Amy Groleau, with the supervision of her advisor Dr. William H. Isbell, will undertake a study of ritual activity in the earliest cities of the Wari Empire that flourished in the central Andes of Peru from AD 600-1000. Pre-dating the Inca by 500 years, Wari was the first expansive group in this area of the world that had far-reaching colonies governed by administrative centers. Standardized architecture and distinctive ceramic styles bearing images of deities and mythical creatures are the hallmark of Wari centers, which have been found as far south as Bolivia and north to Ecuador--spanning the length of present-day Peru. Without the benefit of a written language and traversing landscape extremes from the desert coast to the rugged highlands, the rise of the Wari state has been a subject of debate among Andean scholars. It has most recently been theorized that Wari expansion was facilitated by a combination of military might, religious conversion, and relocation of people from the capital to govern the colonies. Ms. Groleau's study will examine religious ritual offerings during this time period at three sites in the Wari heartland near present-day Ayacucho, Peru: the capital site of Wari; Conchopata, a secondary city; and Ñawinpukyo, a settlement dating to the period directly preceding Wari dominance. This study will track changes in ritual offering practice during the rise of urbanism and the emergence of Wari state power to provide a better understanding of the role of religion in these larger social and political changes. The combination of sites provides the perspective of a large geographical area and offers the possibility of seeing change through time during the transition to urban living; contributing data from an important and early South American empire to the larger debates of the rise of complex societies and urbanization.
Current archaeological scholarship emphasizes the importance of cities to the formation of greater political complexity such as states. Ms. Groleau's research examines how people were using ritual and religion to negotiate their place within an emerging state and city. For example, were city residents adopting new rituals supportive of state ideologies; attempting to better their lives by opting into an increasingly stratified state power? Or do ritual offerings found in residences represent a challenge both to emerging state power and to increasing inequalities of the urban environment? While governmental and religious institutions were aligning, people may have sought to mitigate the monopoly on divine authority through widespread household ritual practice. Ritual is an important locus for examining ongoing tensions that needed to be addressed by Wari governing bodies and underscores the extent to which power was constantly negotiated. Ms. Groleau's results will provide robust empirical data for the capital region which can then be used by scholars working on Wari provincial sites.
Beyond the contribution to social science, this project provides experience in running a large laboratory analysis for the graduate student, Groleau, and substantial training opportunities for undergraduate assistants from the local university in Ayacucho, Peru; one of the more impoverished regions of the country.
