Under the direction of Dr. Alan Kolata, Mr. David Pacifico will investigate social diversity in a residential district in the pre-Columbian city of El Purgatorio through archaeological excavations in ancient houses and other neighborhood structures. El Purgatorio is located on the north-central coast of Peru and was the capital city of the Casma culture from approximately AD 700 to AD 1400. As the largest archaeological site in its region during this time, El Purgatorio is notable for its monumental adobe buildings and its expansive residential sector. Archaeological research on ancient Andean cities has typically focused on monumental districts associated with elite tombs, temples and palaces. However, this provides only a partial view of ancient cities and their populations. By analyzing the residences and possessions of commoners Mr. Pacifico will provide an alternative perspective, revealing the way politics, economics, and rituals were materialized in the everyday lives of ordinary people at the site. While the residential districts of many prehistoric Andean cities have been destroyed by looting, farming, or erosion, El Purgatorio's well-preserved residential sector provides an ideal opportunity for investigating the nature and role of commoners in prehistoric cities.
This research addresses several important questions about pre-Columbian urbanism. For example, were ancient cities characterized by social diversity? If so, what was the nature of that diversity? How did residents of ancient cities relate to each other and interact with one another? Because El Purgatorio and the Casma culture have only recently become the focus of intensive archaeological investigations, Mr. Pacifico's project will illuminate many important elements of daily life at El Purgatorio, including production activities, dietary choices, resource exploitation, and ritual practices.
During two previous field seasons Mr. Pacifico classified the architecture in the study area, which ranged from small stone houses to sprawling residential compounds. In order to examine social diversity, excavations will sample each type of architecture and the ceramic, organic, and other remains from each architectural type will be compared. Neighborhood layout and artifact distribution will be analyzed in order to understand how diversity was mapped onto the ancient neighborhood's landscape. Finally, data from the study area will be compared with materials collected elsewhere at El Purgatorio in order to examine the relationship between the study area's residents and those living in other parts of the city.
As a case study of domestic life in an ancient city the results of these analyses will contribute significantly to our understanding of El Purgatorio and the Casma culture. More broadly, it will enrich our understanding of how the political and economic power represented by monumental architecture was materialized, modified, or rejected in the everyday lives of ordinary people. By studying diversity in an ancient urban neighborhood, this project will articulate with wider dialogues about the nature of urban neighborhoods and residential districts through time.
This project is designed to have an impact within and beyond the academy. It promotes international collaboration and provides an opportunity for hands-on learning of archaeological techniques by employing American students, Peruvian laborers, and archaeologists from both countries. Additionally, in conjunction with local educational institutions, Mr. Pacifico will give periodic presentations to non-archaeologists about the area's prehistory, archaeological science, and the importance of conserving cultural patrimony.
This project investigated a residential district at the pre-Columbian city of El Purgatorio in Peru’s Casma Valley. El Purgatorio was inhabited between approximately 1000-1500AD and was the capital city of the little-studied Casma culture, which flourished across 300 kilometers of Peru’s north coastline (Vogel 2011). The Casma culture occupied a significant period in the development of pre-Columbian Andean societies, representing a transition from the theocratic Moche (200-600AD) to the bureaucratic Chimú cultures (900-1460AD) (Mackey 2009; Topic 2003; Quilter 2002:162-164). Traditionally scholars have thought of this period as one of competing small settlements, though new research suggests that many of these settlements were loosely confederated under the Casma Polity, for which El Purgatorio served as the capital (Vogel 2011). By investigating the non-elite residential district of El Purgatorio, Pacifico’s project sought to understand the nature of residential urbanism at El Purgatorio and everyday life in the Casma Polity. As such it contributes to broader anthropological inquiry about the nature of social organization, community, and politics in urban neighborhoods. Specifically, this project asked two fundamental questions about the study area. First, was there social diversity in El Purgatorio’s residential district? If so, how was that diversity configured? Second, how did the study area relate to other sections of El Purgatorio? Were residents dependent upon the city’s elites, living in the monumental sector, or was the neighborhood autonomous? These questions were investigated through architectural mapping, surface ceramic collection, and archaeological excavations in the residential sector of El Purgatorio. In 2010 and 2011 David Pacifico led a team of archaeologists, students, and professional excavators from the United States and Peru through ten weeks of fieldwork and several months of laboratory work to answer these questions. Mapping data combined with inspection of standing architecture discovered a diversity of structures in the study area, suggestive of diverse inhabitants and activities. Analyses of these structures indicate that there were at least three classes of households in the study area distinguished from one another by wealth and status. The architectural diversity also suggested that both domestic and ritual activities occurred within the non-elite residential neighborhood. Excavations recovered ceramic remains that support this conclusion. An unusually large number of bowls, jars, and cooking pots found in one building are evidence that feasts took place there. Feasts are important political and ritual events that create community and establish social hierarchies in the Andes. The feasting venue emulates the monumental structures elsewhere at El Purgatorio, indicating that the study area was closely tied to social institutions based in El Purgatorio’s monumental district. Surface ceramic collections indicate that the residential district was inhabited by people using almost exclusively local style ceramics. In contrast to the diverse ceramics discovered in El Purgatorio’s monumental district (Vogel 2011), the virtual exclusion of foreign ceramics in the residential district indicates that those living there had limited contact with foreigners. Excavations provided a wealth of information from a variety of data sources including ceramics, organic remains, stone, wood, and metal artifacts. Carbon samples show that the study area was occupied for a relatively short period of time, ranging from the late 13th to the early 15th centuries. Although analyses and interpretation remain ongoing, many aspects of daily life for El Purgatorio’s commoners are now clearer as a result of this project. Apart from periodic ritual activities, the ancient Casmeños were busy with quotidian tasks including household weaving, food processing, cooking and perhaps ceramic manufacture. Organic remains indicate that, despite being several kilometers from the sea, El Purgatorio’s inhabitants relied upon marine shellfish for the majority of their dietary protein, which they supplemented with local fruits and maize. This project recovered and archived over 6000 artifacts of daily life in El Purgatorio, which are available to scholars at the Museo Regional de Casma Max Uhle. The project revealed that El Purgatorio’s residential sector was inhabited by a diverse commoner class whose residents were distinguished from one another by material wealth, status, and household composition. These inhabitants were closely linked to the elites from the monumental sector of the site through periodic rituals in the neighborhood. These conclusions suggest that community was formed in El Purgatorio as part of a larger political project directed by elites in the monumental sector of the site. The residential district was a neighborhood that was at least partially dependent on elite political projects for its constitution. Works Cited Mackey, C. 2009. Chimú Statecraft in the Provinces. Andean Civilization: A Tribute to Michael E.Moseley, edited by J. Marcus and P.R. Williams. pp 325-349. Quilter, J. 2002. Moche Politics, Religion, and Warfare. Journal of World Prehistory 16(2):145-195. Topic, J.R. 2003. From Stewards to Bureaucrats: Architecture and Information Flow at Chan Chan, Peru. Latin American Antiquity 14(3):243-274. Vogel, M. 2011. Style and Interregional Interaction: Ceramics from the Casma Capital of El Purgatorio. Ñawpa Pacha 31(2): 201-224.
