate variations over
many time periods and demonstrates that obser-
vation of climate over time and related techno-
logical innovations and controls were important
factors in system design and operation.
MODELING DROUGHT STRESS: KEY COMPO-
NENT FACTORS IN HIGHLAND/LOWLAND
RUN-OFF RATIO (R)
During drought, coastal farmland that
normally supports an abundance of crop types
can sustain only a reduced number of types with
low water demands. Crop yields are reduced in
response to lower water supplies. Sierra range-
land, in contrast, may support pastoralism and
some form of agriculture due to elevated rainfall
amounts at higher altitudes (but which, during
drought periods, are lower than normal). One
reason for the difference between coastal and
highland agriculture under drought is related to
the soil types that influence rainfall infiltration,
runoff, and transport rates, given highland
rainfall sources. Highland soils retain water
within their porous structure until saturation is
287 -
reached. Past this level runoff occurs. Chan-
neled runoff is further subject to evaporation,
seepage, and subsurface porous medium reten-
tion effects through a different set of nonlinear
relationships than the storage/saturation effect,
resulting in imbalances in the rainfall/runoff
delivery rate.
To illustrate the effect of drought stress and
the hydrological relationships between rainfall,
soils, runoff, and flow losses, an illustration from
the Moquegua Basin is useful. The Moquegua
Basin lies on the Pacific watershed to the west of
Lake Titicaca. This river system is 139 km in
length, with headwaters reaching slightly above
5,100 masl. Along the Moquegua coast precipi-
tation is negligible, but it increases gradually in
the interior with altitude. However, the quantity
of rainwater only exceeds (saturated) retention
values in the 19 percent of the basin that is
above 3900 masl. Between 3900 and 4500 m,
average rainfall is about 360 mm/yr, of which
260 mm is absorbed at saturation and 100 mm
is available as runoff (Per, ONERN 1976). In
this zone, a 10 percent, or 36 mm, decline in
rainfall to 324 mm decreases runoff by 36 per-
cent from 100 mm to 64 mm. Given a specific
soil type with a given retention capability, the
soil always retains the same amount of water, so
a 15 percent decrease in rainfall results in a 54
percent decrease in runoff. In the elevation zone
between 4500 and 4900 masl, rainfall averages
480 mm/yr and a 10 percent or 15 percent
rainfall reduction results in runoff reductions of
21.8 percent and 32.7 percent respectively.
Thus the asymmetric disparity between rainfall
and runoff reduction diminishes as precipitation
increases. Comprising less than 3 percent of the
Moquegua Basin, precipitation in the zone of
alpine tundra above 4900 masl is principally in
the form of snow and ice (Per, ONERN 1976).
The runoff contribution is not known because
an unknown amount of this moisture is retained
in glaciers and snow-fields. Nonetheless, for the
upper river basin as a whole, rainfall declines of
Ortloff & Moseley: Agricultural strategies
10 to 15 percent result in runoff reductions of
25 to 40 percent or more. Significantly, the
asymmetric relationship between rainfall and
runoff also works in reverse. Increased precipita-
tion rapidly saturates the soil which then dis-
cards water and amplifies runoff. This effect was
prevalent in the first two centuries C.E. when
precipitation rose by 20 to 25 percent and the
runoff by 72 to 90 percent.
Drought stress is exacerbated by the fact
that once rainfall saturates the soil and excess
water is released, some surface runoff is lost to
evaporation and seepage. Due to these factors,
the Moquegua River loses about 4 percent of its
flow per kilometer in the arid sierra at elevations
around 2250 masl. Other than during spring
floods, the river channel does not normally carry
surface flow at elevations below 1200 m. Farm-
ing in the coastal section of the drainage de-
pends on springs fed by subsurface groundwater
flows originating high in the river basin. The
relationship between highland rainfall and
coastal spring flow is highly asymmetrical be-
cause subsurface water flows through porous
geological strata. Similar to soils, porous deposits
have different hydraulic conductivity and satu-
ration values. Although these values are poorly
known, there are indirect indications that
coastal spring flow may have dropped by 80
percent during the 1100 C.E. drought (Ortloff
1989:457-477). These calculations are approxi-
mations for the Moquegua Basin. Other soil
adsorption and precipitation values characterize
other drainages. Nonetheless, relationships
between rainfall and runoff are always nonlin-
ear, so drought always exerts asymmetrically
greater stress on runoff farming than on rainfall
farming.
The runoff not directly channeled into rivers
is diminished en route to coastal zones by fur-
ther infiltration into increasingly porous soils
(adding to the local water table profile) as well
as by evaporation losses. The resulting coastal
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
river hydrographs track the availability of coast-
al irrigation water over time. Of course, the
details will vary between coastal valleys as
functions of local soil geomorphology, topogra-
phy, evapotranspiration, agricultural productiv-
ity potential, and temperature and humidity
history. The net effect is one of a nonlinear, but
generally similar, relationship between unit
amounts of input rainwater at different altitudes
and times, and net deliverable water to coastal
irrigation systems with time lags. From this
discussion, it may be concluded that in dry
periods rain at high altitudes may sustain some
form of agriculture in these zones, but coastal
agriculture derived from runoff into rivers from
the same watershed will experience a severe
deficit of irrigation water. In terms of quantify-
ing the runoff effect, the Runoff Ratio (R) is
defined as the average net runoff rate from an
area divided by the average rainfall delivery rate
to the same area. Here R=0 denotes zero runoff
and R=1 denotes that all delivered rainfall to
an area converts to runoff, implying a total
saturation condition.
VULNERABILITY INDEX (1-V)
Figure 4 shows a plot of the main agricul-
tural strategies practiced by Andean civiliza-
tions. A vulnerability index is defined relative to
available rainfall levels. The first entry, raised
field agriculture (Index 1), was widely practiced
by MH Tiwanaku III-V around the southern
and western periphery of Lake Titicaca. Tiwa-
naku groundwater based agricultural systems are
largely invulnerable to short-term drought due
to the continuous arrival of subsurface water
from earlier rainfall in the immense collection
zone around the lake. Because groundwater
transport velocities are on the order of a few
centimeters per month, groundwater from
distant collection basins may have originated as
infiltrated rain that occurred many years earlier.
The groundwater based systems are likewise
relatively invulnerable to seasonal excessive
- 288
rainfall because elaborate field drainage systems
shunt water directly into the lake, thus limiting
infiltration into the water table (Table 1).
Because the collection basin rainfall rates and
Lake Titicaca height vary with seasonal and
climate-related rainfall/runoff fluctuations
(Binford and Kolata 1996:37-38), the raised
field water table height sufficient to maintain
agriculture shifts vertically and laterally within
the extensive lacustrine field systems (Ortloff
1996; Kolata et al. 1996:205), and productive
farming zones can likewise be shifted. This
indicates that not all of the raised fields in the
Lukurmata area north of Tiwanaku were farmed
simultaneously, but only those areas with water
trough zones supplied by spring water and
elevated groundwater profiles at the correct
height for agriculture were utilized, with remain-
ing areas allowed to fallow.
Prolonged drought over many years can
destroy the special heat storage features that
provided frost damage protection under diurnal
and seasonal temperature variations (Kolata and
Ortloff 1996:130) and decrease the height of the
water table in raised field troughs necessary to
sustain agriculture. The raised field systems can,
nevertheless, be optimized to highland climate
conditions and cycles to produce high crop
yields through interventions shown in Table 1,
and as demonstrated by modern resurrection
and use of these systems (Kolata 1996:203, 206-
207, 226, 228-230).
The next least vulnerable agricultural system
to rainfall fluctuations is a variant of raised field
systemssunken gardens (Index 2). These
systems are pits excavated to the phreatic zone
and are mostly found as a last resort drought
response system used when the water table has
declined out of reach of plant root systems.
While sunken gardens are common in the 1100
C.E. post-collapse settlements around Tiwa-
naku, similar wachaques are also found in Peru-
vian north coastal valleys in response to the
289 -
pan-Andean LIP drought. Being primarily a
drought remediation measure, these systems
have no defense against excessive rainfall and
groundwater level rises, because simple drainage
paths usually do not exist.
At the next level of vulnerability are the
terraces widely used by Inca, Wari, and post-
Tiwanaku highland civilizations (Index 3).
Terraces are mostly supplied by rainfall and
provide a well-drained agricultural system that
is effective during rainy seasons. Other variants
are supplied by snow-melt and channel water
during periods of low rainfall and elevated
temperature (particularly in the upland
Moquegua area). As rainfall diminishes, these
systems generally become marginal for produc-
tion unless supplied by channeled water.
Next in increasing order of vulnerability
(Index 4) is canal-fed irrigation as practiced
primarily by north and south coast civilizations.
Figure 4 indicates that such systems are only
viable in the presence of highland rainfall ex-
ceeding saturation conditions. As such, if coast-
al agriculture flourishes, then highland agricul-
ture has an excess of water supplies due to the
nonlinear input/delivery R relationship. The
highlands appear to always have demonstrated
less vulnerability to agricultural stress regardless
of the level of rainfall, provided the technology
to use the available water is adequately devel-
oped in each ecological zone, and drainage
technology to control the water table height is
in place.
Generally, long canals are more vulnerable
(Index 5) than short canals due to greater
seepage and evaporation losses, tectonic/seismic
distortions, and higher technological demands
for design, low-angle surveying (Ortloff 1995:60,
70-71 ), and construction. Yet more vulnerable
(Index 6) are the coastal seeps that supply
agriculture, mainly in northern Chile and in the
Ilo area of the Moquegua Valley (Ortloff 1989:
Ortloff & Moseley: Agricultural strategies
471-472). Such systems rely on groundwater
seepage to coastal bluffs over long underground
distances, and thus are only marginally produc-
tive compared to other delivery systems.
Survival of the more vulnerable agricultural
systems is questionable past a critical level (line
DD, Figure 4) and extinction of highly vulnera-
ble systems is inevitable whenever reconfigura-
tion to lower vulnerability systems is impossible.
In the presence of yearly rainfall and runoff
variations, high vulnerability systems must have
superior technology, innovation, and modifica-
tion features to maintain agricultural produc-
tion. Figure 4 plots a Vulnerability Index (1-V)
such that the largest values of the index denote
the least vulnerable agricultural systems.
TECHNOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGICAL
CHANGE UNDER CLIMATIC DURESS
Andean agricultural systems have a long
history of evolution and improvement over time.
A sample of agricultural strategies (Figure 3) is
shown for modified and unmodified water and
land surface variables. An initial choice of an
agricultural system fitting local ecological condi-
tions is made by early inhabitants. System evolu-
tion proceeds through observation of agro-
production changes in response to field system
design changes. Key requirements are the pres-
ervation of the system and its efficient function-
ing under seasonal weather fluctuations, as well
as those arising from large-scale climate fluctua-
tions. Therefore, the ability to modify an agri-
cultural system to maintain sustainability in
anticipation of climate-related changes in water
supply is part of the original concept of the
system as shown by the interventions listed in
Table 1. The agro-system modifications must be
performed more rapidly than the climate varia-
tion effect unfolds, e.g., system modifications are
effective when long-term climate changes are
initially observed and system modifications are
carried out in anticipation of a long-term trend.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Therefore, the Vulnerability Index (1-V) of an
agricultural system depends upon the sustain-
ability of an initial design choice in the face of
weather and climate variations, as well as the
ability to modify technology (T) in time (t),
denoted as (dT/dt), faster than the climate-
induced creation/evolution rate of a climate
related disaster (dD/dt).
AGRICULTURAL SUSTAINABILITY MODEL
Several key factors influencing agricultural
stainability have been discussed from the view-
point of agricultural systems strategies. These
factors, and others, are next combined to pro-
duce a trend equation where increases or de-
creases in each term imply a net increase or
decrease in the agricultural sustainability (Q) of
a society. The quantities in the equation (Q, R,
S, P, V, Y, dT/dt and dD/dt) are non-dimen-
sional values normalized to the maximum refer-
ence state for each variable. A large value of Q
connotes agricultural sustainability, while a
small value denotes the opposite. From the
foundation of the above discussion, a simplified
model equation, based upon agricultural parame-
ters only (i.e., excluding implied or induced
social, political, economic, and/or governmental
system effects) can be postulated as:
Q=S+YAR+(1-V)+P(2-P) (dT/dt)/(dD/dt) against climate-induced changes in water supply
where R is the Runoff Ratio (0<R<1), S the
agricultural storage capacity (0<S<1) normal-
ized to Smx where S=0 represents zero crop
storage and S=1 represents total storage of all
unconsumed crops. The quantity YAR repre-
sents the main comestible crop yield per land
unit area times the total land area times the
available water supply to the area normalized so
that 0<YCAR<1. Here the zero limit is a
trend toward poor crop yield over a small land
area with poor water supplies, while the unity
limit indicates the best crop selection over the
largest possible agricultural area sustained by
- 290
irrigation. The term, P=P/Pmx is defined as the
population density ratio where Pmx is the maxi-
mum population sustainable by the in-place
agrosystem. If P=1, then P(2-P)=1 at the
maximum population level balanced with the
food supply. If P'=0, then P(2 - P) = 0, indi-
cating that a very small population exists (such
as may occur after a natural or man-made
disaster). Thus:
0<P(2-P)<1.
As before, (1-V) is the agricultural Vulnera-
bility Index (0 < V < 1) for the agricultural
system involved as shown in Figure 4. For the
remaining terms, 0< dT/dt<1 represents the
time rate of technology (T) change to surmount
a long term climate effect (excessive rainfall,
drought) on agricultural production. Here the
maximum dT/dt value is assumed to be unity to
represent a technology growth rate typical of
most advanced agriculture based societies. Here
dT/dt can be large due to technical innovations
listed in Table 1. The dD/dt maximum value
may be typically very large for rapidly evolving
disasters such as El Nio events (reducing Q
dramatically in a short period). The
1<dD/dt<4 term is representative of the time
rate of change of disaster-producing climate
factors. Therefore, if dT/dtdD/dt=dT/dD$1,
the rate of development of technology to defend
exceeds the rate of disaster evolution on the
same time scale, then a positive effect on agri-
cultural sustainability Q exists. If a sudden El
Nio flood event occurs beyond the defense
mechanisms ability to protect, then
dT/dDdD/dt is a small number indicating no
contribution to agricultural sustainability, Q. If,
however, a climate related disaster evolved at
the same rate as a defensive technology, then
dT/dtdD/dt$1, and then Q shows increased
sustainability.
If P<1, then the labor force to make rapid
dT/dt corrections is not available and Q de-
291 -
creases. If P.1 in the presence of a declining
agricultural supply, the agricultural resources are
inadequate to feed a large workforce over time
to ensure rapid dT/dt changes to increase Q.
Thus, only a population balanced with agricul-
tural supply (including storage) promotes large
sustainability Q values. The relative value of Q
(0.2<Q<4) (increasing or decreasing) applied
to highland and coastal societies at different
time intervals then gives indication of some
underlying factors behind the relative agricul-
tural sustainability of one society over an-
otherat least based on agricultural parameters
in different time intervals. Overall, from the Q
equation, sustainability is enhanced when the
runoff ratio/water supply (R), land area (A) in
cultivation and crop storage (S) are all high, a
stable population is balanced with agricultural
output (P=1), the system vulnerability is low,
the technology innovation rate exceeds or
equals that of the disaster evolution rate, and
soil productivity (Y)/unit of water input is high.
In general, high Q indicates a successful, well-
managed society with foresight to maintain a
sustainable agricultural base despite weather
and climate variations. Low Q indicates gaps in
the perception of threats that will cause an
agricultural system to fail or operate in a mar-
ginal manner. Of course, for extreme, long-
lasting negative climate variations such as long-
term drought, Q must ultimately drift to smaller
and smaller values indicating that sustainability
is no longer possible. We now use the Q equa-
tion to analyze historical patterns,
ANDEAN HISTORICAL PATTERNS
In the Uhle-Rowe chronological sequence,
each period is characterized by a dominant
polity (or polities) with distinct societal, politi-
cal, and economic structures, governmental
systems, architectural and settlement patterns,
ceramic and religious iconography, and agro-
engineering practices. Frequently, one dominant
trait characterizes the period. During horizons,
Ortloff & Moseley: Agricultural strategies
one society exerts overarching influence over
vast territories. During intermediate periods,
dominant regional states may exert control
primarily through branching government struc-
tures capable of integrating adjacent territories
into the same ideological and political template.
Although some revision regarding Formative
and Preceramic societies such as Caral, 24 km
inland in the Supe Valley (Figure 1), will un-
doubtedly alter previous understanding about
origins of coastal society development, too little
is known about climate effects in that period
(3000-2100 B.C.E.) to warrant incorporation
into the present discussion.
The Early Horizon is characterized by high-
land Chavn influence diffused into Peruvian
north and central coast radiation centers show-
ing similar, but locally interpreted, artistic
traditions in iconographic, ceramic, and textile
traits. The expansion of Chavn influence from
highland sources appears to have been religion-
based. Minor south coastal societies (Paracas
Cavernas) arose at this time and had regional
influence.
During the EIP major coastal architectural
and agricultural complexes were begun by the
Moche who were dominant on the Peruvian
north coast. Lima cultures were preeminent on
the central coast, and the Paracas and later
Nasca polities were established on the south
coast. All were characterized by some form of
limited centralized administrative control. The
minor north highlands Recuay culture and the
Huarpa society of the central highlands arose in
this period, but had only local extent and influ-
ence and built only minor irrigation works
compared to the major coastal and highland
polities.
During the MH there was a shift back to
highland dominance with the late Tiwanaku
(Phases IV and V) and Wari states dominating
much of the southern and central Andean
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
coastal and highland regions through their
political, economic, military, and religious
influences. Large agricultural complexes in the
form of raised fields, in the case of Tiwanaku,
and terraces, in the case of Wari, were con-
structed in conjunction with secondary adminis-
trative centers such as the Tiwanaku centers of
Omo, Pajchiri, Lukurmata, and Wankarani and
the Wari centers of Pikillaqta, Cajamarquilla,
Viracocha Pampa, Cerro Bal, and Wari Willka.
The subsequent LIP is characterized by a
shift back to prominence of coastal societies
with the Chimu ultimately occupying a north
coast zone from the Chancay Valley to the
Lambayeque Valley. The Chimu incorporated a
complex of new administrative centers (e.g.,
Farfn, Manchan, Purgatorio) with older cere-
monial centers (Pacatnam, Chotuna) in north
coast valleys adjacent to the Moche Valley
where their capital of Chan Chan was posi-
tioned. The idea of centrally administered,
multi-valley agro-engineering complexes di-
rected by satellite administrative centers sharing
common political, social, and religious practices
appears to be a central feature of this period. Ica
culture is dominant in the south-central coastal
areas at this time, with the minor intermediate-
highland Recuay and Cajamarca societies hav-
ing only regional influence.
Military conquest and complete dominance
of highland and coastal polities by the Inca state
occurs in the LH. It appears coincidentally that
the EH-EIP-MH-LIP-LH chronological se-
quence somewhat corresponds to a geographic
alteration of prominence between highland and
coastal polities. Because the effects of climate on
agricultural systems had some role in the
sustainability of Andean civilizations, these
effects are next discussed in terms of the Q
equation.
- 292
HORIZON AND INTERMEDIATE PERIOD
SUSTAINABILITY CYCLES IN TERMS OF
THE Q EQUATION
The climate change history reflected in the
Quelccaya, Huascarn, and Titicaca cores
indicates a drought in the late EIP. This drought
seems to have had a role in the decline of the
coastal Moche and Nasca polities at their tradi-
tional sites, while the highland Tiwanaku and
Wari polities began their rise to the prominence
observed later in the MH. A drought-induced
lower Runoff Ratio (R) affected coastal zones
disproportionately. Coastal canal-based irriga-
tion systems have high vulnerability (low 1-V)
because they are runoff-dependent. Known
coastal agricultural storage facilities are minimal
and population apparently was in balance with
pre-drought agricultural resources (i.e., balance
is taken to mean that agricultural resources are
adequate to sustain the given population size).
Yields for irrigation-based agriculture are high,
provided R is high. While technology (Table 1)
to modify and defend agricultural systems was
limited in early EIP times, and a slowly evolving
drought crisis developed, dT/dtdD/dt<1
resulted because technical innovations alone
could not overcome extreme long-term drought,
even at sites with high soil productivity. The net
EIP result is a Q decline of coastal polities
(Figure 5).
While large populations can provide labor
resources, unless a technology is present (or can
be rapidly developed) to utilize these labor
resources, then large populations adapted to
food supply levels developed during wet periods
suddenly become liabilities when drought onset
is rapid. With reference to the Q equation,
drought then reduces the agricultural sustain-
ability compared to pre-drought periods, e.g., Q
decreases during droughts for Vulnerability
Index 4 and 5 systems characteristic of the
north and south coast EIP, where low R and S
prevailed. Some migration of the Moche to
293 -
northern coastal valleys and the creation of new
centers such as Pampa Grande occurred in late
EIP and early MH times, indicative of the need
to restore Q to higher levels, primarily by utiliz-
ing high agro-technology levels (dT/dt) in
combination with the canal-interconnected,
higher flow rate (R large) rivers (such as the
Leche, Chicama, and Lambayeque Rivers) with
vast, fertile land areas (large YCACR).
Highland Tiwanaku and Wari cultures
achieved high levels of sustainability Q during
late EIP and MH times due to elevated highland
rainfall rates. Because of their design features
that imply large dT/dt, the low vulnerability
Tiwanaku raised field systems and Wari terrace
systems flourished under both high rainfall and
intermediate-term drought conditions (Table 1).
The highland systems have high R, S, Y, 1-V,
with balanced P. Highland civilizations sustain-
ability Q continued high through the MH and
apparently led to the diffusion of highland
iconography and architectural patterns to the
north coast polities, although the exact pro-
cesses supporting this diffusion are still the
subject of active research. Highland rainfall was
apparently adequate during the late part of the
EIP, so that Wari terrace agriculture flourished.
However, towards the end of the MH diminish-
ing rainfall levels undermined the productivity
of these systems as sustained drought took hold
after 1100 C.E.
With respect to the Q equation, highland
Tiwanaku in the late EIP and early MH was
characterized by low vulnerability (V) raised
field systems (Table 1), large storage facilities
(S), high yields from raised field agriculture
(YCACR large), large water supply, high dT/dt
but slowly increasing dD/dt as drought began to
reduce rainfall levels by 5 to 10 percent from
previous norms, and a large population that
could be utilized to modify the location of the
agriculturally productive raised field zones in the
