With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Bruce Owen and a small team of colleagues will map and date three large, planned, prehistoric architectural complexes in the Camana Valley of the far south coast of Peru. These three similar sites, marked by characteristic columned courts, are unlike any others in the Andes, and are located just kilometers apart in a rich valley that is almost unknown archaeologically. Based on architectural style and very limited surface ceramics, the sites could be distinctive local expressions of the expansive Wari state (A.D. 500-1000), the Inka empire (A.D. 1450-1550), or an as-yet unknown local culture capable of mobilizing a great deal of labor to build multiple, large, formal installations for perhaps ritual, administrative, or courtly functions. Whatever their cultural affiliation proves to be, these sites reflect complex prehistoric social developments that have been completely overlooked until now.
The goal is to assess what the three columned court complexes may imply about the development and spread of social complexity in the Andes. The specific objectives are to:
1. Establish the cultural affiliations and chronological positions of the sites through analysis of ceramics collected from six to nine 1.5 x 1.5 meter test pits at each site and six radiocarbon dates. Materials from the excavations may also suggest aspects of the functions of these enigmatic sites.
2. Produce detailed, accurate maps documenting all three sites before they are damaged by a road project, river erosion, and irrigation works. Dr. William Poe and Dr. Sue Hayes will use two geodetic survey grade GPS receivers to record an estimated 13,000 three-dimensional map points per site with 2.5 cm precision for topography and sub-centimeter precision for walls.
3. Protect the sites as cultural resources and for future study by legally delimiting and registering them with the Peruvian Instituto Nacional de Cultura.
This project is intended to be the opening season of a multi-year investigation of the Camana valley to reconstruct its role in Andean prehistory.
The results will begin to fill a gap in our understanding of the development of social complexity in the Andes, adding to knowledge of the Wari, Inka, and/or a previously unknown complex society. It may also help to date debris flows that covered parts of all three sites, contributing to the long-term history of El Nino events and their impact.
Two Sonoma State University undergraduates in the mixed US and Peruvian field team will gain archaeological field and lab experience, while building cross-cultural understanding. The field results will be available globally through Owen's websites, and locally through poster exhibits, museum displays, and fliers. The project should promote the mapping team's high-precision, rapid GPS mapping techniques among US and Peruvian archaeologists. The debris flow results may contribute to safer planning and regulation of development in Camana and south coastal Peru. Legal registration of the three sites will offer them a measure of protection, and by potentially redirecting the planned road project, may protect a large number of additional sites on the same side of the valley.
