María Cecilia Lozada and Henry Tantaleán - Andean Ontologies - New Archaeological Perspectives-University Press of Florida (2019)

Andean Ontologies
University Press of Florida

Florida A&M University, Tallahassee
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton
Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers
Florida International University, Miami
Florida State University, Tallahassee
New College of Florida, Sarasota
University of Central Florida, Orlando
University of Florida, Gainesville
University of North Florida, Jacksonville
University of South Florida, Tampa
University of West Florida, Pensacola
AN DEAN
ONTOLOG I E S
New Archaeological Perspectives
pppppppppppp
Edited by María Cecilia Lozada and Henry Tantaleán

Gainesville · Tallahassee · Tampa · Boca Raton
Pensacola · Orlando · Miami · Jacksonville · Ft. Myers · Sarasota
Copyright 2019 by María Cecilia Lozada and Henry Tantaleán
All rights reserved
Published in the United States of America.
This book may be available in an electronic edition.
24 23 22 21 20 19 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lozada, María Cecilia, editor. | Tantaleán, Henry, 1974– editor.
Title: Andean ontologies : new archaeological perspectives / edited by María
Cecilia Lozada and Henry Tantaleán.
Description: Gainesville : University Press of Florida, 2019. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018047756 | ISBN 9780813056371 (cloth : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Ontology—History. | Indians of South America—Andes
Region—History. | Ontologism—History.
Classification: LCC BD357 .A53 2019 | DDC 111.0985/0902—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018047756
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This book is dedicated to Charles Stanish
Mentor, Inspiration, and Friend
ppp
Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Tables xiii
Preface xv
Henry Tantaleán and María Cecilia Lozada
1. Andean Ontologies: An Introduction to Substance 1

Henry Tantaleán
2. Huaca Salango: A Sacred Center on the Coast of Ecuador 49
Richard Lunniss
3. Analogism at Chavín de Huántar 79
Nicco La Mattina and Matthew Sayre
4. Indigenous Anatomies: Ontological Dissections of the Indigenous
Body 99
María Cecilia Lozada
5. Moche Corporeal Ontologies: Transfiguration, Ancestrality, and Death;
A Perspective from the Late Moche Cemetery of San José de Moro,
Northern Peru 116
Luis Armando Muro, Luis Jaime Castillo, and Elsa Tomasto-Cagigao
6. Moche Mereology: Synecdochal Ontologies at the Late Moche Site
of Huaca Colorada, Peru 150
Giles Spence-Morrow and Edward Swenson
7. The Head as the Seat of the Soul: A Medium for Spiritual Reciprocity
in the Early Andes 183
Mary Glowacki
8. Toward a Situated Ontology of Bodies and Landscapes in the
Archaeology of the Southern Andes (First Millennium AD, Northwest
Argentina) 213
Benjamin Alberti and Andres Laguens
9. Ontological Foundations for Inka Archaeology 240

Bruce Mannheim
10. A Past as a Place: Examining the Archaeological Implications of the

Aymara Pacha Concept in the Bolivian Altiplano 271
Juan Villanueva Criales
11. Rock Art, Historical Ontologies, and the Genealogy of Landscape:

A Case Study from the Southern Andes (30° lat. S) 301
Andrés Troncoso
12. Final Commentaries: A Matter of Substance, and the Substance

of Matter 332
Catherine J. Allen
List of Contributors 347

Index 351
Figures
0.1. The main archaeological sites and cities in the volume xvii
2.1. Map showing the relation of Salango to other coastal Ecuadorian sites
mentioned 51
2.2. Map of the area of the Salango sanctuary 53
2.3. Plan of the Middle Engoroy House 55
2.4. Plan of the Late Engoroy Platform 58
2.5. The head of a spirit being modeled on the Late Engoroy whistling bottle
from the shaman’s grave 60
2.6. Sector 141B of the Bahía II funerary enclosure 62
2.7. The spirit being on a Salaite ware double bottle 65
2.8. Heads of the male-female spirit being 66
2.9. Early Guangala male anthropomorphic whistling figurine 66
2.10. Bahía II female anthropomorphic whistling figurine 68
2.11. Composite Early Guangala vessel base in the form of a spirit
being 69
3.1. Chavín de Huántar and site sectors 80
3.2. Roll-out drawing of the Black and White Portal 86
3.3. Tello Obelisk 88
5.1. Evidence of feasting associated with Late Moche chamber tombs
MU-1525 and MU-1727 123
5.2. Moche sculptural vessel depicting an act of corpse manipulation 126
5.3. Evidence of postmortem corporeal modifications within Chamber
MU-1525 127
MU-1727 129
MU-2111 131
5.6. Evidence of postmortem alteration of Os coxae in Chamber MU-1525
133
5.7. Human skulls registered within short-term structures located at funerary
patios of San José de Moro 133
5.8. Face-neck jars with ancestor imagery registered embedded in the
occupational floors of funerary patios at San José de Moro 136
6.1. Map of Jequetepeque with location of Huaca Colorada 159
6.2. Map of Huaca Colorada sectors 160
6.3. Isometric model of the Western Chamber and Eastern Terrace in
relation to each other 162
6.4. Construction phases of the Western Chamber 162
6.5. Comparison of Moche iconographic representation of the cover
platform 163
6.6. Sacrificial locations in relation to the eastern public ramp and platform
complex and the western private platform chamber 164
6.7. Human sacrifice 166
6.8. Eastern public platform 167
6.9. Post emplacements in the eastern public platform terrace 168
6.10. Ramp iconography 170
6.11. Sacrificial burials and Tumi knife 171
6.12. Pregnant sacrifice in situ beneath clay floor cap and in relation to eastern
ramped platform reduction 172
7.1. Drawing of Paracas ecstatic shaman in flight and drawing of Paracas
ecstatic shaman in the process of transformation 190
7.2. Moche effigy vessel showing human’s alter ego, his animal self 191
7.3. Images of the Raimondi Stella 193
7.4. Chavín tenon heads, ordered to illustrate the process of transformation
194
7.5. Image of Chavín figure exhibiting elements of kenning 196
7.6. Inca headdress with human hair braids 197
7.7. Nazca human effigy head bowl 199
8.1. Map of the geographic areas mentioned in the text 226
8.2. La Candelaria zoomorphic ceramic vessel 228
8.3. The yungas 229
x Figures
8.4. Tafi del Valle 229
8.5. The Santamaria Valley 230
8.6. Vase from the La Candelaria core area 231
10.1. Different scales of the concept of pacha 275
10.2. Location of Pariti Island, Condoramaya, and K’amacha and Kusillavi,
Carangas 278
10.3. Decorative motifs in Pariti ceramics 280
10.4. Relationship between the chronological origin of icons and vessel
shapes 282
10.5. Similar relationships of opposition, regarding decorative structure,
between ceramic jars and bowls, and between textile mantles (awayus)
and sacks of the central altiplano 285
10.6. Distribution of ceramic offerings related to burials from the
Condoramaya cemetery 286
10.7. Location of settlements and chullpares in southwestern Carangas 289
10.8. Distribution of ceramic pastes according to their sources, southwestern
Carangas 290
11.1. Map of Valle El Encanto 303
11.2. Some examples of rock paintings and bedrock mortars in Valle El
Encanto (Moment I) 309
11.3. Distribution of rock paintings in the site 310
11.4. Central sector of Valle El Encanto during Moment I, showing the
large outcrop and the most-painted rock of the site associated with the
outcrop 311
11.5. Some examples of the petroglyhs of Moment II 314
11.6. Comparison of the depth of the petroglyph grooves at Moment II and
Moment III 315
11.7. Distribution of petroglyphs of Moment II in the site 317
11.8. Some examples of petroglyphs of Moment III 319
11.9. Distribution of petroglyphs of Moment III in the site indicating the
placement of heads 321
Figures xi
Tables
2.1. Distribution of excavated Early Regional Development burials

at Salango 62
3.1. Connections between religious authority and practice 90
Preface
As Andean archaeologists, our interpretations regarding how pre-Hispanic so-

cieties viewed and experienced their world is rooted in our own experience
and praxis. When dealing with the past, we are confronted with diverse and
complex challenges surrounding the examination of themes such as ancestral
knowledge, worldviews, and the valorization of past and contemporaneous in-
digenous societies.
After many long conversations about archaeological practice, interpreta-
tion, and theoretical tendencies in Peru, we decided to open a dialogue on this
subject by organizing a symposium at the Society for American Archaeology
Meeting of 2016, in which we invited an international group of scholars from
different academic traditions and generations. As the goals of their research
were very much aligned with ours, we wanted to discuss new theoretical and
methodological approaches that have been used to evaluate these themes.
In addition to archaeologists, we invited other colleagues from the fields of
bioarchaeology, art history, ethnohistory, and linguistics in order to create a
multidisciplinary perspective on past and current Andean ontologies.
Our symposium in Orlando was well attended, and the papers were in-
novative and thought-provoking. We had productive engagements with our
guests, participants, and researchers, all of whom shared their own opinions
and work regarding indigenous worldviews. These works offered unique in-
sight into ways in which indigenous groups conceptualized and experienced
the world around them, including the landscape, notions of time, the relation-
ship between beings, objects, and life and death cycles. Before the SAA meet-
ing, we received an invitation from Meredith Babb to consider publishing the
papers presented in this symposium through the University Press of Florida.
Since the meeting in Orlando, we have solicited and received manuscripts
from participants in the conference and other invited scholars, which serve
as the basis for this volume. It is our hope that the Andean perspective of the
world, encapsulated in this book, will stimulate further discussions regarding
these topics alongside perspectives from other parts of the world.
The Chapters in This Book
This book is made up of research from different geographical and temporal

contexts. Unlike other published treaties that focus on the Central Andes of
Peru, our intention from the beginning was to incorporate perspectives from
multiple South American countries such as Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, and Ar-
gentina (see figure 0.1, which illustrates the main archaeological sites and cities
mentioned in this book). It is also important to point out that a majority of
the research in this book was conducted by native researchers. As a result of
having published in Spanish, their work is mostly known in Spanish-speaking
contexts. By translating these works, we seek to connect people from different
nationalities and academic backgrounds in an effort to democratize a long-
overdue dialogue among researchers working in different regions of the Andes.
As stated earlier, the contributors are not only archaeologists, but bioarchae-
ologists, linguists, and art historians as well. This multidisciplinary approach
helps to ensure a multifaceted perspective on Andean ontologies. Altogether,
the publication of this book in English will help with the dissemination of this
localized research, serving as a comparative platform for other Andean, and
even non-Andean, studies.
In the first chapter, Henry Tantaleán offers a roadmap that introduces the
readers to the sources and current debates regarding Andean ontologies. Tan-
taleán defines and discusses essential notions of the Andean worldview that
will be explored throughout the book. This chapter is followed by research or-
ganized chronologically and geographically, showcasing diverse themes and ap-
proaches from their respective authors.
Richard Lunnis, a British researcher living in Ecuador, offers a rich inter-
pretation of Salango, one of the most important ceremonial centers, or huacas,
on the Ecuadorian coast. The unique features of Salango, dating back to the
Formative Period, highlight its fundamental role as a powerful ritual center
in the past, where many ontological principles were enacted and reproduced
for several centuries. Lunnis reconstructs a complex history of events from its
initial use until the arrival of the Spaniards.
xvi Preface
Figure 0.1. The main archaeological sites and cities in the volume.
Chavín de Huántar has been at the heart of archaeological research in Peru

