Definition of a Late Pre-ceramic period is the result of research by many scholars over the past sixty years. Junius Bird’s recognition, in the 1940s, of Huaca Prieta in the Chicama Valley (Figure 31.1) as a pre-pottery coastal fishing village paved the way for the study of the Late Pre-ceramic (Bird 1948). His subsequent excavations at Guanape in the Viru Valley documented the existence of settled coastal communities that relied heavily on marine resources but also probably practiced simple flood plain cultivation to secure vital culti-gens-squash, lucuma, common beans, lima beans, avocados, and peppers and especially the essential industrial plants: cotton and gourd.
Subsequent work by Engel (1957a, b), Lanning (1967: 57-79) and Moseley (1972, 1975) revealed additional Late Pre-ceramic sites often situated near river mouths and adjacent to protected bays that afforded access to varied marine resources. The largest Late Preceramic sites were spaced at regular intervals along the central and northern Peruvian coast in a configuration that suggested loosely defined proprietary access to nearby resources. Excavations at these sites yielded a suite of shared cultigens and artifacts, including twined textiles, mussel-shell fishhooks, cotton netting, and gourd floats that make past valley-to-valley communication among these sites likely.
Handbook of South American Archaeology, edited by Helaine Silverman and William H. Isbell.
Springer, New York, 2008
Figure 31.1. Map of north and central Peru showing the location of Late Preceramic, Initial Period, and Early Horizon sites. (Shelia Pozorski and Thomas Pozorski)
Frederic Engel (1957a, b) coined the term “Cotton Pre-Ceramic” for the Late Preceramic, recognizing the pervasiveness and importance of this industrial crop at many of the coastal sites. Moseley (1975), in particular, highlighted the significance of cotton in the maritime economy he posited for the Peruvian coast in the Late Pre-ceramic with his formulation of what has come to be called the “Maritime Hypothesis” (“Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization” hypothesis or MFAC), discussed below.
Early Cultural Complexity on the Coast of Peru 609 The Maritime Hypothesis and Aceramic Sites
Not all of the numerous sites without pottery were mere coastal fishing villages. Rather, abundant evidence of monumental architecture in the form of platform mounds with associated plazas was discovered and investigated, for instance at El Paraiso in the Chillon Valley (Engel 1967; Quilter 1985), Aspero in the Supe Valley area (Feldman 1985), Rio Seco near the Chancay Valley (Wendt 1964), Culebras in the Culebras Valley (Engel 1957a:
65-68; Lanning 1967), and Salinas de Chao between the Chao and Viru valleys (Alva 1986). Reports of this work and his own investigations in the Ancon area led Michael Moseley (1975) to propose the Maritime Hypothesis in his seminal book The Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization. Moseley argued that civilization arose on the coast of Peru in the Late Pre-ceramic without an agricultural subsistence base, but rather through heavy reliance on abundant, reliable marine resources that supported population growth and enabled corporate labor organization of which monumental architecture was evidence.
Moseley moreover proposed that the social complexity that made it possible to harness corporate labor for mound construction and other public works at these coastal settlements pre-adapted the sites’ inhabitants for the subsequent Initial Period florescence when much-larger settlements were founded well inland near both arable land and optimal locations for channel intakes to provide the water for irrigation-based agriculture. Community labor, whose organization had been honed in monumental platform building, was turned to digging canals, promoting in turn, a life style dependent on farming.
With the analysis of many radiocarbon dates it became clear that several of the originally touted monumental Late Pre-ceramic sites—such as El Paraiso and Salinas de Chao—as well as the small Moche Valley site of Alto Salaverry actually lie well within the Initial Period time frame, even though these sites lacked pottery. Based on these dates,
Shelia Pozorski and Thomas Pozorski (1990) proposed that such sites would be more accurately described as aceramic. Significantly, most of these aceramic sites with Initial Period dates were characterized by monumental architecture. Only the more modest coastal sites were without pottery, and dated earlier. They alone qualified as antecedents of settlements with monumental construction, so in view of this the Maritime Hypothesis was seriously challenged. Proposed coastal antecedents to monumental inland centers turned out to be contemporary with these inland counterparts rather than earlier. The notable exception is Aspero, which has sizeable platform mounds dating about 3000-2500 cal BC, well within the Late Pre-ceramic (Feldman 1985).
In keeping with the patterns observed elsewhere along the Peruvian coast, it was predicted that Aspero would eventually be recognized as a coastal counterpart of equally early inland, mound-dominated communities with an agricultural focus rather than a pre-pottery antecedent to Initial Period florescence (Shelia Pozorski and Thomas Pozorski 1990). Work in the Supe Valley by Zechenter (1988) in the 1980s provided tantalizing dates in the Late Pre-ceramic time range and subsequent work by Shady (1999, 2001, 2006) at Caral and by Haas and Creamer (Haas et al. 2004a, b) at other sites in the Fortaleza and Pativilca valleys have confirmed the existence of Late Pre-ceramic inland agricultural communities.