Lake Titicaca area. The net result is a high Q
Ortloff & Moseley: Agricultural strategies
value that indicates good sustainability through
the MH until the deepening drought that starts
in the early LIP.
At the end of the MH, highland polities
undergo very slow collapse due to effects of
long term drought, while coastal polities
(Chimu, Sicn, and Lambayeque) appear to
flourish. This can be explained by observing that
while R, S, and 1-V were low in coastal areas,
dT/dD, Y, and P were high, reflecting the
development of advanced transport and distri-
bution canal technology, sufficient labor to
implement major agro-engineering projects that
altered canal placement and design to accom-
modate drought effects (dT/dt large), and the
availability of marine-based food supplies to
supplement land food resources.
Coastal valley canal systems can be easily
modified to manage reduced water supplies.
This is evident with the reconfiguration of intra-
valley canals (Ortloff et al. 1985) and the devel-
opment of large, inter-valley canal systems (e.g,.
the Chicama-Moche, Motupe-Leche-Lambaye-
que, and Chilln-Rimac-Lurn systems; Kosok
1965: map page 24, map page 86, figure 8 page
90, map page 146; Ortloff 1993; Ortloff et al.
1982) that redistribute available water over long
distances between valleys to large field system
complexes. While water supplies were adequate,
low-slope surveying accuracies (large dT/dt)
extended canals to larger cultivatable areas
(Ortloff 1995). When water supplies declined
due to drought, canal replacement and reshap-
ing for hydraulic efficiency improvements pro-
vided an optimum strategy (increasing dT/dt
further) to distribute available water supplies
brought in by inter- and intra-valley networks.
The potential to transfer main agricultural zones
to higher flow rate north coast valleys may be
thought of as another variant of storage capa-
bility S or simply an increase in R. Therefore,
sustainability of coastal societies under declining
water resources is aided by their ability to alter
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
irrigation systems (technology and placement),
while highland raised field and terrace systems
cannot be easily modified, and are thus also
susceptible to long term drought extinction.
To illustrate this point, while the Tiwanaku
raised field systems have high 1-V, and water
table height and agricultural area movement
was somewhat controllable (Table 1) in the
presence of extended drought, an option to
lower all 80 square kilometers of the Tiwanaku-
Lukurmata raised field planting surfaces to
accommodate the late MH drought-induced
sinking water table would have required a vast
labor input over many years to achieve marginal
benefit. While a large Chimu labor force on the
coast could have been productively employed in
canal modification and inter-valley connection
projects and expansion into large land areas,
even the large highland labor force was not
sufficient to modify 80 square kilometers of
raised fields effectively in time to lower the
levels of large enough areas to accommodate the
declining water table levels induced by sustained
drought, although lateral transfer to high water
table areas provided some limited relief. There-
fore, higher dT/dt is possible for coastal irriga-
tion systems due to more easily modified canals,
use of inter-valley canals that redistribute water,
and relocation of agricultural production centers
to water-rich valleys while highland systems are
limited in design modifications to react to long
term drought, but are highly resilient to short
term drought. Although highland agriculture
based upon terraces can move upslope in
drought conditions, Y decreases due to poorer
soils and decreasing farming area. The lower
runoff R available to coastal zones can still be
better utilized due to higher Y from fluvial-
deposited soils, more effectively utilized labor
resources, and high dT/dt from various strate-
gies, despite the somewhat higher vulnerability
index of canal systems.
- 294
Eventually, coastal systems had the potential
for recovery as normal levels of rainfall resumed
in the late LIP. The water supply advantage to
highland systems (large Q, R, S, 1-V, YCA, P,
high dT/dt and low dD/dt) was again manifest in
the LH to the advantage of the Inca. Their
policy of population relocation to revitalize high
and lowland agricultural centers, however, saw
the end of many LIP polities operating in their
previous political-economic and socio-political
modes. A summary of Q equation results over
time is shown in Figure 5 for the major polities
discussed above.
SUMMARY
MH highland expansion/radiation appears to
be associated with low vulnerability agricultural
systems and adequate rainfall. The late EIP and
mid-LIP are associated with steady but lower
average rainfall levels with coastal polities
somewhat maintaining their full population
potential based upon large arable land areas and
balanced populations. Coastal polities choice of
farming methods based on irrigation technology
in extensive fertile valley areas together with
superior irrigation management skills provided
the basis for further expansion of these polities
in time. In the presence of extended drought,
however, the ability to modify canal systems and
relocate population to different valley enclaves
with better water supplies and the ability to
supplement plant foods with marine resources
extended sustainability of these coastal societies.
For example, while the Chimu could direct the
expansion of Chan Chan towards the coastline
to intercept the declining water table with urban
wells, construct sunken gardens, start construc-
tion of the massive Inter-valley Canal to direct
Chicama River water to revitalize the desiccated
Moche Valley intra-valley canal networks, and
easily modify intra-valley canal systems, only
small sunken gardens, limited use of distant
raised field areas, and pastoralism were possible
295 -
as alternative highland urban center survival
strategies.
In the Moche Valley at least 30 percent
more terrain was farmed in the past than until
recently. Agricultural systems bear widespread
evidence of disastrous destruction and initial
loss of land due to exceptionally severe flooding
during a 1100 C.E. El Nio event during a long
term drought in the 1100-1400 C.E. period that
disrupted many northern valleys (Ortloff
1993:334-337, 339). The building of the
Chicama-Moche Inter-valley Canal was a strat-
egy to direct water from the larger flow rate
Chicama River to the dysfunctional Moche
Valley Vinchansao Canal to resupply the north
side Moche Valley intra-valley irrigation system
as a response to extended drought in the mid-
to-late LIP. However, in the presence of such
extended drought, neither the Inter-valley
canal, nor the intra-valley distribution canals
carried sufficient water to maintain the earlier
field systems over time. As part of the Chimu
strategy of dispersal of fields to water sources,
feeder canals from the Inter-valley Canal to the
Lescano fields south of the Chicama River, and
to the Chicama Valley fields, helped sustain the
Chimu Empire in this period. Ultimately, how-
ever, large land areas were lost as river runoff
dwindled in the presence of sustained drought
and tectonically-induced river down-cutting
stranded inlets, forcing loss of arable land (Ort-
loff et al. 1985). Reclamation efforts in the
Moche Valley shifted to low areas where sunken
gardens could access ground water, but this
strategy could not match the volume of past
field production. Northward military thrusts to
incorporate valleys from Jequetepeque to
Lambayeque, with their higher flow rate rivers
and potential for large agricultural domains
proceeded in this period, most probably as a
survival policy to maintain the Chimu empire.
The highland counterpart drought in the
late MH involves extensive use of pastoral
Ortloff & Moseley: Agricultural strategies
resources to add to high productivity brought
about by largely invulnerable agricultural sys-
temsat least where short term, as opposed to
long term, drought is concerned. Early Tiwa-
naku and Wari expansion is associated with
adequate water supplies and low vulnerability
systems tailored for optimum productivity in a
highland weather/climate environment. Upon
transition into an extended drought continuing
beyond 1100 C.E., LIP coastal societies manifest
at least transient sustainability due to high
dT/dt levels, while the Tiwanaku state declined
slowly due to the lack of possible modifications
to their agricultural systems in the face of ex-
tended drought. Eventually, both highland and
coastal polities underwent decline in the late
MH and LIP and only the return of water re-
sources to previous norms in the early LH
reactivated elements of Andean societyalbeit
now under Inca military domination. Under
higher rainfall conditions in the late MH and
throughout the LH, terraces replaced previously
abandoned fields in the Inca dominated high-
lands. Abandoned agricultural terrain in con-
quered territory was repopulated with groups
from dissimilar territories. An overview of the
historical record appears to show some shifts of
major population centers over time, and shifts of
dominant polities from coastal in the Formative,
to highland in the EH, back to coastal in the
EIP, to highland in MH, to coastal in LIP, then
back to highland in the LH. In view of the
previous discussion, this trend appears at least
partially related to climate shifts and their effect
upon the agricultural bases of different polities.
Highland and lowland environments offer
different options for responding to drought.
When highland rainfall declined by 5 to 15
percent from pervious yearly norms during the
1100-1500 C.E. dry period, runoff reaching the
littoral desert declined on the order of 30 to 50
percent or more. The amount of land under
irrigation decreased proportionally, as did agrar-
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
ian yields. Long term corollary declines in popu-
lation are documented in a number of northern
and southern desert valleys (Owen 1993a:
Appendix F, 1993b: 12; Willey 1953:19-37,
390-395; Wilson 1988:357-358). Although use
of marine resources intensified, there were few
means to mitigate farming shortfalls on the
coast. Reconstructing canals to make water
delivery more hydraulically efficient and lining
channels with silt and clay to limit seepage was
undertaken in the lower Moche Valley (Ortloff
et al. 1985:85, 87, 88-90, 93, 95-96) as a defen-
sive strategy to conserve precious water re-
sources. Population centers clustered around
available river resources in valleys under Chimu
control. In the lower Moquegua Valley, farmers
diversified plant foods to include drought toler-
ant domesticates and wild species. The most
dramatic attempts to alleviate coastal food loss
entailed the utilization of ground water wacha-
ques during 1100-1300 C.E. dry period as surface
water sources diminished. Hydrological condi-
tions conducive to agrarian and demographic
recuperation did not return to the littoral val-
leys until the drought abated and above normal
runoff and rainfall occurred in the Little Ice
Age, post-1400 C.E. (LH). By this time, how-
ever, the highland Inca had conquered the
drought-depressed coast and thereafter littoral
populations were decimated by the convergent
catastrophes of Old World pandemics and
Spanish subjugation.
While drought can be a prime reason for
change in the political and social context of
different polities, other nature-derived effects in
the form of collateral disasters involving earth-
quakes and El Nio events transpired during the
centuries of drought and contributed to stress.
One documented incident warrants brief review.
When the 1100-1300 C.E. drought began in
southern Peru, the Moquegua drainage was
occupied by the post-Tiwanaku V Chiribaya
culture. This society was mostly focused upon
the coast but also extended into the lower arid
- 296
sierra. Exceptionally severe El Nio flooding
decimated the cultural landscape around 1360
C.E., and the Chiribaya occupation was largely
obliterated (Moseley et al. 1992; Satterlee 1993;
Satterlee et al. 2000/2001). Demographic recu-
peration was minimal (Owen 1993a:535-537)
and post-disaster population levels in the lower
drainage remained some eighty percent below
pre-flood levels. Poor recovery is attributable to
continued drought. Calculations for one Chiri-
baya irrigation system suggest that water sup-
plies and productivity had declined by at least
eighty percent when dryness was at its peak
(Clement and Moseley 1991: figure 9; Ortloff
1989:472-475). Thus, the collateral El Nio
disaster struck a population that had minimal
resources for recovery.
CONCLUSIONS
The Andes are a natural laboratory for
investigating climate change and its dependent
societal consequences because many proxy
records of its past climate exist. These include,
but are not limited to, lake sediments, glacial
moraines, and mountain ice caps. All are sensi-
tive to global climate change. As a center of
ancient civilization, the Andean region offers a
long record of response to environmental
change as seen though analysis of the history of
agricultural systems.
Upon examination, alterations between
highland and coastal society sustainability
patterns appear to bear some relation to some of
the known climate cycle variations, although
environmental determinism is not suggested as
a prime cause, because many social, political,
and economic changes can be induced by
sustainability problems in the agricultural base.
The reverse is also true; social, political, and
economic factors influence the sustainability
base. In terms of key variables R, P, Y, A, S, V,
dT/dt, dD/dt, at least some of the underlying
correlatives for the sustainability of different
297 -
societies with different agricultural systems that
are subject to different climatic conditions,
provide a partial basis for underlying factors that
lead to changes in cultural patterns and agricul-
tural sustainability.
Because only fragmentary details of Andean
climate cycles are known from ice and lake core
data, only an approximate hypothesis can be
offered at present to explain the effects of
changing climate upon socio-political structure
and sustainability. For the present, however,
some factors underlying the agricultural basis of
societies have been discussed and preliminary
arguments have been advanced which relate
climate change to observed agricultural pattern
changes. The coupling and feedback of these
effects as they relate to the political, economic,
religious, governmental, and social responses of
societies remains an area for future investiga-
tions.
EDITORS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We thank William P. Mitchell for assistance in the editing
of this paper.
REFERENCES CITED
Abbott, Mark B., Michael W. Binford, Mark Brenner, and
Kerry R. Kelts
1997 A 3500 14C Yr. High-Resolution Record of Wa-
ter-Level Changes in Lake Titicaca, Bolivia/
Peru. Quaternary Research 47(2):169-80.
Albarracn-Jordn, Juan, and James Edward Mathews
1990 Asentamientos Prehispnicos del Valle de Tiwanaku,
Volume 1. La Paz: Producciones CIMA.
Bauer, Brian S.
1992 The Development of the Inca State. Austin: Uni-
versity of Texas Press.
Binford, Michael W. and Alan L. Kolata
1996 The Natural and Human Setting. In Tiwanaku
and Its Hinterland: Archaeology and Palaeoecology
of an Andean Civilization. Volume 1, pp. 23-56.
Smithsonian Series in Archaeological Inquiry.
Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution
Press.
Ortloff & Moseley: Agricultural strategies
Binford, Michael W., Alan L. Kolata, Mark Brenner, John
W. Janusek, Matthew T. Seddon, Mark Abbott, and Jason
H. Curtis
1997 Climate Variation and the Rise and Fall of an
Andean Civilization. Quaternary Research 47(2):
235-248.
Clement, Christopher Ohm and Michael E. Moseley
1991 The Spring-Fed Irrigation System of Carrizal,
Peru: A Case Study of the Hypothesis of Agrar-
ian Collapse. Journal of Field Archaeology 18(4):
425-443.
Earls, John
1996 Rotative Rank Hierarchy and Recursive Organi-
zation: The Andean Peasant Community as a
Viable System. Journal of the Steward Anthropo-
logical Society 24(1, 2):297-320.
Kolata, Alan L., editor
1996 Tiwanaku and Its Hinterland: Archaeology and
Palaeoecology of an Andean Civilization. Volume
1, Smithsonian Series in Archaeological Inquiry.
Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution
Press.
Kolata, Alan L. and Charles R. Ortloff
1989 Thermal Analysis of Tiwanaku Raised Field
Systems in the Lake Titicaca Basin of Bolivia.
Journal of Archaeological Science 16:233-263.
1996 Tiwanaku Raised-field Agriculture in the Lake
Titicaca Basin of Bolivia. In Tiwanaku and its
Hinterland: Archaeology and Palaeoecology of an
Andean Civilization, Volume 1, Agroecology,
edited by Alan L. Kolata, pp. 109-151. Volume
1, Smithsonian Series in Archaeological Inquiry.
Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution
Press.
Kolata, Alan L., Oswaldo Rivera, Juan Carlos Ramrez,
and Evelyn Bemio
1996 Rehabilitating Raised-Field Agriculture in the
Southern Lake Titicaca Basin of Bolivia: Theory,
Practice, and Results. In Tiwanaku and Its Hinter-
land: Archaeology and Palaeoecology of an Andean
Civilization, Volume 1, pp. 203-230. Smithsonian
Series in Archaeological Inquiry. Washington,
D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Kosok, Paul
1965 Life, Land and Water in Ancient Peru. New York:
Long Island University Press.
LeVine, Terry Y.
1992 The Study of Storage Systems. In Inka Storage
Systems, edited by Terry Y. LeVine, pp. 3-28.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Morris, Craig
1992 The Technology of Highland Inka Food Storage
in Inka Storage Systems, edited by Terry Y. Le
Vine, pp. 237-258. Norman: University of Okla-
homa Press.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Moseley, Michael E.
1992a The Incas and their Ancestors: The Archaeology of
Peru. London and New York: Thames and
Hudson.
1992b Maritime Foundations and Multilinear Evolu-
tion: Retrospect and Prospect. Andean Past 3:5-
42.
Moseley, Michael E. and Eric E. Deeds
1982 The Land in Front of Chan Chan: Agrarian
Expansion, Reform, and Collapse in the Moche
Valley. In Chan Chan: Andean Desert City, edited
by Michael E. Moseley and Kent C. Day, pp.
25-53. Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of
New Mexico Press.
Moseley, Michael E., Jorge E. Tapia, Dennis R. Satterlee,
and James B. Richardson III
1992a Flood Events, El Nio Events, and Tectonic
Events, In Paleo-ENSO Records, International
Symposium, Extended Abstracts, edited by L.
Ortlieb and J. Machare, pp. 207-212. Lima:
ORSTOM.
Moseley, Michael E., David. Wagner, and James B.
Richardson III
1992b Space Shuttle Imagery of Recent Catastrophic
Change Along the Arid Andean Coast. In Paleo-
shorelines and Prehistory: An Investigation of
Method, edited by Lucille Lewis Johnson and
Melanie Stright, pp. 215-35. Boca Raton, Flor-
ida: CRC Press.
Murra, John Victor
1972 El control vertical de un mximo de pisos
ecolgicos en la economa de las sociedades
andinas. In Ortiz de Ziga, Iigo, Visita de la
provincia de Len de Hunuco en 1562, edited by
John V. Murra, Volume 2, Visita de los Yacha y
mitmaqkuna cuzqueos encomendados en Juan San-
chez Falcon, transcribed by Felipe Mrquez Aban-
to, pp. 428-476. Hunuco, Per: Universidad Na-
cional Hermilio Valdizn, Facultad de Letras y
Educacin, Series Documentos para la Historia y
Etnologa de Hunuco y la Selva Central.
Orlove, Benjamin S. and David W. Guillet
1985 Theoretical and Methodological Considerations
on the Study of Mountain Peoples: Reflections
on the Idea of Subsistence Type and the Role of
History in Human Ecology. Mountain Research
and Development 5(l):3-18. Convergence and
Difference in Mountain Economics and Societies: A
Comparison of the Andes and Himalayas.
Ortloff, Charles R.
1989 A Mathematical Model of the Dynamics of
Hydraulic Societies in Ancient Peru. In Ecology,
Settlement, and History in the Osmore Drainage,
edited by Don Stephen Rice, Charles Stanish,
- 298
and Peter Scarr. Oxford: British Archaeological
Reports International Series 545(ii):457-477.
1993 Chimu Hydraulics Technology and Statecraft on
the North Coast of Peru. In Research in Economic
Anthropology, Supplement 7, edited by Vernon L.
Scarborough and Barry L. Isaac, pp. 327-367.
Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press.
1995 Surveying and Hydraulic Engineering of the
Pre-Columbian Chimu State: AD 900-1450.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal 5(1):55-74.
1996 Engineering Aspects of Tiwanaku Groundwater-
Controlled Agriculture. In Tiwanaku and its
Hinterland: Paleoecological and Archaeological
Investigations in the Titicaca Basin of Bolivia,
Volume 1, Agroecology, edited by Alan L. Kolata,
pp. 153-167. Washington, D.C.: The Smithso-
nian Press.
2009 Water Engineering in the Ancient World: Archaeo-
logical and Climate Perspectives on Societies of
Ancient South America, the Middle East, and
South-East Asia. Chapter 1, South American
Water Engineering. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Ortloff, Charles R., Robert A. Feldman, and Michael E.
Moseley
1985 Hydraulic Engineering and Historical Aspects of
the Pre-Columbian Intravalley Canal Systems of
the Moche Valley, Peru. Journal of Field Archae-
ology 12:77-98.
Ortloff, Charles R. and Alan Kolata
1993 Climate and Collapse: Agro-Ecological Perspec-
tives on the Decline of the Tiwanaku State.
Journal of Archaeological Science 20(2):195-221.
Ortloff, Charles R., Michael E. Moseley, and Robert A.
Feldman
1982 Hydraulic Engineering Aspects of the Chimu-
Chicama-Moche Intervalley Canal. American
Antiquity 47(3):572-595.
Owen, Bruce
1993a A Model of Multiethnicity: State Collapse, Competi-
tion, and Social Complexity from Tiwanaku to
Chiribaya in the Osmore Valley, Peru. Ph.D.
dissertation, University of California, Los
Angeles.
1993b Early Ceramic Settlement in the Coastal Osmore
Valley: Preliminary Report. Paper presented at
the Institute of Andean Studies 1993 Annual
Meeting.
http://bruceowen.com/research/researchperu/
htm (Consulted 5 December 2008).
2007 Rural Wari Far from the Heartland: Huamanga
Ceramics from Beringa, Majes Valley, Peru
Andean Past 8:287-373.
http://bruceowen.com/research/researchperu/
htm (Consulted 5 December 2008).
299 -
Per, ONERN [Oficina Nacional de Evaluacin de
Recursos Naturales]
1976 Mapa ecolgico del Per: Gua explicativa. Lima.
Rowe, John Howland
1946 Inca Culture at the Time of the Spanish Con-
quest. In Handbook of South American Indians,
volume 2, The Andean Civilizations, edited by
Julian H. Steward, pp. 183-330. Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Satterlee, Dennis E.
1993 Impact of a Fourteenth Century El Nio Flood on
an Indigenous Population Near Ilo, Peru. Ph.D.
Dissertation, University of Florida.
Satterlee, Dennis E., Michael E. Moseley, David K.
Keefer, and Jorge E. Tapia A.
2000/01 The Miraflores El Nio Disaster: Convergent
Catastrophes and Prehistoric Agrarian Change
in Southern Peru. Andean Past 6:95-116.
Schaaf, Crystal Barker
1988 Establishment and Demise of Moche V: Assessment
of the Climatic Impact. M.A. Thesis, Harvard
University Extension School, Cambridge, Massa-
chusetts.
Schreiber, Katharina J. and Jos Lancho Rojas
1995 The Puquios of Nazca. Latin American Antiquity
6(3):229-254.
2006 Aguas en el desierto: Los puquios de Nasca. Lima:
Fondo Editorial de la Pontificia Universidad
Catlica del Per.
Seltzer, Geoffrey O.
1991 Glacial History and Climatic Change in the Peru-
vian-Bolivian Andes. Ph.D. Dissertation, Univer-
sity of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
Seltzer, Geoffrey O. and Christine A. Hastorf
1990 Climatic Change and its Effect on Prehispanic
Agriculture in the Central Peruvian Andes.
Journal of Field Archaeology 17(4):397-414.
Shimada, Izumi, Crystal Barker Schaaf, Lonnie G. Thomp-
son, and Ellen Mosley-Thompson
1991 Cultural Impacts of Severe Droughts in the
Prehistoric Andes: Application of a 1,500-Year
Ice Core Precipitation Record: Archaeology and
Arid Environments. World Archaeology 22(3):
247-270.
Ortloff & Moseley: Agricultural strategies
Thompson, Lonnie G., Mary E. Davis, and Ellen
Mosley-Thompson
1994 Glacial Records of Global Climate: A 1500-Year
Tropical Ice Core Record of Climate. Human
Ecology 22(l):83-95.
Thompson, Lonnie G., Ellen Mosley-Thompson, J. F.
Bolzan, and B. R. Koci
1985 A 1500-Year Record of Tropical Precipitation in
Ice Cores from the Quelccaya Ice Cap, Peru.
Science 229(4717):971-973.
Thompson, Lonnie G., Ellen Mosley-Thompson, W.
Dansgaard, and P. M. Grootes
1986 The Little Ice Age as Recorded in the Stratigra-
phy of the Tropical Quelccaya Ice Cap. Science
234(4774):361-364.
Thompson, Lonnie G., Ellen Mosley-Thompson, M. E.
Davis, P.-N. Lin, K. A. Henderson, J. Cole-Dai, J. F.
Bolzan, and K-b. Liu
1995 Late Glacial Stage and Holocene Tropical Ice
Core Records from Huascarn, Peru. Science
269:46-50.
Tosi, Joseph A., Jr.
1960 Zonas de vida natural en el Per: Memoria expli-
cativa sobre el mapa ecolgico del Per. Lima:
Instituto Interamericano de Ciencias Agrcolas
de la OEA, Zona Andina. Proyecto 32, Programa
de Cooperacin Tcnica.
Tung, Tiffiny
2007 The Village of Beringa at the Periphery of the
Wari Empire: A Site Overview and New Radio-
carbon Dates. Andean Past 8:253-286.
Villafana Avila, Juan Fernando
1986 Sistemas hidrulicos incas. Lima: Lluvia Editores.
Willey, Gordon
1953 Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Vir Valley,
Per. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institu-
tion, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 155.
Williams, Patrick Ryan
1997 Disaster in the Development of Agriculture and the
Evolution of Social Complexity in the South- Central
Andean Sierra. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of
Florida.
Wilson, David J.
1988 Prehispanic Settlement Patterns in the Lower Santa
Valley Peru: A Regional Perspective on the Origins
and Development of Complex North Coast Society.
Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution
Press.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 300

