Short Piece in Society for American Archaeology's Archaeological Record

Thanks to Lewis Borck (University of Leiden) and Matthew Sanger (Binghamton) as well as the many other contributors to the latest SAA Archaeological Record (Vol. 17 No. 1) for their contribution and invitation to me to participate in the Anarchy and Archaeology volume. The topics covered range well beyond strictly archaeological topics, and so many anthropologists, philosophers, educators, etc. will find provocative material there. How wonderful also to reconnect in a collaborative way with a former TA of mine, Uzma Rizvi! Here's the link: http://www.saa.org/AbouttheSociety/Publications/TheSAAArchaeologicalRecord/tabid/64/Default.aspx

Lecture December 4, 2016: Archaeological Institute of America - Milwaukee. "Neighborhood Society: Ancient and Modern"

I'm pleased to announce I'll be lecturing at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee on December 4, 2016. The lecture will be part of the Archaeological Institute of America - Milwaukee chapter's active and exciting lecture series. Thank you to Dr. Elisabetta Cova for the invitation and excellent work with the series.

Casma Hinterland Archaeological Project (PAIC-CHAP) 2014 Field Season Concludes

[4 September 2014: crossposted from www.PAIC-CHAP.com and PAIC-CHAP.blogspot.com]

The 2014 Field Season of the Proyecto Arqueologico del Interior de Casma - Casma Hinterland Archaeological Project came to a close in mid-August of 2014. It was a smashing success. 

In brief, I explored - without using any invasive techniques - over 30 archaeological sites in the Casma Valley that are hypothetically related to El Purgatorio and the Casma Polity. Accordingly, it is clear that there is great potential for the next phase of the project, which will include detailed mapping, excavation, architectural, and artifact analysis. 

Those analyses will help answer questions like the following. Who was living in the Casma Valley just before the settlement of El Purgatorio (ca. AD 700-1400)? How did their settlements change - demographically, occupationally, institutionally - during the occupation of El Purgatorio? More broadly, why did people move into (or avoid) and later move out of El Purgatorio? What can the case of El Purgatorio and its hinterlands tell us more generally about urbanism in the late prehispanic period?

A summary field report will be made available to the public as soon as possible. Following a summary analysis of observations made in the field, the next step is to design a multi-component archaeological and ethnographic project and seek funding for the 2015 field season that will address the previously-presented and additional questions about the Casma Polity, communities, and cities from a global and trans-historical perspective.

Dave in a quebrada on the Sechin Branch of the Casma River

Not 'whether' but 'when' is it extortion...?

They blew the doors off of Pollos Roky ('Roky Chicken,' just in case). I don't mean that Roky's had a bang-up night at the cash register. Actually, the problem was that the cash register was too tight, stayed closed, didn't open up when it shoulda.

See, I was having an afternoon rest in my hotel room when a BOOM so loud almost shook me off the bed. I'm used to BOOMs and BANGs all the time in Casma. They're shooting off fireworks (cuetes 'full golpe') all the time here. They wake you up in the morning and they keep you up at night. Sometimes it's clear why they're blowing off the fireworks. For example, at 12:01AM on the feast of the Virgin del Carmen, you blow off some fireworks to let people know it's time to celebrate, venerate, and party.

But that one boom. That really was odd. And the next day I found out why. They blew the doors off Pollos Roky. That's to say, they threw dynamite at the doors and blew them right off. It was after hours and, by morning, the scene didn't look so bad. There just weren't any doors anymore. Roky's was a big gaping garage of a chicken shack.

Pollos Roky, ex post facto

Roky's is one of the lesser chicken chains here in Peru; but even so, I was surprised to see one in Casma. Casma is a provincial city known for it's continual sunshine, it's many schools, and its 'authenticity' as an agricultural province. It's not backwards by any means, if that's what you're thinking. It's just that country kitchens, where they stew poultry over the candela (a wood and cane-fueled open fire), are local favorites. Chains from Lima don't seem like they'd get much business.

Apparently, the local extortionists aren't getting much business either. Roky's refused to pay up on their protection money, and so they found out what they woulda been protected from.

Extortion is an interesting thing. On the surface, it's wrong. On the books, it's illegal. But as a close and brilliant friend once told me, the question isn't whether it's illegal, it's when is it illegal? In other words, there are no hard and fast lines of legality/illegality or right/wrong. These values get adjusted locally and regularly. For example, on the highway between district towns.

