PAIC-CHAP 2014 Field Season: Update from the Field

[crossposted from PAIC-CHAP blog, PAIC-CHAP.blogspot.com, 3 August 2014]

It's been a great field season so far. I arrived in Peru on July 16th and nearly immediately headed to Casma. Casma is about 470 km north of Peru's capital city, Lima. Since Casma, like Lima, is on the coast, it's a foggy desert. The dry conditions mean that the archaeological preservation here is quite good. In previous years I've recovered cloth, whole avocados, seeds, and even a desiccated fish head from archaeological contexts over 700 years old. The fog means that the mornings are cool and damp (as are the evenings sometimes), and the coastal location means that ancient people relied in part on the sea for their subsistence, as do modern people.

This field season is a non-invasive exploratory field season. I've been taking photos and leaving only footprints. In accordance with Peruvian law, I have not been collecting artifacts. Observations and photos provide plenty of information for planning a multi-year excavation project for the near future, ideally beginning next June or July.

In the interest of preserving the archaeological sites, I won't publish their exact locations at this time. But I can explain - in general terms - what I've been up to.

I've largely been exploring the Sechin branch of the Casma River Valley, looking for later-period archaeological sites that will provide fruitful data for advancing our knowledge of the Casma Polity, pre-Hispanic cities and their hinterlands, and how villages, neighborhoods, and other kinds of communities interact and change over time. For some comparative data, I've also been visiting a few sites in the Casma branch of the Casma River Valley.

'Exploring' isn't exactly the best word to use to describe my field research this summer. Exploring sounds like I'm out there fishing for shiny artifacts! Rather, I've been systematically working my way down the valley between two well-known villages. As I make my way, following ancient trails and irrigation canals at the edge of the irrigated valley floor, I look for signs of ancient habitation. Specifically, I'm interested in settlements that might have been occupied before, during, and after the site of El Purgatorio (ca. AD 700-1400 [Vogel 2012; Vogel and Pacifico 2011]) and especially before, during, and after Purgatorio's commoner residential district, Sector B (Pacifico 2014).

There are a couple of key clues that one might find on the surface that tell us the who, what, and when of archaeological sites. First, you're likely to see human-made walls that have survived from long-abandoned buildings. Walls are usually made of piled stone. Sometimes they have mortar, and occasionally they're made of adobe. Walls don't have to stick up out of the ground, either. A lot of the walls in this area are retaining walls that supported large settlements climbing way up the foothills of the Cordillera Negra here. If you can imagine what a Brazilian favela might look like, you start to get an idea of what a lot of the late-period (ca. AD 1000-1400) settlements looked like in this area. Now imagine that all the favela's houses have been removed. That's what you might see today.

Horizontal striations on this mountain are likely ancient residential terraces

You're also likely to see two or three kinds of 'portable' artifacts on the surface. The most telling artifacts are decorated ceramic fragments. If you're lucky, you get fragments with really clear 'diagnostic' elements on them. For example, from my experience I know that certain ceramic decorative motifs are typical of 12th-15th century Casma Polity settlements. Incised circles and dots are very diagnostic of Casma Polity settlements. When I find those on the ground, I've got a good clue that the site I'm at was occupied, visited, or in contact with the people at El Purgatorio sometime between the 12th and 15th centuries.

At center-left you can see a ceramic fragment,
probably the shoulder of an olla or cooking pot,
with the incised circle-and-dot characteristic of later-period Casma Polity sites

In addition to ceramic fragments, marine shells and bones (usually human). Marine shells are important indicators of human settlements because the middle sections of the Casma River branches are approximately 30km from the sea. If you find marine shells there, you know that someone hauled them 30km to get to the mid-valley, and then hauled them uphill. That's a pretty intensive effort that indicates a complex and extensive trade network for marine foods. It also indicates that the site you're at was a storage, habitation, or food processing site - or some combination.