Figure 1: Map of Northern and Central Peru showing some of the geographic features (in italic type)
and sites (in uncial type) mentioned in the text. The names of modern cities are written in all capitals.
301 - Ortloff & Moseley: Agricultural strategies

Figure 2: Map of Southern Peru and the Lake Titicaca Region of Bolivia showing some of the geographic
features (in italic type) and sites (in uncial type) mentioned in the text.
The names of modern cities are written in all capitals.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 302

Figure 3. Agricultural strategies for artificial (modified) and natural planting surfaces
for surface and subsurface water sources.
303 - Ortloff & Moseley: Agricultural strategies

Figure 4. Vulnerability Index (1 - V) for different types of agricultural systems

and water supply methodologies (rainfall intercepted and runoff) indexed by numbers 1-6.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 304

Figure 5:(best-estimate) application of the Q (agricultural sustainability) equation for Moche, Tiwa-
naku, and Chimu societies in their heartland areas. The D1 notation indicates the time of drought-
related collapse of the (EIP) Moche V society in the Moche Valley area; the D2 notation denotes loss of
agricultural sustainability due to a later drought period during the 12th Century CE affecting (MH)
Tiwanaku and (LIP) Chimu societies. (The Chimu curve shown applies only to the Moche Valley
capital area not for expansion period valley sites to the north.) The curves indicate that the drought-
related decline in agricultural productivity most probably underwrote subsequent changes in societal
structure and agricultural strategies of these societies as previously noted.
 INTRODUCTION TO EXPERIENCES WITH THE INSTITUTE OF ANDEAN RESEARCH:
1941-42 AND 1946 BY GORDON R. WILLEY
The following original article by Gordon R.
Willey, written in 2002, near the end of his life,
and at the request of the editors of Andean Past,
represents his reminiscences about his introduc-
tion to Peruvian archaeology in general and the
Institute of Andean Research (IAR), in particu-
lar. It is part of our series on the history of
institutions that have been important in An-
dean archaeology during the twentieth century.
It follows my article on the history of the North-
east Conference on Andean Archaeology and
Ethnohistory (NCAAE) published in Andean
Past 6 (2000/01) and that of David L. Browman
on the Midwest Conference on Andean and
Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory in
the same volume.
Various persons and institutions are men-
tioned in Willeys recollections. This introduc-
tion provides necessary background to place
these individuals and institutions in context.
The IAR was the brainchild of Julio C. Tello
(Strong 1943:2), so I begin with salient points
about Tello, his background, and his turbulent,
yet productive, career.
TELLO, CHAVN, AND PARACAS
Tello was born in the Central Highlands of
Peru in 1880. In 1909 he successfully completed
his studies in the School of Medicine at the
University of San Marcos in Lima. He then
earned his masters degree in anthropology at
Harvard University in 1911. Following a year of
further study in Europe, Tello returned to Lima
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009): 305-312.
RICHARD E. DAGGETT
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Retired
in 1913 and was appointed Chief of the Archae-
ological Section of the National Museum of
History (Lothrop 1948:50-51). The German
archaeologist Max Uhle had been the original
director of this section, having served in this
capacity from 1906 to 1911 (Tello 1959:37).
Tello's appointment in 1913 as head of the
Archaeological Section at the National Museum
in Lima was met with resistance by the mu-
seums director, Emilio Gutirrez de Quintanilla.
Gutirrez showed little interest in preserving the
museums archaeological and ethnological
collections and, after feuding with him for
nearly two years, Tello reluctantly submitted his
resignation in March 1915 (ibid:40).
Subsequently, Tello conducted an archaeo-
logical exploration of the Peruvian south coast
(ibid:43). The collections he obtained at this
time served as the basis for his doctoral thesis
(Tello 1918) presented to the University of San
Marcos School of Science. The following year,
1919, Tello conducted research at a number of
sites in coastal and highland north-central Peru,
including the highland ruins of Chavn de
Huantar. This research was conducted on behalf
of the University of San Marcos (Tello 1921a).
Collections obtained in 1919, as well as those
obtained by Tello in 1915, served as the basis for
a new museum of archaeology that was begun by
him at this university in 1919 (Tello 1959:42).
Tellos studies of these collections were the basis
of a publication by him in which he put forth
the novel idea of an early (Chavn) culture
centered in the Peruvian highlands with roots
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
that extended into the tropical forest (Tello
1921b:10-12). In 1923 Tello became a professor
at San Marcos. The following year he offered his
first course in anthropology (Lothrop 1948:51).
That same year, 1924, he was appointed director
of the nations new Museum of Peruvian Ar-
chaeology that resulted from the governments
purchase of a private museum, the Victor Larco
Herrera Museum of Archaeology, which Tello
had been hired to create in 1919. He had served
as its director from 1919 to 1921 (Tello and
Meja X. 1967:122-123; Daggett 2007:82-83).
At the start of 1925, Tello headed two
museums of archaeology and had begun teach-
ing anthropology. Serving these related roles, he
initiated an archaeological program on the coast
of Peru south of Lima (Anonymous 1925). The
onset of this program coincided with the arrival
of Alfred L. Kroeber1 who had come to Peru for
the first time on behalf of the Field Museum of
Natural History in Chicago (Rowe 1962:402).
He had recently begun publishing on Uhles
collections that were stored at the University of
California at Berkeley, beginning with collec-
tions that Uhle had made before 1906 on the
Peruvian south coast (Kroeber and Strong
1924a, 1924b). In 1925 and 1926 Kroeber
conducted archaeological research, in part
jointly with Tello (Lothrop 1948:51). One result
1
Alfred L. Kroeber (1876-1960) entered Columbia
College in 1892 and received his bachelors and master's
degrees in English in 1896 and 1897. In 1896 Franz Boas
began teaching anthropology at Columbia and Kroeber
became his student (Rowe 1962:395). In 1892 Boas had
assumed the position of Chief Assistant, under Frederic
Ward Putnam, in the Department of Anthropology at the
Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He followed Putnam to
the American Museum of Natural History in 1895 or
1896, where he became Curator of Anthropology (Kroe-
ber et al. 1943:12-13). This helps to explain how Kroeber
was able to conduct research on behalf of the American
Museum prior to 1901 when he was awarded the first
doctorate given in anthropology by Columbia University.
That same year Kroeber began working at the University
of California at Berkeley (Rowe 1962:395-397).
- 306
was a publication by Kroeber (1927) in which he
discussed in detail the different ideas of Uhle
and Tello regarding the prehistory of Peru.
Kroeber was not the only American archae-
ologist with whom Tello interacted in the field
during 1925. After Kroeber returned to the
United States (Rowe 1962:404), Tello received
a visit from Samuel K. Lothrop.2 Together they
discovered ruins on the Paracas Peninsula that
proved to be the source of spectacular textiles
that had been flooding the national and interna-
tional art markets for more than a decade. In
1927, new excavations ordered by Tello at the
ruins of Paracas led to the discovery of hundreds
of mummy bundles (Tello 1959:48). Within
that same year Tello began the process of open-
ing these bundles and conserving the textiles
and other objects they contained. In 1929, in a
speech made at the Museum of Peruvian Ar-
chaeology that was attended by the nations
president Augusto B. Legua, Tello expressed
the need for increased government funding to
advance this process. Unfortunately, the onset
of the Great Depression and the resultant
political upheaval in Lima provided the oppor-
tunity for one disgruntled editor to attack
Tellos character. This he did through obviously
false and libelous charges that nevertheless
resulted in Tellos removal as director of the
Museum of Peruvian Archaeology in 1930. A
new National Museum was then created in 1931
from the nations various museums in Lima.
Tello was able to secure a place for himself
within this new institution and, in so doing,
retained control of the bulk of the Paracas
collection (Daggett 1994:56-58, 2007:84-85).
2
Samuel K. Lothrop (1892-1965) graduated from
Harvard in 1915 with his bachelor's degree in Anthropol-
ogy (Editor 1920:496). That same year he first partici-
pated in excavations, in the American Southwest in
concert with Alfred V. Kidder. He subsequently con-
ducted field research in Middle and South America (Easby
1966:256).
307 -
During the early 1930s Tellos work with the
unopened Paracas mummy bundles, and preser-
vation of the Paracas collection as a whole, was
inhibited by limited government funding (Dag-
gett 1994:58). The same was true for Tellos
Chavn research that received an unexpected
boost from discoveries he made in 1933 on the
north-central coast (Daggett 1987:112-114).
These discoveries inspired Tello to revisit
Chavn de Huantar and to explore the Peruvian
highlands, leading to discoveries of other
Chavn sites (Daggett 2007:88-89). Given these
circumstances, it should come as no surprise
that Tello accepted an invitation tendered in
1935 to visit the United States. While traveling
in that country in 1936 he took the opportunity
to advance support for his research (Daggett
1994:59-60).
FOUNDING AND INCORPORATION OF THE IAR
On October 13, 1936, Tello, Lothrop,
Wendell Clark Bennett,3 Clarence Leonard
Hay,4 Leslie Spier,5 and George C. Vaillant6 met
3
Wendell Clark Bennett (1905-1953) was awarded his
doctorate in anthropology in 1933 at the University of
Chicago. The following year he began working at the
AMNH where he immediately became focused on a
program of field research principally in Bolivia and Peru
(Rouse 1954:265-266). See Barnes, this volume, note 51.
4
Clarence Leonard Hay (1884-1969) was a child of John
Milton Hay, one of Abraham Lincolns secretaries and
biographers and Secretary of State in the McKinley and
Theodore Roosevelt administrations. Clarence Hay
received his bachelors degree from Harvard College in
1908 and a masters degree, in affiliation with the Peabody
Museum of Harvard in 1911. He took time off from his
studies for annual archaeological expeditions to southern
Mexico. He began work at the American Museum of
Natural History as an unpaid volunteer, and advanced to
the position of trustee and secretary to the board in 1933.
See Anonymous 1969 for an obituary of Clarence Hay.
5
The ethnologist Leslie Spier (1883-1961) began teach-
ing at Yale in 1933. Two years earlier he had married
Anna Gayton (born 1899 in Santa Cruz, California) who,
as a graduate student at Berkeley, had worked with
Daggett: Introduction to Willey on the IAR
at the American Museum of Natural History
(AMNH) to discuss Tellos idea to form an
institute for Andean research. A plan of organi-
zation was mapped out which included, among
other things, the idea that membership be
limited in scope, that members preferably be
American citizens, and that a Peruvian Rela-
tions Council be created to facilitate work. In
addition, it was decided to create an Executive
Committee composed of members who would
raise and handle funds, appoint research work-
ers, and otherwise oversee research conducted
on behalf of the institute. It was specifically
proposed that the Executive Committee consist
of Kroeber (Chair), Lothrop, Spier, Bennett,
Fay-Cooper Cole,7 Edgar L. Hewett,8 Alfred
V.Kidder,9 Philip A. Means,10 and Alfred M.
Kroeber on the Uhle Peruvian collections (Rowe
1978:653-654).
6
George C. Vaillant (1901-1945) studied anthropology
at Harvard University where he earned his doctorate in
1927, that same year beginning his work at the AMNH.
Although he had worked with Alfred Kidder in the
southwestern United States, he was committed to Mexi-
can studies and in 1930 he began working at the AMNH
as its Assistant Curator of Mexican Archaeology (Noguera
1946:1-2).
7
Fay-Cooper Cole (1881-1961) studied, among other
places, at the University of Chicago and Columbia Uni-
versity. He began work as an anthropologist at the
AMNH in 1906. In 1924 he moved to the University of
Chicago where, by 1929, he headed a newly formed
Department of Anthropology (Jennings 1962:574). See
Barnes, this volume, note 12.
8
Edgar L. Hewett (1865-1946) invited Tello to come to
the United States, and this resulted in Tello being made
a member of the School of American Research at a
meeting held in Santa Fe, New Mexico late in August
1936 (Daggett 1994:59). Hewett was the founder and
director of this School and he had established the Depart-
ment of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico
(Fisher 1947:78).
9
Alfred V. Kidder (1885-1963) worked in the American
Southwest. He received his doctorate in anthropology
from Harvard in 1914. In 1927 he began working for the
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Tozzer,11 (Harvard Peabody Museum of Archae-
ology and Ethnology Archives, IAR Folder 1,
996-20).
A second meeting was held in Washington,
D.C. on December 28, 1936. In attendance
were Bennett, Cole, Kidder, Kroeber, Lothrop,
Means, Spier, Tozzer, and Vaillant.12 Kroeber
was elected Chairman of the Executive Com-
mittee and Tello was appointed Peruvian Coun-
cilor. A committee of three, consisting of
Bennett, Lothrop, and Vaillant was tasked with
investigating the matter of incorporation (ibid.).
Lothrop, Tozzer, and Vaillant filed a Certificate
of Incorporation for the IAR as a non-profit
Carnegie Institution of Washington (Wauchope
1965:149-157). The Carnegie Institution had been
created in 1902 for the purpose of promoting science
(Gilman 1902:202-203).
10
Philip Ainsworth Means (1892-1944) received his
master's degree from Harvard in 1916. Both an historian
and an archaeologist, his research focused on Hispanic
America and he frequently traveled to Peru during the
years prior to 1920. From 1920 to 1921 he worked at the
National Museum of History in Lima (Bennett 1946:234-
235). He later published one of the first descriptive reports
on the Chavn discoveries made by Tello (ibid: 237) on
Perus north-central coast in 1933.
11
The Mesoamerican scholar Alfred Marston Tozzer
(1877-1954) completed his doctorate at Harvard in 1904
and the following year began teaching there (Phillips
1955:72-74).
12
These nine individuals, along with Tello who apparently
had returned to Peru, comprise the ten founding fathers
of the IAR. They represented the following eight Ameri-
can institutions: Harvard University (Hay, Kidder,
Lothrop, Means, Tello, Tozzer, and Vaillant), Columbia
University (Cole, Kroeber, and Spier), Yale University
(Spier), the University of Chicago (Bennett and Cole), the
University of California at Berkeley (Kroeber), the
AMNH, (Bennett, Hay, Kroeber, Spier, and Vaillant), the
[Field] Museum of Natural History (Cole and Kroeber),
and the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C. (Kid-
der). These institutions, though spanning the country
from coast to coast, were nonetheless concentrated in the
northeast region.
- 308
entity on February 2, 1937. This they did under
the Membership Corporation Law of the State
of New York, and on March 5, this certificate
was filed with the Office of the Secretary of the
State in Albany (Mason 1967:3).
ACTIVITIES OF THE IAR, 1937-1940
During the first years of its existence, re-
search by the IAR was supported with private
contributions. This research was primarily
archaeological in nature, and was conducted
principally in Peru. In 1937 honorary fellowships
were given to a number of students to conduct
research in that country. Among the students
were two from Yale, one from Harvard, and one
from the University of Chicago. Donald Collier13
of the University of Chicago assisted Tello in
new (Chavn) research on the north-central
coast, as did the two Yale students, while Isabel
Guernsey, representing Harvard, assisted with
the (Paracas) textile study ongoing in Lima. An
honorary fellowship was also given in 1937 to
Alfred Kidder II14 to allow him to conduct a
broad field survey in Peru that in 1940 focused
on the southern highlands. At that time he
conducted excavations as a member of the IAR,
having achieved this status that same year. He
was only the second new member of the Insti-
tute, the first being William Duncan Strong15
13
Donald Collier (1911-1995) was awarded his B.A. at
the University of California in 1933 (Thompson 1996:44).
He became a member of the IAR in 1944 (Mason 1967:
14). See also Barnes, this volume, note 18.
14
Alfred Kidder II (1911-1984) was the son of Alfred V.
Kidder. In 1937 he was awarded his doctorate at Harvard,
that same year becoming an instructor in the Department
of Anthropology (Mohr Chvez 2005:252-253).
15
William Duncan Strong (1899-1962) studied with
Kroeber at Berkeley, receiving his doctorate in anthropol-
ogy there in 1926. He began his professional career at the
[Field] Museum of Natural History in Chicago, ultimately
moving to Columbia University in 1937 (Solecki and
Wagley 1963:1103). As a graduate student Strong had
309 -
who was added to the membership roll in 1939
(Mason 1967:14). In 1938 Bennett was the
recipient of one of two grants supporting re-
search in northern Peru while another grant in
1939 supported research in Perus southern
highlands. In 1940 two Harvard students were
given support for work in the southern high-
lands, while Strong obtained funds for an exten-
sive survey of Peru as a whole (Strong 1943:3).
THE 1941-1942 IAR PROGRAM OF RESEARCH
During 1941-1942 the IAR undertook a
major multi-project program of research spon-
sored by the Art Committee of the Office of the
Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs in the
U.S. Department of State (Strong 1943:2).
Vaillant had been the one to broker the
arrangement, including discussions with Nelson
Rockefeller,16 the Coordinator of Inter-Ameri-
can Affairs (Willey 1988:117). Funding was
provided for eleven field projects, four in Peru,
two in Mexico, and one each in El Salvador,
Cuba/ Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and
Chile. In every case but Cuba/Venezuela, pro-
ject directors were members of the IAR. Kroe-
ber, Strong, and Kidder II directed three of the
assisted Kroeber on his studies of the Uhle collections
made on the Peruvian south coast prior to 1906 (Kroeber
and Strong 1924a, 1924b).
16
In 1937 Rockefeller made a business trip to South
America. While in Lima he visited Tello and saw for
himself the effect years of limited funding had on the
Paracas mummy bundles under his care. Tello pleaded his
case and Rockefeller agreed to help with a donation.
Rockefeller then suggested that a gift of some of the
bundles to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
City, of which he was a Trustee, might lead to further
funding. Tello was in agreement as were Peruvian officials.
This resulted in the shipment of four Paracas mummy
bundles to the Metropolitan Museum. Later three of these
bundles were transferred to the AMNH and the remaining
bundle was transferred to the Harvard Peabody Museum.
Subsequently, in 1940, Rockefeller assumed the position
of Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (Daggett 1994:
60-61).
Daggett: Introduction to Willey on the IAR
Peruvian projects while Lothrop and Tello co-
directed the fourth. Each of these four projects
also included a supervisor. Gordon Willey
served in this capacity under Strong,17 and
Marshall Thornton Newman18 did the same
under Lothrop and Tello (Strong 1943: 6-7).
THE VIRU VALLEY PROJECT: 1946
In 1942 Strong moved to Washington,
D.C.19 where he assumed the duties of the
Director of the Ethnographic Board at the
Smithsonian Institution (Willey 1988:91), a
special agency that made anthropological know-
ledge and personnel available to the national
needs (Solecki and Wagley 1963: 1103). Willey
initially took over Strongs teaching duties at
17
John Maxwell Corbett (born 1913) was also part of the
research team for this project centered on Perus Central
Coast (Strong 1943:6). Corbett was a student of Hewett's
at the University of Southern California (Willey 1988:86).
Corbett worked for the Museum of New Mexico at Quarai
and Pecos in 1939 (Corbett 1951:165). That same year his
University of Southern California masters thesis, Ball
Courts and Ballgame of the Ancient American Indians
was published. A copy may be found in the Harvard
University Library. Before beginning work on their IAR
project, Strong, Willey, and Corbett conducted excava-
tions at the ruins of Pachacamac just south of Lima
(ibid:88-90). Junius Bird (1907-1982) of the AMNH
(Hyslop 1989:84) served as the supervisor for a project
outside Peru that was directed by Strong (Strong 1943:6).
Bird became a member of the IAR in 1944, as did Gordon
Willey (Mason 1967: 14).
18
The physical anthropologist Marshall Thornton New-
man (1911-1994) also collaborated with Willey and
Corbett on excavations undertaken for the Central
Peruvian Coast project (Willey 1988:90). Newman had
just earned his doctorate at Harvard with a dissertation
entitled An Analysis of Indian Skeletal Material from
Northern Alabama and Its Bearing Upon the Peopling of
the Southeastern United States (Editor 1942).
19
Prior to assuming the position at Columbia Strong had
worked at the Bureau of American Ethnology at the
Smithsonian Institution, where he served as Senior
Ethnologist beginning in 1931 (Solecki and Wagley 1963:
1103).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Columbia. However, in 1943 Willey, too, went
to Washington to begin work at the Smithso-
nian at the request of Julian H. Steward.20
Bennett took an active role on the Ethno-
graphic Board and this gave him, Strong, and
Willey an opportunity to discuss plans for future
work in Peru. Strong was then serving as the
president of the Institute (Willey 1988:91-92).
At some point Steward entered the discussions,
as did F. W. McBryde21 of the Institute of Social
Anthropology at the Smithsonian (Willey
1946:224). Because Bennett had worked in the
Vir Valley, it was decided to focus research
there. This research was to be coordinated by
the IAR, with funding coming from the univer-
sities of Columbia, Cornell, and Yale, as well as
the American Museum of Natural History, the
Field Museum of Natural History, and the
Smithsonian (Willey 1988:63). A committee of
four, Bennett, Steward, Strong, and Willey, all
IAR members, was created to formulate plans
for the research.
20
Julian H. Steward (1902-1972), had done graduate
studies at Berkeley and first got to know Kroeber there in
1925 (Steward 1973:vi). Steward earned his B.A. at
Cornell University (Willey 1988:22). Allan R. Holmberg,
a social anthropologist employed jointly by Cornell and
the Smithsonian also became part of the Viru Valley
Project (ibid: 92). A native of Renville, Minnesota, he was
awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1947.
The following year he joined the faculty of Cornell (Editor
1965:2). Steward became a member of the IAR in 1944
and Holmberg became a member in 1946 (Mason 1967:
14). See also Barnes, this volume, note 37.
21
Felix Webster McBryde (born 1908) was awarded his
doctorate in anthropology by the University of California
in 1940. His research had been focused on present-day
Maya in Guatemala. Beginning in 1932 his field research
was supported, in part, by the Carnegie Institution of
Washington (McBryde 1947:xiii-xiv).
- 310
FINAL COMMENTS
The Harvard graduate student John H.
Rowe (1918-2004) participated as supervisor in
the 1941-42 IAR Project 7 directed by Alfred
Kidder II that focused on the southern high-
lands of Peru (Strong 1943:7). Rowe was made
a member of the IAR in 1944 (Mason 1967:14)
and earned his doctorate at Harvard in 1947
(Burger 2007: 35). In 1950 he began teaching a
seminar on Peruvian archaeology at the Univer-
sity of California at Berkeley, the first such
course since Kroeber had offered one there in
1942 (Editor 1951: 366). Rowe subsequently
began bringing his students to Peru to conduct
research (Rowe 1956). In 1960 the Institute of
Andean Studies (IAS) was founded and incor-
porated with Rowe as its president (Lyon 1983:
1). Berkeley then became established as the
permanent host institution for its meetings held
annually in January (Browman 2000/01:347).
Clearly the influences of Uhle and Kroeber
were at the heart of this new research institute.
Less clear, however, was how much the in-
creased research focus of the IAR on Meso-
america (e.g., Mason 1967:9), and/or difficulties
encountered by West Coast members in attend-
ing annual IAR meetings in New York City may
have influenced the creation of the IAS. It has
been reported that problems encountered by
those living and working in the Midwest in
attending this annual IAS meeting led to the
creation of the Midwest Conference on Andean
and Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory
(MCAAAE) in 1973 (Browman 2000/01:347).
It has likewise been reported that difficulties
encountered by those living and working in the
Northeast in attending the annual Midwest
Conference led to the creation of the Northeast
Conference on Andean Archaeology and
Ethnohistory in 1982 (Daggett 2000/01:310-
311). Hence, both the MCAAAE and the
NCAAE may be viewed as offspring of the IAS
and the IAS was, at least indirectly, given its
311 - Daggett: Introduction to Willey on the IAR

emphasis on the Andes, an offspring of the IAR. Easby, Dudley T., Jr.
In light of this it should be noted that, like the 1966 Samuel Kirkland Lothrop, 1892-1965. American
Antiquity 31(2):256-261.
newly formed IAR in 1937, the three current Editor
Andean research groups cover three distinct 1920 Harvard University. Quinquennial Catalogue of the
regions, the Northeast, the Midwest, and the Officers and Graduates, 1636-1920. Cambridge,
West. Finally, given these connections, it seems Massachusetts: The University Press.
both appropriate and historic that the second 1942 Notes and News. American Anthropologist n.s.
44(1):166-167.
annual meeting of the Northeast Conference 1951 Notes and News: South America. American
was held at the AMNH (ibid:314), the official Antiquity 16(4):366-368.
home of the IAR (Mason 1967:2). 1965 About Our Authors. The American Behavioral
Scientist 8(7):2, 8.
REFERENCES CITED: Fisher, Reginald
1947 Edgar Lee Hewett. American Antiquity 13(1):78-
Archival Sources 79.
Gilman, Daniel C.
Harvard Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology 1902 The Carnegie Institution. Science 15(371):201-
Archives IAR Folder 1, 996-20. 203.
Hyslop, John
Publications 1989 Portrait of an Archaeologist: Junius B. Birds
Lifetime of Discovery is Remembered in the New
Anonymous Hall of South American Peoples. Natural History
1925 Los estudios histricos en la Universidad Mayor 2:84, 86-89.
de San Marcos: Trabajos arqueolgicos en la Jennings, Jesse D.
provincia de Caete. Importante 1962 Fay-Cooper Cole, 1881-1961. American Antiquity
descubrimientos en la Waka Malena. El 27(4):573-575.
Comercio, October 11, page 12 (Lima, Peru). Kroeber, Alfred L.
1969 Clarence Hay, 84, An Archeologist: Former 1927 Coast and Highland in Prehistoric Peru. Ameri-
Trustee of the Natural History Museum Is Dead. can Anthropologist 29:625-653.
The New York Times, June 6, p. 39. Kroeber, Alfred L. and William Duncan Strong
Bennett, Wendell C. 1924a The Uhle Collections from Chincha. University
1946 Philip Ainsworth Means,1892-1944. American of California Publications in American Archaeology
Anthropologist 48:234-237. and Ethnology 21:1-54.
Browman, David L. 1924b The Uhle Pottery Collections from Ica. Univer-
2000/01 The Origins and the First 25 Years (1973-1997) sity of California Publications in Archaeology and
of the Midwestern Conference on Andean and Ethnology 21:95-133.
Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory. Kroeber, Alfred L., Ruth Benedict, Murray B. Emeneau,
Andean Past 6:347-367. Melvin J. Herskovitz, Gladys A. Reichard, and J. Alden
Burger, Richard L. Mason
2007 John Howland Rowe. Andean Past 8:33-44. 1943 Franz Boas, 1858-1942. American Anthropological
Corbett, John M. Association Memoir 61. New York: Kraus Re-
1951 Peruvian Prehistory. El Palacio 59, June, pp. 165- prints [1969].
179. Lothrop, Samuel K.
Daggett, Richard E. 1948 Julio C. Tello, 1880-1947. American Antiquity
1987 Reconstructing the Evidence for Cerro Blanco 14:49-56.
and Punkuri. Andean Past 1:111-163. Lyon, Patricia J.
1994 The Paracas Mummy Bundles of the Great 1983 Editors Preface and Dedication of this Special
Necropolis of Wari Kayan: A History. Andean Issue. awpa Pacha 20(1982):1-2.
Past 4: 53-75. Mason, J. Alden
2000/01 The Northeast Conference on Andean Archae- 1967 A Brief History of the Institute of Andean Research,
ology and Ethnohistory: The First Eighteen Inc., 1937-1967. New York, New York: Institute
Years. Andean Past 6:309-345. of Andean Research.
2007 Tellos Lost Years: 1931-1935. Andean Past
8:81-108.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 312

McBryde, Felix Webster Tello, Julio C.