The highway police here are colloquially called tragamonedas. Literally, that means 'coin swallower.' Technically, tragamonedas means 'slot machine.' The highway police are always stationed somewhere or other on the roads into or out of Casma. While I have been stopped several times without incident, the same isn't so for the colectivo drivers who provide intra-district transportation up and down the coastal river valleys. Colectivo drivers regularly have their licenses, insurance, and identity cards checked. It's customary to put a 2 or 5 nuevo sol (PEN) coin under the documents when handing them to the police. 

And why not? Usually the colectivos carry more people than they're supposed to. Standard passage is 6 soles. If you fit four passengers in the vehicle, like you're supposed to, that's 24 soles in gross income. If you fit five passengers in the vehicle, then the fare is only 5 soles, but the gross is 25 soles. Everyone wins. They're just not supposed to.

Occasionally, the highway police will run a multi-day operativo, where they really crack down on transport informalities (and profit). By the time you show up to ride the colectivo, though, everyone already knows about the operativo. So the colectivos go the dusty, garbage-piled back roads that parallel the highway to avoid the police. But since everybody knows, the police are already there collecting documents and coins. Like many processes in Peru, it's a low-stakes cat and mouse game that ends up benefiting everyone a little bit in an informal economy where even the unbridled profiteering is pretty small-scale.

A similar sort of 'coin swallowing' takes on quasi-formal appearances at the entrances to several districts. Neighborhood associations and 'rondas campesinas' often set up light barricades in front of some of the rural valleys. Upon entry, vehicles pay a toll of one or two soles. In some cases you get a receipt. You might argue that you're always supposed to get a receipt. But no one always gets a receipt for anything. Anywhere. Sometimes the peajes (or tolls) are staffed by people wearing uniform vests, which are the universal sign of authority in provincial Peru.

Ostensibly tolls support the rondas, which are basically neighborhood watch 'rounds.' Alternatively, some people believe that the tolls might be used to maintain country roads beyond state support (which is extremely limited). However, you only hear that the peaje might go to road maintenance in the context of complaints that they are not at all being used for road maintenance.

Peajes are an archetypal phenomenon of Peruvian informalism. I knew one such peaje well, as I paid it every day while conducting archaeological fieldwork for my doctoral dissertation. I paid one sol each day as I entered the middle Casma Valley on the dirt road that crosses Pampa Allegre. I got a little 3cm x 3cm receipt each time. On the way out, no toll. The explanation was that there had been livestock russlin' in the area and that the toll helped monitor who went into and out of the valley.

However, what was really going - as far as I could tell - was that a fella decided to put a little shack and a gate on the entrance to the valley. He made himself a home and a job, all at the same time. The service appeared necessary enough, the rate seemed reasonable enough, and there were occasional public discussions about his work, so as to keep up appearances. All told, an informal consensus was met to let the guy live there and charge the toll. And you had to hand it to him; he rigged up the gate so he could operate it without getting out of bed.

Four years later his shack is bigger. He has some animal pens, and the toll has doubled. But he can still operate it from bed.

Extortion for protection money is a crime under the conditions that some alternative has been proposed and that people believe the alternative is superior. The alternative might be seen as more effective, more ethical, or morally proper. In a civil society, they say, the police should protect businesses. But in reality, a guy who can blow the doors off of your chicken shack is also someone who might legitimately be able to protect you against other kinds of dangers (and extortionists). Similarly, a phalanx of cops who can beat the teeth out of your head with their nightsticks during a protest are also exceptionally capable of parting the crowd when your ambulance needs to get to the ER.

It sucks that Roky's had its doors blown off. It's sort of annoying to pay peajes when you're not at all sure why you're paying. It's maddening when the police commit violence against the very people they're sworn to protect.