for decades. Nicco La Mattina and Matthew Sayre propose a novel interpreta-
tion of this formative site located in the north highlands of Peru. This famous
Andean pilgrimage center is interpreted using a Descolian perspective, adding
another dimension to the long tradition of studies initiated by Peruvian archae-
ologist Julio C. Tello.
In the following chapter, María Cecilia Lozada discusses three bioarchaeo-
logical case studies that illustrate the ways in which the body, society, and
Preface xvii
the landscape interacted as a unit in the past. Her interpretation is based on
indigenous definitions of the human body, ethnohistorical accounts, human
remains to evaluate life cycles of the living and the dead, gender construction,
and sickness ideology.
We have recovered important information about past societies from the ex-
cavation of monumental tombs and cemeteries from the north coast of Peru. In
a study written by Luis Muro, Luis Jaime Castillo, and Elsa Tomasto-Cagigao,
the concepts of the social and physical body are fully discussed from a theoreti-
cal perspective at the famous Moche site of San José de Moro. These authors
reconstruct the process of ancestralization of the Moche bodies through a de-
tailed study of the physical remains of the dead, their position, and location in
the site unique to this coastal society.
Close to San José de Moro, one finds Huaca Colorada, also affiliated with the
Moche. Based on a rich and textured analysis of the archaeological contexts,
Giles Spence-Morrow and Edward Swenson evaluate the architectonic changes
and transformations of Huaca Colorada alongside evidence of human sacrifices
in an effort to examine the significance of such events within a unique Moche
worldview.
Mary Glowacki centers her study on the meaning of the human head in mul-
tiple Andean contexts, from the Formative Period onward. Using a comparative
analysis of ethnographic, ethnohistorical, and archaeological sources, Glowacki
explains how the head was a symbol of power, with inherent regenerative prop-
erties. Through this symbolism and perceived power, the head served as a locus
of personhood and energy in the Andes.
Benjamin Alberti and Andrés Laguens take us to the northwest part of Ar-
gentina and discuss the La Candelaria tradition. Initially settled in the yunga
area, the inhabitants of La Candelaria expanded to other ecological niches.
These authors interpret the expansion of La Candelaria using Amazonian Per-
spectivism, as opposed to Murra’s verticality model. In this respect, the body
and the landscape are seen as a complete and malleable unit that could adapt to
other geographical contexts.
Bruce Mannheim brings a linguist’s perspective to the discussion of Inka
ontological perspectives with his vast knowledge of Quechua. Mannheim dis-
cusses the complexities that exist in approaches to reconstruct dimensions of
ontologies in the past, as these are bounded by highly contextualized social
activities. In addition, he includes in his discussion the importance of un-
derstanding the allocentric nature of Quechua, as opposed to the egocentric
xviii Preface
nature of Spanish and English. This distinction is important as the two repre-
sent significantly different frames of reference. Knowledge of the world and
interrelationships with its components is yet another theme that needs to be
considered when attempting to reconstruct worldviews of the past.
Juan Villanueva Criales deals with archaeological contexts from Bolivia.
His research encompasses a rich discussion about the pacha term that simul-
taneously encapsulates the concepts of time (temporality) and place (spatial
location). His detailed ethnohistorical, iconographic, and archaeological stud-
ies allow the interpretation of the notion of pacha within three archaeological
settings in the Andes, although manifested in a variety of ways. Villanueva’s
study highlights the need for highly contextualized and multidisciplinary in-
terpretations of the archaeological record to prevent generalizations based on
the uncritical use of ethnohistorical research.
From a different angle, area, and materiality, Troncoso offers an ontological
study of the landscape and rock art in the central north of Chile. In his study,
he develops an approximation of the historical dynamics of pre-Hispanic on-
tologies based on an evaluation of the production and consumption of rock
art at a specific site in the southern Andes. He develops a genealogy of the
Valle El Encanto site, which shows a sequence of occupation and production
of rock art from the beginning of the late Holocene (circa 2000 a.C.) until
contact with the Spanish Empire (circa 1530 d.C.) by hunter-gatherer and ag-
ricultural societies.
Finally, Catherine Allen, who has inspired much of the research in this vol-
ume, offers a rich analysis of each of the chapters. She threads common themes
and delineates the overarching implications of these research approaches for
Andean archaeology as a whole. Her extensive knowledge of Andean ethnog-
raphy serves as a powerful framework within which to evaluate the ontological
studies that make up this volume.
Acknowledgments
The editors wish thank the authors who have contributed to this book. Some
of the presenters in the SAA symposium, such as Tamara Bray, were not able
to provide a chapter although their participation in Orlando enriched our
perspectives. We also extend our gratitude to Gary Urton for his comments
on the first version of this manuscript. From the moment this project started,
Meredith Babb from the University Press of Florida has provided invaluable
Preface xix
assistance and important insights that have helped shape this volume. Three
anonymous reviewers gave us significant and constructive commentaries.
Thanks to them we have enhanced this book. Some of the texts were trans-
lated from Spanish to English, and significant editorial comments were pro-
vided by Brandy Norton, Claudia Giribaldi, Ariel Singer, and Sylvia Cheever
from the University of Chicago. Charles Stanish offered a generous travel
grant to Henry Tantaleán through the Cotsen Institute to travel and attend
the meetings in Orlando.
Henry Tantaleán
María Cecilia Lozada
xx Preface
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1
Andean Ontologies
An Introduction to Substance
H e n ry Ta n ta l e á n
In ancient times the sun died. Because of his death it was night for
five days. Rocks banged against each other. Mortars and grinding
stones began to eat people. Buck llamas started to drive men.
(The Huarochirí Manuscript, circa 1598. In Salomon 1991: 53)
Humans have long reflected on the reasons why they inhabit a changing world
and have always questioned the nature of that world. Most importantly, hu-
mans have explored different conceptualizations and understandings of the
substances from which objects and beings (including humans) are made, as
well as the forces that animate them. In this context, thinking about the world
and its constituent elements—essentially generating philosophical thought—is
an inherent and fundamental human quality.
Nevertheless, the historical and philosophical display of reality is mostly
viewed from Eurocentric and anthropocentric perspectives. Contemporaneous
hegemonic thought has become the dominant frame through which to interpret
the world. This is mostly the result of Western colonialism, which forced the
adoption of westernized worldviews globally through the subordination, per-
secution, and exclusion of other perceptions, beliefs, and forms of knowledge.
This process is quite evident in the Andes.
More and more, scholars have become aware of this bias. Social researchers
know that even though these worldviews were ignored, these societies main-
tained their own ways of explaining their world.1 Their perception and under-
standing of the world provided, and continues to provide, a frame for their
material and ideal existence, if there is, in fact, a differentiation among these
types of existence.
This awareness is quite evident, and even necessary, when dealing with non-
literate societies of the past. The lack of written records does not allow scholars
to know and discuss profound and complex themes, for instance, knowledge of
how reality was conceived, the substances from which objects and beings are
made, and their essences. An understanding of past peoples’ ontologies and
theories of reality is essential in comprehending their views on vital reproduc-
tion and relationships with other nonhuman beings.
Fortunately, in the last few decades within the social sciences realm, there
has been a substantial change known as the “ontological turn” (Alberti 2016;
Kohn 2015). This theoretical approach has been essential in challenging Euro-
centric, modernist, and anthropocentric perspectives of the world. In this way,
there is a significant theoretical corpus from different fields, such as sociology
(Latour 1993, 1999, 2005), art history (Osborne and Tanner 2007), anthropology
(Gell 1998), ethnography (Descola 2013 [2005]; Viveiros de Castro 1998, 2014
[2009]) and archaeology (Ingold 2000). It is precisely in this vein that there
are some important theoretical contributions in archaeology. For instance, it
is understood that objects and other beings have a similar status to humans
in the construction of the world in what is known as symmetrical archaeolo-
gies (Olsen 2012; Olsen et al. 2012; Webmoor 2012), the theory of objects (Lull
2007), entanglement theory (Der and Fernandini 2016; Hodder 2012, 2016) and
relational archaeologies (Watts 2013).
In parallel, critiques of the Western views on how to practice and think about
archaeology have been developed in the last decades through decolonizing ar-
chaeologies (Gnecco 1999, 2013; Haber 2009, 2016; Hamilakis 2016), indigenous
archaeologies (Atalay 2006, 2008; Nicholas 2001; Smith and Wobst 2005), and
archaeological proposals inspired by Amerindian perspectivism (Lau 2013;
Weismantel 2013). These three perspectives have also emerged in part due to
the richness and continuity of indigenous traditions in the Americas.
As a result, an ontologic turn was generated to explain indigenous societies,
especially “Amerindian societies” (sensu Viveiros de Castro 2014 [2009]), not
from a classical and external view, but instead from an internal, innovative and
localized view. These perspectives have incorporated worldviews from the same
2 Henry Tantaleán
indigenous societies. This turn has also been accompanied by a methodologi-
cal change that invites researchers to reflect upon the sources to be considered
when explaining the indigenous perspectives of these societies. In many ways,
this book contributes to such changing viewpoints.
As will be discussed in this chapter, many of these studies have been influ-
enced by work conducted in the Andes from the beginning of the twentieth
century. In this way, there exists an important tradition in the utilization of
indigenous perspectives for the explanation of the South American past, which
emerged from local, as well as a few international, scholars. These studies have
become visible, and are enhanced, through recent and contemporaneous West-
ern academic practices.
Andean Ontologies
How did the inhabitants of the pre-Hispanic Andes understand their world?
Which beings, substances, and forces formed these worlds? What were the re-
lationships between humans, animals, plants, objects, and landscapes? What
explanations were given to understand events and changes?
All of these questions may be thought of as mostly philosophical or meta-
physical; however, they are based on the experience and empirical knowledge
of the world, both past and present (Broda 2018: 4; Mannheim and Salas Car-
reño 2015; Swenson 2015). Ontology deals with questions related to being and
existence. In the past, as well as today, there were various ontologies, even syn-
chronic, that cohabited within a spacial and temporal frame as extensive as
the Andean region and with a long prehistory (see also Trever et al. 2009: 11).
The challenge, of course, will always be to try to adapt any recovered ontology
from a particular spacial and temporal context to a different archaeological and
anthropological setting. I think that, epistemologically and methodologically,
the use of ontological Andean categories can contribute significantly to our un-
derstanding of social practices in this part of the world. In fact, as demonstrated
by the history of archaeology (Trigger 2006), the praxis of scholars dealing with
the past has always been characterized by the use of Western ontologies. In this
sense, I believe that, at the heuristic level, Andean ontological concepts possess
an important explanatory potential that complements Western explanations,
and that they are worth exploring. As will be seen in this book, Andean ontolo-
gies fit very well when applied to local contexts, in contrast to Anglo-Saxon on-
tological concepts or other European models derived from ethnographic cases,
Andean Ontologies: An Introduction to Substance 3

which are spatially and temporally removed from the Andes. When using such
concepts, it is important to highlight the fact that the adaptation of Andean
ontologies to pre-1532 realities will depend, for the most part, on the nature of
the archaeological contexts to be studied (also see Swenson 2015).
It is also necessary to keep in mind that the Incas, the late pre-Hispanic em-
pire of the Andes, imposed an official culture and a dominant ideology which
was used to establish order and to justify their power within conquered ter-
ritories (Silverblatt 1990: xxiv). As such, one needs to be cautious when using
certain Inca notions across all Andean settings, cultures, and time periods, as
they most likely represent a narrative developed by one particular indigenous
group in a specific period of time, and in part by the Cuzco elite. As such, this
book does not seek to essentialize the ancient and present peoples of the Andes
under a single ontology or understanding, as this would not encapsulate the di-
versity of philosophies, ideologies, and worldviews adopted by Andean cultures
and peoples throughout time (discourse also known as “Lo Andino”).
For this reason, it is also important to emphazise the fact that, in a society,
there are not only general ways in which to interpret the world, but there are
also particular, coexisting ways in which to view the world. Depending on the
nature of the organization of a society, ontologies may even be in conflict (see
Salomon 2018, chap. 6, for a discussion from the ethnography). This happens,
for instance, when a community is invaded by another, or when, in the same
society, a new view of the world is generated (also known as an ideology) by
elites (or other social groups with power) and forced upon the rest of the society
(Patterson 1987). These ontologies in conflict need to be “situated,” “tied,” and
“adjusted” in order to fit the archaeological and social context under scrutiny.
In this book, the authors offer a variety of case studies whose main goal is to
“situate” ontologies in the empirical field.
Thus, in this book the authors support the existence of a variety of Andean
ontologies, defining the Andean region as the vast areas that encompass the
coastal shores watered by the Pacific Ocean, the Andean mountains, and the ar-
eas that stretch to the eastern slopes of the Andes (see also Depaz 2015: 21). This
region overlies the countries of Colombia, Ecuador, Perú, Bolivia, Chile, and
Argentina and coincides with two of the most widely spoken native language
families in the area: Quechua and Aymara (Mannheim 2018).
This book is not the first attempt in this effort. In fact, in the last few decades
there have been significant discussions of Andean ontologies (Bray 2015; Depaz
2015; Jennings and Swenson 2018; Quilter 1990, 1998; Swenson and Roddick 2018;
4 Henry Tantaleán
Szremski et al. 2009; Trever et al. 2009) and the publication of a series of studies
dealing with the way Andean societies, both in the past and present, describe and
define their world and constituent elements (Allen 2008 [1988]; Bray 2015; Earls
and Silverblatt 1978; Urton 1981, 1997). Many of these ontological perspectives
have reconstructed the worldview of these groups from different perspectives
and with differing results. Obviously this is an extensive discussion and is beyond
the scope of this chapter.2 Instead, I will focus on three main themes:
1) Main ontologies found in the Andes and their primary sources

2) Four fundamental Andean concepts: Camay, Pacha, Huaca, and Runa
3) Advantages of using Andean ontologies in archaeological explana-
tions and narratives in the Andes.
Main Ontologies Found in the Andes and Their Primary Sources
Today, in Andean archaeology, it is possible to talk about multiple lines of

research that are related to ontology. These have been developed from many
disciplines including linguistics, ethnography, anthropology, and/or history.
In this respect, the singularities of these approaches are based on the types of
sources used to establish, explain, and/or interpret Andean ontologies. Obvi-
ously, researchers use many of these sources when expressing their views on
Andean ontologies. Here, I will synthesize these perspectives, based on their
approaches, starting with the earliest ones up to the most recent ones. These on-
tologies are based in ethnohistory, linguistics, ethnography, materialities stud-
ies, iconography and semiotics, and phenomenology. By no means is this an
exhaustive account of all the research that deals explicitly with ontologies of the
Andes, but these are the works that have had an important impact in the field.
From a methodological and hermeneutic perspective, the sources that provide
an important contribution to the understanding of Andean ontologies are the
ones that are related to the description of religion, mythology, ritual practices,
and pre-Hispanic Andean beliefs.
A significant element that needs to be highlighted here is the existence of
different historic narratives that challenge the work of the first chroniclers. This
has to do with the fact that history was perceived differently in the Andean
setting. This aspect of perception is relevant, as these particular temporal co-
ordinates are the ones used to organize our viewing of the world and to locate
different phenomena within a particular sequence. As an example, for societies
such as the Inca, for which there is quite a bit of information, the succession

of facts and temporal coordinates are significantly different from Western nar-
ratives. As Frank Salomon points out (1984: 8): “For Andeans, the sources of
diachronic knowledge are completely different and, furthermore, were never
organized on principles of absolute chronology, cause and effect, or escathology.
The useful past was centered on the dynastic oral tradition, the knotted system
of khipus, the constellation of royal mummies, and the spacial-ritual calendar,
[and was] structured on the system of sanctuaries that surrounded the Inca
capital.” In this respect, scholars are confronted not only with the conception of
phenomena in the pre-Hispanic world, or ontology, but also with the temporal
order of these phenomena. This represents a methodological challenge when
locating Andean phenomena and their materialization in a frame of time and
space, as pre-Hispanic societies did not have a writing system (Salomon 1999:
20). Because of this, the acknowledgment of the existence of a different percep-
tion of space and time from that of literate, European, and European-derived
societies, is an important element in this book.
Finally, it is necessary for the reader to note that perspectives developed in
this chapter are predominantly based on studies from Peru and a few neighbor-
ing countries. This chapter does not intend to be an encyclopedic treatment of
the topic. However, I hope to offer a series of axes that I believe are essential to
begin working on the explicit correlation of Andean ontologies and their mate-
rializations in the Andean world.3
Ontologies Based on Ethnohistory

Ethnohistory has been an important source in establishing and explaining the
existence of Andean ontologies. In fact, the explanation of archaeological re-
mains from an ethnohistoric perspective is an important scholarly tradition
in the Andes, especially during the twentieth century (Jijón y Caamaño 1919;
Murra 1955; Rostworowski 1988; Rowe 1946; Tello 1909; Valcárcel 1912; and so
on). Its relevance is rooted in the fact that ethnohistorical accounts were the
best sources from which to translate earlier views of the inhabitants of the An-
des upon the arrival of the Spaniards.
Many earlier works by chroniclers such as Miguel de Estete (1891 [1534]), Pe-
dro Cieza de León (1995 [1554]), Juan de Betanzos (2010 [1551]), Polo Ondegardo
(2012 [1571]), Cristóbal de Molina (2008 [1572]), Guamán Poma de Ayala (1987
[1615]), Martín de Murúa (2001 [1616]) and Bernabé Cobo (1964 [1653]) which
described the Andean worldview, and various concepts discussed in this book,
are based on these sources.
6 Henry Tantaleán
Henrique Urbano (2008) in particular has highlighted the work of Cris-
tóbal de Molina, el Cuzqueño, as he had a vast knowledge of Quechua, an
element that provided him with a closer understanding of Andean ontolo-
gies. Furthermore, his priestly formation and his work as part of the Catholic
offensive against the indigenous rites converted him to a trained scholar who
dwelt between two ontological worlds and who could offer a close translation
of the native world, especially from the capital of the Ancient Tawantinsuyu:
Cuzco.
In addition to all of these chroniclers, it is necessary to consider a tradition
of chroniclers that depicted scenes, personages, and customs of the Inca period.
Among them, Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala, in his “Nueva Corónica y Buen
Gobierno,” offered 398 line drawings about Inca and early colonial times (Trever
2011). On the another hand, Martin de Murúa’s manuscripts include color draw-
ings, mainly illustrating scenes of the Inca elite (Cummins and Anderson 2008).
Finally, Juan de Santa Cruz Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamaygua (1995 [1613]) offered
an important description of Inca religious customs and also represented the
composition and organization of the Inca world in his famous line drawing on
a wall of the Coricancha temple in Cuzco (Duviols 2016).
Other texts such as “Relaciones” and “Descripciones” (for example, see Ji-
ménez de la Espada (comp.) 1881–1897) and the “Visitas” (Diez de San Miguel
(1964 [1567], Ortiz de Zuñiga 1967 [1562]) offer relevant information regarding
Andean worldview, geography, and social practices, especially related to rituals
in specific regions of the Andes.
Earlier texts, such as the colonial Quechua “Manuscrito de Huarochirí”
(Ávila 1966 [1598?]; Salomon 1991; Taylor 2008) are important sources in un-
derstanding the way in which the indigenous people viewed their world and the
ways in which they explained natural and social phenomena and their interrela-
tions4 (Depaz 2015; Millones 2010). The Huarochirí Manuscript5 is one of the
most important colonial documents written in the indigenous language that
describes the Andean religious tradition (Salomon 2016: 1245; Silverblatt 1990:
xxi). As will be seen in this chapter and this book, the Huarochirí Manuscript
is fundamental to understanding Andean ontologies (Depaz 2015). While it is
an extremely valuable source, it should be noted that there is debate regarding
the author, the origin (Depaz 2015: 23; Salomon 1984: 91), the language used
(as it is a Quechua dialect that has disappeared6 [Taylor 2000: 2]), the different
Spanish versions (Salomon 1991: 28; Taylor 2000: 2), the fact that their authors
or informants were already influenced by the processes of Catholic conversion