1947 Cultural and Historical Geography of Southwest 1918 El uso de las cabezas humanas artificialmente
Guatemala. Smithsonian Institution Institute for momificadas y su representacin en el antiguo arte
Social Anthropology Publication 4. Washington, peruano. Lima: Casa Editora de Ernesto R.
D.C. Villaran.
Mohr Chvez, Karen L. 1921a Estudios antropolgicos en el departamento de
2005 Alfred Kidder II in the Development of Ameri- Ancash. Archivos de la Asociacin Peruana para el
can Archaeology: A Biographical and Contex- Progreso de la Ciencia 1:131-137 (Lima, Per).
tual View. Andean Past 7:251-309. 1921b Introduccin a la historia antigua del Per. Lima:
Noguera, Eduardo San Marti y Cia.
1946 George C. Vaillant. Ethnos 2(1-2):1-15 (Stock- 1959 Paracas: Primera Parte. Publicacin del Proyecto
holm, Sweden). 8b del Programa 1941-42 de The Institute of
Phillips, Philip Andean Research of New York. Lima: Empresa
1955 Alfred Marsten [sic]Tozzer, 1877-1954. American Grfica T. Scheuch S.A.
Antiquity 21:72-80. Tello, Julio C. and Toribio Meja Xesspe
Rouse, Irving 1967 Historia de los museos nacionales del Per:
1954 Wendell C. Bennett, 1905-1953. American 1822-1946. Arqueolgicas 10 (entire issue; Lima,
Antiquity 19:265-270. Per).
Rowe, John Howland Thompson, Donald E.
1956 Archaeological Explorations in Southern Peru, 1996 Donald Collier: 1911-1995. American Antiquity
1954-1955: Preliminary Report of the Fourth 61(1):44-51.
University of California Archaeological Expedi- Wauchope, Robert
tion to Peru. American Antiquity 22(2):135-151. 1965 Alfred Vincent Kidder, 1885-1963. American
1962 Alfred Louis Kroeber, 1876-1960. American Antiquity 31:149-171.
Antiquity 27:395-415. Willey, Gordon R.
1978 Anna Hadwick Gayton, 1899-1977. American 1946 The Viru Valley Program in Northern Peru.
Anthropologist 80:653-656. Acta Americana 4(4):224-238.
Solecki, Ralph and Charles Wagley 1988 Portraits in American Archaeology: Remembrances
1963 William Duncan Strong, 1899-1962. American of Some Distinguished Americanists. Albuquerque:
Anthropologist 65:1102-1111. University of New Mexico Press.
Steward, Julian H.
1973 Alfred Kroeber. New York and London: Columbia
University Press.
Strong, William Duncan
1943 Cross Sections of New World Prehistory. A Brief
Report on the Work of the Institute of Andean
Research, 1941-1942. Smithsonian Miscellaneous
Collections 104(2):1-46.
 EXPERIENCES WITH THE INSTITUTE OF ANDEAN RESEARCH: 1941-42 AND 1946

GORDON R. WILLEY
(died 28 April 2002)

Gordon Randolph Willey, William Duncan Strong, John Maxwell Corbett, and Marshall Thornton
(Bud) Newman at Pachacamac, 2006 Harvard University, Peabody Museum, 2003.13.108

In the spring semester of academic year
1940-41, I was completing my graduate classes
at Columbia University in my work for a doctor-
ate in anthropology, with a specialization in
American archaeology. My serious field studies
up to that time had been in the Southeastern
United States, particularly in Georgia, Louisi-
ana, and Florida. I had a few publication credits
on my record for research in these areas and had
completed, during the summer of 1940, a Co-
lumbia University-National Park Service fi-
nanced expedition to the Florida Gulf Coast. It
was my intention to go ahead with these Florida
studies as the basis of my doctoral dissertation.
However, my principal professor at Columbia,
William Duncan Strong, under whose guidance
I was taking a seminar on South American
archaeology, informed me that the Institute of
Andean Research, of which he was a member,
was in the process of negotiating with the Unit-

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009): 313-316.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
ed States Department of State for an extensive
program of archaeological investigations in
Latin America. Such a program would be fi-
nanced by our State Department, as a part of a
process of establishing firmer cultural ties with
our Latin American neighbors. Research activi-
ties would be carried out at various locations,
from northern Mexico down to southern Chile.
These activities would be under the direction of
various members of the Institute of Andean
Research and their associated universities or
museums.
To my delight, Professor Strong informed
me that if this idea of the State Departments
funding of the Institute of Andean Research
developed according to plan he would head up
one of the field programs directed to Peru and
that he would take me along as his assistant.
While I had devotion to my Florida and south-
eastern United States research, I was more
excited about the opportunities to see and
participate in Andean archaeological fieldwork.
Among other advantages that the Institute of
Andean Research possibility held was funding
for publication of field results. At Columbia
University, at that time, this was a very impor-
tant consideration, for there was a graduate
ruling now, I understand no longer in force
that the doctoral degree would not be granted
until the candidate had deposited a certain
number of published copies of his doctoral thesis
in the university library. Needless to say, pay-
ment was a rugged expense for most Ph.D.
candidates and certainly would have been so for
me. Thus, Peruvian fieldwork, if at least part of
it could be used as a doctoral dissertation for
me, was a very bright prospect.
As things fell out, the State Department
came through with the grant for the program as
designed by the Institute of Andean Research.
I should mention here that the key man on the
archaeological side of things in all of this was
the late George C. Vaillant who came up with
- 314
this idea of Archaeology in Latin America as
a form of international goodwill and who,
through his personal friendship with Nelson
Rockefeller, then Assistant Secretary of State to
Cordell Hull, was able to sell the idea in high
government circles.
Strong left for Peru in late May of 1941 to
arrange matters with Peruvian officialdom. I
took off in early June. One of the very nice
features of the program, which I understood had
been incorporated into it at Vaillants insis-
tence, was that all married participants be
allowed to bring their wives with them on the
individual grants expense moneys. Thus, in my
case, my wife Katharine would be allowed to
accompany me. Obviously, this Institute of
Andean Research-U.S. State Department
venture was much to my liking as it was to
others of the program. One of these was Junius
Bird who was to be accompanied to Chile by his
wife, Peggy, and their two young sons. So, the
Willeys and the Birds took off on a Pacific Line
steamship from New York City at the end of the
first week in June.
The cruise down was delightful. Going
through the Panama Canal and then along the
Pacific coast of South America, it took about
two weeks to reach Callao, the port for Lima.
The Birds got off with us there, spending two
weeks in Peru before proceeding on by the next
ship to Chile. During this time, while my wife
stayed in a Lima hotel and Peggy Bird and her
children put up in a local pension, Strong, Juni-
us, and I traveled along the Peruvian coast, both
to the north and south of Lima, looking at
archaeological sites and beginning to acclimatize
ourselves to this research environment. On
some, but not all, of these trips we were accom-
panied by either Julio C. Tello, Perus leading
archaeologist, or some of his assistants. These
brief surveys were eventually published as
Archaeological Notes on the Central Coast by
Strong and Willey (Strong et al. 1943:1-25).
315 -
Later on, I was to carry out excavations in some
of these sites we visited during these early trips,
but more of this later.
After the Birds departure for Chile, Strong
and I began serious archaeology with excava-
tions carried out at Tellos invitation at the
great ruin of Pachacamac, situated some 30
kilometers south of Lima. Strong had been
telling Tello of our desire to carry out strati-
graphic testing in Peru and the latter had
obliged with this offer. We employed some of
Tellos workmen, and during the latter part of
July and through August of that year, we made
a deep cut on the lower slopes of the famed
Temple of the Sun, an Inca Period structure
which crowns the highest point of the topogra-
phy of Pachacamac. In this work we were also
assisted by John Maxwell Corbett, a former
University of Southern California student of
archaeology who, with his wife Jacqueline, was
also visiting in Peru at that time. The Temple of
the Sun excavation proceeded through superfi-
cial Inca Period refuse into underlying debris
which we eventually identified as that of the
interlocking pottery style, to be identified with
the Early Intermediate Period of the Peruvian
coastal cultures. Strong and Corbett were to
publish the results of this Pachacamac work as
A Ceramic Sequence for Pachacamac (Strong
et al. 1943: 27-121).
With Strongs return to the United States in
September of 1941, Corbett and I set about with
excavations at a number of the Peruvian central
coastal sites which had been briefly visited at
the beginning of our trip. We dug for about a
month in the Chancay Valley, just to the north
of Ancn. Here we concentrated on the site of
Cerro de Trinidad where Max Uhle had exca-
vated early in the twentieth century. We also
followed this up with more Chancay Valley
digging at a site called Baos de Boza. As a
result of this work, I was able to stratigraphically
demonstrate a central coastal Early Intermediate
Willey: Institute of Andean Research in Peru
Period sequence of a White-on-Red ceramic
style underlying the interlocking style, and the
publication on this, Excavations in the Chan-
cay Valley (Strong et al. 1943:123-195) became
my doctoral dissertation. Other excavations
during the final months of 1941 and into early
1942 were carried out at Ancn in both the
Necrpolis, or burial-ground area at that large
site, as well as in the large shell deposits on the
hills to the south of the Necrpolis. I published
on the Ancn Necrpolis work (A Supplement
to the Pottery Sequence at Ancon in Strong et
al. 1943:197-215) and later Corbett and I pub-
lished on the Ancn and related Puerto de Supe
shell mound digging (Willey and Corbett 1954).
My second field experience with the Insti-
tute of Andean Research came in 1946. By this
time, presumably in recognition of my research
achievements in Peru in the 1941-42 period, I
had been elected a member of the Institute and
it was as such that I participated in the planning
of the Viru Valley Peruvian expedition which
was carried out by the Institute. The principal
originators of the Viru Valley Program were
Wendell C. Bennett of Yale, Julian Steward,
then one of my bosses at the Smithsonian Insti-
tution, and myself, a member of the Smithso-
nians Bureau of American Ethnology. Our
objective was to do intensive archaeological-
geographical-ethnological research on an insti-
tutional cooperative basis, in a single Peruvian
north coastal valley. It was not too large for our
efforts, most of which were to be confined to a
single field season, and it was a valley of which
we knew something although by no means
enough of its prehistoric past. Our plan was
for members of the Institute of Andean Re-
search representing several institutions (univer-
sities or museums in the United States) to bring
some funding resources from their respective
institutions and to share in some general fund-
ing to be solicited by the Institute of Andean
Research.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 316

We were fortunate in gaining the enthusias-
tic support of several of our colleagues for the
Viru venture. Julian Steward enlisted the aid of
F.W. McBryde, a cultural geographer on his
Smithsonian staff, and later he brought in the
ethnologist Alan Holmberg, also a Smithsonian
employee. The archaeologist William Duncan
Strong of Columbia University joined up bring-
ing with him two graduate student assistants,
James A. Ford and Clifford Evans. From the
American Museum of Natural History Junius
Bird threw in his lot with us and so did Donald
Collier of Chicagos Field Museum of Natural
History. Together the Viru group were fortunate
in receiving a generous financial grant from the
Wenner-Gren Foundation in New York City. As
it was arranged, each participant was to find
much of his own field research from funds
supplied by his own university or musuem;
however, certain facilities and items were pur-
chased out of the Wenner-Gren general funds.
These last included three second-hand U.S.
Army Jeeps, which were shared by the members
of the project, and U.S. Army air photographs of
the valley of various scales, also of general use
and value. Other incidental minor costs for
items of general benefit to all participants were
also met by the Wenner-Gren funds.
Since that time I have attended Institute of
Andean Research annual meetings at the Amer-
ican Museum in New York on various occasions.
I do not have a good remembrance of just what
business was discussed. I know, however, that
there has been no activity of the scale of the
Viru Program in recent years.
REFERENCES CITED:
Strong, William Duncan, Gordon R. Willey and John M.
Corbett
1943 Archaeological Studies in Peru, 1941-1942. Colum-
bia Studies in Archaeology and Ethnology 1.
New York: Columbia University Press.
Willey, Gordon R.
1953 Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Viru Valley,
Peru, Bulletin 155, Bureau of American Ethnol-
ogy, Washington, D.C.
Willey, Gordon R. and John M. Corbett
1954 Early Ancn and Early Supe Culture: Chavn
Horizon Sites of the Central Peruvian Coast. Spe-
cial sections by Lila M. ONeale, Margaret
Ashley Towle, W. G. Haag, Marshall T. New-
man and others. Columbia Studies in Archeology
and Ethnology 3. New York: Columbia Univer-
sity Press.

Some fieldwork, including that of the Co-

lumbia University party and myself, began in
late March of 1946. Others joined us in the
months thereafter. My own field activities lasted
through to September of that year while those of
some of our colleagues continued longer. Publi-
cations resulting from the Viru Program ap-
peared in the years following. These were
brought out at the American Museum of Natu-
ral History, Columbia University, the Field
Museum, and the Smithsonian. My own publi-
cation, Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Viru
Valley, Peru, came out in 1953.
 CURRENT RESEARCH IN ANDEAN ARCHAEOLOGY

Editors Note:

Because of the large number of lengthy articles and obituaries published in Andean Past 7 and 8, we were
unable to include a section on current research. Here we report on work done since mid-summer, 2000.
New reports should be sent to Monica Barnes (monica@andeanpast.org).

Current Research (2000-2008) were interconnected through exchange of both

ARGENTINA
Archaeological Investigations at Antumpa
(Jujuy): Contributions to the Characterization
of the Early Ceramic Period in the Huma-
huaca Region
In this report Juan B. Leoni (jbleoni@
hotmail.com) presents ongoing archaeological
research at the Antumpa site (Departamento de
Humahuaca, Provincia de Jujuy). Investigations
have yielded important new information about
the Early Ceramic Period (c. 1000 B.C. to A.D.
800), also known as the Formative, a crucial,
but poorly known, period in the developmental
trajectory of the Humahuaca Quebrada region.
A proliferation of sedentary village societies
characterizes Northwestern Argentina during
the Early Ceramic Period (Albeck 2000; Gon-
zlez 1977; Gonzlez and Prez 1972). These such as herding, hunting, raw material procure-
small-scale societies occupied different subareas
of Northwestern Argentina, from punas, to
highland valleys, to the yungas or low-lying
warm valleys of the eastern Andean slopes.
Their subsistence practices were based largely
on agriculture and llama herding occasionally
complemented by hunting and gathering. Ce-
ramic, textile, and metallurgical production
developed during these times, reaching, in some
cases, very high manufacturing and aesthetic
standards. It is generally believed that these
communities were, for the most part, internally
homogeneous, showing little social differentia-
tion and political centralization. These societies
everyday and sumptuary goods, as much as by
ideas and people circulating over relatively
extensive geographical areas.
Nevertheless, the archaeological record for
this period is extremely fragmentary in the
Humahuaca Quebrada region, one of the main
subareas of the Argentine Andean Northwest.
Only a handful of sites are known at present
besides Antumpa, and include Estancia Grande
(Palma y Olivera, 1992-93; Salas 1948), El
Alfarcito (Madrazo 1969), Vizcarra (Nielsen
2001:187-189), Pueblo Viejo de la Cueva
(Basilico 1992), Til 20 (Mendona et al. 1991)
and Til 22 (Rivolta and Albeck 1992), among
others. They generally are hamlets or villages,
with small numbers of houses within agricultural
plots. Most of them have been intensively
disturbed by both alluvial erosion processes and
later human reoccupations. Contemporaneous
occupations, which served specific purposes
ment, rock painting, and funerary practices,
among other activities, have been found in
caves and rock shelters as well (e.g. Garca and
Carrion 1992, Hernndez Llosas 1998).
Antumpa is in the northern sector of the
Humahuaca Quebrada, in the angle formed by
the confluence of the Chaupi Rodeo and
Grande Rivers, about 2.5 km southwest of the
modern town of Iturbe/Hiplito Yrigoyen (Fig-
ure 1). The sites geographical emplacement is
key, in an area of environmental transition
between the puna, the Humahuaca Quebrada,
and the eastern valleys and yungas. This position

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009): 317-351.

ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
may have allowed Antumpas inhabitants a
relatively easy access to these markedly different
environmental zones and their specific
resources. Given its location, the site may have
constituted a node in ancient exchange net-
works (Albeck 1992:101). In fact, until recently,
puna settlers from the Casabindo area, about
three hours by truck from the town of Huma-
huaca, visited Iturbe on their way to the eastern
valleys to trade salt and livestock products in
exchange for agricultural products and wooden
objects, a practice that may very well have its
roots in prehispanic times (ibid.:100).
Figure 1: Map of the Humahuaca Quebrada
region showing the location of the Chaupi Rodeo
Quebrada and the Antumpa site.
Antumpa is one of the few sites known from
the Early Ceramic Period in the general area of
the Humahuaca Quebrada. It was first reported
by Alberto Rex Gonzlez, who characterized it
as an Early Ceramic hamlet, based on its similar-
ities to contemporaneous sites from the
Humahuaca Quebrada and elsewhere in North-
western Argentina. While Gonzlez did not
carry out systematic archaeological research at
the site, his observations were incorporated into
several works of synthesis, as part of the general
discussion of the Early Ceramic Period in the
Humahuaca Quebrada region (e.g. Gonzlez
- 318
1963:106, 1977:355-356; Gonzlez and Prez
1972:60).
Mara I. Hernndez Llosas, Susana Renard,
and Mercedes Podest (1983-85) carried out
more specific research at the site in 1981, in-
cluding partial mapping and test excavations,
confirming Gonzlez original characterization.
While they identified the remains of later occu-
pations as well, they concluded that those
corresponding to the Early Ceramic Period were
the most extensive and well preserved
(Hernndez Llosas et al. 1983-85:526-527).
Archaeological remains typically consist of large
stone-walled squares or rectangles subdivided
into smaller units. Circular structures, presum-
ably houses, between 5 and 10 m in diameter,
are spread over the site, generally within larger
square or rectangular enclosures. Excavations in
one of these circular structures produced evi-
dence for Early Ceramic Period occupations and
a radiocarbon date of 136070 B.P. (LP-105;
animal bone; *13C =-202; ibid: 530).
Investigations at Antumpa were reinitiated
in 2005, and research activities have included
site survey, mapping, and excavations, comple-
mented with a survey of the lower section of the
adjacent Chaupi Rodeo Quebrada. The archae-
ological remains extend between 3300 and 3600
masl, covering an estimated 161 ha area of a
wide, low-sloped foothill (Figure 2). The densest
concentration of architecture is, however, on
the river terrace on the left margin of the Chau-
pi Rodeo Quebrada, and seems to have consti-
tuted the core of the human occupation. The
use of this part of the site continued, perhaps
sporadically, over the centuries after the Early
Ceramic Period, and, in fact, a few modern
homesteads, most of them currently abandoned,
as well as a cemetery, can be found in this area.
319 - Current Research in Andean Archaeology

are poorly preserved. One of them, designated

Recinto 2, was partially excavated by Hernndez
Llosas and collaborators (ibid). Excavation of
this structure continued in 2007. It is a large
(7.70 m diameter) building with no visible
doorways, in the center of a rectangular enclo-
sure in the northwestern part of the site (Figure
3). Although an occupation level was identified,
few primary contexts were located. While finds
in this structure included Early Ceramic Period
diagnostic artifacts such as ceramic smoking
Figure 2: Map of Antumpa showing distribution pipe fragments, lithic hoes, and small projectile
of archaeological remains points (Figure 4), the nature, length of occupa-
tion, and use of this structure remain unclear.
The distribution of the archaeological
architecture at the site is not homogeneous. At
least two well-defined sectors can be identified.
The boundary between these sectors is a fossil
terrace that runs across the site in a general
north-south direction. The lower sector, to the
west of this feature, comprises extensive groups
of square, rectangular, and trapezoidal stone-
walled enclosures, very regularly built in what
seems to be a planned construction pattern.
These cover an area of about 56 ha. Some of
these enclosures are internally subdivided into
smaller units. The function of these enclosures
seems to be related to agriculture (ibid.: 26).
The stone walls defined the plots, and also
protected soils from erosion and growing crops
from winds and frost, as well as from domestic
and/or wild animals. Given the general environ-
mental conditions of the area, these agricultural Figure 3: Plan of Recinto 2 and adjacent
facilities would have been used for the produc- enclosures.
tion of high altitude cold- resistant crops, such
as quinoa, kiwicha (Amaranthus sp.), and a
variety of tubers (Albeck 1992:96). No evidence
for irrigation canals or reservoirs has been found
as yet, implying that agricultural facilities were
rather simple, and relied mostly, or exclusively,
on rain water for irrigation, and, therefore, were
limited in their use to the summer rainy season.

Circular residential structures can be found

within some of the enclosures. In general, these
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 320

mounds deep stratigraphy, with cultural depos-

its at least 1 to 1.5 m thick, with a very dense
presence of archaeological materials (ceramics,
lithic tools and debris, animal bone fragments,
stone beads, charcoal, etc.) in secondary con-
texts. Radiocarbon assays from charcoal in the
stratigraphic layers have yielded dates of
286050 B.P. (LP-1897; charcoal; *13C=-
242) and 290080 B.P. (LP-1899; char-
coal; *13C=-242), suggesting that the
occupation of the site goes back to the very
beginning of the Early Ceramic Period. These
dates situate Antumpa among the earliest
known ceramic sites in the whole of Northwest-
ern Argentina.

Figure 4: Artifacts from excavations in Recinto 2:

a) ceramic smoking pipe fragments; b) andesite
hoes; c) stemmed projectile points (left and center,
obsidian; right, siliceous rock).

