Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T22:56:04.546Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

3,000 Years of Occupation in Upper Valley Nasca: Excavations at Upanca

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Kevin J. Vaughn  and
Moisés Linares Grados
Kevin J. Vaughn
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Purdue University, 700 West State St., West Lafayette, IN 47907 (kjvaughn@purdue.edu)
Moisés Linares Grados
Affiliation:
Proyecto Nasca Temprano, Lima, Perú (moico81@hotmail.com)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We report recent excavations undertaken at the residential village Upanca located 1,600 m above sea level in the Nasca region of Peru in the Central Andes. Although fieldwork was initiated to evaluate the site's participation in the Early Nasca craft economy, excavations revealed a long occupation beginning in the Late Archaic (ca. 3000–1800 B.C.) and extending into the Early Intermediate period (ca. A.D. 1–750), with a principal component dating to the Early Nasca period (ca. A.D. 1–450). The Early Nasca component revealed high polychrome consumption, confirming previous assessments of Early Nasca's craft economy, and association with extensive agricultural terracing, suggesting surplus production beginning in the Early Intermediate period.

En este artículo informamos las recientes excavaciones realizadas en la aldea residencial de Upanca, a 1,600 msnm en la región de Nasca, Perú. Aunque la finalidad del trabajo de campo fue evaluar su participación dentro de la economía de producción Nasca temprana, las excavaciones revelaron una larga ocupación, empezando en el Arcaico Tardío (ca. 3000–1800 a.C.) y extendiéndose hasta el período Intermedio Temprano (ca. 1–750 d.C.) con un componente principal fechado para el período Nasca Temprano (ca. 1–450 d.C.). Este componente reveló un alto consumo de cerámica polícroma, confirmando va loraciones previas de la economía de producción de Nasca Temprana, y la asociación con extensas terrazas agrícolas sugieren excedentes de producción empezando en el período Intermedio Temprano.