(Salomon 1991: 1–2, 28), and the fact that their narrative was already condi-
tioned by European historicity (Salomon 1991: 3).
In spite of all of this, as Salomon (1991: 28) stated:
The testimonies of the [extirpatory campaigns’] victims retain freshness

and unfamiliarity that give prima facie evidence of an origin other than
Iberian demonology or the classical legacy as enshrined in seminary cur-
ricula. Perhaps because many of them were provincials lacking the know-
how to package and process their culture in terms familiar to Spanish
speakers, the myth tellers in the Huarochirí Manuscript created an image
still largely framed by conceptual categories proper to local thought. The
Huarochirí stories retain for us an irreducible strangeness, resistant to
translation, because unlike the pre-processed Inca lore available in chron-
icles, they were seized by Spain but not made for it.
In addition, its relevance is fundamentally based on the fact that within this
manuscript there is a series of ontological categories tied to Andean beliefs that
appear narrated, exemplified, and bound to a concrete territory, notions that
the Spanish priests sought to understand. In particular, there are questions re-
garding the nature and form by which the indigenous people related with their
“gods” and the world. Furthermore, descriptions of the indigenous perceptions
from a particular area in the highlands of Lima supplement the official or he-
gemonic views of the Inca empire. In this respect, the Huarochirí manuscript
complements the versions written by chroniclers based on informants of the
Inca elite or the personal experiences of the authors in the area of Cuzco, such
as the ones written by Cristóbal de Albornoz, Polo Ondegardo, or Cristóbal de
Molina, el Cuzqueño.
Documents on extirpation of idolatries are also useful, as these had the
greatest number of references to religious and ritual forms different from the
European-derived ones. The authors of such documents attempted to adapt
them to European ontologies with differing results. Frank Salomon (for exam-
ple, 1991) offers an excellent source of ethnohistorical documents from which
to understand Andean ontologies. As such, archaeologists have benefited sig-
nificantly from such research (for example, Chase 2015).
In fact, the use of ethnohistorical sources in archaeology to understand in-
digenous ontologies can be traced to the early work of Julio C. Tello. “Wiraco-
cha” (Tello 1923) is one of the most significant publications to influence early
research regarding the understanding of Andean perspectives. Tello sought to
8 Henry Tantaleán
understand views of pre-Hispanic societies, in particular those aspects related
to religion. His research on the deity Wiracocha accompanied him thoughout
his life, as he intended to distinguish the main religious elements that tran-
scended societies such as Chavín, Paracas, Nazca, and Tiwanaku. Through his
work, the power of Huacas—or sacred things—becomes visible as he integrated
ethnohistorical documents and archaeological data.
Later on, many researchers, in particular archaeologists, have used ethno-
historical sources in order to test their hypotheses. In this context, scholars
were able to identify social practices, sites, regions, or landscapes suggested by
such descriptions (that is, Quilter 1990; Bauer 2016; Chase 2016). However, it is
also important to scrutinize these documents and not necessarily apply them
mechanically to the archaeological data. Furthermore, historians and ethno-
historians recognize the limitations of such sources. Nevertheless, these docu-
ments represent an inexhaustible source of information with which to generate
working hypotheses, as will be seen in this volume.
Ontologies Based on Linguistics

Linguistics is another important source that has been used since the begin-
ning of Andean archaeology. Andeanists have been quite fortunate to have the
first dictionaries and grammar books of Quechua and Aymara (Bertonio 1612;
González Holguín 1989 [1608]; Santo Tomás 1560, 1586). These early documents
have allowed researchers to know and understand certain indigenous concepts
and terms, and their translations or homologations to Spanish—all of this, in
spite of the fact that there are inherent problems with the translation of native
concepts and terms to Spanish. Scholars, such as Johann Jakob von Tschudi,
Ernst Middendorf, Heinrich Brünning or Max Uhle, made an effort to gather
and understand Andean notions and concepts in Quechua, Aymara, and even
Muchik. Some of these terms were even used to explain certain cultural phe-
nomena, such as the expansion of pre-Hispanic and Hispanic groups. Later
on, contributions to “Andean historical linguistics” were made by researchers
such as Gary Parker (1963), Alfredo Torero (1964, 1970), Hardman de Bautista
(1975 [1966]) (Cerrón-Palomino and Kaulicke 2010), and most recently by Ro-
dolfo Cerrón-Palomino (2001, 2005, 2013), Willem Adelaar (2004), and Bruce
Mannheim (1991, 2018, and this book). All of them have proposed the origins,
dispersion, and features of indigenous pre-Hispanic languages. By utilizing lin-
guistics, they have assisted archaeologists with the interpretation of the origins,
development, and dispersion of archaeological cultures.

Nowadays, such sources are being used to deepen the understanding of
terms and concepts that have become more and more complex. The dispersion
of languages in the pre-Hispanic world (Heggarty and Beresford-Jones 2012;
Kaulicke et al. 2010) is a field of study that has been approached with interest,
as language dispersion frequently mirrors the occupation patterns of the eth-
nic group from which said language originates. Since languages are the means
by which notions about the world are communicated, and those seem to have
wide dispersions and interrelationships even before the Incas (Heggarty and
Beresford-Jones 2010: 36), particular cosmovisions must also have been shared
by many populations among the Andes (also see Mannheim 2018). As expected,
archaeologists have also used linguistic studies to attempt to understand the
ontologies of pre-Hispanic social groups (Fernandini 2015: 656–657; Heggarty
and Beresford-Jones 2012; Kaulicke et al. 2010; Pino Matos 2017; Ramón 2017;
Urton 1996; among others). As we will see, this book follows the road opened
up by these scholars.
Andean Ontologies Based on Ethnography

Ethnography is yet another valuable source for the reconstruction of native
worldviews. For instance, multiple field investigations have helped us to under-
stand the views of Andean hunters, farmers, and herders regarding the world,
plants, and animals.
There is a long tradition of ethnographic studies from which one can identify
a series of ontological principles and categories from Quechua- and Aymara-
speaking communities and Amazonian groups (MacCormack 1999). Again,
Tello was a precursor in this endeavor as he used ethnographic analogy in or-
der to explain diverse archaeological contexts, objects, and structures. Interest-
ingly, in his work Tello even used examples from the Amazonian region (Tello
1918, 1923). Some of the earlier Aymara ethnographies were developed by Harry
Tschopik (1946, 1951) and Weston La Barre (1948, 1966). It is also worth men-
tioning the work of Gabriel Martínez (1976) and his first ethnography of Isluga
in northern Chile, and the ethnography of Joseph Bastien (1996 [1978]) on the
Kallawaya to the northeast of the Titicaca basin (Cavalcanti-Schiel 2014: 458).
Finally, the work by Nathan Wachtel (2001) on the Chipaya and the study by
Thomas Abercrombie (1998) regarding the native communities in Oruro, Bo-
livia, are also important ethnographic contributions to the field.
As pointed out by Ricardo Cavalcanti-Schiel (2014: 458): “In the 1990’s in the
Cuzco region many researchers conducted ethnographies in order to record
10 Henry Tantaleán
aspects of economic production (Gose 1994) or ritual activities (Bolin 1998).”
Also, it is during these years that research was done in the Aymara altiplano by
Hans van den Berg (1989: 118–143; Cavalcanti-Schiel 2014: 458). Most recently,
Quechua ethnographies that record Andean ontologies are the ones by Eduardo
Kohn (2013) in the Ecuadorian “edge of the jungle” or “ceja de selva,” and the
ethnography done by Marisol de la Cadena (2015) in Cuzco.
Likewise, it is important to recognize the ethnographic approaches of re-
searchers who have spent time in Andean communities in order to understand
specialized activities, such as the production of ceramics or textiles. These
scholars have recovered essential notions about the way in which the producers
relate to the raw materials, the artifacts themselves, and how they relate in their
mutual biographies (Arnold et al. 2007; Ramón 2013; Sillar 2000; Silverman
2008).
In addition, ethnographies, such as the one by Catherine Allen, have been
an important source for archaeologists who study the Andes and who have
fully benefited from concepts published in “The Hold Life Has” (Allen 2008
[1988]). For instance, the notion of sami offers a unique way of explaining the
force or energy of objects7 in the Andean world (for example, Brown-Vega 2015;
Jennings 2003, and see Muro et al. in this book). Another important ethnog-
raphy from the Cuzco area is the one by Inge Bolin (2006) who deals with the
concept of enq’a8 (vital force). Furthermore, work by Gary Urton (1981) on the
cosmology of communities from the south central Andes in Peru is particularly
important, as it establishes an understanding of their interpretation of the sky
and the way in which the sky organizes their terrestrial world and cosmovision.
Of course, Amazonian ethnography was a field fully developed during all of
the twentieth century. Anthropologists, ethnologists, ethnographers, and even
archaeologists were very engaged with the discovery and understanding of the
richness of the cosmology and ontology of these groups (Lathrap 1970; Smith
1977; Regan 1993; Roe 1980; Varesse 1968; among others). In fact, in the last
few years, a significant number of scholars have been reincorporating concepts
such as animism, a classic theme in ethnography and anthropology of religions
(Costa and Fausto 2010; Durkheim 1915; Varesse 2011: 34), in order to explain
the pre-Hispanic Andean worldview (Sillar 2009). As we said before, this re-
newed interest in animism has also been propelled by the studies of Eduardo
Viveiros de Castro and Philippe Descola (Allen 2015). These studies produced a
significant corpus of ethnographies and understandings of Amazonian groups,
developing such significant concepts as “Animism”9 (Descola 1997, 2013[2005])

and “Amerindian Perspectivism”10 (Lima 1999; Viveiros de Castro 1998, 2014
[2009]). Today, based on these studies there is a fruitful field from which dif-
ferent and alternative views to the Western ones can be observed, especially in
the prehistoric Andean area (Lau 2013; Szremski et al. 2009; Weismantel 2013,
2015, and see several examples in this book).
Although there is an ongoing debate regarding the way Viveiros de Castro
presents an immutable and even idealized indigenous perspective, authors such
as Mary Weismantel (2015: 142–143) defend its heuristic potential when applied
to archaeology and studies on materiality in specific contexts. As Weismantel
points out:
An archaeological perspectivism will be materialist and historical. It will

be materialist in seeing humans as actors and makers who co-create the
world together with other beings and things, rather than standing back
to think and observe. And it will be historical in its deep temporal per-
spective on the indigenous Americas, in contrast to the oddly timeless
“Amerindian” world evoked by Viveiros de Castro. A materially and his-
torically situated use of perspectivism that juxtaposes it with the very
specific social and political realities of a particular place, such as Chavín,
is more likely to realize Viveiros de Castro’s avowed aim of decolonizing
anthropology by avoiding the retrogressive return to romantic primitiv-
ism that sometimes marks the ontological turn. Instead, an archaeological
perspectivism can produce forms of scholarly practice that are aware of
and responsive to the historical contingencies and power relations that
shape indigenous lives in the present, as well as in the distant past.
In this book, we will present a series of chapters that also defend the use of these
recent approaches based on Amazonian and Andean ontologies in Andean ar-
chaeology.
Finally, ethnoarchaeology is yet another field that incorporates ethnography
and studies of material cultures and where a significant number of themes re-
lated to ontologies can be found (Sillar and Ramón 2016). Bill Sillar’s research
with ceramists and their ontology exemplifies this approach (Sillar 2000), and
this perspective intersects quite well with the research on materiality in this
book. Furthermore, the ethnoarchaeological approach based on the ethno-
graphic study of the Nukak in Colombia by Gustavo Politis (2007) is yet another
important contribution that invites reflection on the ontologies of Amazonian
indigenous groups and their materialities.
12 Henry Tantaleán
Ontologies Based on Iconography and Semiotics
An analogical perspective, in particular when based on forms and decorations

of portable objects, sculpture, and murals, has been used since the beginnings
of archaeology. In the twentienth century, iconographic studies by Erwin Pan-
ofsky (1939) and followers formed the foundation of such an approach. These
researchers applied this approach to artifacts with decorations with significant
results. Later, their efforts were strengthened in the archaeological discipline
through the interpretation of meaning of the artifacts and archaeological con-
texts driven by the contextual and symbolic archaeology developed by Ian Hod-
der (1982, 1986). Moreover, other scholars, using structuralist and semiotic ap-
proaches, tried to decode the contents and meanings of the signs and symbols
embedded or depicted in the material culture (Sahlins 1981).
In particular, in Andean studies, iconographic studies have been applied to
the material culture of Chavín (Bischof 2008; Campana 1995; Roe 1974; Rowe
1977 [1962]; among others) and Moche (Donnan 1978; Donnan and McClelland
1999; Golte 2009; Hocquenghem 1987; Makowski 2001; among others). Most of
such iconographic approaches have been based on highland Andean ethnohis-
torical and ethnographical sources, allowing for a closer interpretation. Jurgen
Golte (2009: 20–22), for instance, has explicitly used Quechua ontologies for
a more nuanced explanation of Moche iconography. Amazonian ethnography
was also used to interpret some Moche iconographic scenes (Benson 1974; Lyon
1981; Regan 1999, 2011; Roe 1982).
Moreover, a semiotic perspective, inspired especially by the philosophical
and linguistic research of Charles Sanders Peirce (1931–1958), now promotes an
approach that deals specifically with the meaning of cultural material and the
society that produced it, at many different levels (Preucel 2006; Thomas 2000;
Watts 2008). This last approach has not been fully applied to Andean archaeol-
ogy, although in some cases, very specific concepts have been considered (see
examples in Christie 2016: 98; Coben 2006: 226–228; Szremski et al. 2009; Ur-
ton 2003: 139–143).
Ontologies Based on Materialities
Archaeology is the study of the human societies through their material remains.
For this reason, independent of their theoretical approaches, all archaeologists
are materialists. Since the twentieth century, archaeologists and anthropologists
have been busy developing and analyzing archaeological remains in different

ways. Materialities, as a field of study, was mostly developed in England. Spe-
cifically, the studies of material culture by Daniel Miller (1987, 1994, 1998) were
quite influential in their applications to the archaeological discipline (for ex-
ample, DeMarrais et al. 2004; Meskell 2005). In fact, thanks to the development
of processual archaeology with its significant advances in analysis of material
culture and landscapes, it was possible to reflect on objects in their multiple di-
mensions, and even consider their symbolic and ideological contents (Renfrew
and Zubrow 1994). Obviously, in their moment, postprocessualist archaeolo-
gists offered their own interpretation of material culture (Hodder 1986; Hodder
et al. 1995; Shanks and Tilley 1987). Actually, much of what is known today as
“New Materialism” is the result of a return to the study of material culture from
a more sophisticated perspective: one that considers agency and centrality of
material culture in the coproduction of the world (Ingold 2007; Olsen 2013;
Witmore 2014).
In the Andean countries, especially in Peru, this perspective adapted quite
well to the classic and empirical form of interpreting archaeological objects
within cultural-historic and processual approaches. As discussed above, eth-
nohistorical and ethnographic studies have provided a series of concepts and
terms that allow the study of agency in objects, in part due to the revitalization
of the animism concept.
The study of materiality is particularly relevant in archaeological and art
historical research, in contrast to other fields in the social and humanistic sci-
ences. As a result, it is a rich and attractive avenue in which to test ontological
explanations. The relationship between objects and subjects within a modernist
perspective is typically considered in archaeological studies worldwide and the
Andean region is not an exception. This approach is the most popular in An-
dean archaeological studies, especially from cultural-historic, processual, and
Marxist perspectives (Tantaleán and Astuhuamán 2013; Tantaleán 2014).
However, in the past couple of decades, the challenge has been to break with
these binary and Cartesian views and establish more symmetrical perspectives
between individuals and objects (González-Ruibal 2007; Hodder 2012; Shanks
2007; Witmore 2007). As we will see, these approaches found an important
source of inspiration in the phenomenological philosophy. Examples of these
studies developing such approaches based on materiality in Andean pre-His-
panic periods are beginning to impact in the conception and perception of
artifacts, bodies, landscapes, and their relationships (Acuto and Franco 2015;
Fernandini 2016; Lazzari 2005; Swenson 2015, Weismantel 2015; among others).
14 Henry Tantaleán
Andean Ontologies Based on Phenomenology
Lastly, an archaeological perspective based on phenomenology was promoted