Site survey allowed field-workers to identify

at least two small mounds, in addition to resi-
dence structures. One of the mounds had a
badly eroded circular structure on its top
(Recinto 3; Figure 5).The characteristics of this
mound suggest a manmade origin, although it is
not clear if it was intentionally erected, if it
resulted from the continuous habitation of the
same spot, or if a combination of both processes Figure 5: Area of mound on which
resulted in its formation, as is the case for other Recinto 3 stands.
Early Ceramic sites in Northwestern Argentina
(see Cigliano et al. 1976 and Tarrag 1980:31- The other major site sector, which covers
35). about 105 ha, is on higher ground to the east of
the old terrace (Figure 2). Archaeological archi-
Test excavations inside this structure, which tecture in this sector differs significantly both in
is about 7.70 m in diameter, showed that only shape and size from that described above. Enclo-
the stone wall foundations had been preserved. sures are much larger and more irregularly built
Nevertheless, the excavations revealed the here. Some have curved sides. No circular
321 -
residential structures have been identified with-
in them so far. These formal differences may be
related to a different function. Perhaps some of
these larger enclosures served as corrals, or for
the production of different types of crops. An-
other distinctive feature in this sector is the
existence of long linear accumulations of field-
stones, generally, but not exclusively, longitudi-
nal to the slope, reaching hundreds of meters in
length. These seem to be the correlate of the
first stages of the major landscape transforma-
tions involved in the construction of extensive
agricultural facilities (see Nielsen 1995:250),
perhaps part of an intensification effort that was
never completed. Thus, stone accumulations
would be the result of the clearance of potential
agricultural plots, and could have served both as
the primary walls for future sets of enclosures,
and as caches of readily available construction
material.
In summary, the ongoing investigations in
Antumpa are producing valuable information on
the Early Ceramic Period in the Humahuaca
region that will undoubtedly contribute to a
better understanding of this crucial, but so far
little known, period of the Humahuaca pre-
hispanic cultural development process. Antum-
pa holds important clues which will help build
an understanding of the development of pre-
hispanic agriculture as well, with its extensive
facilities. There is evidence for the beginnings of
an agricultural intensification effort which never
developed to its maximum potential. Likewise,
habitation structures and mounds are important
sources of information on Early Ceramic Period
social organization, with the observed differ-
ences in house locations and contents perhaps
implying an incipient social differentiation.
Finally, the newly available radiocarbon dates
situate the site in the initial part of this period,
a time for which little archaeological evidence
exists at present.
Current Research in Andean Archaeology
Research at Antumpa and Chaupi Rodeo
Quebrada is being conducted under a Research
Grant from Agencia de Ciencia y Tcnica,
Argentina (PICT Jvenes 34424), and a Post-
doctoral Reinsertion Fellowship from CONI-
CET Argentina (Resolucin Directorial N 1310
18/08/05). Primo Guanuco, president of the
Aboriginal Community of Negra Muerta, and
Sara Guzmn, Iturbes municipal delegate,
provided support in the field. Mara I. Her-
nndez extended valuable advice and help
throughout all stages of this project. Humberto
Maman, Gabriel Corts, Ramn Quinteros,
Diana Tamburini, Graciela Scarafa, Claus
Freiberg, Georgina Fabron, Alejandra Raies,
Anah Hernndez, Julieta Sartori, Sofa Fernn-
dez, Elisa Oitana and Micaela Corletta partici-
pated in the field-work.
REFERENCES CITED
Albeck, Mara E.
1992 El ambiente como generador de hiptesis sobre
dinmica sociocultural prehispnica en la Que-
brada de Humahuaca. Cuadernos FHYCS-UNJU
3:95-106 (Revista de la Facultad de Human-
idades y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Nacional
de Jujuy, Argentina).
2000 La vida agraria en los Andes del sur. In Nueva
historia Argentina: Los pueblos originarios y la con-
quista, edited by Myriam N. Tarrag, pp. 187-
228. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana.
Basilico, Susana
1992 Pueblo Viejo de La Cueva (Depto. de Huma-
huaca, Jujuy). Resultados de las excavaciones en
un sector del asentamiento. Cuadernos FHYCS-
UNJU 3:108-127 (Revista de la Facultad de
Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad
Nacional de Jujuy, Argentina).
Cigliano, Eduardo M., Rodolfo A. Raffino, and Horacio A.
Calandra
1976 La aldea formativa de Las Cuevas (Provincia de
Salta). Relaciones de la Sociedad Argentina de
Antropologa, Nueva Serie 10:73-140.
Garca, Lidia C. and Flavia I. Carrin
1992 El Formativo de la Puna de Jujuy: Inca Cueva
Alero 1. Cuadernos FHYCS-UNJU 3:21-33
(Revista de la Facultad de Humanidades y Cien-
cias Sociales, Universidad Nacional de Jujuy,
Argentina).
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Gonzlez, Alberto Rex
1963 Cultural Development in Northwestern Argen-
tina. In Aboriginal Cultural Development in Latin
America: An Interpretive Review, edited by Betty
Jane Meggers and Clifford Evans, pp. 103-117,
Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 146(1).
Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.
1977 Arte precolombino de la Argentina: Introduccin a
su historia cultural. Buenos Aires: Filmediciones
Valero.
Gonzlez, Alberto Rex and Jos A. Prez
1972 Argentina indgena: Vsperas de la conquista. Bue-
nos Aires: Paids.
Hernndez Llosas, Mara I.
1998 Pintoscayoc: Arqueologa de quebradas altas en
Humahuaca. Ph.D. dissertation, Facultad de
Filosofa y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires.
Hernndez Llosas, Mara I., Susana Renard de Coquet,
and Mara M. Podest
1983-85 Antumpa (Departamento Humahuaca, Provin-
cia de Jujuy). Prospeccin, excavacin explora-
toria y fechado radiocarbnico. Cuadernos del
Instituto Nacional de Antropologa y Pensamiento
Latinoamericano 10:525-531.
Madrazo, Guillermo B.
1969 Reapertura de la investigacin en Alfarcito (Pcia. de
Jujuy, Rep. Argentina). Monografas 4. Museo
Etnogrfico Municipal Dmaso Arce, Ola-
varra, Argentina.
Mendona, Osvaldo, Mara A. Bordach, Marta Ruiz, and
Beatriz Cremonte
1991 Nuevas evidencias del Perodo Agroalfarero
Temprano en Quebrada de Humahuaca: Los
hallazgos del sitio Til 20 (Tilcara, Jujuy). Come-
chingonia 7:29-48 (Crdoba, Argentina).
Nielsen, Axel E.
1995 Aportes al estudio de la produccin agrcola Inka
en Quebrada de Humahuaca (Jujuy, Argentina).
Hombre y Desierto 9: Una perspectiva cultural;
Actas del XIII Congreso Nacional de Arqueologa
Chilena, Antofagasta. Volume 1, pp. 245-260.
- 322
2001 Evolucin Social en la Quebrada de Humahuaca
(AD 700-1536). In Historia prehispnica argen-
tina. Volume 1, edited by Eduardo. E. Berberin
and Axel E. Nielsen, pp. 171-264. Crdoba,
Argentina: Editorial Brujas.
Palma, Jorge R. and Daniel. E. Olivera
1992-93 Hacia la contrastacin de un modelo arqueo-
lgico para el Formativo regional en Huma-
huaca: El caso de Estancia Grande. Cuadernos del
Instituto Nacional de Antropologa y Pensamiento
Latinoamericano 14:237-259.
Rivolta, Mara C. and Mara E. Albeck
1992 Los asentamientos tempranos en la localidad de
Tilcara: Sjuj Til.22 Provincia de Jujuy. Cuadernos
FHYCS-UNJU 3:86-93 (Revista de la Facultad
de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales, Universi-
dad Nacional de Jujuy, Argentina).
Salas, Alberto
1948 Un nuevo yacimiento arqueolgico en la regin
Humahuaca. Actas y Memorias del XXVIII Con-
greso Internacional de Americanistas, pp. 643-648.
(Paris).
Tarrag, Myriam N.
1980 Los asentamientos aldeanos tempranos en el
sector septentrional del valle Calchaqu, pro-
vincia de Salta, y el desarrollo agrcola posterior.
Estudios Arqueolgicos 5:29-53.
323 -
CHILE
San Pedro de Atacama
The National Fund to Support Science and
Technology (Fondo Nacional de Apoyo a la
Ciencia y TecnologaFONDECYT) financed
project 1030931, Recording and Chronology of
the Formative Period at San Pedro de Atacama
(Registro y Cronologa de Perodo Formativo en
San Pedro de Atacama), directed by Carolina
Agero (Universidad Catlica del Norte, e-
mail: maguero@ucn.cl), Mauricio Uribe
(Universidad de Chile, e-mail: mur@uchile.cl),
and Carlos Carrasco (e-mail:C_acg@yahoo.com).
In this project we are making a first approxi-
mation of early settlement in the oasis of San
Pedro de Atacama, oriented towards the build-
ing and contextualizing of the chronological and
cultural sequences of the local Formative. The
data available did not provide a basis for discus-
sion of the areas settlement history during that
time except in speculative terms (Berenguer et
al. 1986; Nez 1999, 2005). Our ultimate goal
is to clarify the nature, causes, and manifesta-
tions of the settlement process within an opti-
mized cultural-historical framework.
Towards this end, we discuss the prior
explanations of the origin and development of
Formative societies in San Pedro by means of
(1) the hypothetical projection of the model of
the Tulan transect (Nez 1995), according to
which a pastoral way of life developed, and (2)
the application of the caravan model (movili-
dad giratoria) of Nez and Dillehay (1978) and
by Llagostera (1996) who indicated that the
high cultural prestige of the oasis was based on
a network system which had been developed
since the Formative, having as its goal the
Andean ideal of complementarity.
Considering that our general objective
involves the examination of sociocultural indi-
Current Research in Andean Archaeology
cators which take into account the nature and
reinforcement of the Formative way of life in an
environment particular to the Puna Salada
(puna with numerous salt pans and/or salt
lakes), and in accord with the exploratory
nature of the research, we put into practice a
methodology organized into three stages, one for
each of the three years of the project.
Thus, during 2003 we studied and cata-
logued the archaeological collections deposited
in the Museo Arqueolgico de San Pedro de
Atacama corresponding to the 18,103 items of
material culture and cultural use recovered from
habitation and funerary sites of San Pedro, the
Vilama Quebrada, and the edges of the Salar de
Atacama. This activity, along with six thermo-
luminescence dates, allowed us to reaffirm the
temporal sequence proposed for the Formative
by Tarrag (1989) and Berenguer et al. (1986),
and to emphasize the cultural content of each
one of the phases for San Pedro, confirming an
early Formative beginning, until now only
suggested hypothetically.
The results caused us to conduct a system-
atic survey of the San Pedro Oasis and the
Vilama Quebrada in 2004, registering more than
200 new sites (Agero 2005), especially habita-
tion sites. We observed a significant occupation
in the Quebrada, and the two zones maintained
a complementary relationship, indicating that
the settlement patterns proposed for the Oasis
(Nez 1995; Llagostera and Costa 1999)
needed to be reevaluated. The greater part of
the occupations were single-component which,
along with a greater diversity of site types,
suggested a change in way of life, in terms of
conceptions of the management of territory and
its resources. According to our data and that of
Nez (1995, 1999; Nez et al. 1999), the use
of territory in the Formative included the pre-
puna ecological niche between 2370 and 3250
masl. During the Late Formative particular
control was exercised over the environments of
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
the Oasis and lower quebradas, from a base at
San Pedro, which was a population center
composed of several gathering and horticultural
communities. Also under control was the neigh-
boring quebrada, a complementary sector ap-
propriate for the better maintenance of herds
and the obtention of primary materials, the use
of open areas for the practice of horticulture,
and, one assumes, moving about. The con-
temporaneity of the sites with others in Tulan
and Puripica (Nez 1999) suggests that differ-
ent economies already existed, with the latter
places predominant in the practices of hunting
and herding. This panorama presented us with
the problem of determining if there was a settle-
ment system made up of groups from the same
cultural tradition, that is established communi-
ties installed more permanently in the Oasis, but
periodically occupying the Quebrada.
Alternatively, the archaeological evidence
may be an expression of two distinct cultural
traditions, a Quebrada hunting tradition, a
strong survival of the Archaic societies, and an
Oasis tradition, of gathering and horticulture
which began to manifest and develop the tech-
nological innovations of the time. According to
the survey results (Agero 2005) and studies of
surface finds including pottery (Uribe 2006),
stone objects (Carrasco 2004), architecture
(Adn and Urbina 2007) and rock art evidence
(Montt 2006), ten sites were selected, both from
the Oasis (02-Po-12, 02-Po-18, and 02-Po-25 in
Poconche, and Tchaputchayna in Beter), and
from the Vilama Quebrada (Ghatchi-1A, Ghat-
chi-1B, Ghatchi-2B, Ghatchi-2C, 02-Vi-90, and
Calar), to evaluate the preliminary results
through excavations and new archaeometric
tests, and through the functional analysis of
these sites which represent different points of
time in the Formative (Figures 1-4).
- 324
Figure 1: Map indicating the sites excavated in the
San Pedro Oasis and the Vilama Quebrada.
During 2005 we excavated the ten sites,
which, along with 16 absolute dates ten radio-
carbon dates and six thermoluminescence dates
(Table 1)allowed us to deepen the occupa-
tional history of San Pedro and advance discus-
sion in terms of the hypotheses of this research.
Given that we now have definite indications
and propose a preliminary sequence which
includes different categories of archaeological
sites (Agero 2005), we can now consider our
hypothesis confirmed in that the initial Forma-
tive occupations had antecedents in the Archaic
occupations which had only been documented
previously in the high quebradas and 30 km to
the south, at Tambillo.
In the Vilama Quebrada and in San Pedro,
the earliest evidence of the Formative in the
area dates to the first millennium B.C., and is
very strong from the beginning. However,
around A.D. 100 Formative traits begin to
become differentiated. We interpret this as a
transition to a complementary economy based
on hunting, herding, and gathering practices,
and another economy based on gathering,
horticulture, and artisan production. Thus we
propose Phase 1 or Early Period (1200-350
B.C.), an analog to the Tilocalar Phase (Nez
1999), evident in the quebradas of the Salar
(salt pan region) and related to the Vega Alta
325 -
Phase of the Middle Loa Valley (Pollard 1970),
all with a transitional economic organization.
However, this is still debatable because we are
not dealing with agropastoral societies with clear
social hierarchies.
Figure 2: Plan of site 02-Po-18 (See Figure 1).
In this context, the Ghatchi-Calar Archaic
groups temporarily exerted control over a large
territory centrally positioned with respect to
local resources such as circulation paths, travel
and access to the puna, to the high quebradas of
the Salado River, and the oasis of San Pedro.
Their settlements did not necessarily function as
village centers, but rather had a social, symbolic,
and identity character, which is manifested in
ceremonial constructions as well as at Tulan, in
the south of the Salar (Nez et al. 2006). This
phase is centered in the quebrada sites of
Ghatchi-2, but it includes Poconche 12 and
Tchaputchayna in the Oasis.
Later, during Phase 2 or the Middle Period
(350 B.C. to A.D. 100) an increased population
Current Research in Andean Archaeology
stabilization and settlement took place in the
Oasis, and villages like Calar, Ghatchi-1A
(Figure 4), and Tulor were constructed, and
cemeteries like Larache Acequia and Sequitor
Alambrado Acequia were being established con-
temporaneously with Toconao Oriente (UTM
596000 E/ 7455200 N). In this sense, we believe
that the stylistic change seen in the ceramics
(Uribe 2006), among other artifacts, alludes to
a strengthening of local identity, but not one
characterized by sedentary agricultural popula-
tions (poblaciones agrarias estables; Tarrag
1989). On the contrary, on one hand the gath-
ering of tree products (Prosopis sp. [carob or
algarrobo] and Geoffraea decorticans [chaar])
was reinforced in the Oasis, while the practices
of pastoralism were concentrated at Calar, along
with the recent initiation of maize horticulture
(Vidal 2007). To this was added the emerging
production specialization in manufactured
goods, to strengthen the exchange between both
places, opening up possibilities of a promising
long distance trade (Pimentel 2008).
Nevertheless, the former did not support an
agropastoral configuration backing a caravan
system (Nez and Dillehay 1978), especially
because what one observes is a slight displace-
ment in the hunting and pastoral economic
systems in favor of another with emphasis on
gathering and horticulture, promoting a surplus
production and the development of manufac-
tured goods to maintain control over the
complementarity of their environment through
internal trade.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 326

Figure 3: Plan of Ghatchi-2C

Site Unit Layer Code Calibrated BC-AD. Conventional Sample

(2 sigmas) / date BC-AD BP / Age
Ghatchi-2C R12/1 3 (35 cm) A-13938 4000-3350 BC 4885125 Charcoal
Ghatchi Vi90 1 F (67 cm, east sector) A-14110 2204-1930 BC 368550 Charcoal
Ghatchi Vi90 1 B (level 3, 23 cm) A-14114 1531-1392 BC 319055 Charcoal
Ghatchi-2B R23/1 3 (46 cm) AA-66972 400-200 BC 224535 Charcoal
Ghatchi-1A R12/1 Feature 1 (76-95 cm) AA-68401 113BC-239 AD 194475 Bone
Calar R3/1 3 (level 10, 60-65 cm) A-14111 76-346 AD 181055 Charcoal
Ghatchi-1B R4 2 (84-88 cm) A-13936 210-620 AD 165095 Charcoal
Poconche-18 4 4 (level 12, 70-80 cm) AA-68400 3638-3097 BC 4640100 Bone
Poconche-12 3 4 (level 6, 60 cm) A-14113 430-641 AD 151055 Charcoal
Tchaputchayna T23/1 Feature 2 (50 cm) A-14112 984-1296 AD 865100 Charcoal
Poconche-12 Tumba Le Paige ? UCTL 1611 870 BC 2870260 Los Morros Ceramic
Poconche-12 Tumba Le Paige ? UCTL 1612 845 BC 2845290 Los Morros Ceramic
Poconche-12 Tumba Le Paige ? UCTL 1610 360 BC 2360140 Los Morros A Ceramic
Yaye C. de Toros* Tr3, m2 Level 10 UCTL 1614 380 BC 2380200 Los Morros B1 Ceramic
Yaye C. de Toros Tr3, m2 Level 10 UCTL 1613 460 BC 2460240 Loa Caf Alisado Ceramic
Yaye C. de Toros Tr1, m10 Level 10 UCTL 1615 640 BC 1360130 Sequitor Ceramic

Table 1: Radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dates obtained from settlements in the San Pedro de
Atacama oasis and the Vilama Quebrada. *The Yaye Corral de Toros site was excavated
by Hermosilla and colleagues (2003).

Finally, a Phase 3 or Late Phase (A.D.100 to
500) is an analog to Sequitor (Tarrag 1989) in
which greater growth occurred, as well as seden-
tarism restricted to San Pedro, converting it into
the base of the Middle Period. Poconche 12 (02-
Po-12) and Tchaputchayna are the principal
reference points along with Coyo-12 (UTM
582820 E/ 745950 N), and Coyo Oriente (UTM
578601 E/7460100N) (Llagostera y Costa 1999),
Larache, Sequitor Alambrado, Sequitor Orien-
tal, and Solor-6. Equally, important earlier
settlements were abandoned, such as Calar and
Tulor-1, restricting occupation towards the
center and north of San Pedro, and, in the end,
social and geographical circumscription oc-
curred as required by the specialized local eco-
nomic system and long distance trade.
We can definitely conclude that it was
neither agricultural production, nor caravan
trade which played a central role in the com-
plexity of the Atacama, which arose during the
327 - Current Research in Andean Archaeology

Formative, but rather the ancestral Archaic

dynamic related to the local resources of the
quebradas and oases where the fruit and wood
of carob and chaar caused San Pedro to con-
vert itself into an attractive economic, social,
and cultural center.

Figure 6: Display at the Museo Arqueolgico de

San Pedro de Atacama.

Figure 4: Plan of Ghatchi-1A. The approaches, objectives, activities, and

results of the project were recently presented to
the Atacama community by means of the
exhibition, Interpreting Atacamas Past: An
Archaeological Research Project in the Oasis of
San Pedro (Interpretando el pasado ataca-
meo: Una investigacin arqueolgica en los
Oasis de San Pedro) in December 2007 and
January 2008 in the Museo Arqueolgico de San
Pedro de Atacama (Figure 6).

Translated from the Spanish by Monica Barnes

REFERENCES CITED

Adn A., Leonor and Simn Urbina A.

2007 Arquitectura formativa en San Pedro de Ata-
cama. Estudios Atacameos 34:7-30.
Agero, Carolina
2005 Aproximacin al asentamiento temprano en los
Figure 5: Ghatchi-1A, area (recinto) 12, unit 1. oasis de San Pedro de Atacama. Estudios Ataca-
meos 30:29-60.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Berenguer, Jos, ngel Deza, Alvaro Romn, and Agustn
Llagostera
1986 La secuencia de Myriam Tarrag para San Pedro
de Atacama: Un test por termoluminiscencia.
Revista Chilena de Antropologa 5:17-54.
Carrasco, Carlos
2004 Materialidad ltica de sitios habitacionales forma-
tivos de la quebrada de Viloma y oasis de San
Pedro de Atacama. Report of the FONDECYT
Project 1030 931, Santiago de Chile.
Hermosilla, Nuriluz, Rodrigo Snchez, and Mauricio Uribe
2003 [ms.] Proyecto Hotel en Ayllu de Yaye, San
Pedro de Atacama, II Regin: Amplicin de
Lnea base sitio Corral de Toros. Report for
AMBAR S.A.
Llagostera, Agustn
1996 San Pedro de Atacama: Nodo de complemen-
tariedad reticular. In La integracin surandina
cinco siglos despus, edited by Xavier Alb, Mara
Ins Arratia, Jorge Hidalgo, Lautaro Nez,
Agustn Llagostera, Mara Isabel Remy, and
Bruno Reresz, pp. 17-42. Arica, Chile: Corpora-
cin Norte Grande, Taller de Estudios Andinos;
Antofagasta, Chile: Universidad Catlica del
Norte de Antofagasta; and Cusco, Per: Centro
de Estudios Regionales Andinos Bartolom de
Las Casas. Estudios y Debates Regionales An-
dinos 91.
Llagostera, Agustn and M. Antonietta Costa
1999 Patrones de asentamiento en la poca agro-
alfarea de San Pedro de Atacama (Norte de
Chile). Estudios Atacameos 17:175-206.
Montt, Indira
2006 Evidencias rupestres de Ghatchi (cuenca del rio
Vilama, San Pedro de Atacama). Masters thesis
in anthropology, Universidad Catlica del Norte
and Universidad de Tarapac, San Pedro de
Atacama, Chile.
Nez, Lautaro
1995 Evolucin de la ocupacin y organizacin del
espacio atacameo. In Agua: Ocupacin del
espacio y economa campesina en la regin ataca-
mea, aspectos dinmicos, edited by Louis Pourrut
and Lautaro Nez, pp. 18-60. Antofagasta:
Universidad Catlica del Norte.
1999 Fase Tilocalar: Nuevas evidencias formativas en
la puna de Atacama (norte de Chile). In Forma-
tivo sudamericano: Una revaluacin, edited by
Paulina Ledergerber-Crespo, pp. 227-242. Quito:
Ediciones ABYA-YALA.
2005 La naturaleza de la expansin aldeana durante el
formativo tardo en la cuenca de Atacama.
Chungara: Revista de Antropologa Chilena
37(2):165-193.
- 328
Nez, Lautaro and Tom D. Dillehay
1978 Movilidad giratoria, armona social y desarrollo en
los Andes meridionales: Patrones de trfico e
interaccin econmica (ensayo). Antofagasta,
Chile: Universidad del Norte.
Nez, Lautaro, Martin Grosjean, and Isabel Cartajena
1999 Un ecorefugio oportunstico en la puna de Ata-
cama durante eventos ridos del Holoceno
medio. Estudios Atacameos 17:125-174.
Nez, Lautaro, Isabel Cartajena, Carlos Carrasco,
Patricio de Souza, and Martin Grosjean
2006 Emergencia de comunidades pastoralistas forma-
tivas en el sureste de la puna de Atacama. Estu-
dios Atacameos 32:93-117.
Pimentel, Gonzalo G.
2008 Evidencias formativas en una va interregional
entre San Pedro de Atacama y el altiplano de
Lpez. Estudios Atacameos 35:7-33.
Pollard, Gordon
1970 The Cultural Ecology of Ceramic Stage Settlement
in the Atacama Desert. Ph.D. dissertation, Colum-
bia University in the City of New York.
Tarrag, Miriam
1989 Contribucin al conocimiento arqueolgico de las
poblaciones de los oasis de San Pedro de Atacama en
relacin con los otros pueblos puneos, en especial el
sector septentrional del valle Calchaqui. Doctoral
dissertation in history, with a specialization in
anthropology, Universidad Nacional de Rosario,
Facultad de Humanidades y Artes, Rosario,
Argentina.
Uribe, Mauricio
2006 Sobre cermica, su origen y complejidad social
en los Andes del desierto de Atacama, norte de
Chile. In Esferas de interaccin prehispnicas y
fronteras nacionales modernas: Los Andes sur
centrales, edited by Heather Lechtman, pp. 449-
502. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos and
New York: Institute of Andean Research.
Vidal, Alejandra
2007 Patrones de uso de los recursos vegetales durante
el perodo Formativo en los oasis de San Pedro
de Atacama. B.A. thesis in archaeology, Univers-
idad de Chile, Santiago.
329 - Current Research

CHILE

Tarapac Region

The National Fund to Support Science and

Technology (Fondo Nacional de Apoyo a la
Ciencia y TecnologaFONDECYT) financed
Project 1030923, The Pica-Tarapac Complex:
Proposals for an Archaeology of the Societies of
the South-Central Andes (A.D. 1000-1540)
(El Complejo Pica-Tarapac: Propuestas para
una arqueologa de las sociedades de los Andes
Centro-Sur [1000-1540 DC]), directed by
Mauricio Uribe (Universidad de Chile, e-mail:
mur@uchile.cl), Leonor Adn (Universidad
Austral, e-mail: ladan@uach.cl), Carolina
Agero (Universidad Catlica del Norte, e-
mail: maguero@ucn.cl), Cora Moragas (e-mail:
emoragas@vtr.net), and Flora Viches
(Universidad Catlica del Norte, e-mail: fvilches Figure 1: Map of the study area showing the
@ucn.cl). principal sites mentioned in the text.