Type
Reports
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , December 2006 , pp. 595 - 612
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Aldenderfer, Mark S. 1998 Montane Foragers: Asana and the South-Central Andean Archaic. University of Iowa Press, Iowa City.Google Scholar
Burger, Richard L., and Asaro, Frank 1979 Análisis de los rasgos significativos en la obsidiana de los Andes Centrales. Revista del Museo Nacional 43:281–326.Google Scholar
Carmichael, Patrick H. 1998 Nasca Ceramics: Production and Social Context In Andean Ceramics: Technology, Organization, and Approaches, edited by Izumi Shimada, pp. 213–231. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Chapdelaine, Claude, Kennedy, Greg, and Castillo, Santiago Uceda 1995 Activatión neutrónica en el estudio de la productión local de la cerámica ritual en el sitio Moche, Perú. Bulletin de I’Institut Français d–Études Andines 24:183–212.Google Scholar
Conlee, Christina A. 2003 Local Elites and the Reformation of Late Intermediate Period Sociopolitical and Economic Organization in Nasca, Peru. Latin American Antiquity 14:47–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeMarrais, Elizabeth, Castillo, Luis Jaime, and Earle, Timothy 1996 Ideology, Materialization, and Power Strategies. Current Anthropology 37:15–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dillehay, Tom D. 1979 Pre-Hispanic Resource Sharing in the Central Andes. Science 204(6):24–31.Google Scholar
Engel, Frederic 1981 Prehistoric Andean Ecology: Man, Settlement and Environment in the Andes, the Deep South, vol. 2. Papers of the Department of Anthropology, Hunter College of the City University of New York. Humanities Press, New York.Google Scholar
Isla Cuadrado, Johny 1990 La Esmeralda: Una ocupación del período arcáico en Cahuachi, Nasca. Gaceta Arqueológica Andina 20:67–80.Google Scholar
Marcus, Joyce, and Silva, Jorge E. 1988 The Chillón Valley “Coca Lands”: Archaeological Background and Ecological Context. In Conflicts over Coca Fields in XVIth-Century Peru, edited by María. Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, pp. 1–32. Memoirs of the Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Vol. 21. Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Quilter, Jeffrey 1991 Late Preceramic Peru. Journal of World Prehistory 5:387–438.Google Scholar
Rick, John W. 1988 The Character and Context of Highland Preceramic Society. In Peruvian Prehistory, edited by Richard W. Keatinge, pp. 3–40. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, María. 1988 Prologue. In Conflicts over Coca Fields in XVIth-Century Peru, edited by María. Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, pp. 53–81. Memoirs of the Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Vol. 21. Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Sandweiss, Daniel H., McInnis, Heather, Burger, Richard L., Cano, Asunción, Ojeda, Bernardino, Paredes, Rolando, Sandweiss, María del C., and Glascock, Michael D. 1998 Quebrada Jaguay: Early South American Maritime Adaptations. Science 281:1830–1832.Google Scholar
Schreiber, Katharina J. 1999 Regional Approaches to the Study of Prehistoric Empires: Examples from Ayacucho and Nasca, Peru. In Settlement Pattern Studies in the Americas: Fifty Years since Virú, edited by Brian R. Billman and Gary M. Feinman, pp. 160–171. Smithsonian Institute Press, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Schreiber, Katharina J. 2001 The Wari Empire of Middle Horizon Peru: The Epistemological Challenge of Documenting an Empire without Documentary Evidence. In Empires, edited by Susan E. Alcock, Terrence N. D’Altroy, Kathleen D. Morrison, and Carta M. Sinopoli, pp. 70–92. University of Cambridge Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Schreiber, Katharina J., and Cuadrado, Johny Isla 1996 Proyecto Nasca Sur 1996: Informe Final. Instituto Nacional de Cultura de Perú, Lima.Google Scholar
Schreiber, Katharina J., and Rojas, Josue Lancho 1995 The Puquios of Nasca. Latin American Antiquity 6:229–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schreiber, Katharina J., and Rojas, Josue Lancho 2003 Irrigation and Society in the Peruvian Desert: The Puquios of Nasca. Lexington Books, Lanham, Maryland.Google Scholar
Shady Solis, Ruth, Haas, Jonathan, and Creamer, Winifred 2001 Dating Caral, a Preceramic Site in the Supe Valley on the Central Coast of Peru. Science 292:723–726.Google Scholar
Silverman, Helaine 1993 Cahuachi in the Ancient Nasca World. University of Iowa Press, Iowa City.Google Scholar
Silverman, Helaine, and Proulx, Donald A. 2002 The Nasca. Blackwell Publishers, Maiden, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Strong, William D. 1957 Paracas, Nazca, and Tiahuanacoid Cultural Relationships in South Coastal Peru. Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology 13. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Stuiver, Minze, Reimer, Paula J., and Braziunas, T. F. 1998 High-Precision Radiocarbon Age Calibration for Terrestrial and Marine Samples. Radiocarbon 40:1127–1151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Gijseghem, Hendrik 2004 Migration, Agency, and Social Change on a Prehistoric Frontier: The Paracas-Nasca Transition in the Southern Nasca Drainage, Peru. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Vaughn, Kevin J. 2004 Households, Crafts, and Feasting in the Ancient Andes: The Village Context of Early Nasca Craft Consumption. Latin American Antiquity 15:61–88.Google Scholar
Vaughn, Kevin J. 2005a Crafts and the Materialization of Chiefly Power in Nasca. In The Foundations of Power in the Prehispanic Andes, edited by Kevin J. Vaughn, Dennis E. Ogburn, and Christina A. Conlee, pp. 113–130. Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, Vol. 14. Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Vaughn, Kevin J. 2005b Household Approaches to Ethnicity on the South Coast of Peru: The Domestic Architecture of Early Nasca Society. In Us and Them: The Assignation of Ethnicity in the Andean Region, Methodological Approaches, edited by Richard Reycraft, pp. 86–103. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Vaughn, Kevin J., Conlee, Christina A., Neff, Hector, and Schreiber, Katharina 2006 Ceramic Production in Ancient Nasca: Provenance Analysis of Pottery from the Early Nasca and Tiza Cultures through INAA. Journal of Archaeological Science 33:681–689.Google Scholar
Vaughn, Kevin J., Glascock, Michael D., and Neff, Hector 2005a Obsidian Exchange in the Southern Nasca Region. Manuscript on file, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.Google Scholar
Vaughn, Kevin J., and Neff, Hector 2000 Moving beyond Iconography: Neutron Activation Analysis of Ceramics from Marcaya, Peru, an Early Nasca Domestic Site. Journal of Field Archaeology 27:75–90.Google Scholar
Vaughn, Kevin J., and Neff, Hector 2004 Tracing the Clay Source of Nasca Polychrome Pottery: Results from a Preliminary Raw Material Survey. Journal of Archaeological Science 31:1577–1586.Google Scholar
Vaughn, Kevin J., Neff, Hector, Conlee, Christina A., and Schreiber, Katharina 2005b A Compositional Analysis of Nasca Polychrome Pigments: Implications for Craft Production on the Prehispanic South Coast of Peru. In Laser Ablation ICP-MS: A New Frontier in Archaeological Characterization Studies, edited by Robert J. Speakman and Hector Neff, pp. 138–154. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Vaughn, Kevin J., and Gijseghem, Hendrik Van 2007 A Compositional Perspective on the Origins of the Nasca Cult at Cahuachi. Journal of Archaeological Science, in press.Google Scholar
Wise, Karen 1999 Kilómetro 4 y la ocupación del período Arcaico en el área de Ilo, al sur del Perú. In El Período Arcaico en el Perú: Hacia una definición de los orígenes, pp. 335–363. Boletín de Arqueología PUCP, Vol. 3. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima.Google Scholar