by European researchers, such as Christopher Tilley (1994, 2004) or Julian
Thomas (2000). For instance, Tilley’s phenomenology, applied to archaeology,
includes the philosophical principles of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger,
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and other phenomenologists of the twentienth cen-
tury. Such perspective intends to describe and explain the relationships between
sets of external objects and people and the ways in which these are incorporated
in their consciousness and experience of the world (also see Ingold 2000).
In the Andes, such phenomenological perspective has also been applied
to archaeology with interesting results (Acuto and Gifford 2007; Isbell and
Vranich 2004; Leibowicz 2013; Moore 1996; Szremski et al. 2009; Vaquer 2010;
Villanueva 2015; Vogel 2016; and see some chapters in this book [Muro, Castillo,
and Tomasto]). Other specific examples include research on the Nazca lines
by Clive Ruggles and Nicholas Saunders (2012), studies of Chavín de Huántar
by Mary Weismantel (2013, 2015) which also include aspects of Amerindian
perspectivism, studies by Jessica Joyce Christie (2016) in understanding the use
and transformation of rocky outcrops in the Inca period, and Stella Nair’s study
(2015) of the Inca architecture of Chinchero. In the same vein, Carolyn Dean’s
work (Dean 2010) is a milestone of Inca architecture studies, especially their
main construction material: rocks. All of these studies incorporate phenom-
enological perspectives in archaeological narratives in order to establish a link
between the perception of the past, and its explanation today.
Because such ontologies and epistemologies are based on Western philoso-
phy, there is always a risk in moving external perspective, present-minded view,
and hypersubjectivity to the Andean reality. However, the possibility of expe-
riencing the rich material culture, architecture and landscapes, represents an
important alternative approach, through our own senses, to recovering percep-
tions of the Andean past. In fact, one cannot negate the importance of experi-
encing emotions, landscapes, sounds, and feelings in the Andes to any scholar
who deals with the past and the present, as anthropology and ethnography have
already demonstrated (García 2018; Mendoza 2010; Salas Carreño 2014; among
others).
Given the fact that there is such a considerable number of sources that
inspire knowledge of Andean ontologies, it is important to note that there are
significant advantages to the development of critical methodological frames

when using these sources in the explanation of Andean ontologies. In this
respect, these sources are capable of generating heuristic tools for our own
research. In particular, this cornerstone is embedded in this book.
There are a number of powerful themes associated with the understand-
ing of spatial and temporal dimensions in Andean ontologies which can help
with a better explanation and understanding of past Andean societies. Due to
their richness, such categories and concepts extracted from native languages
and thoughts have a fundamental value for explanations of the ancient Andean
societies. Given the rich Andean and Aymara Quechua vocabulary, it will be
impossible to discuss all of them in this chapter; although, as it will be seen in
this book, the authors have selected their own concepts for their case studies.
In this chapter, I will only discuss four notions that I believe are quite
significant as they explain important aspects of the world inhabited by pre-
Hispanic societies and that will be useful when exploring Andean ontologies
from the archaeological perspective. Most of them are discussed in the chap-
ters of this book. These terms are fundamental and essential concepts used
to explain some archaeological contexts. These are: camay, pacha, huaca, and
runa.
Four Fundamental Andean Concepts: Camay, Pacha,

Huaca, and Runa
There is some debate regarding the validity of transposing Quechua and Ay-
mara concepts from the Inca and early colonial periods (the earliest ones, and
as such the closest to the native Andean ontologies) to the entire Andean area.
Furthermore, it can be argued that these conceptions most likely went through
some transformation as a result of incorporation and hybridization with the
European cultures when they were registered. In fact, it should be noted that
there was some resistance to the changes by specialists and those who practice
Andean rituals (Brosseder 2014).
In spite of this, it is important to understand that individuals in the past es-
tablished a particular relationship with their world and the objects embedded
within their native culture: there were situated, contextual, and historical on-
tologies. In this respect, the challenge is to recover aspects of the hegemonic
or ideologicaly dominant culture of that particular moment (Silverblatt 1990:
xxiv). Such Andean notions or conceptions, in our studies in particular, are
the ones that are related to the materiality produced in the past.
16 Henry Tantaleán
As already stated, there is a series of concepts from a variety of sources, in
particular from ethnohistorical accounts. These notions “had a pan Andean
scope and had some variations or equivalents in other languages that were
widely distributed, as was the case with Puquina, and Aru (Aymara is its main
variation, and includes Yawyu spoken in the highlands of Lima) and Quechua”
(Depaz 2015: 42).
In this chapter and others of this book, certain notions are derived mainly
from Quechua and Aymara, which share the same ontological substratum
(Depaz 2015: 307) and have converged over time (Cerrón-Palomino 2008;
Mannheim 2018). However, it is important to remember that such notions
taken from Quechua and Aymara were collected, registered, and/or interpreted
mostly by people of Hispanic and Mestizo origin (Salomon 1999). Since the
Andean precolonial population “did not develop phonographic writing, be it
syllabic or alphabetical” (Garcés and Sánchez 2016), the task of interpretation
and translation of native concepts to Spanish can be challenging.
Likewise, in the documents that are used as a source for the reconstruction
of Andean ontologies, there are native languages or localisms that have been
lost or transformed over time (Mannheim 2018). Therefore, researchers have
significant bias in relation to areas where relevant concepts have not been reg-
istered and where Quechua and Aymara were not spoken. The most significant
sample is restricted to the central and southern central Andes, especially the
central highlands; southern Peru; and northern Bolivia (also see Ramón 2017).
Moreover, it is necessary to remember that in Quechua and Aymara, the
words and concepts only make sense in relationship with social practices and
objects (Mannheim and Salas Carreño 2015). Therefore, like all verbalization
and enunciation of reality, these words and concepts cannot be abstracted from
their relationality and materiality (Salomon 2018: 202). By doing so, it would re-
move them from their Quechua and Aymara ontological categories, away from
their real relationship with reality and would alienate them from social prac-
tices that provide them with meaning. Therefore, a methodological challenge
is to try to interpret such concepts within their matrix of enunciation, oral or
written, so that our investigations do not remove their historical and situational
context. Even so, in this book it is clear that those fundamental concepts allow
a new vision of the world that is closer to that of native societies in the past and
present.
In relation to the previous discussion, an important aspect of the Andean
worldview is the existence of relationships between opposing and complemen-

tary elements that need each other and only find meaning in their relationship
(Depaz 2015: 32, 80): a kind of Andean dialectics (Broda 2018: 17; Swenson and
Roddick 2018: 18; Tantaleán 2015). This idea is very related to the term Yanan-
tín. As John Topic (2015: 381) explains: “Yanantin refers to a complementary
pair in which both parts are necessary to the proper functioning of the whole
(González Holguín 1989 [1608]: 181, 364). In Andean thought, the complemen-
tary pair par excellence is the male and female couple” (also see Platt 1978;
Isbell 2005 [1985]). Thus, the search for equilibrium and complementarity of
the forces and elements that exist in the world and in the human life, is a con-
stant theme in the different ethnohistoric and ethnographic sources (also see
Salomon 1991: 10; Szremski et al. 2009: 5). Manifestations of this complemen-
tariety or duality have been explored in archaeology as well (Burger 1994; Hoc-
quenghem 1987; Isbell 1977; Lau 2004: 177, 2014: 314; Moore 1995, Swenson 2015,
Tantaleán 2015). Furthermore, moments of encounter (tinkuy11) between such
opposing but complementary elements generate an important third element as
a result of this relationship, which, when materialized in the geographic space,
receives the name of chaupi in Quechua and taypi in Aymara (Depaz 2015: 81).
As will be seen, it appears in many geographic spaces and huacas can be easily
related to these concepts.
Although it could sound strange for those existing romantic and idealized
views of Andean societies, none of these notions are disassociated from ma-
teriality. As Catherine Allen (2008: 72) points out: “The Andean conception
of the world does not accommodate the Western dualism of the body and
soul. For the Andean people, all matter is somehow alive and inversely, all life
has a material base.” Thus, one of the main features of the Cartesian model
that separates the body and soul does not apply to Andean ontology. On the
contrary, such relationships are fundamental in understanding the Andean
worldview.
As noted above, in this section I will cover four fundamental concepts that
will appear regularly in this book: camay, pacha, huaca, and runa. The rationale
regarding the selection of these concepts is their relevance in early colonial
written sources and their reiteration in ethnohistoric and ethnographic narra-
tives. Further, I have selected these concepts instead of others because of their
relationship with materiality and due to the fact that they can be inferred from
the archeological context.12
However, with respect to those notions, especially camay, it is important to
remember the warning of Gerald Taylor (2000: 3):
18 Henry Tantaleán
The first evangelists were not concerned with the clarification of spiritual
indigenous concepts (which they hoped to eradicate), but with the impo-
sition of Christian concepts, which explains the appropriation of a poorly
assimilated religious vocabulary whose confused values are maintained
in a hybrid world of Andean Catholicism until this day. For the Christian
priest, a creative god and a soul were needed in order to save. The first was
found in the camac term. The second was more problematic: the words
cama, “ánima,” according to Garcilaso, and camaquenc, camaynin, songo
of the Lexicón of Santo Tomás were mistrusted. The Spanish term ánima
was preferred and, unfortunately, the usage of this Hispanicism in the
Huarochirí Manuscript makes it impossible to know the Quechua word
that was assigned to the soul of the dead, which in context, acted very
differently from a Christian soul.
As will be seen, the heuristic potential of such concepts, as with many others
which originated in other spaces and times throughout the world, remains im-
portant for the understanding of precolonial social phenomena (also see Depaz
2015: 29).
Camay
Camay is the force that moves the world. In the Quechua vocabulary of Santo
Tomás (1586), the word “camac” appears translated as “creator” and “camaquey”
is defined as “my creator.” It does not mention “ánima” or soul (also see Taylor
2000: 4). In the Aymara vocabulary of Ludovico Bertonio (1612: 75), the word
“cchama” is translated as “force” and “cchamani” (interchangeable with “Sinti”)
is translated as “strong man and anything else.” Additionally, in the vocabulary
of Gonzáles Holguín (1989 [1608]: 36), the term “callpa” appears translated as
“the forces and power of the soul, or body.” Taking into account Santo Tomás
(1560: 114), callpay (“forces”) seems to be more related with human beings and
force, in the sense of energy with which to carry out physical activities.
According to Tamara Bray (2009: 358):
A key Andean concept . . . is camay, a native Quechua term that has no clear
equivalent in Spanish or English. Salomon & Urioste (1991: 45) translate
camay as “to charge” or “to charge being with,” “to make,” “to give form
and force,” or “to animate” (see also Taylor 1974–1976, 1987). Camay is
fundamentally understood as a specific kind of essence, force, or power,

rather than as something abstract or generalized. Salomon (1991: 16) in-
vokes the idea of “species power” with respect to this term, as, for in-
stance, in the case of the patron animals of shamans, who infuse the latter
with their valued species traits, such as visual acuity, speed, or strength.
Camay also carries the connotation of bringing something extant into
being through the energizing of existing matter (as opposed to creating
something from nothing). . . . Unlike the simple act of creation, which
once done is over, camay intends something of continuity in sustaining
the being, a condition that involves an ongoing relationship between the
camac (e.g. the “camay-er”) and its camasca (e.g. its tangible instantia-
tion). (Salomon 1991: 16–17)
Likewise, from an ethnographic perspective, the existence of the notion of sami,

a force contained in objects, has been indicated. In general terms, it can be said
that this is the camaquen, or the vital force, that has been preserved in objects.
As noted by Brown Vega (2015: 227), “Another force discussed in the Andean
literature is ‘sami’ (Allen 1988: 49–50). ‘Sami,’ an animating essence, is found in
people, mountains, objects, or anything perceived to have an ‘inherent liveli-
ness’ or power (p. 51). ‘Sami’ is in constant flow. Objects that have ‘sami’ may
lose it or regain it, and it is transferable between objects. ‘Camaquen’ or ‘sami’
are in constant circulation, emanating from places, people and objects.”
Therefore, camay is found in all of the objects of the world: in the universe, in
the sky, in the earth, in the huacas, in the people, in the plants and animals. It is
the force that, when it flows, animates or brings life to the cosmos (Depaz 2015:
212). However, it is not something given, but it is something that could also be
exhausted, lost, and consumed. In these cases, the Andean inhabitant, or runa, in
some circumstances, must re-create that force through concrete actions, which
are defined as rituals. In fact, in Quechua, the act of producing, engendering, gen-
erating, and creating by human beings was called “camayoc” (cama “vital force”
and yoc “the one who possesses it”) (Santo Tomás 1560, also see Depaz 2015: 222;
Taylor 2000: 8). With this, it is understood that human beings shaped new forms,
(re)created and took care of new beings and objects in this world thanks to “ca-
may,” which flowed through its being (also see Szremski 2009: 9–10).
The study of the huacas, as geographic landmarks and other constructions,
provides a glimpse of the physical features or receptacles of camay. Similarly,
ethnographic and ethnohistorical studies point to the existence of objects that
possessed these characteristics, known as enqas or illas (Brosseder 2014). Fi-
20 Henry Tantaleán
nally, the same bodies of the ancestors contained camay, especially the mum-
mies of the Incas, as learned early on by the extirpators of idolatries.
As ethnohistorical sources point out, there were primordial subjects, such
as Wiracocha, which created and gave life (camay) to the world and its beings
(for instance, see Betanzos 2010 [1551] or Molina 2008 [1572], also see Depaz
2015: 29, 224; Salomon 1984; Urbano 2008). However, it is also necessary to
take into consideration the weight that the Catholic church had imposed on
Andean societies with respect to the reproduction of the idea of world creation
by a Judeo-Christian God (MacCormack 2016 [1991], Sánchez Garrafa 2014;
Silverblatt 1982).
Pacha
In the Quechua vocabulary of Santo Tomás (1586: 122), the word pacha trans-
lated to Spanish appears to translate as “time, soil, place, clothing, garb.” In the
“Vocabulary of the Aymaran Language” from Ludovico Bertonio (1612: 242),
“pacha” also appears to translate to “time.” Additionally, “alakh pacha” would
be the sky, “aca pacha” the earth, and “mancca pacha” would be hell, following,
obviously, the Catholic tripartition. Inversely, the translation of “world” in Ay-
mara would be “Aca pacha, aca vraque (uraque13), pusi sun” (Bertonio 1612: 325).
Thus, pacha is the world/time: an inextricable unity (also see Bouysse-Cas-
sagne and Harris 1987; Depaz 2015: 25; Salomon 1991: 14). This concept indi-
cates that the world is in constant movement; it further suggests that history
is not linear, but circulatory (Swenson and Roddick 2018: 18). The change and
transformation in pacha is a very important element in understanding how the
world, nature, society, and earth is conceived. The sacred landscape is related to
the forces that exist on earth and their connections to other worlds, such as the
one from above and the underworld. Human beings are inextricably connected
to the pacha and they establish a balance with it. This relationship incorporates
the other components of the world, both material and immaterial. As discussed
above, the main force that drove pacha and all of its components, including hu-
man beings, was camay.
According to ethnohistorical and ethnographic sources, everything that hap-
pens in pacha did not happen in absolute or sequential Western time (Bouysse-
Cassagne and Harris 1987, Rivera Cusicanqui 2010: 54). As noted by Salomon
(1984: 7): “‘The Andean meaning of history’ requires, not a chain of events, but
a pattern of events.” As many authors have indicated in the pre-Hispanic An-
des, there exists a mythical and cyclical time (Earls and Silverblatt 1978; Zuidema