Caral and the Fortaleza-Huaura Valley Area
Recognition that many of the complex planned sites with platform mounds, plazas, and residential architecture in the Fortaleza-Huaura river valleys date to the Late Pre-ceramic focused global attention on this area. The origins of Andean civilization had been pushed
Back in time and redefined, including in terms of economy. Shady’s work at Caral revealed a sizeable agricultural community that produced a variety of cultigens, including beans, squash, sweet potato, avocado, and especially cotton, which were likely exchanged for marine products from Aspero and other coastal sites (Shady 2006). It seems likely that this settlement and economic pattern characterized by large, inland agricultural sites and coastal satellites spread north and south along the coast, resulting in a proliferation of even larger sites during the Initial Period. Vital components of this pre-ceramic legacy include planned centers dominated by large mounds, sunken circular plazas, an emphasis on irrigation agriculture, and maintenance of complementary coastal communities to supply vital marine protein.
The site of Caral (Figure 31.2), with published calibrated radiocarbon dates between 2600-1800 cal BC (Shady et al. 2001), is the best known Late Pre-ceramic site in the For-taleza-Huaura area. Intensive excavations carried out there since 1995 by Ruth Shady (who changed the archaeological site name from Chupa Cigarro Grande to Caral) and her students revealed that the site measures some 66 ha in area and has seven large mounds, sometimes associated with sunken circular and rectangular plazas (Shady 1999, 2001, 2006). In addition, there is abundant evidence of smaller houses and ritual structures, including one circular ventilated hearth structure that is the earliest coastal variant of a religious phenomenon known as the Kotosh Religious Tradition (described below). The amount of labor invested in mound construction and the estimated population size led Shady (2006) to interpret Caral as the first urban site in the New World.
As Shady continued her work at Caral and documented the existence of some 17 additional Late Pre-ceramic sites in the Supe Valley, Jonathan Haas and Winifred Creamer led another team of students and colleagues in surveys of the nearby Fortaleza, Pativilca,
Figure 31.2. Central Sector mounds of the Late Preceramic site of Caral seen from the east in 1993. (Shelia Pozorski and Thomas Pozorski)
And Huaura valleys in search of additional Late Pre-ceramic sites (Haas et al. 2004a, b). To date, approximately 20 sites have been found, dated by 95 radiocarbon dates, ranging from 3100 to 1800 cal BC, obtained from samples recovered from test excavations and cleaned looters’ pits (Haas et al. 2004a, b). Some of these sites are comparable in size to Caral or even larger, though in poorer condition due to modern land reclamation for agricultural and residential purposes. Nevertheless, it is clear that there was a substantial inland Late Pre-ceramic occupation spread over the four-valley area. The truly exciting aspect of the work at Caral and other Late Pre-ceramic sites in the Fortaleza-Huaura area is that for the first time large inland sites are abundantly documented in the coastal zone that required irrigation agriculture to provide enough food to support the large populations needed to build and sustain these centers.
Evidence of maize found in pre-ceramic refuse contexts at Caral raises the issue of the importance of this storable staple to the development of Peru’s earliest civilization. After extensive excavations at Caral, Shady (2006) has found only a very small quantity of maize dating to the latest levels of the site, suggesting that maize did not comprise a significant portion of the diet. Bonavia (1982) described abundant maize from Los Gavilanes, a Late Pre-ceramic site at the mouth of the Huarmey Valley but, to the north and south, maize does not appear in the archaeological record until the Early Horizon, when it was very common.
The existence of an inland-coastal subsistence exchange system in the Supe area foreshadows similar subsistence exchange systems known for the Casma and Moche valleys farther north during the Initial Period (S. Pozorski and T. Pozorski 1979, 1987). However, the exact nature of the Fortaleza-Huaura exchange system may be different. The three documented coastal sites in the area—Bandurria (Fung 1988: 77) just south of the Huaura Valley, Aspero (Feldman 1985) in the Supe Valley, and Bermejo (just north of the Fortaleza Valley)—all have substantial monumental architecture themselves, unlike their later Initial Period coastal counterparts farther north. Perhaps these sites were more equal partners in the exchange system, in contrast to the later Initial Period systems in which coastal sites were essentially satellite communities, subordinate to much larger inland sites. While these three sites are smaller in area and presumably in population than many of the inland sites, the difference is not as great as in the case of the Initial Period sites. Also, because there are only three identified coastal sites presumably supplying fish and shellfish to perhaps as many as 40 inland sites, the relatively exclusive access that these sites had to marine resources may have enabled them to garner special treatment from the inland residents, such as labor to construct communal mounds for use by residents of and visitors to the coastal settlements for both religious and non-religious purposes. There was likely a greater sense of community among these coastal fishing settlements than at contemporary or later coastal fishing sites that housed far fewer people. Like other large Late Pre-ceramic sites, the three Fortaleza-Huaura settlements are fairly evenly distributed along the coastline of the area—Bandurria at the south end, Bermejo at the north end, and Aspero in the middle.
