Excavations west of the monumental core at Chavín de Huántar, Peru in 2005 revealed a well-preserved plastered structure with a central circular hearth, in the style of the Mito Architectural Tradition. This find challenges standard definitions of both the Mito Tradition and Chavín itself. I discuss the material remains and associated radiocarbon dates from this feature, and use these new data to re-assess Chavín’s involvement in interregional networks and its relationship to earlier ceremonial centers in the Central Andean highlands.

This article examines the organization of specialized craft production at the urban site of Moche, known as the capital of the Southern Moche state. Recent excavations in workshop contexts revealed that the urban population of Moche was in part composed of ceramists, metallurgists, and lapidaries. These craft specialists played a significant role in the economic, political, and religious spheres of the Moche polity. Data obtained during excavations of workshops and domestic compounds are used to analyze the context, scale, and intensity of craft production, taking into account the nature of the goods produced and the identity of consumers. The discussion also considers the integration of craft specialists into the daily life and social structure at the site of Moche. Excavations showed that while urban craft specialists were not independent, they were not tightly controlled by a centralized ruling elite. They produced symbolic goods in various small to middle-scale workshops integrated into residential units, under the direct authority of urban leaders taking advantage of this particular organization of semi-attached craft production in various status-building strategies.

This study examines isolated child skeletal remains from ritual structures at the Wari site of Conchopata (A.D. 600–1000) to evaluate how they were modified into trophy heads and whether the children were sacrificed. The skeletal remains represent at least seven children. Strontium isotope ratios are examined to determine whether children were taken from foreign locales. Results show that the children’s skulls exhibit a hole on the apex of the cranium and on the ascending ramus of the mandible, identical to the adult Wari trophy heads. At least one child may have been sacrificed. 87Sr/86Sr demonstrate that two of the four sampled child trophy heads were nonlocal, suggesting that children were occasionally abducted from distant communities, perhaps for sacrifice and certainly to transform some into trophy heads. The similar child and adult trophy heads suggest that the ritual treatment of children was not uniquely designed, at least as it related to their processing, display, and destruction. Furthermore, it is suggested that the child trophy heads were not simply passive symbols of pre-existing authority by the head-takers and trophy head-makers. The trophy heads simultaneously imbued those agents with authority—they did not merely reflect it—demonstrating the “effective agency” of the trophy head objects themselves. Finally, we suggest that prisoner-taking and trophy head-making by military and ritual elites served to legitimate the authority of those individuals while simultaneously serving larger state goals that enhanced Wari state authority and legitimated its policies and practices.

Previous archaeological studies suggest that terminal Middle Horizon Tumilaca populations (cal A.D. 950–1150) of the middle Moquegua Valley represent direct descendants of earlier Chen Chen-style Tiwankau colonists of the region. This study tests this idea by comparing dentally derived biodistance analyses of Tumilaca, Chen Chen-style, Tiwanaku, and other regional samples. The results indicate that the Tumilaca and Chen Chen-style mortuary samples are similar to one another suggesting that these populations might share an ancestral-descendant relationship. The phenetic relations of the Tumilaca and Chen Chen to other regional samples are also discussed.

One of the largest demographic shifts to occur in Andean prehistory took place during the Late Intermediate Period (A.D. 1000–1400). Across a large expanse of the central Andes a vast number of lower elevation settlements were abandoned and local populations were concentrated in newly constructed, defensibly positioned sites, located along high ridges. In this article we examine this dramatic settlement shift in relation to the Chanka ethnic group that occupied the Andahuaylas region (Department of Apurimac, Peru). The results indicate that the shift from valley to hilltop settlements in the Andahuaylas region occurred around A.D. 1000. We propose that the shift reflects an increased dependency on agro-pastoralism that resulted from a period of climate change. We also suggest that in this region of the Andes the shift was augmented by growing levels of political competition after the dissolution of the Wari Empire and that current models, which situate the Chanka as a uniquely powerful ethnic group at the time of the Inca expansion, need to be reexamined.