1964).14 In this respect, there were many issues faced by the colonial authors when
narrating pre-Hispanic history. Even so, different ethnohistoric, anthropological,
and archaeological studies have tried to elucidate the ways in which time was
measured in the Andean world (Ziolkowski 2015; Zuidema 2010, and see Villan-
ueva in this book). As noted, this time is tied to phenomena in the firmament, the
earth, and even the sea (Depaz 2015: 178, García 2018: 93; Sakai 1998; Urton 1981).
Huaca
In the Quechua vocabulary of Santo Tomás (1560: 131), “guaca” is described as

the “temple of idols or the idol itself.” In his later version (Santo Tomás 1586:
103), huaca appears translated as “worshipped idol or anything defined by na-
ture.” In the Aymara vocabulary by Bertonio (1612: 143), the term “huaka” ap-
pears translated as “Idol in the form of a man, ram, etc. and the mountains that
worship in their gentleness.” Similarly, ethnohistory has been responsible for
giving meaning and substance to this very important concept of pre-Hispanic
social life, but is especially important for the Inca (Curatola 2015, Curatola and
Szemiński 2015).
Thus, according to John Staller (2008: 269–270):
The chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega conveyed the sense of this impor-

tant term in 1609 when he said that huaca means: “a sacred place” . . . “a
sacred thing” such as . . . idols, rocks, great stones, or trees which the
enemy [Devil] entered to make the people believe he was a god. They
also gave the name huaca to objects they offered to the Sun, such as
figures of men [figurines and statues], birds, and animals made of silver,
gold or wood. . . . Huaca is applied to any temple, large or small, to the
sepulchers set up in fields and to the corners in their houses where the
Devil spoke to their priests. . . . They use the same word huaca . . . to
very high hills that stand above the rest as high towers stand above ordi-
nary houses, to steep mountain slopes. . . . All these objects and others
like them were called huaca, not because they were considered gods and
therefore worthy of adoration, but because of their special superiority
over other common run of objects . . . they were regarded and treated
with veneration and respect.
As has been stated, Garcilaso de la Vega clearly establishes that for the Inca, the
huacas were embodied in concrete objects on the earth with an infinite variety
22 Henry Tantaleán
of forms, such as mountains (apus) and rocks (Depaz 2015; Sánchez Garrafa
2014). Even some human beings were considered huacas or could turn into one
(Salomon 1991: 17). However, even though they were objects, they were also
animated or energized by camay.
Therefore, the concept of huaca is one of the most powerful concepts in
Andean literature (Brosseder 2014; Curatola 2015: 268) and the concept that
has permeated most of the archaeological explanations (Bray 2015; and see
Lunnis in this book). Its transcendence in Andean contemporary societies is
a reminder of the power and strength that these entities had in the precolonial
period. In addition, it is important for archaeologists because the huaca are the
most important geographic and/or building features, with significant invest-
ment put into their construction and maintenance. Furthermore, huacas have
been in existence since the earliest communities and continued to be venerated
and constructed in state-level societies, reaching impressive monumentality
along the Andean landscape (Moore 1996).
For an Andean human being, or runa, huacas have a power and strength
that surpasses that of humans. Most importantly, the power, or camay, of hu-
man beings could come from its huaca of origin (Salomon 1991: 17). According
to ethnohistory and ethnography, these huacas were already present before the
appearance of human beings and they predetermined and even controlled their
lives. In this way, huacas would have “agency,” as is currently proposed. Simi-
larly, in many contexts, individuals used the natural huacas and constructed
on top of them artificial extensions.15 The greatest huacas of the Andean world
were thus perpetuated through the passage of time and across many societ-
ies. Their ontology places them in an animated world in which the existence
and relations between them are similar to human life (Depaz 2015: 168). As
pointed out by Salomon (1991: 17) some people could be huacas. For instance,
as described in the Huarochirí Manuscript, they could turn into humans. Also,
the reverse could happen as some individuals could also be transformed into
huacas, as, for instance, in the legend of the brothers Ayar (Betanzos 2010 [1551]:
59). Hence, the incarnation, transubstantiation, and transformation of the hua-
cas to different bodies are very important aspects, which are also necessarily
linked to the existence of camay, or vital force.
Therefore, the huaca concept is important for Andean archaeology, anthro-
pology, and ethnography. In this sense, another important concept that comes
from ethnography is the tirakuna16 (Allen 1982), which could be translated as
“a sacred landscape composed of huacas that have relationships between them

and that are also hierarchical with each other.” Their substrates and roots are in
pacha. Through archaeology, much effort has been made to establish the mate-
riality of these huacas, their physical characteristics, and associations with the
landscape and objects (Bauer 2016; Bray 2015; Curatola 2016; Reinhard 2007;
Van de Guchte 1990; among others).
Runa
In the Quechua vocabulary of Santo Tomás (1560: 166; 1586: 151), the word
“runa” is translated into Spanish as “person man or woman,” and “runacona”
as “people or gentío.” In the Aymara vocabulary of Bertonio, the term “man”
in the generic sense is included, as well as woman, as haque17 (Bertonio 1612:
267). In this way, the runa is the human inhabitant of pacha. Its presence in
this world has mythical origins and is protected and controlled by a series
of suprahuman entities. Obviously, throughout history, each force, deity, or
suprahuman entity has modified the decision and mandate of the runakuna
(plural of runa in Quechua) and this is what allows the richness in the devel-
opment of indigenous worldviews (also see Muro et al. in this book for the
use of the runakuna concept in the context of an archaeological explanation).
The runakuna relate to each other and form communities, or ayllus (Spald-
ing 1984: 28–29), but they also relate with other entities that inhabit pacha
such as animals, plants, and the same huacas in their landscape (tirakuna).
Depending also on their productive activities, the runakuna possess a series
of elements that dominate and control their lives. These elements range from
the same material issues as their production space to the very deities that
control production and reproduction. Because of this, research regarding lin-
eages are fundamental to understanding the relationships between humans
and other entities. The ethnohistoric and ethnographic sources offer a se-
ries of fundamental elements to enter the complex network of intersocial and
communal relationships, which highlight reciprocity and cooperation (Al-
len 2008 [1988]; Isbell 2005 [1985]; Mayer and Bolton 1980; Silverblatt 1988;
among others). Of special interest are the forms of social relations generated
during the Inca period that help us to understand the possible relationships
in previous societies.
Of course, scholars cannot leave behind issues related to the health and
illness of human beings. These discussions are especially pertinent because
the existence or decay of vital forces such as the camay or animu were part of
such conditions, and were of special interest to the Catholic Church because
24 Henry Tantaleán
of their direct relationship with the worship of deities and ritual practices,
practices considered idolatry and witchcraft. The study of folk medicine,
plants, and health recovery has especially developed as a field in ethnohistory
and anthropology in the last decades (Sharon 1980; Silverblatt 1983; Vergara
2009).
Likewise, studies of gender are an important element within the recon-
struction of identities and aspects of pre-Hispanic social groups (Silverblatt
1978). It is important to recognize the true status and roles of women, above
anything, especially since the colony reproduced an androcentric view of the
societies that were collected from the perspective of the Inca elites. Fortu-
nately, ethnohistoric sources help to establish the roles and significance of
women in social practices and how they were perceived at different levels.
Studies by Irene Silverblatt (1990) and Joan Gero (1992) have been pioneers
in this regard.
On the other hand, the ancestors, mallquis, or chullpas, also played an im-
portant role, and their conservation as part of the community was vital (Salo-
mon 1991: 20). In fact, death was part of life and it transcended the limits that
were imposed later on during the colonial period. Such conception of death
required a treatment similar to the living (Depaz 2015: 176). Thus, the cult of
the ancestors, or mallquis, was an important part in the life of the communities.
The conservation of the body and the construction of tombs was a primordial
practice that involved also the construction of huacas. In fact, some mallquis
themselves were considered huacas (Salomon 1991: 20). In archaeology, an im-
portant study was pioneered by William Isbell (1997).
Archaeological research in the last decades, which includes physical an-
thropology and/or bioarchaeology, also allows us to understand the nature
of pre-Hispanic inhabitants with respect to their diet, diseases, sacrifices, and
modifications of the body (Eeckhout and Owens 2015; Fehren-Schmitz 2010;
Tung 2013; Verano 2016; and see Lozada in this book). All of these issues have
an intimate connection with the way in which the body was conceived and its
interrelations with other elements around the world.
Finally, the notion of llacta, which appears in the vocabularies already men-
tioned, is translated simply as “city” or “town,” and can also be found in the
Huarochirí Manuscript (Salomon 1991: 23; Taylor 2000: 13). The notion of llacta
helps to perfect the idea of how the social landscape was conceived and con-
structed in the Andean world. The notion of llacta does not refer to only the
encounter of architecture and human beings in a single place, but also to the

encounter of other objects with deeper meaning (also see Swenson and Rod-
dick 2018: 6). According to Taylor (2000: 13): “Llacta represents the community,
the living space and the local ‘god protector’ in the same way that a unique
name designs the three elements: the pachacámac [people], the territory of the
pachacámac and the pachacámac god.” In this way, Andeans conceived of their
social and constructed space and their social framework as part of broader and
more profound ontological notions, as has been raised previously.
In this manner, these four examples of Andean notions, and many more
that have emerged, include a rich source of conceptions of the world and their
members that archaeologists can benefit from. Thus, the purpose is to continue
to delve into such conceptions that could be coherent with the understanding
of objects, subjects, constructions, and landscapes that scholars find in their
research.
To close this chapter, I would like to comment on some of the advantages
that would arise from the use of Andean ontologies and that, in a way, provide
the justification for publication of this volume.
Advantages of Using Andean Ontologies in the Explanations

and Archaeological Narratives in the Andes
Clearly, there are more benefits than harm when using the categories and An-
dean concepts extracted from the different sources mentioned above. In fact,
many researchers, implicitly or explicitly, are using such concepts and catego-
ries. Thus, in this book, the different possibilities and opportunities given by
the study and use of Andean ontologies are evident as listed in the following
paragraphs.
It is a situated view that allows the incorporation of ancestral

knowledge related directly with the landscapes, landmarks,
and objects in the Andean world
The use of Andean categories allows the opportunity to explore the richness
of ancestral knowledge; and contemporary ethnography can assist us with
conceiving, perceiving, and experiencing the Andean world. As such, this is a
situated perspective that provides access to the past from the same living expe-
rience of a world that was also inhabited by social groups in the past. In addi-
tion, existing indigenous groups can contribute with their own experience and
interpretation of their own landscapes.
26 Henry Tantaleán
It is an intimate perspective that allows researchers to recover the
affective and sensorial part of the past Andean beings (and present ones)
In this chapter I have made it clear that there is an intimate relationship between
past human beings and their physical and mental spaces. This is an important
perspective that needs to be recovered as it directly affects our relationship with
past and present societies. In fact, some chapters of this book demonstrate that
it is important to take into consideration this aspect, which, while quite subjec-
tive, is not inseparable from the existence of past societies, and also from pres-
ent ones. Andean ontologies most likely explain many practices and features of
the landscape that appear irrational according to the current and Western way
of conceptualizing the world.
It is an alternative view that opens the current field

of explanations and narratives
As it has been stated before, the way in which archaeological interpretations

have been generated, almost from the initial contact with the Spaniards in the
sixteenth century, was conditioned by Western forms of their immediate refer-
ence. Therefore, unrelated interpretations of the Andean way of life have been
formulated. Thus, I believe that Andean ontologies complement some perspec-
tives, allowing for a more regional and a local view of the pre-Hispanic archaeo-
logical contexts.
It is a democratic and open perspective that allows a more fruitful dialogue

with other archaeological and historical approaches
This discussion allows for an “opening of the field” in order to generate more
symmetric dialogues between Andean and Western perspectives. Likewise, it
proposes scenarios in which ancestral knowledge can be valued in its true and
proper dimension as valid knowledge for archaeological interpretations.
It is an important heuristic which allows the construction

of working hypotheses that may make more sense than those
abstracted or imported from other realities
As seen above, at the methodological level this will allow us to develop test-
able hypotheses. Like all intellectual work, researchers do fieldwork loaded with
their own ideas about the past, and in many cases, ideas that were grasped or

developed from experiences and knowledge distanced from the Andean reality,
both past and present. Thus, when these views of Andean categories are opened
and made explicit, there is a possibility to improve the enunciation of our work-
ing hypotheses.
It is contrastable and can be compared with objective evidence,

such as those recovered through archaeology
Finally, this volume seeks to contribute to the reconstruction of such ontologies,

even loaded with our present methodologies and scientific views, with notions
that are useful and with explanations that can be guaranteed through archaeo-
logical Andean research. This book aspires to present scenarios in which the
explicit use of Andean ontologies can explain various social contexts in a world
in which we as authors work and live.
Final Comments
As we have seen in this chapter, although proposals as successful as those by