But in all these cases, there's some kind of tacit agreement being made somewhere. And that's the common thread that runs from mafia extortion to involuntary 'donations' for rondas campesinas to giving police officers the authority to plug you full of bullets under certain conditions. They're all interactions that have been subject to interpersonal agreements, though of varying natures and inclusivity. They all follow certain logics, even though some of those logics are believed to be valid and others are labeled as chaos. But the mafiosos will always point out that there is a logic behind organized crime, even when it's only loosely organized. On the other hand, 'legitimate' politicians across the globe will argue that - outside of civil society - there are no rules and that irrationality reigns. I'm not saying that I do or would prefer uncivil society. Not at all. Nor am I suggesting that blowing doors up is OK. I fear violence. But I also recognize that most societies are composed of multiple forms of logic and negotiation that are vying for recognition. Maybe I'm suggesting it would be better if we acknowledged those competing logics and handled them accordingly. 

In any case, for Pollos Roky (which, I might add, is located directly across from a cockfight pit), one wonders if the extortion and retribution wasn't also part of an inverted cargo system. In cargo systems, when you start getting real rich, it becomes your turn to be mayordomo of the village feast. That's your big chance to build social capital by diminishing your financial capital; it's the potlatch. Maybe Roky's was in bringing britches from Lima that were just too big for Casma. So they got blown right off.

However, in an ironic twist perfectly representative of Peruvian informality, the local Pollos Roky's is a fraud. It's not a real franchise of Roky's. They've just stolen the image, name, and theme in order to draw people away from the other myriad broasters in town. Apparently they also drew dynamite to their door.

Receipt for peaje to enter Comandante Noel district, Casma

"Noelino neighbor, friendly visitor help out with your donation for better security from the District Neighborhood Associations and national Police working together against insecurity [sic]."

Round 3: La Gringa (Part 3 of 3)

[This is a continuation of Cavia porcellus vs Ursa pacificus and Round 2: Dave vs Duck. Read those first]

There are no pictures available for this post. And that's appropriate because you can't take pictures of the stuff I'm going to write about. The theme is darkness: the darkness of the pampa at night, the darkness of the interior of my gut, and the darkness of the place where La Gringa takes you..... DP, 30 July 2014.

-----

3 August 2014.....After Harold, Susana, and I had done a solid round on the feast, we took a break and waited for Harold's friends and in-laws to stop by. Carlos and Lorenzo dropped in not too long after we had finished. As is customary, Susana prepared them heaping plates of delicious duck to eat while we conversed.

Carlos and Lorenzo are motorcycle mechanics who were preparing to take a trip up into the Callejon de Huaylas the next day. They'd head up past Yaután to Huaraz, then continue down the alley - or callejon - between the Cordilleras Negra and Blanca, towards Caraz, Carhuaz, and Yungay. We discussed my fantasy of restoring a Harley-Davidson Panhead (ca. '48-65) or just finding a vintage Honda 250cc here in Casma. While you see those old Hondas around, it turns out they've all been retrofitted with new Chinese-designed engines manufactured in India. Those are the only spare parts available.

Later, Susana's mom and dad came over for some duck and drinks. Altogether we ate and drank some wine Harold had been saving, lots of Pepsi, a few beers, and anisadoI had brought over. Anisado is anisette; I brought it and explained that my father said his parents always had anisette for guests, along with the southern Italian specialty strega ('the witch'), which is manufactured in his natal Benevento.

Susana's parents commented on how, when they were younger, they never missed a party. Living in the chacra (Quechua for 'agricultural field,' but locally slang for the countryside), parties were frequent, but far apart. Every little village in the irrigated river valley will have an occasional party with loud music, food, and often lots of beer. Susana's parents explained that they never drank much, but boy did they love to dance. They told a story of how, one time, they needed to cross the river to get to the party. So, when they approached the river, they took off their pants, waded through, dried off, and put their pants back on at the other side...all before arriving at the dance! Naturally, they had to repeat the process in reverse to get home.

Nostalgic stories of the chacra led to some interesting discussions of teratology. As I discovered during my ethnographic fieldwork of 2007, there are plenty of legends about archaeological sites in the valley. In fact, most of the valley is some kind of archaeological site, depending on how you look at it. A running theme in these stories is the danger loaded into this old and changing landscape.

We began talking, humorously, about piegrande, or Big Foot. Big Foot is not really a legend here, but with cable television and satellite dishes provided by TelMex, the History Channel is no doubt doing a great job circulating bogus stories about mythical beasts. As a stocky, bearded man, I did my best impression of the Patterson-Gimlin Film, the famous image of Big Foot hoofing it around a few boulders near Bluff Creek, California.