With this project we are making an archaeo- Architecture

logical evaluation of the Tarapac region from
an interpretative perspective. We are studying
associated materials to identify elements which
will let us confirm or disprove the existence of
the Pica-Tarapac Complex of the Late Inter-
mediate Period (LIP) as a geographical and
cultural entity. During the fourth and last year
(2006), which we report on here, we studied the
settlement of Pukarqollu (Altiplano of Isluga)
and its environs, in relation to its architecture
and rock art, performing typological, functional,
and archaeometric analyses of evidence recov-
ered from the surface and in excavations. We
proceeded in the same way as for the sites
investigated previously, making comparisons
with reference materials from the coast and
from the interior of the region (Figure 1).
Pukarqollu has 586 structures which we
evaluated by comparison with the Tarapaqueo
traditions of the coast, the valleys of the lower
Pampa del Tamarugal, and the highlands, as
defined in previous years. The earliest architec-
tural tradition is Formative and was dependent
on the exploration of the resources of the Pam-
pa, its quebradas, and the coast. It is character-
ized by distinctive settlements with public
architecture, such as open, as well as enclosed,
plazas. It had a role in intensive gathering and
social assemblage on the Pampa. In this sense, it
is the heir of the Late Caserones occupation
which has more than 600 structures.
Later, between Camia and Mamia, we
detected another settlement system, contempo-
raneous with, and later than, the one estab-
lished earlier. In late prehispanic times it occu-
pied the quebradas where a Highland Tradition
(Tradicin de Tierras Altas) developed. This
tradition combined several manifestations of
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
domestic and public architecture, placing them
on hillsides or on mountains, in order to control
the valleys, and implemented terrace building
techniques to increase surface area. Camia and
Nama, with around 600 structures each, and
Chusmisa and Jamajuga with around 200
structures each, reveal social groups which were
increasingly enclosed. Public areas were mini-
mized or differentiated from habitation spaces,
and include cists, rock art, and/or chullpas
(burial towers) which also served as places for
social and economic gatherings and are related
to the cult of the ancestors, tying this system to
the Altiplano of Isluga and Carangas, Bolivia.
Pukarqollu belongs to the Highland Tradi-
tion with areas devoted to herding and storage,
and with the conspicuous public architecture of
the Altiplano, including plazas and surrounding
chullpas. In parallel, on the coast, a tradition of
versatile constructions arose, which goes back to
the end of the Archaic and the beginning of the
Formative and continued during the LIP.
In Pisagua we discerned groups of no more
than 25 structures which represent different
sorts of occupation, both disperse and nucle-
ated, with specialized areas for fishing and the
hunting of marine mammals. The coastal,
Formative, and Altiplano forms were clearly
based on those of the quebradas from Camia to
Mamia. These manifestations mark part of a
highland cultural sphere (Adn et al.: 2007).
Ceramics, stratigraphy, and chronology
We are evaluating the Pukarqollu ceramics,
comparing them with those of the coast, the
lower Pampa valleys, and the highlands, which
we examined in previous years, making a sample
of the 21,000 sherds recovered. According to
typology and stratigraphic positioning, the
settlements and their ceramics cover the time
from the Formative to the Inca. This cultural
continuity, in contrast to Arica, is not marked
- 330
by the intervention of Tiwanaku. The high
frequency of Pica-Tarapac monochrome pot-
tery at all sites indicates that their principal
occupation occurred during the LIP. This in-
cludes the Pampa, the valley settlements, those
on the coast, and in the quebradas. The transi-
tion from Formative ceramics, and their regional
development, is delineated by the Pampa and
the coast, by villages such as Caserones in the
Quebrada de Tarapac, and by the cemeteries of
Pica and Iquique.
Later, a gradual integration began with the
high quebradas. This marks the second phase of
the LIP which includes a high proportion of
Altiplano bichrome pottery, especially at Cara-
gas. Thus, from A.D. 1200, economic changes
occurred and new links were forged among the
central Altiplano, Arica, and the Atacama.
Taking account of this, we propose two phases
for the Pica-Tarapac Complex, named for the
locations which exemplify them.
We call the phases the Tarapac Phase
(890-1250 cal. A.D.) and the Camia Phase
(1200-1430 cal. A.D.). It was the latter phase
which was dominant at the arrival of the Incas
in Tarapac Viejo around 1532 A.D. (Table 1).
In Caserones, the lower levels yield dates corre-
sponding to the Formative. In contexts with
ceramics, forest resources, and on the coast, the
upper levels are LIP. In Camia there was a first
occupation with Formative ceramics present,
which is similar to Caserones, and which we also
detected in Chusmisa, Jamajuga, and Tarapac
Viejo. However, the most important occupation
of these settlements corresponds to the Camia
Phase, whose indications dominate the upper
quebradas with terracing to support more per-
manent habitations and with an agricultural
concentration. Finally, the Pukarqollu contexts
are predominantly Altiplano, suggesting a
different situation from that observed in the
Tarapac quebradas (Uribe et al. 2007).
331 - Current Research
(a) Sample Site Area Level Age (years BP) Date
Beta-220919 Caserones 1 526 5C Cal 1870-1700 80-250 A.D.
Beta-220918 Caserones 1 468 3A Cal 1840-1540 110-410 A.D.
Beta-220917 Caserones 1 7 3 Cal 1060-930 890-1020 A.D.
Beta-210436 Nama 1 287 1 Cal 970-750 980-1200 A.D.
Beta-227581 Pukarqollu 499 6 R1 Cal 940-700 1010-1260 A.D.
Beta-210442 Camia 1 296 2C Cal 930-740 1020-1210 A.D.
Beta-227580 Pukarqollu 317 2A Cal 930-740 1020-1210 A.D.
Beta-210435 Pisagua N 1 3A Cal 920-700 1030-1250 A.D.
Beta-220921 Jamajuga 5A 1B Cal 790-660 1160-1290 A.D.
Beta-210437 Nama 1 67 4 Cal 790-570 1160-1380 A.D.
Beta-210441 Camia 1 139 3/4 Cal 750-550 1200-1400 A.D.
Beta-220920 Chusmisa 89 R1 Cal 650-520 1300-1430 A.D.

(b) Sample Site Area Level Age (years BP) Date

UCTL 1638 Pisagua N 19, Stratum 7A PCH 1710150 290 A.D.
UCTL 1798 Caserones 1 7, Stratum 1 PCH 1125110 880 A.D.
UCTL 1799 Caserones 1 280, Stratum R1B PCH 111510 890 A.D.
UCTL 1800 Caserones 1 516, Stratum 3B CNP 1110110 895 A.D.
UCTL 1639 Pisagua N 19, Stratum 14 DUP 104095 960 A.D.
UCTL 1801 Caserones 1 516, Stratum 3B QTC 1035100 970 A.D.
UCTL 1634 Pisagua N 6, Stratum 4A IND 1 78080 1220 A.D.
UCTL 1802 Camia 1 119, Stratum 1B ISL 67540 1330 A.D.
UCTL 1636 Pisagua N 12, Stratum 4A PCH 64550 1355 A.D.
UCTL 1633 Pisagua B F1, Stratum 1 PCZ 60560 1395 A.D.
UCTL 1632 Pisagua B E1, Stratum 2 PCH 55540 1445 A.D.
UCTL 1635 Pisagua N 12, Stratum 3A AND 54550 1455 A.D.
UCTL 1637 Pisagua N 19, Stratum 2A AND 53050 1470 A.D.
UCTL 1803 Camia 1 250, Stratum 1 PCH 52550 1480 A.D.
UCTL 1804 Camia 1 215, Stratum 3 R1 PGA 39040 1615 A.D.

Table 1: Radiocarbon (a) and thermoluminescent dates (b) obtained for the Pica-Tarapac Complex.

Rock art expression in domestic spaces, it is an element

We studied 274 rock art panels in Camia,
Tarapac Viejo, Chusmisa, Jamajuga, and
Pukarqollu, comparing them with the isolated
geoglyphs and petroglyphs that suggest interpre-
tations that relate Tarapac rock art exclusively
with trade routes and caravans. Beneath this
economic character we detect one more social
and quotidian, because in settlements there is a
greater variety of figures, including animals,
insects, and plants which indicates an intense
study of the local environment. The images are,
for the most part, represented in a fashion
particular to each site, and include simple
variations on the circle, the zigzag, and an
undefined lineal geometric figure, simple
camelids and complex anthropomorphic person-
ages.
The absence of rock art on the coast and on
the Altiplano indicates that, as a means of
of the quebradas. Likewise, its variety across
settlements indicates differing social relations
during the LIP, because few works of rock art
were made before that time. In consequence,
this rock art is concentrated in places where a
lot of agricultural activity and mobility took
place, without Altiplano public architecture,
forcing a contrast between the local and the
foreign. Likewise, the presence or absence of
rock art, the diversity of techniques, and the
large inventory of motifs and renderings, indi-
cate the cultural complexity of heterogenous
societies. Given that it is probable that this art
served as a catalyst for the development of
differences, for ritual, and/or for exchange, it
must have had an important role on various
levels. In fact, rock art and foreign images are
most frequent in locations where it was neces-
sary to justify and reaffirm a political or ethnic
presence, which are frequently outside the
villages. In such places the making of rock art
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
seems to have been an element added to a
symbolic and relational landscape which reflects
the social diversity and segmentation of the time
(Cabello and Vilches 2006).
Textiles
We studied 333 tunics collected at eight
funerary sites on the coast and lower valleys of
Tarapac between Pisagua and the Loa River,
confirming the development of a textile style
particular to the region. This includes warp-
faced trapezoid tunics with warp-finished,
curved edges, and lateral multi-colored stripes
and/or embroideries in loop stitch, or satin
stitch, as well as chuspas (small fabric bags used
to contain coca leaves) and bag-belts decorated
with complementary and floating warps, in
addition to striped domestic bags. All of these
textiles employ a single web, a choice which
characterizes the western valleys, but the curve
in the borders of the tunics is a technological
innovation characteristic of this region that was
already known in the Formative.
Textiles from Iquique are clearly related to
those from Pica, even though they differ in
quality, richness, and diversity. Likewise, there
are garments made with local techniques and
materials characteristic of the maritime activi-
ties of the Archaic Tradition. In this sense, the
reduced richness and variety on the coast, and
the recurrence of repairs, indicates a depend-
ence on the textiles from the interior from a few
centers like Pisagua and Iquique where textiles
are concentrated.
Just as many textiles were distributed from
the interior to the coast, and from certain places
on the coast textiles were distributed to other
places on the shore. According to what is ob-
served from Cemetery C, excavated by Uhle at
Pisagua, known as Tiahuanaco, and from
certain sites in the upper Loa Valley, it appears
that at the beginning of the LIP this region
- 332
maintained contacts with other regions and
subareas of the central Andes. Nevertheless,
there was no coexistence or permeability with
Tiwanaku, as was the case with Azapa to judge
from the closeness of the Osmore Valley.
During this time, in certain cases coincident
with the end of the Middle Horizon (Perodo
Medio) or Formative, there may have been a
fluid textile exchange between Pica-Tarapac
and its cultural borders, which, in an eclectic
sort of way, forced the development of its own
identity, with clothing providing a method for
the demonstration and exercise of power, per-
haps by means of exclusive garments. We are
impeded, for now, in the investigation of the
second phase of the LIP when the high que-
bradas we occupied. There textiles are not
preserved (Agero 2007).
Stone objects
We are analyzing 1,418 stone objects from
Jamajuga and Pukarqollu in addition to those
materials previously recorded from nine settle-
ments with architecture from different settings
in the region. Although it is true that each site
has a diversity of categories related to a variety
of activities, there was also production emphases
which distinguish them.
All of them supplied themselves locally with
primary materials of great thickness (andesites,
basalts, granites), and, to complement these,
with rocks from distant places. Common at all
sites were cores, scrapers, projectile points, and
cutting tools. The cores were sometimes the
most important because from them were ex-
tracted matrices used to keep knives sharp or to
make instruments, or, they were used to cut and
scrape. On the other hand, each settlement had
the tendency to use specific tools related to its
economic orientation. While at some sites (Pisa-
gua and Camia) hunting was the most devel-
oped activity, at others such as Nama and
333 -
Pukarqollu, agricultural or gathering tasks were
more important, an interpretation backed up by
the abundance of hoes (Carrasco 2006).
Zooarchaeological and malacological analysis
In 2006 we studied 605 bones from Pukar-
qollu and defined a system of provisioning based
on the consumption of camelids, and, to a lesser
extent, on smaller fauna which characterized
the Altiplano in spite of their availability in the
environment. In previous years we discerned
two systems. Coastal sites were provided with
marine resources close at hand, and were,
therefore, quite homogenous, except for Pisagua
B, which had a slightly greater hunting of ma-
rine mammals which brought down the fre-
quency of fish, and for Pisagua N which, on the
contrary, had a rise in fish resources and a
decline in hunting activities.
In the lower quebradas, and on the coast, we
observe a unity in a basic custom, in which
interior settlements depend on maritime re-
sources, assigning camelids an alternative role,
exploiting by-products like wool, more than
using them for food. In Camia there was a high
percentage of rodents, as well as a single species
of camelids, adding to them sparse fish re-
sources, which signals a connection with the
coast during the earliest occupations, in a man-
ner like that of Caserones. Considering what has
just been noted, the advance towards the inte-
rior translates into an increase in dependency
on camelids, and an implementation and expan-
sion of their husbandry from the Altiplano to
the upper quebradas. This dependency
increased with time, to judge by the almost
exclusive presence of the remains of this taxon
at Tarapac Viejo (Gonzlez in press).
On the other hand, objects made with
mollusc remains had three uses: 1) ornaments
for the human body, for example, necklaces,
bracelets, and accessories for clothing or hair-
Current Research
dos; 2) containers, for example, for pigments;
and 3) small cutting tools or points. Beads made
from different mollusc shells, usually from Oliva
peruviana, are characteristic of the quebradas,
but absent at Caserones and Tarapac Viejo.
Beads are encountered at all sites, except
coastal ones, in which molluscs represent the
remains of food, although there are tools made
of bivalves. In Caserones, in early times, there
was more diversity of species, artefacts, and uses
of malacological resources, suggesting a greater
experimentation at a time of fixed norms for the
production of objects. In Camia, we noted
places dating from a later time dedicated to the
production of beads, which we interpret as an
indication of artisan specialization, supported
also by a manufacturing which was quite uni-
form. Oliva peruviana was converted into the
preferred species, as we see in Camia, Nama, or
Chusmisa, or used in a more modest manner on
the Altiplano. Thus, we emphasize the transi-
tion from a diversity of objects made domesti-
cally, to a specialized system and standardization
with Oliva peruviana characteristic of the high-
lands (Valenzuela 2006).
Arqueobotanical analysis
We analyzed 3018 plant remains from Tara-
pac Viejo, Nama, Chusmisa, Jamajuga, and
Pukarqollu. Previously we had postulated that
the coastal societies in Pisagua oriented them-
selves towards the collection of local woodland
species although they knew maize, carob
(algarrobo, Prosopis algarrobilla), squash, and
beans, products of the Pampa and quebradas,
suggesting a strong relationship with the valleys.
In Caserones, the equal abundance of algarrobo
and maize in the sites indicates that agriculture
was fundamental to the economy from the
Formative onwards, along with the intensive
gathering and tree cultivation of the groves of
Prosopis, marked by community control, accord-
ing to the analysis of architecture. To this we
add the possible insertion of dynamics of interre-
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
gional exchange demonstrated by exotic ele-
ments such as cotton, cebil (a South American
tree valued for its seeds used as a hallucinogen),
peanut, Mucuna sp., Aspidosperma desmanthum,
and Prosopis algarrobilla. This site gradually
moved away from the forest resources of the
Pampa in order to concentrate more on the
cultivation of maize and other crops. Later, at
Jamajuga, Nama, and Chusmisa the most signifi-
cant cultigens were maize and quinoa, demon-
strating the move away from gathering, turning
towards the agrarian control characteristic of
the quebradas. Finally, vegetal remains are
sparse at Pukarqollu. Nevertheless, we identified
Chenopodium quinoa, locally cultivated in pre-
hispanic times, brought from the Altiplano to
the valleys and quebradas such as Camia (Gar-
ca 2007).
Bioanthropological and mortuary analysis
We studied 21 skeletons from Pica 8 in
order to know the biological profile of the prin-
cipal regional cemetery. The results indicate
that the population was under heavy environ-
mental and pathogenic (principally tuberculosis)
stress. That is, they endured cultural processes
common to complex agricultural societies in
deficient sanitary conditions, high levels of
sedentariness, and overcrowding. Nevertheless,
the environmental stress was not sufficient to
create severe nutritional problems. On the other
hand, there were differences in the indications
of oral health which suggest different ways of life
and specific conduct of the genders to which
was added some violence towards women.
The analysis of 25% of the Pica 8 (n=66)
contexts distinguishes a Tarapac style recur-
rent on gourds, basketry (cestera and capachos),
and spatulas. The analysis also discovered that
51.79% of the contexts were simple, 33.92%
were somewhat complex, and only 14.29% were
complex, supporting the idea of a hierarchical
society. Also suggested is the existence of indi-
- 334
viduals in charge of rites, for example, those
buried with ritual bundles and hallucinogen
paraphernalia, as well as of people associated
with specific tasks such as musicians. For exam-
ple, panpipes (zampoas) are present. Other
individuals were linked to working the earth and
subsistence activities. The objects also reveal a
society permeable to the iconography and tex-
tiles of the extreme north of Chile, to the
psychotropic complex of the Atacama, and to
polychrome ceramics from the Altiplano. The
finds allude to diverse practices of interaction,
integration, and politics. On the other hand, the
coast dominated the repertory of hunting and
fishing artifacts, with agricultural implements
being almost entirely absent. Craneometric
analysis and discrete traits complement the
differential accumulation of funerary goods in
Pica 8, indicating social strata generally different
due to migratory processes or endogamy (Cata-
ln 2006; Retamal 2006).
In summary, during the LIP the Tarapac
region was characterized by historically distinct
groups, represented by the coastal communities,
by those of the lower valleys and the Pampa,
and by people from the quebradas and Alti-
plano, who constituted independent units which
were, nevertheless, related to one another and
complementary economically and socially,
defining specific identities and practices in both
the domestic and public spheres. This heteroge-
neity had antecedents in local developments,
taking account of the Archaic and Formative
experiences, and bringing them to the cultural
frontiers through economic interaction, and,
fundamentally, suggesting the domestic or
family conduct of relatives which was sanc-
tioned in the community space. Through this,
more than through the conduct of great lords,
these dynamics responded to collective deci-
sions which defined the privileged ambit for
manifestations of hierarchy and power. In this
way, differences and inequalities operated
according to place of origin, economic activity,
335 -
and family ties, permitting hierarchies, the
multiethnic occupation of land, access to re-
sources, or the transactions of caravans. All this
occurred with the aid of traits expressed on
clothing, ceramics, jewelry, or rock art, which
allowed both communicating and concealing,
conducting business or co-opting, in places of
convergence along the lines of Andean ayni
(Quechua for mutual aid) and taipi (Aymara
for the place where things converge).
Translation from the Spanish by Monica Barnes
REFERENCES CITED
Adn A., Leonor, Simn Urbina A., and Mauricio Uribe
R.
2007 Arquitectura pblica y domstica en las Que-
bradas de Pica-Tarapac: Asentamiento y din-
mica social en el norte de Chile (900-1450 d.C).
In Procesos sociales prehispnicos en el sur andino:
La vivienda, la comunidad y el territorio, edited by
Axel E. Nielsen, M. Clara Rivolta, Vernica
Seldes, Mara M. Vsquez, and Pablo H. Meri-
olli, pp. 183-206. Crdoba, Argentina: Editorial
Brujas.
Agero, Carolina
2007 Acerca del rol del vestuario en el surgimiento, desa-
rrollo y consolidacin del complejo Pica-Tarapac.
Masters thesis in anthropology, Universidad
Catlica del Norte and Universidad de Tarapac,
San Pedro de Atacama, Chile.
Cabello, Gloria and Flora Vilches
2006 [ms.] El arte rupestre asociado al complejo Pica-
Tarapac: Informe para Proyecto FONDECYT
1030923.
Current Research
Carrasco, Carlos
2006 [ms.] Produccin ltica en la prehistoria tarda de
Tarapac: La materialidad ltica durante el com-
plejo Pica-Tarapac. Informe para Proyecto
FONDECYT 1030923.
Cataln, Dnisa
2006 El rito funerario en la prehistoria tarda del norte de
Chile: Una aproximacin a las expresiones
ideolgico-simblicas tarapaqueas a partir de los
tejidos y objetos muebles. Bachelors Thesis
(Memoria para optar al ttulo de arqueloga),
Departamento de Antropologa, Universidad de
Chile, Santiago.
Garca, Magdalena
2007 Restos vegetales asociados al complejo Pica-Tarapa-
c durante la fase Camia (1250-1450 d.C.).
Bachelors Thesis (Memoria para optar al ttulo
de arqueloga), Departamento de Antropologa,
Universidad de Chile, Santiago.
Gonzlez, Josefina
in press Arqueofauna del Perodo Intermedio Tardo:
Complejo Pica-Tarapac. Actas del XVII Congre-
so Nacional de Arqueologa Chilena. Valdivia,
Chile: Universidad Austral.
Retamal, Rodrigo
2006 [ms.] Perfil osteobiogrfico del cementerio Pica
8: Morfologa y paleopatologa. Informe para
Proyecto FONDECYT 1030923.
Uribe, Mauricio, Lorena Sanhueza, and Francisco Baha-
mondes
2007 La cermica prehispnica tarda de Tarapac, sus
valles interiores y costa desrtica: Una propuesta
tipolgica y cronolgica. Chungar: Revista de
Antropologa Chilena 39(2):143-170.
Valenzuela, Jimena.
2006 [ms.] El material malacolgico y el complejo
Pica-Tarapac: Uso social y simbolismo de las
conchas marinas en la prehistoria tarda del
norte de Chile. Informe para Proyecto FON-
DECYT 1030923.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Bolivia
NEW ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ROCK ART
PROJECTS IN BOLIVIA
Matthias Strecker, Freddy Taboada, and
Claudia Rivera (all SIARB, La Paz, e-mail:
siarb@acelerate.com; Taboada - Museo Nacio-
nal de Etnografa y Folklore, La Paz) write that
the Bolivian Rock Art Research Society
(SIARB) is conducting several projects that
preserve rock art in archaeological parks and
incorporate archaeological research.
Figure 1: Location of sites mentioned in the text.
(1) Lajasmayu, Betanzos, Dept. of Potos; (2)
Vallegrande region, Dept. of Santa Cruz, location
of Paja Colorada and Mataral Caves.
The Vallegrande Project
This initiative concentrates on two sites,
Paja Colorada and Mataral in the municipalities
of Moro Moro, and Pampa Grande, in the
western portion of Department of Santa Cruz
(Figure 1). The small cave of Paja Colorada, 35
- 336
km northwest of the city of Vallegrande, is one
of the most important rock art sites in Bolivia,
due to its sequence of traditions that span
millennia. Work from several prehispanic peri-
ods, as well as Colonial times, can be found at
the site (Figure 2; Strecker 1999).
Figure 2: Paja Colorada Cave. Recording by
Matthias Strecker. Drawing by Renn Cordero
(from Strecker 1999:7 and volume cover).
The most ancient representations are more
than twenty negative stenciled hands (Figure 3),
which are extremely rare in the Andes. Similar
representations in Patagonia at Cueva de las
Manos, Argentina, a UNESCO World Heritage
site, have great antiquity. They belong to several
stylistic groups. The oldest such hands were
made about 9300 years ago. The practice of
making them possibly continued into the fourth
millennium B.C. (Gradin 1988:9).
337 -
Figure 3: Paja Colorada Cave: hand stencil and
painted animal figure.
Photograph by Roland Flix.
Until November 2003 Paja Colorada Cave
remained without protection, although vandal-
ism by visitors had begun. SIARB and the
Municipality of Moro Moro received partial
funding from the Cultural Foundation of Bo-
livias Central Bank and installed a fence at the
entrance, impeding uncontrolled visits (Figure
4). Following a request by SIARB, the World
Monuments Fund included Paja Colorada in its
Watch List of 100 endangered sites selected
world-wide for the year 2004.
Figure 4: Paja Colorada Cave protected by
fencing. Photograph by Ian Wainwright.
In 2006, Claudia Rivera (SIARB, e-mail
clauri68@yahoo.com) and her collaborators,
Current Research
Sergio Calla (SIARB) and Patricia Alvarez
(Universidad Mayor de San Andrs, La Paz)
made a preliminary archaeological survey of the
region of Paja Colorada (30 km2) registering 33
sites. They also partially excavated the cave and
found remains of two hearths in the cave floor.
AMS dating of charcoal (ANSTO Laboratory,
Australia) yielded dates with a range of A.D.
250-900. In addition, they documented and
catalogued the archaeological collection of the
regional museum at Vallegrande. According to
the information they obtained, the archaeologi-
cal evidence includes the Preceramic Period, the
Formative Period, the Regional Development
Period, the Inka Horizon, and the Colonial-
Republican Period (Taboada 2008:18-19).
Freddy Taboada is directing a rock art
recording project and has been able to recognize
six different phases of rock art. He is working in
conjunction with Robert Mark (Rupestrian
Cyber Services, e-mail rockart@infomagic.net)
who undertook a new photographic survey of
the cave.
Taboada and Canadian conservation scien-
tist Ian Wainwright (Canadian Conservation
Institute [retired], e-mail wainwright@uni-
serve.com) carried out a condition survey of the
cave. In 2007 Taboada removed graffiti, while
Wainwright took seven pigment samples of
white, yellow, and red paint. These were ana-
lyzed by him and Mati Raudsepp (University of
British Columbia, e-mail mraudsepp
@eos.ubc.ca). The results of SEM-EDS and
XRD analyses have been published in detail
(Wainwright and Raudsepp 2008). The investi-
gators identified hematite, goethite, kaolinite,
and illite/muscovite. The authors suggest that a
more detailed examination of the sequence of
Paja Colorada rock art might allow researchers
to investigate relative and absolute dating of the
paintings using pigment analyses, cross-section
microanalysis, and AMS C14 dating.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
Taboada and Strecker wrote a preliminary
management plan for the administration of the
site, as well as a proposal for the construction of
a visitors center. Carlos Kaifler (SIARB, Santa
Cruz, Bolivia) installed signboards at the site.
Rivera conducted two training courses for local
people interested in working as guides for visi-
tors to the archaeological park.
Betanzos Project in the Deptment of Potos
The first reports about rock art at Betanzos
were published in newspapers in the late 1970s.
During the 1980s and 1990s preliminary record-
ings were carried out by SIARB investigators.
Several publications (e.g. Strecker 1990, 2003)
present preliminary results and point to a long
sequence of rock art traditions.
Figure 5: Lajasmayu River and rock art site.
Photograph by Matthias Strecker.
The criteria for selecting one particular cliff
face of Cerro Lajasmayu for repeated painting
over millennia may include its high visibility in
the landscape, its proximity to the river, and its
location along an ancient trading route (Figure
5). In the 1980s, caravans of llamas still crossed
the Lajasmayu River near the rock with the
paintings. In 1986 we met a caravan trans-
porting salt from Lake Uyuni some 200 km to
the southwest.
- 338
Archaeological research in the central
region of Potos (Lecoq and Cspedes 1997:33)
revealed prehispanic occupation from the Pre-
ceramic Periods until the Inka Horizon. There
are three preceramic sites (-6000-2000 B.C.)
reported near Betanzos in small caves or rock
shelters with rock paintings. Additionally, the
Bolivian archaeologist Jorge Arellano (personal
communication, 1986) analyzed a small sample
of surface finds in the area of Lajasmayu. He
tentatively identified a lithic instrument of the
Preceramic Period (Strecker 2003: figure 16A-
D), as well as Formative, post-Tiwanaku, and
Inka ceramics (Strecker 1990, 2003). Strecker
believes that the rock paintings of Lajasmayu
belong to several different traditions pertaining
to different time periods (Figures 6, 7). In addi-
tion, there are a few Spanish Colonial repre-
sentations (Figure 8) and some later graffiti.
Apparently, the earliest phase consists of very
small camelids represented in movement and
painted in dark red, in a few cases accompanied
by stylized human figures (Figure 7).
Figure 6: Rock painting at Lajasmayu. The design
is typical of a phase which had ceramics and
textiles. Photograph by Matthias Strecker.
339 -
Figure 7: Rock paintings at Lajasmayu. Red
camelids with human figures, one with partially
obliterated headdress. Possible hunting scene.
Recording and drawing by Freddy Taboada
(from Strecker 1990: 198)
Figure 8: Colonial rock paintings at Lajasmayu
depicting a horse and rider and an upside human
figure. Recording by Matthias Strecker. Drawing
by Fernando Huaranca (from Strecker 1992:99)
SIARB has recently been approached by
representatives of the municipal government of
Betanzos who are aware of the potential of the
rock art sites for tourism and of the problems
created by vandalism. In 2007, SIARB and the
municipality signed an agreement to plan a
project. The SIARB project aims at protecting
the principal rock art sites at Lajasmayu near
Betanzos. The suggested plan of action includes
preliminary meetings and consultations, archae-
ological survey and excavations, recording of
rock art, conservation analysis and treatment,
an education campaign and training courses for
guides and site stewards, coordination with
tourism agencies, topographical work, basic
Current Research
infrastructure at sites and sign boards, publica-
tion of leaflets for visitors, and the construction
of a visitors center with a permanent exhibition
on the rock art sites, as well as publication of a
report in the Boletn by SIARB. This project is
partially supported by the The Ambassadors
Fund for Preservation (United States Depart-
ment of State, Cultural Heritage Center). Work
directed by Freddy Taboada (president of
SIARB, conservator and curator), Matthias
Strecker (coordinator), and Claudia Rivera
(archaeologist) is scheduled to take place from
mid-2008 to mid-2010.
REFERENCES CITED
Gradin, Carlos J.
1988 Arte rupestre de la Patagonia: Nuevo aporte
para el conocimiento de la bibliografa. In
Contribuciones al Estudio del Arte Rupestre Sud-
americano 2:5-35. (La Paz, Bolivia: SIARB).
Lecoq, Patrice and Ricardo Cspedes
1997 Panorama archologique des zones mridionales
de Bolivie (sud-est de Potos). Bulletin de lInstitut
Franais dtudes Andines 26(1):21-61.
Strecker, Matthias
1990 The rock paintings of Lajasmayu, Betanzos,
Department of Potos, Bolivia. American Indian
Rock Art 16:189-210. Proceedings of the Interna-
tional Rock Art Conference and 16th Annual
Meeting of the American Rock Art Research
Association. National Park Service, ARARA,
University of Texas at Austin.
1992 Arte Rupestre Colonial de Betanzos, Depto. de
Potos, Bolivia. Contribuciones al Estudio del Arte
Rupestre Sudamericano 3:95-102 (La Paz, Bolivia:
SIARB).
1999 Nuestra Portada. Boletn SIARB 13:3-7.
2003 Arte Rupestre de Betanzos, Dept. de Potos,
Bolivia. Aproximacin a su Cronologa. Boletn
SIARB 17:36-53. A digital version has been
published in: Rupestreweb:
http://rupestreweb.tripod.com/betanzos.html
(Consulted 4 September 2008).
Taboada Tllez, Freddy
2008 El Arte rupestre de la cueva Paja Colorada,
Municipio de Moro Mora, Depto. de Santa Cruz.
Boletn SIARB 22:17-40.
Wainwright, Ian N. M. and Raudsepp, Mati
2008 Identificacin de pigmentos de pinturas rupestres
en Paja Colorada, Prov. Vallegrande, Depto. de
Santa Cruz. Boletn SIARB 22:41-45.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
PERU
Exchange at Chavn de Huntar: Insights
from Shell Data
Matthew P. Sayre (University of California at
Berkeley, e-mail: sayre@berkeley.edu) and
Natali Luisa Lpez Aldave (Universidad
Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, e-mail:
fortaleza2003@hotmail.es) chronicle some of
the recent history of excavations at the site of
Chavn de Huntar, specifically in the La Banda
sector. They present analysis of archaeological
shell material in order to examine patterns of
ancient exchange. The shells also provide
evidence of past climatic fluctuations.
Ecological and Archaeological Background
Chavn de Huntar is in the Callejn de cused on mapping the ceremonial center with
Conchucos in the Huari Province of the Depart-
ment of Ancash, in the farming or Quechua
Zone which is between 2300 and 3500 masl
(Pulgar Vidal 1972:75). Chavn de Huntar
itself stands at 3150 meters where two rivers
meet in an intermontane valley. Most central
highland archaeological sites are located in the
Quechua zone where the climate is most hospi-
table for human habitation. A relatively mild
climate allows a wide variety of crop plants to be
grown. The weather is seasonally marked, with
most of the annual precipitation falling from
November to April.
Many archaeologists (Burger 1995:128;
Lathrap 1973; Lumbreras 1974:67, 1989:13;
Tello 1942:30-31, 1960:26, 36) have described
Chavn as optimally located halfway between
the Pacific coast and the Amazon rainforest.
However, it is not in one of the easiest places to
cross the Andes and there are many highland
sites that have better access to the coast (Rick
2008:8). Nevertheless, the time required may
not have been a major constraint. It would have
- 340
been possible to travel to the coast with came-
lids bearing goods in under two weeks.
Chavn was a meeting point of diverse
peoples who created their world both through
the construction of monumental architecture
and the daily process of living and working in a
highland valley. The remarkable religious build-
ing there, and the practitioners of rites within it,
served as a magnet for foreign goods. Thus it is
not surprising to find quantities of shell in the
settlements surrounding the temple.
Stanford Archaeological Project at Chavn de
Huntar (Proyecto Stanford Chavn de Huntar)
In 1994 the Stanford Project, under the
direction of John Rick, began field research at
Chavn de Huntar. The project initially fo-
highly accurate laser tools. The refined data
recovered led to new assertions about the chro-
nology and history of the site (Kembel 2001,
2008; Kembel and Rick 2004; Rick et al.1998).
Beginning in 2001, field seasons have placed
increasing emphasis on research outside of the
ceremonial core. John Wolf directed much of
the initial work in the area to the east of the
Mosna River in the sector known as La Banda
(Figure 1). While this region was not the focus
of early field projects, John Rowe (1963) postu-
lated that La Banda may have contained Chavn
period settlements. Burgers (1984) limited
excavations in the sector did not reveal any
significant Chavn Period domestic settlements.
Burgers work appeared to support the idea that
the ancient domestic settlements were concen-
trated under the modern town of Chavn. Initial
field survey in La Banda by the Stanford Project
did not reveal the presence of significant Chavn
era domestic occupations there.
341 -
Figure 1: Site sectors of Chavn de Huntar
(photo after Contreras 2008: Figure 1.4).
It now appears that over the last three
millennia this portion of the valley bottom has
been subject to several large landslides (Con-
treras 2008:6; Turner et al. 1999:47-56). These
massive earth movements covered Initial Per-
iod/Early Horizon settlements. In 2003, work
began on a major road project that inadvertently
uncovered domestic settlements predominantly
dating to the Black and White Stage (850-550
BC) of monumental Chavn (Rick 2008:11).
Additionally, the road building exposed a Mid-
dle Horizon tomb complex. The possible de-
struction of these precolumbian settlements led
to the filing of a formal protest against the
construction company by the Peruvian National
Institute of Culture (INC) and a rescue archae-
ology project that began to document these
important finds (Sayre 2004).
Excavations in La Banda led by John Wolf,
John Rick, and local members of the INC during
2003 uncovered many domestic units with
numerous occupations dating to the Black and
White Stage. The extent of these dwellings and
associated patios needs further clarification, but
Current Research
the evidence to date suggests that the occupa-
tions were densely spread across the landscape.
There does appear to be a strong tradition of
building and rebuilding houses in this area, as
evidenced by repeated building of floors with
similar construction patterns.
The La Banda structures exhibit a standard-
ized construction technique that reflects the
thoroughness evident in other areas of construc-
tion at Chavn. The La Banda sector is of pri-
mary importance because the population that
dwelt within its structures was most likely re-
sponsible for the construction and/or upkeep of
the monumental center. The results of the 2005
season confirm that the residents of this area
were at least partially responsible for the produc-
tion of goods for the ceremonial center. While
the exact nature of local production is still open
to debate, the horizontal spread of the neighbor-
hoods around La Banda allows for the diversity
of production and trade in this period. The data
presented in this report were recovered during
excavations. Recovery was enhanced by system-
atic screening of soils.
Figure 2: Ceremonial center of Chavn and La
Banda excavation area (arrow points to excava-
tion grids).
The area of La Banda (Figure 2) described in
this report has been dated with six AMS wood
charcoal samples, processed by Beta Analytic.
All of them fell between 810-470 BC calibrated
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
(2 sigmas) with an error range of 40 years. The
ceramics associated with these settlements are
stylistically part of the Janabarriu ceramic tradi-
tion.
Marine Shell at Chavn
Iconographic research on Chavns stone art
has emphasized the importance of lowland
plants, sacred plants, and animals in the sites
wide array of exotic imagery (Burger 1995:153;
Lathrap 1973; Roe 1974). In addition to these
images, there are several repeated motifs of
marine shells as objects of ceremonial value.
These shell taxa have been found throughout
the excavations at the site, both within and
outside the ceremonial core. The best docu-
mented case of recovered shell artifacts is that
of the Caracoles Gallery. This gallery contained
numerous, elaborately decorated shell trumpets
(pututus or huayllaquepas) made from Strombus
(Burger 1995: 135; Lumbreras 1989:158-161;
Rick 2008:25-26; see Falcn, this volume, for a
discussion of the shell trumpet found at the
Formative site of Punkur). These artifacts were
offerings, but there was no evidence of shells in
production. The pututus are completed pieces.
The varied sectors of the site where
foreign goods were found indicate differential
practices at the site. Shell artifacts are not
uniformly distributed across the site, and to date
no shell artifacts were excavated in the
Wacheqsa sector (Mesia 2007:137) which did
contain dense concentrations of other artifacts,
and is close to the monumental center. The area
of La Banda, further from the monumental
center, and across the river, was excavated in
2005, and contained evidence regarding cere-
monial goods production and use. Faunal mate-
rial that may have been used as priestly regalia
was also recovered in La Banda. The diversity
and large number of marine shells found in the
La Banda production area indicate the settle-
- 342
ments regional importance as a manufacturing
center.
It is well established that many marine
species are ecological indicators and some
marine molluscs can only survive in distinct
climatic regimes (Claassen 1998). The classic
example in Andean archaeology of a mollusc
subject to these ecological constraints is Spondy-
lus which live in warm water like that off of the
coast of Ecuador. There are other species of
marine molluscs that survive only in particular
climates. The clearest constraint on the viability
of many Pacific species is the havoc that El Nio
Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events can cause.
Two of the most common species found at
coastal sites that are used to establish the
changing frequencies of El Nio events in
antiquity are Mesodesma donacium and Choro-
mytilus chorus. These species are not able to
survive the warm waters that come with ENSO
events. These taxa were readily accessible
shoreline animals that formed a regular portion
of the central Peruvian coastal diet, and were
generally the most common component of shell
middens between 3850 and 850 BC (Sandweiss
et al. 2001). Choromytilus chorus may have been
a species of ceremonial importance before the
widespread use of Spondylus sp. in Andean
rituals (Sandweiss 1996).
As Sandweiss et al. (2001) explain, there is
evidence that there was greater variation in
ENSO events between 1250 and 850 B.C. By
850 B.C. ENSO events became more frequent,
and the microclimate suitable for Choromytilus
chorus was thereby restricted. This means that
they would have been more difficult to gather
on the central coast of Peru, because they would
have only been able to survive further south,
beyond what is now Casma, at that point in
time.
343 - Current Research