Viveiros de Castro and Descola recently have been fully extended in academia,
worldviews of Amazonian and Andean groups have been included in the ar-
chaeological interpretations of native and foreign archaeologists during the
twentieth century. Thanks to research conducted in the last few decades, espe-
cially from those who recognize the importance of anthropologic and ethno-
graphic research as ways to reconstruct indigenous views, it has been possible
to establish explicit and meaningful concepts and dynamics for the comprehen-
sion of native worldviews.
Furthermore, other sources have been relevant to understanding such on-
tologies. Thanks to ethnohistory, Andean scholars have made significant prog-
ress, and it has become an important heuristic instrument for Andean studies.
Similarly, linguistic studies that started with the analyses of the first indigenous
grammars in the Andes have opened the doors into oral and Andean thought.
Altogether, these studies provide evidence of the existence of an important
and alternative way of conceptualizing the world by indigenous societies that is
complementary to existing conceptualizations. This chapter attempts to briefly
summarize and demonstrate the richness of all developed perspectives in un-
derstanding the Andean worldview, especially when approached from an ar-
chaeological perspective. In the following chapters, the contributors establish
28 Henry Tantaleán
and make explicit a series of notions, concepts, and/or categories that were only
outlined here. Most importantly, they present archaeological evidence that can
offer substance to these ideas and hypotheses based on the ontologies outlined.
In this sense, this book itself becomes a tinkuy, a place where Western and
Andean worlds come together and communicate. As stated in the opening of
the Society for American Archaeology symposium in Orlando, this is an open
invitation to explore these Andean ontologies. There is significant work to be
done and this book is only a part of this exciting journey.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Bruce Mannheim for his productive conversations and
also for providing a relevant bibliography for this manuscript. Thanks also to
Gary Urton, María Cecilia Lozada, Lisa Trever, and Stella Nair, who offered im-
portant recommendations to an earlier draft of this chapter. Three anonymous
reviewers gave excellent commentaries to an early version of this introduction.
And thanks to David Beresford-Jones for providing some of the texts that were
instrumental to my research. Also, I want to extend my gratitude to the pre-
senters of the symposium in Orlando for their brilliant and provoking papers.
This text was translated by Claudia Giribaldi and edited by Brandy Norton and
Sylvia Cheever from the University of Chicago. I am deeply thankful to them.
Finally, I want to thank Charles Stanish who has been and is a permanent in-
spiration to me for overcoming all of the obstacles to reach my career goals.
Notes
1. In this chapter, I will not discuss the existence of an “Andean Philosophy.” Please
refer to the work of Josef Estermann (2006), Mario Mejía Huamán (2005), David So-
brevilla (2008), among others, for this theme. Here, I assume the existence of an indig-
enous worldview, or even better, an indigenous cosmopraxis (De Munter 2016) in the
pre-Hispanic Andes.
2. For a synthesis of the main ontological perspectives in Andean archaeology, see
work by Trever et al. 2009.
3. There is a vast body of literature that can be consulted (see Degregori 2000; Heg-
garty and Beresford-Jones 2010, 2012; Nuñez 2013; Muñoz y Gil (coord.) 2014; Porras
Barrenechea 1954; Pillsbury, in Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamaygua 2016; among others).
4. Another earlier text in which the indigenous view is transcribed into Spanish (1570)
is the one by Diego de Castro Titu Cusi Yupanqui (2006 [1570]). However, its relevance
is mostly associated with the narration of the Spanish conquest and not necessarily with

an earlier period. Furthermore, there is not much detail regarding the beliefs of the
indigenous pre-Hispanic societies.
5. The importance of the Huarochirí Manuscript was identified early on by Clements
Markham who translated it from Quechua to English in 1873 (Markham 1873).
6. According to Taylor (2000: 2): “It is quite possible that the Quechua dialect used
in the Manuscript was the ancient koïne from the south coast. It has affinities with the
“Chinchaysuyos” dialects from central Peru and a substratum reminiscent of Aymara.
Some unusual expressions suggest that Quechua was not the mother tongue of the au-
thors of the Manuscript and that they may have spoken an Aymara dialect of the haqaru
type.” For a discussion about Quechua dialects seen in the manuscript, see also Salomon
1991: 30–31.
7. In the case of the runakuna, the concept of “animu” is closer to the Christian term
“soul” (Allen 2008 [1988]: 69), but this “animu” can also be applied to an animal. In
the Léxicon of 1560 by Santo Tomás (page 40), “Anima” is translated as “camaquenc,
or songo, or camaynin.” Interestingly in the 1598 edited version, the Spanish terms of
anima and soul (also used interchangably) do not have a Quechua translation; further,
the phrase “camaynin” is not listed. “Sonco” appears as “heart, entrails, stomach, etc.”
According to Bertonio (1612: 39) Aymara speaking people use the Spanish term “alma”
without offering a similar term in their indigenous language. On the other hand, in
Santo Tomás Vocabulary (1568:148) the term “sami” appears translated as “blissful luck,
happiness etc.” In Bertonio’s (1612:307) it is translated as “blissful, strong” and equivalent
to “Cusi” (“Blisful, luck”).
8. Bolin (2006: 114) indicates that enqa is: “the life force that animates pacha—the
universe of space and time.” We also find in her glossary “enqa: life force contained in
the enqaychu” (Bolin 2006: 180) and “enqaychu: a small, natural, or slightly worked
stone, usually resembling an animal but sometimes resembling a human or an object,
believed to contain life force and the power to promote fertility, happiness and luck.”
(Bolin 2006: 181).
9. As Descola (2013[2005]: 129) put it:
If one strips the definition of animism of its sociological correlations, there
remains one characteristic that everybody can accept and that the etymology of
the term indicates, which is why I chose to preserve it despite the dubious uses
made of it in the past. That characteristic is the attribution by humans to nonhu-
mans of an interiority identical to their own. This attribution humanizes plants
and, above all, animals, since the soul with which it endows them allows them not
only to behave in conformity with the social norms and ethical precepts of hu-
mans but also to establish communicative relations both with humans and among
themselves. This similarity of interiorities justifies extending a state of “culture”
to nonhumans, together with all the attributes that this implies, ranging from
intersubjectivity to a mastery of techniques and including ritualized conduct and
deference to conventions. All the same, this humanization is not complete, since
in animist systems these, as it were, humans in disguise (that is, the plants and
animals) are distinct from humans precisely by reason of their outward apparel of
feathers, fur, scales, or bark—in other words, their physicality.
30 Henry Tantaleán
10. In Viveiros de Castro’s words (2014 [2009]: 68): “Amerindian perspectivism, then,
finds in myth a geometrical locus where the difference between points of view is at
once annulled and exacerbated. In this absolute discourse, each kind of being appears to
other beings as it appears to itself—as human—even as it already acts by manifesting its
distinct and definitive animal, plant, or spirit nature. Myth, the universal point of flight
of perspectivism, speaks of a state of being where bodies and names, souls and actions,
egos and others are interpenetrated, immersed in one and the same presubjective and
preobjective milieu.”
11. Please consult the notion of tinkuy in Earls and Silverblatt (1978) and Barraza (2013).
12. Other notions also relevant in understanding Andean worldview are discussed by
Depaz 2015 and Swenson and Jennings 2018.
13. Following Bertonio (1612: 378) “(Vraque) Uraque: The earth, an inferior world,
the topsoil.”
14. In the same vein, but from an ethnographic perspective, Pablo García (2018: 93)
highlights the use of the quechua concept of muyuy in the community of Chinchero,
Cusco: “El muyuy abarcaba un mundo ya inmerso en otros movimientos cósmicos,
generando una multiplicidad de ritmos que acentuaba un fuerte sentido de alternancia
y circularidad.”
15. As noted by Taylor (2000: 6), and based on the manuscript of Huarochirí: “A man
that benefits from the transmitted powers by a huaca is defined as camasca and many
times, as very camasca.” This term was translated generally in the colonial lexicons as
the “sorcerer” (Brosseder 2014).
16. According to Allen (2008: 55): “The tirakuna appear to be locations or incarna-
tions of the vitality that animates the Earth, like a large unit.” Also see de la Cadena 2015.
17. Also in Aymara one could say something composed like “Taqquepacha,” which
would mean “All of the men or people” (Bertonio 1612: 243).
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pppppppppppppp
2
Huaca Salango
A Sacred Center on the Coast of Ecuador
R ichar d Lu n niss
Approaches to the understanding of pre-Columbian sacred centers of the An-

dean region increasingly take guidance from native epistemologies and ontol-
ogies, both historic and contemporary (for example, Bray 2015; Staller 2008).
In particular, Quechua mythologies and glossaries recorded in the century
after the Spanish conquest, as well as early histories of Inca religion, provide
invaluable evidence for pre- and non-European ideas concerning the sacred
and other aspects of being (Allen 1998, 2015; Mannheim and Salas Carreño
2015; Salomon 1991, 1998, 2015; Tantaleán, this volume). Continued study of
such sources will undoubtedly contribute further and greatly to the interpre-
tation of remains recovered through excavation.
Philosophical concepts born of indigenous Andean societies such as the
Incas may also be helpful, when used with care, in the exegesis of centers both
beyond the Andean region proper and occupied well before the emergence
of the Inca state. As a case in point I shall discuss Salango, a site of coastal
Ecuador whose register as a sacred center begins with the first millennium BC
and ends with the Spanish conquest. But sites with rigorous organization and
a long history such as Salango’s must also, and in large part, serve as models
for their own interpretation. Embedded in localized social, economic, politi-
cal, and religious contexts as well as in their own natural settings, they reflect
specific and sustained responses to the challenge of existence, and any attempt
to explain their meaning should take full account of their particularities. It
is necessary then to use the subtle possibilities suggested by the linguistic
data to illuminate the evidence afforded by excavation without distorting or
obscuring the very concrete realities of the archaeological record.
The applicability of the term “Andean” to regions either side of and away from
the Andean mountains themselves, and in particular to the Ecuadorian coast, has
not gone unquestioned (Burger 2003). It may also be doubted whether colonial-
period Quechua terminology might shed light on the archaeology of sites located
in natural environments distant and radically different from those in which Que-
chua had originally emerged (Mannheim and Salas Carreño 2015). However, the
word huaca seems to be immediately germane to the interpretation of Salango.
Huaca, like another Quechua word, ayllu, refers simultaneously to certain
aspects of being that, to Western minds, are more readily understood as quite
separate entities. Both words are concerned with place, the sacred, and those
who belong to it. The fundamental interrelatedness of these elements cannot
be overemphasized. Preconquest definitions of ayllu, while variable, embrace a
community of living people, the land this community occupies, and the sacred
beings, especially ancestors, that also inhabit that place (Allan 2002; Spence-
Morrow and Swenson, this volume). Huaca, meanwhile, referred to a sacred
being as embodied in substance or place, whether a built temple, tomb, or
sculpture, mountain, spring, or some other natural feature, with the refinement
that this being was both partitive and agentive (Tantaleán, this volume). Indeed,
huacas were persons who participated actively in reciprocal relationships with
the social world of humans (Mannheim and Salas Carreño 2015).
As “dense clusters of social, historical, and cultural gravity” (Chase 2015),
huacas can contribute, via the archaeological record, detailed and structured in-
formation on the societies that maintained them. First, they were points around
which human lives revolved, at which identities were defined, at which time was
calibrated and space mapped out, and at which society engaged with the spirit
world and sought to guarantee its well-being. Far from being simply places of
peaceful contemplation or withdrawal, they were the settings for religious ac-
tion that was practical and political. Second, then, huacas that were visited over
extended periods of time reflect social and political as well as religious change.
Salango: The Setting and General Considerations
Set in a hilly region of tropical dry forest and scrub at the center of the Ecuador-
ian coast (Figure 2.1), Salango has a multicomponent pre-Columbian history
that spans 5,500 years from an aceramic and possibly Late Archaic phase of
50 Richard Lunniss
Figure 2.1. Map showing the relation of Salango to other coastal Ecuadorian
sites mentioned. Source: Richard Lunniss.
occupation through to the time of the Spanish conquest (Lunniss 2016, 2017b;
Norton et al. 1983). Of the many aspects of Salango’s ancient past, the most
significant and lasting was its role as a place where contact could be made with
the spirit world. Other such sacred centers in the region include La Plata Island,
which stands on the northwest horizon 44 km from Salango, and which has an
archaeological sequence that runs closely parallel to Salango’s, but which was
distinct in terms of the rituals performed (Dorsey 1901; Marcos and Norton
1981; McEwan 2015).
Salango Island, separated from the mainland site by a narrow channel, was
reported in the sixteenth century to be a sanctuary occupied by a female spirit
embodied in a statue with healing powers (Sámano and Xerez 1967). No ar-
Huaca Salango: A Sacred Center on the Coast of Ecuador 51

chaeological evidence has been found on the island to support this statement
directly. But in light of the known record of La Plata Island and that of Salango
itself, it seems most likely that a Manteño sanctuary did in fact exist there, and
that the island had been considered a sacred place since much earlier times.
In this chapter, however, I shall be discussing the ceremonial complex that
evolved during the centuries 600 BC to AD 600 immediately behind the main-
land shore, at the northeast-facing foot of the headland that rises opposite the
island. This complex was constructed as an architectural extension of the head-
land and provided access to its Otherworld counterpart.
The 1,200-year span consists of four archaeological phases: Middle (600–300
BC) and Late (300–100 BC) Engoroy, which both correspond to the Ecuadorian
Late Formative, and then Bahía II and Early Guangala (100 BC–300 AD), and
Middle Guangala (300–600 AD), which belong to early and middle stages of
the Regional Development period. At the heart of the site is a series of nineteen
main episodes of construction and use of a central space and structure exca-
vated, within the confines of a fish factory, as Sector 141B (Figure 2.2). Through
time, the area surrounding the center was gradually organized, and the ceremo-
nial complex grew to cover 3 ha, eventually being delimited by a formal bound-
ary. While some layers were clearly the result of natural formation processes, in
particular colluvial deposition, all anthropogenic contexts so far recovered can
be interpreted within the terms of an overall religious function, serving as ele-
ments of, contributions to, or by-products of ceremonial architecture and ritual
performance.
Each phase was in several ways quite distinct, but the most radical changes
occurred in the transition from Late Engoroy to Bahía II and Early Guangala.
These went beyond the gradual adoption of new pottery styles, technologies,
architectural forms, burial configurations, and ritual performances in general.
There was in addition a thorough transformation of the ways in which society
was organized, of the nature of its spirit beings, and of the manner in which
humans interacted with the spirit world.
The material components of the structures, such as clay floors and walls,
wooden posts, and roofs, were but the visible aspects of an architecture that de-
pended for its vitality and efficacy on spirit power (sami in Quechua; Tantaléan,
this volume; Muro, Castillo, and Tomasto, this volume). Such power was chan-
neled into the site and its arenas of action in different ways. First, it was enabled
by the location, positioning, and form of the architecture. But it was also obtained
through ritual performance, sacrifice, and the making of offerings. Some of the
52 Richard Lunniss
Figure 2.2. Map of the area of the Salango sanctuary, showing sectors and trenches excavated in 1979–1989
and 2014–2016 in relation to the fish factory, street system, and topography. Source: Richard Lunniss.
offerings were burnt, others have disintegrated. But a large number of more du-
rable artifacts gifted to the spirits have survived for our scrutiny. And again, the
selection, placement, and ordering of the offerings were always critical. Finally,
sacred beings were represented by images whose locations, at key points of the
site’s design, suggest that these were the spirit owners of the place, and thus those
to whom, or under whose aegis, society addressed its ritual performances.
The structuration of the ceremonial complex at Salango is remarkable. And
this refers to all levels, from that of the smallest hole up to that of the overall

design of the place as it gradually grew over the centuries. It refers also to the
individual artifacts that, through burial as offerings, were incorporated in, and
so became aspects of, the site. Thus we can trace, through the coherence of
the material, an ontology in which the social, natural, and spirit dimensions of
existence were completely if variably conjoined. But while many of the objects
deployed were reflections of the nature of local dependence on the land and the
sea, it is notable that others are closely matched in Andean religious iconogra-
phy and practice.
Coherence is most clearly evident through an analysis of the repeated pat-
terns of differential distribution of artifact offerings and animal, bird, and, espe-
cially, human burials in relation to the visible architectural design. These show
that locations across the site were associated with their own relative values or
sets of values, and that although the material and symbolic expression of these
values varied through time, the deep underlying structures of order that they
represented remained constant. Of primary importance was alignment on a
northeast-southwest axis, and structure was in the first place embodied in the
complementary opposition between its twin poles. There was also a secondary
division that distinguished the right/southeast and left/southwest sides of the
axis, which were related, respectively, with the northeast and southwest.
Finally, Salango, with its island and prominent headland, marks the geo-
graphic center point of the coast between Cabo San Lorenzo and Manta to the
north, and the Santa Elena Peninsula and La Libertad to the south. For the
Late Formative and Regional Development periods, the northerly region was
associated, respectively, with the successive Phases I and II of the Bahía culture,
and the other, first with Engoroy, and then Guangala. In south Manabí, the two
culture zones overlapped. Salango was a particular point of convergence, and
the sacred value of the site in part served in the mediation of sociopolitical rela-
tions between groups of the two regions.
Salango: The Archaeological Sequence
I shall extract, and present in necessarily oversimplified form, a small number

of the more significant expressions of sacred design that best demonstrate both
the means by which such design was achieved and the significance that design
had in relation to social structure and political interaction. These examples
show how the site underwent changes of different sorts. But they also show how
a consideration of the site through time permits understanding of any one stage
54 Richard Lunniss
to inform the reading of other stages. Indeed, interpretation of the site may be
not only incremental, respecting linear or historic time, but also recursive, so
reflecting, however distantly, the cyclical nature of sacred time and the return
to the originary principles that informed the constant re-creation of the site.
Middle Engoroy
The incorporation of sacred value in architectural design is first found with a
Middle Engoroy ceremonial house excavated at Sector 141B (Lunniss 2001, 2006,
2008; Figure 2.3). Of rectangular form and rising over a thick floor of yellow clay,
this structure measured around 10 m by 7.5 m. There was an outer wall or fence
of more slender posts surrounding an interior divided by various partitions and
centered on an open hearth. Its main axis, aligned southwest to northeast, was
marked out by foundation offerings in the two rearward postholes of the central
row of roof supports. Among these were a juvenile Spondylus princeps in the hole
Figure 2.3. Plan of the Middle Engoroy House, showing the position of the burials and offering pits in
relation to the roof supports and original wall trench. Entrance to the northeast. The S. princeps and V.
caestus shells were set in the rearmost (1) and penultimate (2) holes, respectively, of the central row of roof
supports. Source: Richard Lunniss.

