Stable Isotope, Contextual and Functional Analysis of Early Intermediate Period Textile
from the Virú Valley (Northern Peru)
Flannery Surette1 䘼, Paul Szpak1 䘼, Christine D. White1, Fred J. Longstaffe2 and Jean-François Millaire1
DO NOT CITE IN ANY CONTEXT WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE CORRESPONDING AUTHORS
Archaeological Context
The Virú Valley is a small river drainage located on the north coast of Peru (Figure 1). The
region is characterized by nearly no annual precipitation (<1mm), with sparse natural
vegetation (xerophytic scrub with small algarroba trees) present in a landscape dominated by
agricultural plots both today and in the past. Virú is best known for the landmark settlement
pattern studies conducted in the 1940s and 1950s by Gordon Willey and others under the aegis
of the Virú Valley Settlement Project (e.g. Strong and Evans 1952; Willey 1953). Despite this,
the culture history of the region is relatively poorly understood.
The Virú polity, referred to in earlier literature as the Gallinazo people, dates to the Early
Intermediate Period (200 B.C. to 800 A.D.), a time that was characterized by increased
population size, agricultural productive capacity and the institution of a unified valley command.
Virú was previously believed to have been conquered by the Moche, whose main center lay to
the north at the Huacas de Moche (Moche Valley). Recent investigations in the valley, however,
show that the Virú polity survived to move from the Gallinazo Group (the polity’s capital) located
a few kilometers from the ocean to a new inland administrative center at Huancaco; moreover,
no evidence (e.g. destruction of architecture, north-south fortifications) has been uncovered
that suggests a Moche military conquest at any Virú polity site (Millaire 2010a). In fact,
excavations at the mid-sized regional administrative center of Huaca Santa Clara suggest that
local elites were not deposed by the Moche, but instead established diplomatic relations
involving trade in both goods and ideas (Millaire 2010b).
Recent work has revealed that the greatest potential for trade in exotic goods and for inter-
group conflict would have originated between the coastal valleys and the yungas to the east
(Millaire 2008). In Virú, a series of castillos or fortifications were built atop rock outcrops that
line the valley floor as it narrows towards the confluence of the Virú and Huacapongo rivers.
These castillos (Huaca Santa Clara, Castillo de San Juan, Castillo de Tomaval, Castillo de
Napo, Castillo de Sarraque, and Virú Viejo; Figure 1) overlook the valley floor and are visible to
each other, allowing for control over the irrigation canals as well as serving as checkpoints to
those moving to and from the valley center. No such fortifications exist on Virú’s northern or
southern margins where one can follow the coastline or cross the desert to the neighboring
coastal valleys of Moche and Chao.
Figure 1. Map of the Virú Valley showing select Early Intermediate Period sites.
Camelids and Textiles in the Andes
The South American camelids (llama and alpaca) were tremendously important in every facet
of life in the ancient Andes (Shimada and Shimada 1985). Their function as beasts of burden
was crucial to the expansion of empires and the movement of goods. Textiles manufactured
from their wool were traded extensively and were also used to communicate messages with
respect to one’s identity, community origin, social, political and economic statuses, gender, and
individual fashion choice. These textiles have been admired since the days of the Spanish
conquest for the fineness of their weave, their rich, saturated colors and intricate imagery. The
subfield of textile studies in Andean archaeology provides a new category of material culture
which is rarely accessible in other contexts. The combination of this rich contextual information
with biogeochemical (stable isotope) data allow for a much more nuanced understanding of
camelid management practices, interregional interaction and political economy.
1 Department of Anthropology, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, N6A 5C2
2 Department of Earth Sciences, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, N6A 5B7
䘼 Corresponding Authors: F. Surette (fsurette@uwo.ca) and P. Szpak (pszpak@uwo.ca)
Materials & Methods
The total textile sample from Huaca Santa Clara and the Gallinazo Group numbers at
approximately 900 examples and includes items made from camelid wool, native cotton
(Gossypium barbadense), and bast fibre (Furcraea andina). Wool samples were selected so
as not to destroy the textile or endanger its integrity but also to reflect the diversity of textile
types found in the assemblage. Prior to isotopic analysis, textile samples were sonicated in
MQ water, and treated with 2:1 chloroform-methanol for twenty-four hours.
Butchered camelid remains were recovered from Huaca Santa Clara and Gallinazo Group
through excavations carried out during 2007 and 2008. Bone collagen was extracted using a
modified Longin (1971) method. Samples were cleaned by abrasion and/or sonication,
reduced to a coarse powder and soaked in 0.50 M HCl until the mineral component of the
bone was dissolved. To remove humic acids, samples were treated with 0.10 M NaOH.
Samples were then rinsed to neutrality and hydrolyzed at 90oC for ~16 hours in 10-3 M HCl,
dried and weighed.
Isotopic analyses were performed on a Thermo Finnigan DeltaPLUSXL
continuous flow mass
spectrometer at the Laboratory for Stable Isotope Science (LSIS) at the University of Western
Ontario. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios are reported versus VPDB and
atmospheric nitrogen respectively. Precision was better than 0.1‰ for !13C and !15N.