Choromytilus chorus 55
Perumytilus purpuratus 7
Aulacomya ater 3
Argopecten purpuratus 5
Eurhomalea rufa 2
Oliva peruviana 2
Donax obeselus 4
Natica sp. 1
Mesodesma donacium 1
Spondylus princeps 1
sea snail cf. Thais sp. 3 Figure 3: Worked marine shells (Argopecten
purpuratus) from excavation unit K-13. Scales in
unidentified 2
one centimeter intervals.
Thais chocolate 1
Tegula atra 1 This coastal region was still less prone to El
TOTAL 88 Nio events at the time of La Bandas initial
construction and these shells would not have
Table 1: Marine shell species identified. In addi- been common on the central coast after 850
tion there were 23 specimens of Scutalus sp., B.C., although: M. donacium and C. Chorus
a land snail. remained minimally present in the Casma Valley
past 2.8ka (Sandwiss et al. 2001:604). Thus,
Table 1 depicts the relative proportions of these shells may have initially come from a
individual marine species recovered during the coastal source due west of Chavn, but if they
excavations. The species were identified by were transported to Chavn at a slightly later
Natali Lpez Aldave and were confirmed using phase, their most likely source would have been
standard references (Alamo and Valdivieso regions to the south. The evidence presented
1997; Osorio and Piwonka 2002). Choromytilus here reveals that the distinct mollusc species
chorus, n=55 out of 88, is by far the dominant found in La Banda were gathered from different
species in the assemblage. While the other portions of the Pacific coast of South America.
environmentally sensitive species mentioned in After being transported to Chavn they were
this report (Mesodesma donacium) was rare in differentially processed and deposited across the
the La Banda assemblage, n=1, its presence site.
must still be noted. These species not only
provide direct evidence of trade, but also are This report builds on previous work (Pozor-
indicative of broader environmental conditions. ski 1979; Pozorski and Pozorski 1987; Sandweiss
The samples recovered (see Figure 3 for a repre- et al. 2001) that illustrated the potential of
sentative image) from the La Banda excavations malacological material to elucidate patterns of
confirm that the most likely coastal source of climatic variation in the past. The analysis
these shells at the time of La Bandas existence presented here indicates that Chavn established
(-850-500 B.C.), is between 7-9 south lati- early trade connections with coastal peoples and
tude, the central coast of what is now Peru. engaged in the long-distance exchange of eco-
logically sensitive molluscs. These remains
reveal more than ancient trade routes or clima-
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 344

tic patterns, however. Their presence in circum- Anthropology: Essays in Honor of John McGregor,
scribed areas of the site means that only certain edited by Donald Lathrap and Jody Douglas, pp.
91-105. Urbana, Illinois: Illinois Archaeological
participants or craftspeople had access to these Survey.
goods and inhabitants of other regions of the Lumbreras, Luis
site may not have been permitted to work with 1974 The People and the Cultures of Ancient Peru.
these materials. Translated by Betty J. Meggers. Washington
D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
1989 Chavn de Huntar en el nacimiento de la civiliza-
REFERENCES CITED
cin andina. Lima: INDEA.
Mesia, Christian
Alamo Vsquez, Vctor and Violeta Valdivieso Milla
2007 Intrasite Spatial Organization at Chavn de Huntar
1997 Lista sistemtica de moluscos marinos del Per.
in the Andean Formative: Three Dimensional
Second edition. Callao, Per: Instituto del Mar
Modeling, Stratigraphy and Ceramics. Ph.D. disser-
del Per.
tation, Stanford University, Palo Alto, Califor-
Burger, Richard L.
nia.
1984 The Prehistoric Occupation of Chavn de Huntar,
Osorio, Claudia and Nicols Piwonka
Per. University of California Publications in
2002 Moluscos marinos en Chile: Especies de importancia
Anthropology 14. Berkeley: University of Califor-
econmica, Gua para su identificacin. Santiago
nia Press.
de Chile: Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de
1995 Chavin and the Origins of Andean Civilization.
Chile.
Second Edition. London and New York: Thames
Pozorski, Shelia
and Hudson.
1979 Prehistoric Diet and Subsistence of the Moche
Claassen, Cheryl
Valley, Peru. World Archaeology 11:163-184.
1998 Shells. Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology.
Pozorski, Shelia and Thomas Pozorski
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1987 Early Settlement and Subsistence in the Casma
Contreras, Daniel
Valley, Peru. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.
2008 Sociopolitical and Geomorphological Dynamics at
Pulgar Vidal, Javier
Chavn de Huntar, Peru. Ph.D. dissertation,
1972 Geografa del Per: Las ocho regiones naturales del
Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.
Per. Lima: Editorial Universo, S.A.
Falcn, Vctor
Rick, John
2009 Reconstruction of the Burial Offering at Punkur
2008 Context, Construction, and Ritual in the Devel-
in the Nepea Valley of Perus North-central
opment of Authority at Chavn de Huntar. In
Coast. Andean Past 9:109-129.
Chavn: Art, Architecture, and Culture, edited by
Kembel, Silvia
William J. Conklin and Jeffrey Quilter, pp. 3-34.
2001 Architectural Sequence and Chronology at Chvin
Monograph 61. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of
de Huntar, Peru. Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford
Archaeology, University of California.
University, Palo Alto, California.
Rick, John, Silvia Kembel, Rosa Rick, and John Kembel
2008 The Architecture at the Monumental Center of
1998 La arquitectura del complejo ceremonial de
Chavn de Huntar: Sequence, Transformations,
Chavn de Huntar: Documentacin tridimen-
and Chronology. In Chavn: Art, Architecture and
sional y sus implicancias. In Perspectivas Region-
Culture, edited by William J. Conklin and Jeffrey
ales del Perodo Formativo en el Per, edited by
Quilter, pp. 35-81. Monograph 61. Los Angeles:
Peter Kaulicke, pp. 181-214. Lima: Fondo Edito-
Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of
rial, PUCP.
California.
Roe, Peter
Kembel, Silvia and John Rick
1974 A Further Exploration of the Rowe Chavn Seriation
2004 Building Authority at Chavn de Huntar:
and Its Implication for North Central Coast Chro-
Models of Social Organization and Development
nology. Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Ar-
in the Initial Period and Early Horizon. In An-
chaeology 13. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton
dean Archaeology, edited by Helaine Silverman,
Oaks Research Library and Collections.
pp. 51-76. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell
Rowe, John H.
Publishing.
1963 Urban Settlements in Ancient Peru. awpa
Lathrap, Donald
Pacha 1:1-27.
1973 Gifts of the Cayman: Some Thoughts on the
Subsistence Basis of Chavin. In Variation in
345 - Current Research

Sandweiss, Daniel H. Tello, Julio C.