furthest to the southwest, and a much-worn conch of the species Vasum caestus
in the hole 2.5 m to the northeast. Neither shell was worked.
The conch, represented by different biological species according to time and
place, and the Spondylus, are well-known symbols of Andean dualism (Paulsen
1974). In the first millennium BC, they were aspects, male and female, solar
and terrestrial, of successive Chavín deities as portrayed in stone sculptures of
the Old and the New Temples, which together straddle the date of the Engoroy
house (Burger 1992; Lathrap 1973). They were also expressly associated with the
right and left hands. At Middle Engoroy Salango, in turn, they were situated in
linear fashion at points associated with the rising and setting sun, and perhaps
more specifically identified with sunrise at the June solstice and sunset at the
December solstice. But it seems likely that, here too, the creamy white conch
and the red spiny bivalve each encapsulated a cluster of symbolic meanings,
including, not least, the male and the female.
The shells thus represented the main principle of binary division, their re-
spective values were embedded in the foundation of the house, and they aligned
the building with time and space as mapped by the sun’s annual movement
according to practices established by Early Formative Valdivia times (Zeidler
1998). Their arrangement also underlay and supported the entire sequence of
architecture and ritual of the next millennium and more. Out of its highly con-
densed symbolism, what follows can be seen as a long, intricate unfolding of
cosmic substance and signification.
Late use of the house culminated with the primary burial of five human
individuals. Each of these was placed, according to age and other social con-
siderations perhaps beyond our grasp, with strict regard for location relative
to the structure of the house. Inside the center-rear section of the house was a
single adult, flexed on the left side, head to the southeast and facing southwest.
By this stage, the outer wall had been dismantled, and three infants were set on
or next to the line of the earlier wall trench. Finally, one child was buried in a
grave cut into the clay floor immediately behind the house. The adult, who also
had a rather worn and slightly broken tripod bowl, and one infant, were each
accompanied by a string of polished white shell beads. The house had been
earlier created as a setting for religious ritual action. It seems likely then that
the now-buried adult, who strictly speaking was the sole occupant of the house,
would have been the shaman or religious leader who managed the ceremonies.
That the children were of this person’s family cannot be shown, although the
shared accompaniment of the shell beads points to some equivalence between the
56 Richard Lunniss
adult and one infant. However, the spatial association of the infants with the old
wall trench suggests that they were buried more in the order of offerings to the
house than as its occupants—the same wall trench, on the northwest side, was the
site for three other offering pits, two of which included ash, while the third had a
collection of small stones likely used for various shamanic functions. Meanwhile,
the older child, extended and supine, was buried perpendicular to the central
axis, with the head set precisely on that line and with the feet to the northwest.
Its burial at this specific point was clearly designed to incorporate human spirit
power in the structure and process first established by the shells placed at the base
of the roof supports. The position of the body as a whole also suggests an associa-
tion of the southwest, where the head lay with respect to the orientation of the
house, with the northwest, where the feet lay with respect to the head.
Thus the ceremonial house, first created as a place of interaction with the
spirit world, became a founding Ancestor House. And subsequent structures
would have derived much of their own power from the buried presence of the
house and the dead beneath it. In particular, the burial there of the religious
leader would have imbued the place with the extraordinary attributes for which
that person had been recognized as a spiritual authority. At the same time, it
is notable that the rearward position of the graves was repeated during later
episodes of burial. In other words, from this moment on, just as the entrance
would always face the northeast, so the proper place of the dead would be to
the southwest. This confirms the interpretation that, according to the principle
of complementary opposition, these directions were chosen as coordinates, re-
spectively, of the birth and death of the sun.
Late Engoroy
By the end of Late Engoroy, the house had been replaced by a low yellow clay
platform 14 m square and surrounded by a reddish clay wall 3 m thick and 80
cm high at the front (Lunniss 2001, 2006, 2008; Figure 2.4). The wall, in turn,
was surrounded on all sides by a floor of reddish clay. By now there was also
an elaborate northeast approach with an earth ramp and clay steps leading to a
raised proscenium situated directly inside the entrance; and the entrance way
had become a site for the burial of dedicatory and other offerings. More im-
portantly, the platform and surrounding floor had become a place of diverse
religious performances collectively relating to ancestral origins.
There were two main separate ritual sequences. The first centered on the pri-

Figure 2.4. Plan of the Late Engoroy Platform, showing the positions of the human burials, including the
shaman’s grave, and the empty grave. Source: Richard Lunniss.
mary burial of humans in long pit graves. Twenty-four burials were found in
the rear, southwest half of the platform, where each interment was also accom-
panied by the burning of a fire in a small, carefully dug pit, and by the offering,
in another hole, of pottery fragments and other remains of the funeral feast.
The burials were mostly of adults, with just one child and three infants present,
one of these accompanying an adult female, presumably the mother. Male and
female genders were evenly represented. The graves were all perpendicular to the
axis of the platform, with half oriented northwest to southeast, half in the other
direction, suggesting a moiety division related to the religious function of the
site. Most individuals were in an extended supine position, with the head either
facing straight up or else to the northeast. Of the grave goods, the most common
were single pottery vessels, single greenstone beads, and single or paired obsid-
ian flakes. Meanwhile, at the center of the proscenium, in the front, northeast
half of the platform, there was a grave with offerings but no human occupant.
This empty grave, uniquely, was aligned parallel to the main axis.
The preponderantly adult population was not natural. It is also notable that
58 Richard Lunniss
the burials took place over what was most likely a period of around 200 years,
at an average of one every 8 years. This suggests that, rather than a general
cemetery, the site was for individuals who were carefully chosen according to a
specific set of requirements relating to the wider function of the site. The adults,
in particular, were most likely selected for their suitability as new ancestors,
representatives of human society among the spirits of the Otherworld (DeLeon-
ardis and Lau 2004; Lau 2015).
The second and parallel set of rites involved placing upright stone figurines
in small holes dug into the clay floor around the platform (Lunniss 2011). The
figures were not covered with soil upon deposition, and their heads rose over
the tops of the holes: they were designed, then, to be seen to emerge from the
ground. Mostly they were anthropomorphic, tusk-shaped, and composed of
tuff. Any hole might include a single figure, or several. Figurines faced in all
directions, but with a preference for the northeast and southwest. Some were
painted green, and a few were accompanied by greenstone beads or obsidian
flakes. The periodicity of the rites is probably impossible to estimate, but dozens
of such depositions were involved. Initially closer to the platform, with time
they spread outward, in the end extending more than 50 m in all directions.
The figurines thus shared certain characteristics with the burials: human
form, greenstone beads, and obsidian flakes, and general association with the
platform. But in other ways they were very different: vertical rather than hori-
zontal, they tended to respect the main axis instead of crossing it; they were
much more numerous than the burials, and included multiple depositions as
well as single; they surrounded the platform instead of standing on it, and they
rose out of the ground instead of sinking into it. In brief, this is another instance
of complementary opposition.
The most economic interpretation is that the two sets of features each repre-
sented one half of a cycle, in which the human dead descended via the platform
into the underworld, while all around from that same underworld the figurines
surfaced via the ceremonial floor. In this context, the figurines were the original
ancestors as they first emerged to populate the earth, and the recent dead were
newly created ancestors sent in offering as exchange for those founder humans,
who in turn stand also for generations yet to come. In other words, Salango was
re-created in explicit form as an origin site. Meanwhile, the yellow and red of the
platform and floor were symbols of the two essences of biological life, as were the
yellow and red shells of the first house. The process represented by the total ritual
sequence, then, is also couched in terms of the necessary union of these essences.

It was at the literal center of the site and its multiple ritual performances that
two representations of a supernatural being were buried. One was in a grave
lying across the central axis at the front of the burials in the southwest half of
the platform. Its human occupant was 35–45-year-old man. Unlike all others
buried on the platform, he lay flexed on his back, leaning slightly to the north-
east. Under the chin was a greenstone bead. Under the left leg, was a long bone
baton. And by the left shoulder, there was one of Salango’s most extraordinary
artifacts—a small container made out of the modified skull of a white-tailed
deer, with a lid of mother of pearl.
The combined set of associated artifacts points to this having been a shaman
or other spirit professional. For he was also accompanied by a whistling bottle
in the form of a four-legged animal, which had been set under his lower back
(Figure 2.5). That this was a mythic creature and not one of the natural world,
is shown by the use of red paint to color the feet and of yellow for the chest and
Figure 2.5. The head of a spirit being modeled on the Late Engoroy whistling bottle from the shaman’s
grave. Source: Richard Lunniss.
60 Richard Lunniss
neck. The image then was explicitly endowed with the values of those colors.
The identity of the being we shall consider later. For the moment, we can sug-
gest that the man was buried with the bottle because it represented the specific
spirit to which he addressed himself.
Meanwhile, a few meters away, at the top of the platform, the grave empty
of human remains also contained a greenstone bead and a second whistling
bottle representation of the mythic creature, although of slightly different form
and style, decorated this time with iridescent paint. The absence of a skeleton
is perhaps puzzling, but the combined presence of bottle and bead, the form of
the pit, and the location at the high center of the platform indicate that this was
a counterpart to the burial of the shaman: one high, one low; one aligned with
the central axis, the other crossing that axis; one without skeleton, the other
with skeleton. The pits and their contents, even as they defined basic principles
of organization, commanded the platform and the space around it in which the
rites were conducted.
We must conclude that the spirit being and shaman were central not only
to the physical design of the Late Engoroy platform and surrounds, but also to
the meaning and action of the place. For the spirit would have been the ulti-
mate owner of the place. And the shaman, even in death communicating with
the mythic creature, directed the flow of energy as it simultaneously entered
the ground through the burials and rose from it in the form of the stone figu-
rines. This, then, is perhaps the clearest expression of the importance and na-
ture of the role of the shaman as spiritual intermediary to be found at Salango.
Early Regional Development Ceremonial Structures and Burials
Around 100 BC, there began a notable expansion of the area of Salango devoted
to human burial, and around the architectural nucleus at the base of the head-
land, a larger ceremonial complex developed. In due course, this reached as far
as the ancient river estuary, 150 m away, where a north entrance to the complex
has recently been identified, and from which a processional way would have led
to the main structures (Figure 2.2).
Three separate groups of burials have been identified, along with a number
of scattered single graves (Table 2.1). The first and main set of around 70 was
set inside a specially built funerary enclosure that arose over the Late Engoroy
platform at Sector 141B (Lunniss 2001, 2017a; Figure 2.6). This enclosure went
through seven episodes of construction and use, reaching maximum dimen-

Figure 2.6. Sector 141B during excavation of the walls of the west corner of the Bahía II funerary enclosure.
View to the east. The northeast-facing entrance lies between the two double rows of post holes at upper left.
Stones of the final Middle Guangala construction episode are visible at the north corner. Source: Richard
Lunniss.
Table 2.1. Distribution of excavated Early Regional Development burials at Salango
50 Meters to North Perimeter

Main Funerary North of Main of Sanctuary, North Entrance
Enclosure, Enclosure, Trenches 1 and 2, to Sanctuary,
Sector 141B Sector 141C Calle 22 P18, Calle 22
Number of Burials 69 18 8 1
Number of Adults 69 16 7 0
Number of Infants 0 2 1 1
Dominant Cultural Bahía II Early Guangala Early Guangala Bahía II
Imagery
Primary Orientation NE Not known SW NE
Source: Compiled by author.

sions of 17 m by 15 m. Each episode saw the building of a clay wall around an
initially empty central space that was gradually occupied by more and more
human burials. Further demarcation of the enclosed space was provided by
different arrangements of freestanding wooden posts along the front and sides
of the wall. There was an entrance through the wall on the northeast side. All
around, there was a clay floor that was kept clean and empty.
In two episodes, relatively massive posts were set along the side walls and
front in holes 2 m deep. They were supported by large stones. On the landward
southeast half, these were grinding stones, while those of the seaward north-
west half were anchors for balsa rafts. The enclosure then can be read as a built
symbol of dualistic structure, in which the grinding stones represented maize,
farmers, and the land, while the anchors symbolized the fruits of the sea, the
men who worked the sea, and the ocean itself.1 The northeast itself was also as-
sociated, through the placement of grinding stones in holes in or to either side
of the entranceway, with the land, and the southwest, by extension, would have
been associated with the sea.
The human burials were mostly seated primary interments in circular pits
of adult males and females endowed with elaborate and formalized grave offer-
ings, but there were also two secondary burials, one occupying a large urn and
the other wrapped in a cloth bundle. These were all set at a distance from the
northeast front wall and entrance, mostly facing northeast, north, or northwest.
The seated individuals were either flexed or cross-legged. Although, then, the
respective funerary rites would have taken place at an average of once every six
or seven years, roughly the same as that for Late Engoroy, the group was more
select and of more aristocratic character. And while the burial configuration
was quite different, the in situ funerary rites were also changed in that they no
longer included the burning of fires or the burial of feasting remains.
In general terms, then, the southwest continued to be the place of the dead. At
the entrance, however, there were two sequentially placed burials which, while
accompanied by standard goods, were quite distinct from the rest in two ways.
First, the graves themselves were boot-shaped, with a short vertical pit leading to
a lateral chamber on the southwest side. Second, the individuals looked toward
the southwest and southeast, facing and thus opposed to the graves of the main
group, even as they guarded the entrance that led to them. At the same time, one
of the two was seated cross-legged, and the other flexed. In this way, they also
seem to have represented the principle division of the main group.
The pottery vessels that accompanied the graves, on average two or three