Before long the discussion turned a little serious, to a topic I'd never heard of: La Gringa. La Gringa ('the American woman' or 'the white woman') is reportedly an apparition that appears in the dark of the desert pampa, calling to men who pass through at night, enchanting them, and dragging them off to who-knows-where. La Gringa shares some elements of other known archaeological and Latin American legends. Many of the legends I collected in the area in 2007 developed a theme of attraction, loss, and denial. Some of these legends included huaqueros (pot-hunters) who found great stores of gold in glowing pots; but they were suddenly pulled backward, only to turn toward the pot again and find it gone. Other stories featured other-wordly creatures descending from the hilltops to bring havoc to the valley. Latin American folklore also features la llorona, a banshee-like character who enchants as she screams.

As Susana's parents, Carlos, Lorenzo and I contemplated our nighttime commute out of the chacra and back into Casma, we half-joked about La Gringa. She couldn't harm women, because they wouldn't be attracted to her. Alternatively, if we ran into her, I'd explain what was up. I'm a gringo and naturally can reason with la gringa. Of course, I could always just hop out of our mototaxi and make like Big Foot to scare off la gringa if she happened to appear.

After a couple more rounds of beer and soft drinks (note: beer here is consumed in 1-2 oz portions; 3-6 people share a 24oz beer over many rounds) we finally made our move to leave. It's hard to leave Peruvian company. The hospitality is sincere and sustained. There's always another beer, soft drink, or round of duck to share.

But, it was time. Susana's parent's loaded into their mototaxi and Carlos, Lorenzo, and I loaded into ours. We had decided that we would take the direct route out of the chacra. Instead of going down the San Rafael section of the southern branch of the Casma River - past the villages of Santa Matilde, San Francisco, and etc. - we would take a straight shot across the desolate Pampa Allegre. Pampa Allegre is an empty, long, inter-mountain pampa where you find the 3500-year old site of Pampa de las Llamas-Moxeke and the slightly-later sight of Pampa Rosario. It's also a crossroads of mining trails, sand quarries, and informal garbage dumps. None of these paths are mapped, let alone paved or lit. There is simply no light.

No one really knew this route except for me, because it was my morning commute every field season from 2004 to 2010. However, I never drove it at night.

The decision to let the gringo lead the way must have seemed completely absurd - if not deeply regrettable - almost as soon as we left the light of the village. The landscape had changed since my regular commutes, and  so I had literally lost my bearings. Where I expected to see small dusty hills, I saw pump-irrigated grape vines. When we began to bear left a little bit, I explained, "OK, we've made a turn down towards San Francisco. Not what I had planned, but it will do." This interpretation could not have cultivated confidence in my fellow passengers. Nor did it do so in me. I became increasingly concerned as the San Francisco landmarks failed to appear as they should.

It is incredibly difficult to reckon distance in the barren, monochrome, and lightless desert at night. However, soon our little headlight began to reveal unmistakable features for me. "A ha!" I exclaimed, "That's the Inca road in front of Pampa de las Llamas. Bear right!" A little further on I made out the transverse trail that cuts towards the arm of the pampa we sought. "On our right is Pampa de las Llamas, it's 3500 years old! Keep going and we'll come to the wall with a hole in it; it's also sort of a garbage dump," I hollered over the high-pitched strain of the small engine. "Bear left after the wall and we'll pass in front of Pampa Rosario...there it is! It's an Early Horizon site!"

After crossing the endless stones and empty sands of Pampa Allegre, we started to see the low glow of Casma over the cerros (low bedrock hills) before us. Cane, corn, and maracuya vines began to close in on us, enveloping the dusty path in the reassuring reflection of our own headlight. "Are Susana's parents behind us?" I asked. "Sí, están par' allí," confirmed Carlos. They're right there behind us. 

The path descended into the well-known agricultural fields, the chacras-proper, that funneled us past the extortionate 'guard house' that links the country road to the highway. Once on the highway, we were home-free. Tractor-trailers full of eucalyptus lumber from Huaraz, speeding colectivo station-wagons, and other mototaxis be damned; we had crossed the pampa at night, guided by a gringo, and hadn't had the misfortune of encountering La Gringa.