1996 Environmental Change and its Consequences for 1942 Origen y desarrollo de las civilizaciones prehistricas
Human Society on the Central Andean Coast: A peruanas. Lima: Libreria e imprenta Gil.
Malecological Perspective. In Case Studies in 1960 Chavn: Cultura matriz de la civilizacin andina,
Environmental Archaeology, edited by Elizabeth J. primera parte. Lima, Peru: Imprenta de la Univer-
Reitz, Lee Newsom, and Sylvia Scudder, pp. 127- sidad de San Marcos.
146. New York: Plenum Publishing. Turner, R. J. W., B.J. Knight, and J. Rick
Sandweiss, Daniel H., Kurt A. Maasch, Richard L. Burger, 1999 The Geological Landscape of the Pre-Inca Ar-
James B. Richardson, III, Harold B. Rollins, and Amy chaeological Site at Chavn de Huntar, Peru. In
Clement Current Research, 1999-D, Geological Survey of
2001 Variation in Holocene El Nio Frequencies: Canada, pp. 47-56.
Climate Records and Cultural Consequences in
Ancient Peru. Geology 29(7):603-606.
Sayre, Matthew
2004 The Domestic at Chavn de Huntar? Paper
presented at the 69th Annual Meeting of the
Society for American Archaeology, Montreal,
Canada.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
La Fortaleza at Ollantaytambo
J. Lee Hollowell (email: holloxyz@aol.com)
reports on his long-term analysis of portals and
other construction elements of the Fortaleza at
Ollantaytambo.
The Fortaleza at Ollantaytambo is among
the most sophisticated precolumbian stone
structures in the western hemisphere.
Ollantaytambo and its Fortaleza are in the
Sacred Valley of the Incas, southeastern Peru.
The Fortaleza is a very complex part of the site
whose architecture has still not been
investigated in important respects (c.f. Bengts-
son 1998; Gasparini and Margolies 1980: 71,
figures 52, 60; Hemming 1982:103-111; Pater-
nosto 1996:137-151; Protzen 1993:73-94, 241-
260; Squier 1877:498-501; Ubbelohde-Doering
1967:251-254, figures 268, 274, 275). Crowning
the Fortaleza is a massive unfinished platform,
the Templo del Sol (Temple of the Sun). This
report examines one of the many intriguing
problems presented by La Fortaleza. I focus on
what I term Block 21 (Figures 1-3, 5), which
Protzen designates Block 16 (c.f. Protzen 1993:
figure 3.8). It is sometimes called El Trono, or
the Throne because it looks to some as if it may
have provided a seat.
Figure 1: El Trono at Ollantaytambo.
- 346
Scattered about at the Fortaleza are
architectural elements from at least ten separate
portals which I call missing portals. Two of
these are of monumental size. Two others are
from walls apparently important enough to have
been designed to be seen from both sides. Only
one of these portals remains standing, the
Puerta Principal (Main Portal; called the
Unfinished Gate by Protzen [1993]: figure
14.15) in the Wall of 10 Niches, and that only
in partial reconstruction (Figure 4; Ubbelohde-
Doering 1967: figure 272).
Figure 2: Lithons at the Templo del Sol.
It is remarkable that in spite of the precision
fit of many vertical fillet stones, the Templo del
Sol lacks a formal foundation (vidi; Ubbelohde-
Doering 1967: figures 274-275). Two of its
lithons, or massive upright stones, numbers 15
and 16 (Figures 2, 3), have shifted forward some
4 cm from the top during the 25 years I have
been studying the site. This is because of a
poorly-made, rubble foundation. This rubble
support includes a greenstone (secondary
andesite) block salvaged from a building which
I postulate was constructed elsewhere.
Careful inspection reveals that the Templo
del Sol is actually a construction made from
blocks salvaged from a different, and probably
nearby, sector of Ollantaytambo. Originally, the
lithons must have had a formal foundation. Note
the straight line formed by the bases of lithons
347 -
15, 16, 18, 19, and 20. Note also the extension
of the base of lithon 17, which extends a meter
below ground level (Figure 3; Bengtsson 1998:
98, photo; Ubbelohde-Doering 1967: figures
274-275). Block 47, nearby, is probably the
corner stone and would fit into the space as
indicated in Figure 3, below lithon 20. Block 47
is now upside down, but when it was in its
original position it had both a requisite 90
angle, and the 7 talud, or batter, typical of Inca
fine masonry.
Figure 3: A proposed reconstruction of the
Fortaleza as a rectangular ushnu based on the
possible fit of known ashlars.
The Templo del Sol, as and where originally
built, was probably an ushnu, a classic Inca,
rectangular, stone-walled, ceremonial platform,
perhaps similar to the well known one at
Hunuco Pampa. There are extant blocks at the
Templo del Sol that may have formed this ushnu
(Figure 3). Shown in Figure 3 is an extra fillet
block (Block 100) which is no longer present at
the Templo del Sol, having been salvaged for
use as a lintel in a local restaurant. This block
would fit into the original temples probable
overall motif of vertical lithons, each separated
by three or four vertical fillet stones. This motif
was intended to encompass the entire
construction. Note the three top blocks (Figure
3, above Blocks 18, 19, and 20). Though now
displaced to the ground at the front of the
structure, a sketch made in 1842 by Johann
Moritz Rugendas, shows them still in position
Current Research in Andean Archaeology
atop the Fortaleza as in Figure 3 (Hemming
1982:109; Paternosto 1996:138-39, Plate 80;
Ubbelohde-Doering 1967:252).
At the right end of the Templo del Sol from
the viewers perspective as (s)he faces lithons 15-
20 is Block 21, El Trono (Figures 1-3; Gasparini
and Margolies 1980: figure 60; Paternostor
1996: plates 79, 82; Squier 1877:500). On
careful inspection it is apparent that this was
not a ceremonial seat. Two rectangular jetas or
protuberances are at the top of this stone as it
now rests (Figure 5). This facet of the stone is,
in fact, the intended front face of the block.
The block is now lying on its back on a recent,
flat stone and rubble foundation.
Figure 4: Puerta Principal (Main Portal) in the
Wall of 10 Niches.
Block 21s original orientation is confirmed
when it is viewed from one of its ends. The lift
hole, a common device for levering blocks, is
always on the bottom once the block is in its
final position, but as it stands now this hole is on
one of the vertical sides (Figure 5).
Furthermore, most fine Inca walls have a talud
for stability. When in its original position, the
interior angle between the intended bottom
edge and the intended front edge is 83, while
that between the intended top edge and the
front edge is 97, just what would be expected
for the talud, if this surface with jetas, was, in
fact, the front of a typical wall block. Note the
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 348

inset and the step or seat (Figures 1, 3). El
Trono then, is not a throne, but rather, the sill
of a monumental double-jambed portal with a
central step, seemingly designed for people to
pass through in single file. This portal is unusual
because it is the only one known with a double
inset sill. It is also the only sill known to survive
at the Fortaleza.1 Block 21 is not indicated in
the 1842 sketch. Its original location is un-
known.
Applying these calculations to El Trono, I
have calculated the original dimensions of the
portal which contained it as a sill and compared
the reconstructed portals size with the lithons of
the Templo del Sol. If on a proper foundation,
the lithons would stand about 5 m high. The El
Trono portal would have been substantially
taller, standing at about 6.6 m. The El Trono
portal may not originally have been part of the
Templo del Sol, although its stone, a porphyritic
dacite, is identical to those of the lithons. Where
could such a huge portal have been employed?
It could not have been accommodated on the
present Templo del Sol terrace because there is
insufficient space, no apparent plan into which
it would fit, no apparent purpose, and no fitting
marks for it on that terrace.

Figure 5: Block 21, end view.

What would a portal using Block 21 have

looked like? To aid in reconstruction I have
noted the proportions of 18 typical double-
jambed Inca portals from various sites. I have
calculated the ratios for width at top to width at
base, and of height to width at base, noted the
angles formed within the trapezoids of the
portals interiors, and then calculated the
standard deviations (Figure 6). The small
standard deviations of these proportions
suggests the high level of accuracy with which
Inca masons adhered to standards when
constructing portals.

1
The mismatched block serving as a sill under the Puerta
Figure 6: Reconstructed Puerto Principal of
Principal is not wide enough to fit the jambs. It is Ollantaytambo ushu based on extent components.
probably a wall block salvaged for the reconstruction of
this portal. Behind this sill is a second mismatched
block.
349 -
How could the El Trono portal have been
incorporated into an original Templo del Sol
ushnu? There is a clue in the Puerta Principal.
This portal is a reconstruction made of jambs
from at least two different earlier portals.
Careful inspection reveals that the top two
jambs do not match the bottom two. Viewed
from the front, both sets of jambs have jetas.
However, viewed from the rear, only the top
two jambs have jetas. These two top jambs were
made for a wall important enough to be
designed to be seen from both sides. In contrast,
the rears of the bottom two jambs have vertical
ears instead of jetas. Figure 7 shows the ear
on the left-hand jamb (viewers perspective
Figure 7). These ears are unique at Ollantay-
tambo, and seem designed to connect with a
passage or stairway wall. Such a stairway portal
design can be found at the Vilcashuaman ushnu.
Here a monumental double-jambed portal is
connected to a walled stairway. Perhaps the
original Templo del Sol at Ollantaytambo was
similarly designed as an ushnu with a stairway,
thus incorporating a massive, El Trono-sized
portal. Because only jambs, and no lintel or sill,
exist for the Puerta Principal, no entirely reliable
reconstruction can yet be made for this portal.
Figure 7: Back of Puerta Principal showing an
ear on the lower left jamb stone (viewers
perspective).
Current Research in Andean Archaeology
The former existence of a second
monumental portal is indicated by a pair of huge
jamb blocks. Though not of the double jamb,
inset type, the extant blocks from this portal
today mark a critical location, the entrance to
Ollantaytambos parroquia or rectory (Figure 8).
The original lintel, and possibly two additional
jamb blocks, are missing. Its sill, if one exists,
seems buried at an unknown depth. It is not
known whether the portal blocks are in their
original location. However, two facts suggest
that they are. First, they form an integral part of
the 300 m wall in the Pampawasi section of
Ollantaytambo. Recent excavations by Padre
Csar Crdenas have revealed impressive
sections of this major construction. An oblique
view of these jambs shows that the jambs are
tilted to the exterior, eliminating the expected
talud to the interior. This may have been
caused by pressure from a major avalanche
down the Patacancha River, flowing from the
back to the front of the blocks as seen in Figure
8. Two 100 ton river boulders are just behind
the parroquia, at least eight meters above the
river bed, clear evidence of a major avalanche.
As with the top double-sided jambs of the
Puerta Principal (Figure 4), a set of worked
blocks in the Maay Raqay Plaza (also spelled as
Manyaraki or Maniaraki), three jambs and a
lintel, are from a double-sided, double inset
portal, Portal M2 (see Hollowell 1987:70, figure
116 for terminology), obviously designed for a
wall to be seen from both sides. Where was this
double portal originally placed?
A third orphan lintel for a single inset portal
is on the slope northwest of the Fortaleza. The
sole standing portal, in the Wall of Ten Niches,
was also designed to be seen from both sides. So
was a probable, long-destroyed, companion on
the north end of the Wall of Ten Niches.
What are the implications for the Templo
del Sol, not only of the huge El Trono portal,
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009)
which would have stood higher than the
remaining walls of the Templo del Sol, but also
of the four double-jambed portals designed to be
seen from both sides, and of the four other,
remnant portals whose parts are from distinctly
different and identifiable former portals? The
original construction complex, as planned,
would have had to have been substantial to
accommodate these nine portals and
accompanying walls. They surely would not all
have fit on the present Templo del Sol terrace.
There is neither enough room, nor any evidence
that the construction would have been there
originally. Where, then, is there a sufficiently
large location? It has to be to the northeast, in
the Pachacancha Valley.
The probable site is under the Maay Raqay
Plaza and under the Church of Santiago Aps-
tol. One piece of evidence supporting this
supposition is the anomalous location of the
church, begun in 1620. Instead of being on the
Plaza de Armas, or central square, as in most
other Spanish towns, it is across the river, near
the Fortaleza, in the archaeological zone. The
prominent sixteenth century colonial cleric, Jos
de Acosta, provides a rationale for such a siting.
Quoting papal letters, he argued that it was
beneficial to construct churches on the
locations of non-Christian houses of worship so
that the Indians could render homage to God in
the places where they had been accustomed to
pray (Acosta 1954 [1590]:502). Extant
examples from the Andes prove that this advice
was sometimes followed (Barnes 2002:283 and
references therein). Perhaps the most famous is
Cuscos church of Santo Domingo, which
incorporates the Inca shrine of Coricancha. The
Quechua term, Maay Raqay, the name for the
plaza to the immediate north of the Ollantay-
tambo church, has been translated as hall of
petitions (Squier 1877:503). This concept
emphasizes the probable ceremonial importance
of the area and what may lie under it.
- 350
It seems likely that whatever remnants of an
original ushnu still exist lie under the Maay
Raqay and church sites. The ushnu had most
probably been demolished and buried by one or
more massive avalanches like the one which
occurred in the 1860s (ibid.: 493-494).
However, the possibility of deliberate
destruction by Spanish authorities cannot be
eliminated at this time. Ushnu were recognized
and demolished when possible (c.f. Albornoz
1990 [1569-1604]:265-268, 274-276). In any
event, I suggest that El Trono is the only
surviving sill of this ushnu at Ollantaytambo.
Otherwise, only lintels and jambs have survived.
This is further evidence of burial by an
avalanche, because one would expect to
encounter such sills had they not been buried.
Further evidence includes the presence of
orphan joints and tumble damage, as well the
absence of blocks that logically should be
present. Future research should include a
ground penetrating radar survey of the Maay
Raqay and church.
Figure 8: Entrance to the parroquia,
Ollantaytambo.
A longer version of this paper Missing
Portals, their Reconstruction via Statistics and
the Implications for the Fortaleza, Ollantay-
tambo was presented at the 48th Institute of
Andean Studies conference, University of
California at Berkeley, 11 January 2008.
351 -
REFERENCES CITED
Acosta, Jos de
1954 [1590] De procuranda Indorum salute. In Obras
del P. Jos de Acosta, pp. 387-608, edited by P.
Francisco Mateos. Biblioteca de Autores Es-
paoles (cont.) 73. Atlas: Madrid.
Albornoz, Cristbal de
1990 [1569-1604] Informaciones de Cristbal de
Albornoz. In El retorno de las huacas: Estudios y
documentos del Siglo XVI, edited by Luis Millones,
pp. 43-308. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos
and Sociedad Peruana de Psicoanlisis.
Barnes, Monica
2002 Recycling of Ancient Building Material in the
Spanish Andes. In The Archaeology of Contact:
Processes & Consequences: Proceedings of the
Twenty-Fifth Annual Conference of the
Archaeological Association of the University of
Calgary, edited by Kurtis Lesick, Barbara Kulle,
Christine Cluney, and Meaghan Peuramaki-
Brown, pp. 280-286. Calgary, Alberta, Canada:
The Archaeological Association of the
University of Calgary.
Bengtsson, Lisbet
1998 Prehistoric Stonework in the Peruvian Andes: A
Case Study at Ollantaytambo. Gotarc Series B,
Number 10/Etnologiska Studier 44. Gothenburg,
Sweden: Gothenburg University Department of
Archaeology and Etnografiska Museet.
Brown, David M., editor
1992 Incas: Lords of Gold and Glory. Time-Life Books,
Alexandria, Virginia.
Gasparini,Graziano and Luise Margolies
1980 Inca Architecture. Translated by Patricia J. Lyon.
Bloomington and London: Indiana University
Press.
Current Research in Andean Archaeology
Hemming, John
1982 Monuments of the Incas. Photographs by Edward
Ranney. New York Graphic Society and Boston,
Massachusetts: Little, Brown.
Hollowell, J. Lee
1987 Re-assessment of the Fortaleza at Ollantay-
tambo, Peru. National Geographic Society
Report 2832-84. (Available in the NGS
Archives; Widener Library, Harvard University,
Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Dumbarton
Oaks Library and Collections, Washington, DC.)
1989 Re-assessment of the Fortaleza. Willay 32/33:3-7.
Paternosto, Csar
1996 The Stone & the Thread: Andean Roots of Abstract
Art. Translated by Esther Allen. Austin:
University of Texas Press.
Protzen, Jean-Pierre
1993 Inca Architecture and Construction at Ollantay-
tambo. Drawings by Robert Batson. New York
and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Squier, E. George
1877 Peru: Incidents of Travel and Exploration in the
Land of the Incas. New York: Harper & Brothers,
Publishers.
Ubbelohde-Doering, Heinrich
1967 On the Royal Highways of the Inca: Archaeological
Treasures of Ancient Peru. Translated by
Margaret Brown. New York and Washington,
D.C: Frederick A. Praeger.
353 - Addresses of Authors

ADDRESSES OF AUTHORS

Rolena Adorno: Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Yale University, P.O. Box 208204,
New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8204
rolena.adorno@yale.edu

Monica Barnes: 377 Rector Place, 3C, New York, New York 10280
monica@andeanpast.org

Jonathan D. Bethard: Department of Anthropology, University of Tennessee, 250 South Stadium Hall, 1216
Phillip Fulmer Way, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-0720
bethard@utk.edu

David Block: Benson Latin American Collection, Sid Richardson Hall, University of Texas, Austin, Texas
78713
db10@austin.utexas.edu

Richard Busch: Denver Museum of Nature and Science, 2001 Colorado Boulevard
Denver, Colorado 80205
Richard.Busch@dmns.org

Karen Olsen Bruhns: 1243 Henry Street, Berkeley, California 94709

kbruhns@sfsu.edu

Victoria Castro: Las Perdices 575, La Reina, Santiago de Chile

vcastrorojas@hotmail.com

Richard Daggett: 10B Boynton Road, South Deerfield, Massachusetts 01373-9786

rdaggett@library.umass.edu

Catherine Gaither: Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Behavioral Science., P.O. Box 173362,
Campus Box 28, Metropolitan State College of Denver, Denver, Colorado 80217-3362
gaither@mscd.edu

Inge Maria Harman: 11616 Flints Grove Lane, North Potomac, Maryland 20878
ingeharman@gmail.com

Vctor Falcn Huayta: Sub-Direccin de Investigacin y Catastro

Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Javier Prado Este No 2465, San Borja, Lima 14, Per
vic1falcon@hotmail.com

Grace Katterman: 116 Old Ina Road, Tucson, Arizona 85794

gkatt@hotmail.com

Jonathan Kent: Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Behavioral Science, P.O. Box 173362, Campus
Box 28, Metropolitan State College of Denver, Denver, Colorado 80217-3362
kentj@mscd.edu
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 354

Heather Lechtman: Laboratory for Research on Archaeological Materials, Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 8-437,Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
Lechtman@MIT.EDU

Gregory D. Lockard: Compaa Operadora de LNG del Per S.A.C., Av. Vctor Andrs Belande 147, Va
Real 185,Torre Real Doce, Piso 2, San Isidro, Lima 27 Per
gdlockard@yahoo.com

Ana Mara Lorandi: Entre Ros 966, 2 Piso, Dpto. E, 1080 C.A. de Buenos Aires, Argentina
alorandi_2000@yahoo.com.ar

Michael E. Moseley: University of Florida, Department of Anthropology

Gainesville, Florida 32611-7305
michaele.moseley@gmail.com

Patricia Netherly: 5025 Hillsboro Pike, Apartment 12-H, Nashville, Tennessee 37215
netherly@hotmail.com

Ana Nieves: Art Department, Northeastern Illinois University, 5500 North St. Louis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois
60625-4699
a-nieves2@neiu.edu

Charles R. Ortloff: CFD Consultants International, Ltd., 18310 Southview Avenue, Suite 2
Los Gatos, California 95033-8537
Ortloff5@aol.com

Silvia Palomeque: Caseros 2544, Barrio Alto Alberdi, CP 5003 Crdoba, Argentina

Vctor M. Ponte Rosalino: Sabin Hall, P.O. Box 413, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201-0413
vmponte@uwm.edu

Teresa Rosales Tham: ARQUEOBIOS, Aptdo. Postal 595, Trujillo, Per

teresa1905@hotmail.com

Frank Salomon: Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Madison

5240 Social Sciences Building, 1180 Observatory Drive, Madison, Wisconsin 53706
fsalomon@wisc.edu

Vctor Vsquez Snchez: ARQUEOBIOS, Aptdo. Postal 595, Trujillo, Per

vivasa2401@yahoo.com

Gordon R. Willey: died 28 April 2002

Freda Wolf de Romero: Calle El Carmelo 106, depto. 102, Monterrico - Surco, Lima 33, Peru
fredawolf@gmail.com
355 - Advice to Contributors

ADVICE TO CONTRIBUTORS TO ANDEAN PAST

1. Andean Past seeks original, unpublished articles on Andean archaeology and ethnohistory. Papers
submitted to Andean Past should not be under consideration elsewhere. Publication on the Internet,
including self-publication, will preclude subsequent publication in Andean Past. Ethnohistorical articles
must lead to an enhanced understanding of prehispanic times. Well-illustrated papers presenting new data
or interpretations are particularly welcome. Interim reports can be considered. We frequently publish
papers on the history of Andean archaeology. We also publish papers based on research conducted some
time ago. Papers are considered on a revolving basis.

2. If the Editors agree that a submission is ready for further consideration, it will be sent to a minimum of two
external reviewers, scholars with expertise in the subject matter of the paper and who are not members
of the Andean Past Editorial Board. After study of the external reviews, papers are accepted or declined
on the basis of a vote by the Editors and Editorial Board. Decisions are generally by simple majority.

3. Unless otherwise stated in this Advice, follow the current SAA Journal Style Guide. However, please
note that we do not publish abstracts.

4. In cases not covered by the SAA Journal Style Guide or this Advice, follow the recommendations in the
latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style.

5. We are flexible in the length of articles that we publish, as well as in the number of illustrations. However,
we do not publish book-length monographs.

6. Prospective authors are advised to examine the latest issue of Andean Past and use it as a model for style.
If authors follow Andean Past house style closely it greatly reduces the Editors work and improves their
dispositions.

7. As an alternative to the formatting of references suggested by the SAA Journal Style Guide, references
may be given exactly as listed on the title pages of the work(s) cited. This style is particularly appropriate
for works published before the twentieth century. If Authors elect to follow this convention, they should
inform the Editors.

8. Intertextual references should include specific page numbers supporting the points being made. Only if
an entire article, book, or manuscript cited supports the point may page numbers be omitted.

9. In order to make the reading of microform and digital copies easier, footnotes, not endnotes, should be
used.

10. Andean Past uses Goudy Old Style typeface. Please use this typeface in text if possible.

11. Submissions may be in English or Spanish and may include short passages or quotations in other
languages, including South American Indian languages. Quotations not in English should be translated
into English with the original retained as a footnote. Sometimes, for reasons of style, the original quotes
may be used in the text with the English translation in a footnote. Submissions will be read and evaluated
in their original language(s). Reviews may be written in a language other than the one in which the
submission is composed. If articles written in Spanish are accepted for publication, they will be translated
into English by Andean Past at no charge to the Authors. Special cases, including articles in languages
other than English or Spanish, may be discussed with the Editors.
ANDEAN PAST 9 (2009) - 356

12. For articles in English, the on-line or CD-ROM edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) should be
used as a guide to spelling and word usage. In cases where the OED differentiates between English and
American spelling or usage, Andean Past contributors should follow American practice. Foreign loan words
included in the OED should not be italicized. Foreign words not in the OED should be italicized and
glossed.

13. If possible, illustrations should be submitted in the form of black-and-white line drawings. Hand lettering
is unacceptable. All place names, terms for features, etc. must be in English. Avoid sans serif typefaces in
illustrations if possible. When san serif typefaces are required, please use Univers. Very small fonts will not
reproduce well and some type faces reproduce more clearly than others. All site names and other place
names mentioned in the text should appear on a map drafted specifically for the submission unless those
toponyms appear in the Oxford Atlas of the World. For example, it is not necessary to place Lima or Quito
on a map except for purposes of orienting the viewer. Toponyms not mentioned in the text should not
appear on the map(s) accompanying a submission unless they are major geographic features needed for
orientation, for example, major cities and towns. Limited numbers of grayscale photographs can be part
of articles. To avoid color management problems we do not publish color plates. If illustrations have been
previously published elsewhere, this should be indicated in the captions. If the illustration is reproduced
exactly as it first appeared the caption should read " . . . from . . . " with a Harvard-style reference to the
publication or publications. If it is modified the caption should read ". . . after . ." If Authors do not hold
the copyright to these illustrations they are responsible for providing Andean Past with written
permission(s) to reproduce.

14. We prefer photographic illustrations in the form of good-quality glossy chemical (silver) prints made from
black and white film negatives. Medium format is encouraged, but almost never encountered. Alternately,
uncompressed electronic files, such as tif files, or good quality digital prints, preferably C-prints, may be
used. Authors should prepare electronic illustration files with printing, not PowerPoint, in mind. Files
should be sent at the highest resolution possible with the camera or scanning equipment available. Do not
try to anticipate how we may downsize the files. Because layout is the prerogative of the editors, not of
the authors, do not embed illustrations in Word or other programs. Do not embed captions within the
illustration files. Name files so that they can be easily recognized, for example Barnes.Figure1.Profile.tif.
If authors must use other electronic formats, including jpegs, they should discuss this with the Editors
before submission.

15. Submissions should be sent as a hard (printed out) copy, preferably accompanied by electronic copy on
a CD or DVD. Copies and CDs/DVDs will not be returned. We can accept a variety of word processing,
graphic, and spreadsheet programs. To avoid corruption and difficulties in transmitting long files, do not
send submissions as e-mail attachments without prior consultation with the Editors.

16. Authors who cite unpublished papers (except masters theses or doctoral dissertations, and manuscripts
in public archives such as the Archivo General de Indias, Seville) should provide the Editors with copies
of those papers, as well as written permission for citation from the authors of the unpublished papers.

17. Reports for the Current Research section of the journal are subject to editorial review only. Reports should
focus on unpublished results and should be brief, normally not more than 2,000 words. Reports may be
accompanied by a limited number of line drawings and/or grayscale photographs, normally no more than
six. These will be reproduced in a small format. Individual researchers or teams may submit more than one
report. Reports will be considered for publication as they are submitted and, if accepted by the editors, will
appear in the next volume of Andean Past. Authors will have the opportunity to read proof and make last-
minute updates. Current Research reports are not peer-reviewed.
357 - Advice to Contributors

18. Obituaries are written by invitation of the editors, although people wishing to write an obituary of a
particular individual are welcome to consult with the editors. Andean Past obituaries normally carry a
complete bibliography of works by and about the deceased unless such a list has already been published
elsewhere. It is the normally the responsibility of Obituary Authors to construct such a bibliography.
Obituaries are not peer-reviewed, although the editors may seek the advice of selected colleagues prior
to publication.

19. All article and obituary Authors, including co-Authors, whose work is published in Andean Past will
receive, without charge, a copy of the volume in which their work appears.

20. Andean Past has no provision for offprints. However, Authors may photocopy their own work for
distribution to colleagues and may also request PDF files of their articles for this purpose.

21. Copyright for Andean Past is held by the Cornell University Latin American Studies Program on behalf
of the Editors unless a specific portion, for example, an illustration, is noted as copyrighted by another
party. Authors may re-publish their Andean Past articles, obituaries, or reports, in English or in translation,
in print, or in electronic format, provided that at least one year has elapsed since the original publication
in Andean Past, that prior publication in Andean Past is indicated in the re-publication, that Cornell
LASPs copyright is acknowledged, and that the editors of Andean Past are notified of the re-publication.
If a portion of an article is copyrighted by a third party authors must request specific written permission
from that party to republish. This includes on-line postings in electronic format.

24 October 2009