Bones appear on the surface a lot, too. Bleached bones have been sitting on the surface a long time. Human bones tell you that you're at a site that was used as a cemetery. Unfortunately, the reason they're on the surface is that lots of cemeteries have been subject to unauthorized digging, locally called huaqueo. Another word for unauthorized digging is 'looting.' I choose to use the term unauthorized digging, or better huaqueo, for reasons explained elsewhere. 

Wall exposed by unauthorized digging. Ceramic, bone,
and small muscle shell fragments just below center-right.

There are only a few days left here in the field, and I look forward to examining several more sites in the mid-valleys of the Casma and Sechin branches of the Casma River. I expect to log a few more sites, leaving Casma with lots of excellent data for planning and funding a multi-year excavation project. 

Dave exploring a quebrada in the middle Sechin branch of the Casma River Valley

References:

Pacifico, D. (2014). Neighborhood Politics: Diversity, Community, and Authority at El Purgatorio, Peru. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Chicago Department of Anthropology.

Vogel, M. (2012). Frontier Life in Ancient Peru: The Archaeology of Cerro La Cruz. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

Vogel, M. and D. Pacifico (2011). Arquitectura de El Purgatorio: Capital de la Cultura Casma. In Andes 8: Boletín del Centro de Estudios Precolombinos de la Universidad de Varsovia;  Arqueología de la Costa Ancash edited by I. Ghezzi and M. Gierz (pp. 357-397). University of Warsaw, Warsaw.

Travelogue 19 July 2014, Part 2 of 2

As a kid I always wanted to go on adventures. I lived in a suburb, then an exerb, then another – more remote and older – exurb. We’d play in the woods and explore them, though we knew that on the other side of the woods was another development just like ours. Knowing that your adventures are limited to the area in-between doesn’t diminish the sense of adventure, not even in hindsight. There was something legitimately revelatory in finding the plywood shacks that older kids used for chewing tobacco and looking at dirty magazines. Even more exciting was finding the remains of old buildings that had fallen out of use when the farmland (it’s always farmland) was converted into a development.

Yet, the legitimacy of those childhood adventures doesn’t diminish the experience of finding archaeological sites at the edges of Peru’s rural valleys.

Today I took a trip up to Yaután. I’d always wanted to go there, as it seems my years of experience in this part of Peru are pretty concentrated in the provincial city of Casma itself. The trip to Yaután and, ultimately, the sites of Palka and its neighbors highlighted for me all the wonderful things about Peru, Peruvians, and Peruvian exploration in search of archaeological sites.

Last night as I did a turn around Casma, I checked in with the ‘colectivos’ that run to Yaután. Colectivos are semi-private autos that do fixed runs between small towns. They usually hold 4 passengers, plus the driver, and can range in quality from later-model Toyota wagons to very early Mopar vehicles. When they’re full, they go. The fare (pasaje) is cheap and – increasingly – posted in the windshield. The colectivos (which also refers to the vehicle, not just the service) get filled up by callers barking out the destination. They’ll identify people, point at them and call out – inquisitively – “YAUTÁN!”

As a gringo, this technique always tips me off as to where people think I fit in. Callers often look at me and holler, “Huaráz!,”because Huaráz is the mountain sports capital of this area (and maybe all of Peru).

Last night I conversed with the colectivo caller and he explained they run from 4am to about 9pm back and forth to Yaután. I said I wasn’t going that night, but would the next day. Well, today he remembered me. I walked up and he said “Ya vez? Yaután!”… “See! Yaután,” ‘cuz he knew I’d return. However, I needed some AA batteries and asked when we’d be leaving “ahorita!” he said. I always understand ahorita to mean, ‘in a couple minutes.’ It’s the Peruvian version of the proper usage of ‘presently’ in English.

I said I needed some AA batteries, would get them, and then return. But another caller resting on a bench in the colectivo garage corrected me. “En Yaután también hay!” It’s hard to explain the charm of this phrasing. To me it translates pretty directly as “They got’em in Yaután, too!” But the light sarcasm floating over the totally factual – and helpful – statement defies easy appreciation. The resting caller was right, they have AA batteries in Yaután. I wanted to get there and so did the 3 other guys waiting in the wagon to hit the road to Yaután.