----

Or had we? I arrived home at my hotel at about 10PM. After the cold, loud, and stressful trip across the pampa it seemed a lot later. I took a shower, got into pajamas, and began relaxing for the night. While checking the Internet, I began to feel cold again. Real cold. Then I started to shiver. My teeth began to chatter. I had escalofrios. 

Escalofrios translates pretty directly to 'chills.' Usually chills are associated with cold temperatures and illness; so are escalofrios. But escalofrios, like chills, can also refer to the tremors one gets when freightened. In my limited understanding of Peruvian folkways, escalofrios go along with susto, a form of deeply-applied fright that can result from bad magic, curses, and other nefarious forms of witchery.

Whatever the case, I sat there on my bed, trembling and - at one point - realized, 'I don't think I can actually control these tremors.' I put on a sweatshirt, wool hat, and wrapped a lliclla (small blanket/wrap used for warmth and carrying things in this part of the Andes) around my head and shoulders. I climbed into bed. It wasn't particularly cold in my room, or really at all that night. But I was freezing terribly and wrapped up far more intensely than would have seemed necessary or appropriate to anyone but me. On top of it all, I felt sick to my stomach. Along with the escalofrio was estomago suelte, or 'loose stomach.'

After four hours in bed, I began to warm up. So much so that I began sweating. I thought I might have slept a little, but I'm not sure. I recognized that I was both hungry and sick to my stomach, a little cold, but also quite sweaty. My skin was pallid, but internally I felt feverish. My guts were out of sort, but I was also hungry.

I went on a late-night quest for crackers and found them up near the 24-hour stalls that service the big rigs ripping down the Panamerican Highway.

Returning home, finally, I realized it was 3am and I was not going to go to the field to climb mountains for several hours. I turned off my alarms and went to sleep again; this time I felt a bit better.

-----

In the pampa we hadn't seen La Gringa, but maybe she got in me somehow. Maybe La Gringa got inside my guts and gave me escalofrios and estomago suelte. We didn't see her, but maybe she heard us joking about her and decided to show el gringo who would have the last laugh. Or maybe I had consumed a menagerie of otherwise innocuous microbes from the country feast that laid siege to my innards. None of the Peruvians seemed unwell, but lots of other - more urban - Peruvians would have thought twice about eating a feast in a village with no running water. 

Whatever the case, something got inside me, and it was Andean. Whether one chooses a folkloric approach (aka. a structuralist approach, if you want to nerd-out like an anthropologist) or a biomedical approach depends on how one wants their engagement with the place to play out. For me, I prefer to live between the worlds of biomedical empiricism - where you only get what you can see - and structuralist explanations based in local cultural logics.

In any case, a 2-day course of Ciprofloxin from the local Chavinfarma seemed to do the trick in bringing the stomach back into order. Within two days I climbed a 900m peak. The mountain made me do it.

With lungs full of thin air...

I gave a talk yesterday at Universidad Nacional Santiago Antunez de Mayolo in Huaraz. It was a really excellent experience. I had originally planned on doing some exploring during the day before the bus trip, I realized that it would be better to travel to Huaraz during the daytime. For one, it feels like it would be safer. And, as I had remembered from 2007, the views ascending the Cordillera Negra are amazing.

The Cordillera Negra is a patchwork of greens, browns, and tans that represent myriad small agricultural fields that are quilted into the countryside. It seems that wherever people have found a sowable area on the steep mountainsides they've carved out a little rectangle for potatoes, wheat, or hearty-looking leafy greens. 

Patches of fields, eucalyptus trees, and aloe plants
of the Cordillera Negra

I spent a brief period in Huaraz in 2007 and I still remember the moment of crossing the Cordillera Negra into the Callejon de Huaylas as one of the most amazing views I'd seen in my life. As you begin to descend into the Callejon de Huaylas, you first see the Cordillera Blanca, with its snowy peaks, on the other side of the Callejon. The Cordillera Blanca is Peru's highest mountain range, home to Huascaran, the highest point in Peru and the highest mountain in all of the Tropics. At 6768m (22,205') Huascaran is the fourth highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere. Alongside Huascaran are the peaks of Huandoy and Alpomayo. ... Huaraz itself is no slouch, at 3000m (10,000') it's about twice as high as Denver, CO.

With the Cordillera Negra in foreground and
Huaraz city in shadow at center right,
the Cordillera Negra is bathed in clouds in the background.