A B
C D
Figure 2. Representations of important classes of wool textiles from Huaca Santa Clara and
Huaca Gallinazo. A) Warp-faced, striped woolen bag in undyed wool. B) Red dyed twill woolen
textile. C) Naturally colored, warp-faced textile. D) Woolen tapestry with catfish (life) motif in
dyed camelid wool.
A B
Figure 5. A) Kaolin clay stirrup spout vessel, Huaca Santa Clara. B) Braided grass belt likely
of Amazonian origin, Huaca Santa Clara.
Table 1. Mean (± 1!) stable isotope values for camelid bone collagen and wool textiles.
Results & Discussion
All bone collagen samples were characterized by C:N ratios within the acceptable range
Sample n !13C (‰) !15N (‰)
(DeNiro 1985). There was considerable variability for both !13C and !15N in bone collagen
V-59 Bone Collagen 7 -15.4 ± 3.2 7.2 ± 1.4 (Figure 3) and textiles (Figure 4). These results are summarized in Table 1.
V-67 Bone Collagen 28 -15.8 ± 2.1 6.6 ± 1.1 The majority of the textile samples were undyed; those that were dyed (n=10) did not show
significant differences in isotopic composition or relative percentages of carbon and nitrogen
V-59 Textile 6 -18.8 ± 1.4 7.6 ± 0.5 when compared to undyed samples (Student’s t-test, p=0.9055 for !13C, p=0.5866 for !15N,
p=0.829 for C:N ratio). On this basis, it is unlikely that the dye contributes significantly to the
V-67 Textile 89 -17.4 ± 1.7 7.1 ± 1.1 mass of the sample (with respect to carbon and nitrogen) and thus does not significantly
influence the isotopic composition of the fabric. This pattern, however, may not be applicable to
other dyes and dyeing processes.
There is a strong correlation between bone collagen !13C and !15N (r2=0.61) (Figure 3). This
suggests that the foods being consumed with high !13C values were also characterized by high
!15N values. There are few wild plants of the C4 variety in the Virú Valley, although corn is
known to have been an important dietary resource in the Early Intermediate Period (Ericson et
al. 1989). Thus, it is reasonable to assume that high !13C are indicative of maize and/or marine
food consumption. Marine plants have been suggested to have been consumed by camelids on
the basis of similar high !13C and !15N values in coastal animals (DeNiro 1988). Alternatively, if
maize was fertilized with seabird guano, which is plentiful on several small nearshore islands
off the coast it would be significantly enriched in 15N (Wainright et al. 1998). The extent of this
enrichment, requires verification through experimental studies.
There is no correlation between textile !13C and !15N (Figure 4). This cannot be attributed to a
simple difference between tissue-specific fractionation factors, since this would result in a
wholesale shift in !13C and !15N values (compared to bone collagen), with the overall trends in
the data remaining constant. Interestingly, the highest !15N values are coincident with the
lowest !13C values, a pattern that would be expected for animals reliant on their mother’s milk
(Polischuk 2001). The harvesting of fibre from very young animals was likely common since
fibre quality decreases with age and each successive shearing (Montes et al. 2008). This
pattern may be absent in the bone collagen data because these animals, which were
butchered, were slaughtered later in life.
Based on the differences in bone collagen and textile isotopic data, we suggest that the wool
was not obtained from a local population of camelids. A potential source area for these animals
is difficult to determine and highly speculative, but the upper valley and highlands seems likely,
especially given the habit preferences of alpacas (soft, damp pasturelands). The most
significant woolen textiles are the warp-faced, striped textiles (often made into bags) made of
natural colored fibre (Figure 2A), and weft-faced tapestry featuring coastal imagery rendered
using dyed wool (Figure 2D). The former were likely imported complete to supplement a local
bag making tradition using F. andina fibre while the latter were made from imported raw fibre or
already spun yarn by local artisans familiar with the Virú polity’s iconography and coastal
Figure 3. Camelid bone collagen !13C and !15N values. imagery.
While the wool was likely imported, the two distinct categories of textile work executed in wool
suggest that wool was being imported both as raw fibre (or yarn), as well as finished objects.
The complexity of the tapestry work with the local imagery suggests that the Virú polity invested
in a group of full- or part-time textile craftspeople. Furthermore, this evidence for the
importation of wool adds to the information from Huaca Santa Clara that the people of the Virú
Valley were importing items from other regions, as both raw materials and finished items. For
example, the Virú obtained kaolin clay from the highlands and used the material to create
vessels in local forms (Figure 5A) as well as completed items made from plaited grasses from
the Amazon (Figure 5B). Taken together, there is strong evidence for a high degree of
interregional integration within the Virú economy during the Early Intermediate Period. It is
becoming increasingly apparent that interactions with people to the east (rather than between
the coastal valleys to the north or the south) was of paramount importance.
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