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The road to Yaután cuts in between the two branches of the Casma River. The south branch is properly called the Casma River and the north branch is the Sechin River. They meet about at the town of Casma and then flow past the Port of Casma into the Pacific Ocean.

The road between these branches cuts between a series of large, rocky, and almost completely barren mountains. The landscape is lunar or Martian in appearance: authentically extraterrestrial. Of course, this is because it really is an extra terrestrial landscape. It was formed under the ancient shoreline by volcanic activity and gradually elevated by tectonic uplift. These geologically recent origins also explain the distinctive pointy peaks of these Andean foothills, and probably why there are so many large rocks on top of granitic bedrock. All the sand was washed away by the ancient ocean or blown away by more recent winds. Indeed, there are some ancient fossils of bivalves in the hills, but very few plants in between Casma and Yautan, which is to say cutting between two sets of these mountains.

Eastward view of the mountains between the Sechin and Casma Rivers,
between Casma and Yautan

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Peru might be a small country, but Peruvian downs are definitely small towns. After only a little discussion about what I, a gringo, might be doing in Yautan, it turned out that the director of public relations was in the front seat of the colectivo. He was eager to help me find my way to the archaeological sites in the area, especially Palka. He explained that from the Plaza de Armas - the obligatory central square in every Peruvian town - I could take a mototaxi to the dirt path down the valley that would take me to Palka. He helped me find the taxi and off we went.

Yautan's Plaza de Armas

Now, I wasn't particularly interested in Palka. I know it's a very old site (i.e. Formative or Pre-Ceramic, ca. 2000BC or older). I also knew that the university in Huaraz had been doing projects there and found a Middle Horizon (ca. AD 500) settlement there, too. However, I reasoned that if there were an archaeological site in easy reach, there would be a path, too. Usually the sites are perched on the border between the cerros and the agricultural land and linked by worn footpaths. I could go check out Palka and then continue on looking for the archaeological sites that I'm interested in, which date to about AD 1000-1500. 

I found Palka and a pathway that I followed westward for a while. There were indeed some other archaeological sites, but I won't comment on them here. Instead, I want to comment on some unexpected finds.

Main temple terraces and mound at Palka (middle ground).
Notice that it mimics the mountains in the background

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On my way down from the walk through Palka's trails, I noticed a series of aluminum cans filled with charred corn fiber. At first, I thought these cans were used to create smoke for harvesting honey from any one of the many beehives that are found around these sandy, rocky cerros. However, many - if not all - of these cans were arranged along the trail, as if to illuminate it. 

Why would someone be illuminating a trail to an 'unimproved' archaeological site? My guess is that there are rituals of some sort that take place here at night. Archaeological sites remain important places for modern rituals ranging from the occult to overt nationalist purposes (e.g., Evo Morales being sworn in at Tiwanaku, Bolivia and Alejandro Toledo and his wife holding important political events in Cusco's sacred sites).

I wish I could have done more investigating of this mystery. On the one hand, I fully recognize and appreciate non-academic uses of archaeological sites. I think it's essential that archaeologists not monopolize the use and interpretation of sites. On the other hand, if I knew who was doing what out there, I might be able to provide some pointers on safe and sustainable practices for preserving the site for continued and future use by academics and non-academics alike.

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Archaeology, like any job, can lose its joy rather quickly. The most romantic notions of archaeology are pretty well wrecked as soon as you start that umpteenth day sifting sand for the same small scraps of broken ceramic vessels. The first time you run a project, you get a crash-course in endless acid reflux. Archaeology becomes a series of frustrations with broken equipment, bureaucratic barriers, and bundles of paperwork - much of it of your own making.

Yet exploration of millennial archaeological sites reminds me of the thrill of adventure. It feels like real exploration, real adventure. It really does.

Looking north over the Palka River/Rio Grande, 19 July 2014