The talk at UNASAM was really quite successful. It's always a little scary to give an academic talk at a new institution. Even more so when the institution is in a foreign country, and in a part of the foreign country that is self-styled as being very different culturally. Huaraz is a largely Quechua-speaking area, and many of the students at UNASAM are bilingual in Quechua and Spanish; many of them are primarily Quechua speakers. On top of all that, who am I - a gringo - to tell learned Peruvians about the archaeology of Peru and what it might mean to local Peruvians?!

By all accounts, though, it was a successful presentation. I explained that, in my experience, the past and present are inextricably intertwined; accordingly, archaeology and ethnography are inextricable elements of my archaeological practice. In my research at El Purgatorio, I found that "the past" - as manifested in archaeological materials - was ever-present for the people living nearby, for the archaeological remains provided both a source of meaning and a potential barrier to permanent residence in their village. As both an ethnographer and an archaeologist, I worked as best as I could to discern and attend to the needs of the people living near El Purgatorio while also completing a serious and successful archaeological excavation. As an archaeologist - a practitioner of archaeology in the present - I did my best to use my expertise in knowledge to provide those living near El Purgatorio with the information they needed to manage the issues surrounding their proximity to an archaeological site (as a foreigner, I could not physically help them with many of these issues). This explanation seemed to be well-received by the audience, which included students and professors.

The students were particularly impressive in their engagement with the issues. They agreed that archaeological projects are more than excavation; rather, they should have a social development side to them as well. After all, archaeology is one of the social sciences. Why shouldn't it have a direct-impact social dimension? This question - and an affirmative response to it - has guided much of my research and publication (see for example, "Archaeology is More Than Stones and Bones"), research influenced by both Dr. Melissa Vogel and Dr. Alan Kolata.

My friend and colleague, Lic. Jorge Gamboa, accompanied me for the entire day, right up until the bus left for Casma. Jorge is writing a really interesting book on the uncontrolled and rapid urban expansion of Trujillo, Peru. As we waited together for my bus to leave, Jorge thanked me for coming. I could only respond by explaining that it was for me to thank him. "How many people have the opportunity to come and give a talk, by invitation, to the unique and beautiful city of Huaraz, Peru?" I asked. In this case, I recognize that I'm exoticizing Huaraz a little. It's a very different place than most of the places that I haunt. But that's also what makes it so special and it's what makes the opportunity to exchange ideas with the students and faculty of UNASAM so rich. 

Jorge explained that most of the students at UNASAM are from the 'popular class.' Many are native Quechua speakers, and I imagine most are first-generation college students. It was also explained that when most think 'archaeologist' they think 'gringo.' I believe that the audience yesterday, with their enthusiasm and engagement, will quickly change those standards, and bring a new and vibrant generation to archaeology.

As I rode the bus back down the Cordillera Negra toward Casma, I snapped a picture of the sunset over the distant desert plains. The Cordillera Negra is just as beautiful at night as it is in the daytime.

With sincere thanks and enthusiastic encouragement to the students and faculty at UNASAM including Lic. Jorge Gamboa, Dr. Germán Yenque, Dr. César Serna Lamas, y Dra. Sonia Huemura.

Gracias!

Attachments:

Pacifico c Gamboa V. - 2014 - Investigaciones Antropologicas en Casma: Arqueologia, Etnografia, Comunidad y Desarollo

Pacifico - 2008 - Archaeology is More Than Stones and Bones

Sometimes adventure is lonely, sometimes it's not.

Sometimes exploring is about the people you meet. Today I went up the Sechin branch of the Casma River to the village of Huanchuy. I had initially planned to go to the formative site of Juerequeque and walk south, searching for late-period sites, but decided that I wanted to get to know the modern villages before exploring the archaeological sites at their boundaries.

It took a while for the colectivo to Huanchuy to fill up, and so my day started a little late. I ended up buying the two front seats in the colectivo because it's really uncomfortable cramming three people in the front seat of a small Toyota wagon. It was also because, as I joked, 'tengo un trasero hancho, pe.' I have a wide ass, man. Actually, this particularly self-deprecatory form of humor, which appeared to be much appreciated, was also a way of responding to the previous joke that 'el gringo tiene plata, se ha comprado dos pasajes.' The gringo has money, man, he bought two seats! For an extra $2, it was worth having the front seat all to myself on the bumpy ride to Huanchuy.