Based on currently available data for the Fortaleza-Huaura area, it seems likely that the settlement and economic pattern characterized by large inland agricultural communities with coastal satellites originated on the north-central coast (“norte chico”) and then spread north and south, resulting in the proliferation of even larger sites during the Initial Period.
One specific architectural feature with origins traceable to the Fortaleza-Huaura area is the sunken circular plaza or court (Figure 31.3). Sunken circular courts have been described at coastal sites since the late 1950s (Engel 1957b; Patterson 1971; see especially Williams 1972 who effectively defined this feature and recognized its diffusion along the
Figure 31.3. Late Preceramic sunken courts as originally identified in the early 1970s by the late Carlos Williams (republished in Williams 1979: fig. 2.3)
Coast; see also Fung and Williams 1970) and their distribution ranges from the Jequete-peque Valley on the north coast to the Mala Valley on the central coast (Williams 1985). Usually associated with large mounds, sunken circular courts are most often located in front of the platform and sometimes associated with an adjacent rectangular court. Most sunken circular courts are dated to the Initial Period, but with the discovery of numerous examples in the Fortaleza-Huaura area dating to the Late Pre-ceramic, it seems likely that this area originated this architectural feature.
Much additional work, including large-scale excavation, is necessary to sort out the chronological and intersite relationships among the numerous Late Pre-ceramic sites in the Fortaleza-Huaura area. Given that their dated time span covers at least 1,200 years, it is likely that the Late Pre-ceramic saw the growth and decline of different settlements or groups of settlements. It is the patterning of the sites, the duration of sites, the sizes of sites, and the determination of the activities they housed that ultimately will shed light on the origin, growth, decline, and nature of the sociopolitical organization in the Fortaleza-Huaura area during the Late Pre-ceramic.
Kotosh Religious Tradition
Another important phenomenon originating in the Late Pre-ceramic is the Kotosh Religious Tradition (Burger and Salazar Burger 1980). Buildings that characterize this tradition were
First excavated by the Japanese expedition at the highland site of Kotosh in the1960s (Izumi 1971; Izumi and Terada 1972:129-176). Since that time, numerous similar buildings have been discovered and excavated at several highland sites (Bonnier and Rozenberg 1988; Burger and Salazar-Burger 1980, 1985; Grieder and Bueno 1985; Grieder et al. 1988: 19-67). The buildings themselves are relatively small, self-contained units, measuring 1.5-9 m across, that are usually square, contain niches in the room walls, and have a central hearth that is ventilated by one or more horizontal ventilation shafts or flues. The size and configuration of the ritual chambers vary from site to site. Most at La Galgada are rectanguloid, almost round, in shape (Grieder and Bueno 1985; Grieder et al. 1988: 19-67). Examples at Huaricoto are considerably smaller than the ones at Kotosh and tend to be rounded in shape (Burger and Salazar-Burger 1980, 1985, 1986). The most likely explanation for these structures is that they are private ritual chambers for small groups of people who focus on the central hearth as part of a heating ritual, somewhat analogous to the sweat houses used among many Native American groups in North America although the latter have far less construction (T. Pozorski and S. Pozorski 1996).
Two pre-ceramic ventilated hearth structures are known from the coast at Caral in the Supe Valley (Shady 2006) and at Huaynuna in the Casma Valley (T. Pozorski and S. Pozorski 1990; Figure 31.4). The example from Caral is a round structure on a rectangular platform with four subfloor ventilation shafts extending to the platform edges (Shady 1999, 2001). The hearth at Huaynuna is located within a small rectangular room and is ventilated by a trough in the floor that extends toward the room entrance (T. Pozorski and S. Pozorski 1990; Figure 31.4). Despite the differences in overall shape, it is likely that there was a connection, probably through rituals and belief systems, between these coastal examples and the rectangular to circular temples with hearths in the highlands. The ultimate origin of what crystalized into the Kotosh Religious Tradition may lie in the coastal
Figure 31.4. Excavation in progress on the ventilated health structure found at Huaynuna. In the foreground is the ventilation trough that passes through the entrance to the structure. (Thomas Pozorski and Shelia Pozorski)
Zone because the earliest dated ventilated hearth structure is at Caral. Construction and use of such ritual chambers continued into the Initial Period at some sites (Burger and Salazar-Burger 1980; T. Pozorski and S. Pozorski 1996).
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