In Huanchuy, I immediately sat down on the Plaza de Armas and began taking a few notes about the villages we passed, the ruins I saw in the distance on the ride, and on some of what I had heard from the other passengers about local ruins. Before very long two elder men came and sat with me. They asked me who I was, where I'm from, and if I was on paseo, a little stroll. I explained I'm an archaeologist scouting sites for future research. As is often the case, one of the men, Feliciano Martinez (who gave me his permission to take and publish his picture) offered to take me through his chacras (agricultural fields) to visit a ruin that had been the site of huaqueo (looting). 

It seemed to me that I would get a personal introduction to a local archaeological site and I reasoned that - whatever the age of that site - there would likely be trails that led down the valley to other sites. So, together, we left the Plaza de Armas of Huanchuy for the east bank of the Sechin River Valley.

Plaza de Armas de Huanchuy

-----

Walking through the chacra Sr. Martinez explained to me the history of the area. It had been owned by hacendados named Monje and Blanco, but the land was redistributed in the 1970s during the Agrarian Reform. We walked a long time through corn fields and I noticed that the distant hills were also sown with plants. I asked if they used irrigation tubing to bring water and he explained that a combination of rain and asequia (irrigation canal) water was sufficient to sow the lower reaches of the hills; this is very uncommon in the lowest parts of the valley, where the hills are pure granitic bedrock.

-----

After crossing the chacras Sr. Martinez and I came upon an archaeological site that I decided to explore. In our exploration we went our own ways around the hillside settlement. Sr. Martinez went right to the top and I took my time exploring the terraces, taking photographs of the surface artifacts, of the architecture, and making notes about the site. I reached the top after Sr. Martinez had already made his way halfway down with a pile of cactus, or prickly pears that grow on wild cacti, called tuna. This kind of linguistic reversal from the apparent norm is not uncommon, and takes a little while to get used to. I surveyed the valley from the peak of our hillside archaeological site and then descended to share my lunch of avocados (locally, palta), pitless mandarin oranges (mandarinas sin pepa), and green olives with Sr. Martinez.

Sr. Martinez enjoying cactus

Sr. Martinez and me sharing lunch

-----

After lunch I explained to Sr. Martinez that I would follow the path south until the village of El Olivar. He confirmed that it is possible to do this, so off I went. He went back through the chacras to Huanchuy. 

My path was actually an old path that modern people thought might have been an ancient asequia. In attempting to revive the hypothetical asequia they created a very nice flat path that I followed around the contours of the quebradas (canyons), keeping an eye peeled for archaeological sites.

Path or asequia, possibly ancient, possibly modern, probably a little of both.

Before long, however, the path dissolved into the friable granite bedrock that I followed. The terrain became steep and thorny, and I was forced to descend into a very obviously modern asequia at the edge of a mango field. Before long I had to cut through the mango field and find the farm road back to El Olivar.

Following a modern asequia

Finally, I hitched a ride on a donkey cart driven by a kind man named Prospero. As we passed a small cluster of houses, all of a sudden, we heard cries of 'la carreta, la carreta, la carreta!' The cart, the cart, the cart! And so a gaggle of little children came running out of a house, ran alongside, and even jumped and hung on the back of the cart! We all laughed and eventually one of the children hollered, 'ya me bajo!' Alright, I'm getting off! And they all hopped down and scurried back to where they had come from.

B, the donkey

La carreta, la carreta, la carreta!

Announcement: Heritage Politics Lecture and Teaching Honors

This Wednesday I'll be heading to Huaraz, Peru to give a talk on archaeology, ethnography, and their interrelationship in the politics of heritage. Thanks to Jorge Gamboa and the Universidad Nacional Santiago Atunez de Mayolo for the invitation!

I've also been awarded an honorable mention in the Course Design Excellence Award from the University of Chicago Center for Teaching and Learning. According to the CCT,

"The Excellence in Course Design Award acknowledges graduate students' accomplishments in the area of course design. In particular, it recognizes graduate student instructors' clear and transparent organization of a course, clearly articulated plans to engage students in the classroom, and demonstrated ability to critically analyze student achievement of stated learning objectives."

My congratulations to the winner and the other finalists. Thanks to the CCT for their consideration and appreciation of my work!