each, while mostly of local manufacture, had multiple origins and included im-
ports from the lower Guayas Basin, the Santa Elena Peninsula, and elsewhere
(Lunniss 2004). But Bahía II influence is dominant, and within that tendency,
pottery reflecting the religious vision of the nearby funerary center of Salaite
is important.2 No Guangala images are present. Most vessels were fine ware
bowls, pedestaled cups and plates, polypod plates, and bottles and jars. Of these,
double compoteras (pedestaled plates) and double whistling bottles are of spe-
cial interest, as they carried images of a powerful spirit being.
The creature is modeled on the forward chamber of five Salaite-style double
bottles as a single seated figure (Figure 2.7). While in each case the details are
different, essentially we seem to be faced by a mutable being that may be more
human or mammalian, having mixed and variable bodily attributes, but is always
human in its posture, and is sometimes adorned with a feathered crown or crest.
The double-headed serpents that embrace two of the figures are probably sym-
bolic of water, and the creature itself can be interpreted as a Spirit of the Waters.
Meanwhile, on two double compoteras, it is just the head that is represented, in
iridescent paint on a dark smudged background (Figure 2.8). However, the head
of one plate of each compotera is larger than the other, and some details are dif-
ferent, suggesting that these are representations of male-female pairs. They are
also placed in rotational symmetry, so that the combined image is potentiated
and dynamic, rather than balanced and static, and the two principles of gendered
existence follow each other in an unending cycle.
The two other sets of graves were excavated north of the central funerary en-
closure. These most likely belonged to larger groups whose full extent remains
unknown, but in neither case was there any evidence of any sort of enclosing
structure. Both sets were accompanied by goods of Guangala type, reflecting
the fact that the site lay physically inside the northern limit of direct Guangala
influence. Thus first, 50 m to the north at Sector 141C, of the sixteen adult pri-
mary burials and two secondary child burials, one adult had a set of grave goods
that included a whistling Guangala figurine of Estrada’s (1957) Type B (Kurc
1984; Figure 2.9).
A further 100 m north, at Trenches 1 and 2 in Calle 22, there were seven
primary adult burials and one secondary urn burial, probably originally that
of an infant (Lunniss 2016). These lay close to the northern boundary of the
sanctuary, with the ancient bank of the river estuary just beyond. The primary
burials share the seated position of the enclosure burials, and were accompa-
nied by similar pottery vessels. In particular, two of the Calle 22 burials were
64 Richard Lunniss
Figure 2.7. The spirit being on a Salaite ware double bottle. Source: Richard Lunniss.
of individuals seated on very large Guangala pedestaled plates. In the central

enclosure, three burials were of this type, and among the group just to the north
at 141C there was at least one more. In all cases, the plates had been mutilated
before burial by removal of the base, and occasionally a small hole had also been
knocked in the bottom. This form of burial, then, crosscut the other differences
presented by each area. It also gives further support to the idea that the graves
of the three areas were contemporary.

Figure 2.8. Heads of the male-female spirit being pair in iridescent paint on a Bahía II phase double
compotera. Source: Richard Lunniss.
Figure 2.9. Early Guangala

male anthropomorphic
whistling figurine. Source:
Richard Lunniss.
However, other aspects differ. First, the dead at Calle 22 were occasionally also
accompanied by small artifacts, including a small polished axe, a spindle whorl,
and a grooved stone weight, identical to those reported by Bushnell (1951) for
Guangala graves at La Libertad. Such objects were not found in burials of the cen-
tral enclosure. Second, they all faced southwest. The Calle 22 group, then, not only
was physically removed from the graves at the center, it was also distinguished
from them both by accompanying offerings and by burial orientation. Indeed,
this orientation placed the burials in direct opposition to those of the enclosure.
One primary burial then presents evidence for a practice so far not reported
elsewhere at Salango. This relates to the manner of filling the grave after the
deceased has been put in place. Three soil types were carefully used in sequence:
white sand, yellow clay, and brown loam. Given the selection and the ordering
of the elements in this way, and given the general context of a site where order
is generally significant of some aspect of cosmic structure, it seems likely that
this manner of filling the grave also had symbolic meaning and ritual function.
The sand is from the sea, the clay is the material out of which the local hills
are made, and the loam is derived from areas of human activity. The soils, then,
each represent one of three aspects of the world that meet at Salango. In the
area of these graves, in particular, there is a clear history of repeated intersec-
tion of these dimensions: clay would wash down from the hill slope directly to
the east, sand would be blown up off the beach immediately to the west, and
cultural occupation of the site would successively cover and be covered by these
incursions. In other words, the tomb fills reconstruct the three-part being of the
site, and the deceased individual, at the center of this representation, mediates
between the different worlds.
First, however, a Vasum caestus conch was set below the right hip, and one
half of a Pinctada mazatlanica below the left. The same conch we have already
met in the forward, northeast posthole of the first ceremonial house, paired in
the southwest hole by a Spondylus princeps. Now, another bivalve, a mother-of-
pearl, has taken the place of the Spondylus, but it is essentially the same male-
female polarity that is symbolized. This pair then explicitly embodies duality
at the base of the tomb, either side of the vertical axis of the body that rises
through the levels of the different dimensions of sea, land, and society.
Meanwhile, a secondary infant burial at P18, 30 m away to the east, most likely
marked and protected the north entrance to the complex of these times, being
situated at the top of the old river bank and at the beginning of the stretch of flat
ground that led to the central enclosure. Inside a large kitchen ware jar decorated

with red finger paint, the loose bones were ordered along a linear axis, with the
skull on top to the northeast. Outside the urn to the northeast was a small pol-
ished fine ware jar. Below that to one side was a fine ware plate supported by a
short ring base. Meanwhile, under the small jar and next to the plate lay a female
Bahía whistling figurine (Figure 2.10). The front view has the woman dressed in a
Figure 2.10. Bahía II female anthropomorphic whistling figurine. Source: Richard Lunniss.
68 Richard Lunniss
skirt of elaborate colored design, with a two-stranded stone bead necklace, a gold
nose-ring, and ear studs. Her hair is held by a wide band across the forehead.
Seen from the back, however, she is undressed, and her long hair falls straight to
her waist. There are obvious references here to two opposed states of being. Most
relevant to our purposes, however, is the orientation of the figure, like that of the
set of bones, to the northeast, and the fact that they both carried to this further
position the direction of the central precinct.
The burial is unique at Salango for the period, situating a young child at a
place of critical importance in definition of the total ceremonial complex. The
figurine most likely came from Manta, or thereabouts—it is emblematic of the
Bahía II ceremony that was centered there. It can in turn, then, be read as a
pointer to the place from which it came. And so the grave links the site with
Manta, even as it marks the processional way along which the dead were carried
to the funerary enclosure.
A few meters away in Calle 22 at Trench 3, on the west side of this entrance
to the complex, a pit offering contained the pedestal base of a large composite
Guangala vessel, configured as the head of a powerful spirit being (Figure 2.11).
Figure 2.11. Composite Early Guangala vessel base in the form of a spirit being. Source: Richard Lunniss.

Just one other example is known, and was found by Bushnell (1951) at La Lib-
ertad. Both were composed of the same red paste used to make the large ped-
estaled plates, and in both cases, most of the upper section had been removed,
leaving only the part that directly covered the base.
Although neither head was recovered intact, the general design is clear. The
eyes are circular holes through the wall. Over them curve the bodies of two
snakes whose heads project to either side at the back of the face, and whose tails
merge as a third head and form the nose. The mouth is a wide cut with two large
fangs, one descending and the other rising, either side of a long tongue that falls
down over the chin. There are two feline ears, and behind them, two composite
projections perhaps representing supernatural sense organs.
The tongue and the serpents in particular, while different in details of design,
match those of the Salaite bottles from the burials at Salango, and it is clear that
we are dealing with a creature of the same order. Such imagery is widespread
in the Bahía zone, and is also closely associated with the more northerly coast,
where it finds its highest expression in Jama Coaque and La Tolita pottery and
gold artifacts. But it is not at all a common feature of Guangala. The two heads
could then have been made specifically in order to meet the requirements of
a ritual event, centered on the supernatural being, which took place both at
Salango and La Libertad, perhaps even simultaneously. How else are we to ex-
plain the identical nature of the images, and the identical removal of the upper
part of the vessel prior to burial?
We have no register of the precise context of the head from La Libertad. But
at Salango, the offering was made at the side of the way as it entered the final
stretch to the funerary precinct at the base of the headland. Thus, first, although
made elsewhere and according to another design, the head represented a paral-
lel vision of the Water Spirit incarnated by the modeled figures of the double
bottles and the iridescent painted designs of the double compoteras. Second, like
the child burial with the figurine, the head was set here as a marker, this time
indicating that the ceremonial complex, and the invisible territory of the spirit
world to which it gave access, lay in the control of this creature.
Early Regional Development Salango, then, presents a far more complex
image of sanctuary design. At the center, the point of maximum sacred charge,
was the set of buried aristocrats of Bahía II affiliation, enclosed by clay walls,
wooden posts, and a surrounding floor. This central enclosure was accessed
by a processional way leading from the sanctuary’s northeast entrance, itself
marked on either side by a Bahía II child burial and the offering of a Guangala
70 Richard Lunniss
spirit effigy. Of at least two secondary groups of burials, both of Guangala af-
filiation, and both to the right side of the way, one lay by the north perimeter
of the sanctuary and the other somewhat closer to the center. In other words,
we find with this phase a very clear statement of the importance of the dead,
not only in making contact with the spirit world, but also in negotiating access
to it for the different groups making claims on the place.
Middle Guangala
The central funerary enclosure was eventually filled in and converted into a
low platform edged at the summit by a clay curb, although in the final, third
construction episode this clay was replaced by a single course of stones. Bahía
II and Early Guangala pottery was replaced by a purely Middle Guangala rep-
ertoire, which extended across the entire complex. In particular, imagery of the
more recognizable Bahía Water Spirit was replaced by that of the highly stylized
three-color fine ware pottery of the mythic being of Guangala (Bushnell 1951).
At the same time, in the absence so far of any burials for this phase, it seems
that use of the sanctuary for human interment, at least at any significant scale
and in the spaces previously used for such practice, came to an abrupt end. In
other words, there was a change both of sanctuary function and of sanctuary
ownership.
The continued importance of Salango as a sacred place in these changing
circumstances is, however, shown by the construction of a formalized bound-
ary around the complex. Growth of the complex to the north was limited by the
ancient river estuary and the beach. In the previous phase, the north entrance
had been defined, minimally, by the burial of the child and the offering of the
effigy vessel. Now, a retaining wall was built that probably extended from the
north entrance down to the back of the beach and then along the shore to the
base of the headland. The ground behind the shore was mainly loose sand left
by the retreating sea, and one of the objectives of the wall was to consolidate the
edge of this unstable matrix.
The section of wall found was part of an inclined structure 2 m from front to
back, and a meter deep. It consisted of two steeply sloping sections either side
of a horizontal central step. The substance of the wall was a repeated sequence
of layers of three basic soil types, each sequence perhaps representing a renova-
tion of the structure. Generally speaking, first was a layer of black loam rich
in charcoal and further distinguished by the presence of abundant fish bones

and various artifacts. The fish bones, often densely packed, included articulated
vertebrae as well as heads, tails, and fins. These suggest the remains of complete
or almost complete fish, and it seems probable, given the carbon content of the
layer, that they had been cooked first. The artifacts included shell fish hooks,
pottery stamps, flakes, and worked pieces of obsidian, shell ornaments, and pot-
tery sherds bearing painted, polished, or painted designs. These and others were
all selected objects, some highly crafted, some bearing images of spirit beings
or designs of cosmic structure, and some of precious raw materials. Next would
be a thin layer of grey ash. And on top there was the main structural layer of
relatively thick, durable, and impermeable yellow clay, which served to cap the
underlying deposits and present a clearly and consistently colored surface along
the entire perimeter.
The use of the three soil types in sequence is reminiscent of that of the
sand, clay, and brown loam in the earlier pit grave, although the symbolism
will have differed. Strictly material-functional considerations will, of course,
have been important, especially in the use of clay as a sealant. But the fish
remains and artifacts can only have been added for their magical properties.
They will have been put in place each time in accordance with a specific ritual
procedure. And this procedure will have been repeated, perhaps with slight
variations, each time a new layer of soil charcoal, fish, and artifacts was added.
Each time, the sacred powers and meanings carried by the different offerings
will have been renewed, such that the wall would not only contain the sand
and mark the boundary, but also protect the invisible spirit-inhabited space it
enclosed.
The actual function or actions performed at the Middle Guangala sanctuary
remain unclear. It is first notable, however, that while the central platform re-
ceived little investment, much effort was given to the construction of the sanc-
tuary perimeter wall, in terms both of scale and offerings. Second, it is striking
that the offerings made in that wall were of a quite different order from those
of more formal and structured types associated with the Late Engoroy platform
and Bahía II enclosures. For while we can see in the repeated sequence of de-
posits that made up the wall; for example, an echo of the soil sequence of the
Early Guangala burial at Calle 22, the relative abundance of sometimes com-
plete fish skeletons, charcoal, obsidian, and other selected small artifacts are
unmatched elsewhere at the site at any time. Further study is required before
the full significance of the adoption of this specific offering configuration can
be understood.
72 Richard Lunniss
Discussion
The history of Salango’s ceremonial complex is that of multiple changes an-

chored to the architectural design that lay at its center. On average a new major
structure may have been built every 60 or 70 years. Reconstruction, however,
was perhaps required not so much on account of the poor state or collapse of
its main visible structures, but as a material embodiment of change relating to
some external principle or determinant of chronological order and rhythm,
although it is possible that newly emerging political and other histories were
also taken into account.
Throughout, the center incorporated the select dead in its substance, and
with differing degrees of intensity all human burials made statements about
place. For the status and origins of the individuals concerned, along with the
transforming ritual of burial itself, assigned or affirmed the value of the location
of each tomb. Thus specific points of the site were identified as places of differ-
ent but complementary and mutually necessary values. In Engoroy times, this
was limited to the central structures. But with the Early Regional Development,
we see the complex internal ordering of the main funerary enclosure extended
to and answered by the organization of the complex as a whole. The sum total
was a general statement of cosmic order and its relation, via the ancestors, to
social and political divisions.
In Late Engoroy, the myth of ancestral origin emphasized unity. All material
and ritual components of the center were coordinated within a single grand
design of cosmic flow. The funeral rituals brought together the families and
groups associated with each of the dead, and made of them one whole, all with
access to and claims on this origin site. The much more numerous rituals of
figurine deposition all around may have been performed by the same groups.
But they may rather have involved individuals not related to the dead; members
of local communities who through participation in the rites also registered their
association with the site. Whatever the case, the site speaks of integration.
Following the great transition into the new world of Bahía II and Guangala,
however, Salango’s ceremonial complex was occupied and explicitly claimed
simultaneously by two distinct major sociocultural groups. And as a sacred
place at the frontier of their respective territories, it became a point of intense
political interaction. Moreover, there was a clear intent on the part of the Bahía
II affiliated groups who controlled the funerary center to set themselves apart
from and exclude those who buried their dead elsewhere at Salango. For the

central enclosure was separated from the surrounding burial areas by a open
ground apparently not occupied either by burials, architecture, or offerings. The
Bahía presence at the center, then, represented a most determined effort by an
essentially foreign influence to maintain religious control of the site.
But through Late Engoroy as well as Bahía II and Early Guangala times,
the spirit world at Salango was dominated by a mythic supernatural that also
underwent drastic transformation over the transition from the first period to
the next. The iconography of the imagery points to this having been a powerful
Water Spirit. But although it was a single being, it was made manifest through
multiple and different contemporary representations.
There were also important changes in the way the spirit imagery was dis-
tributed within the burial contexts. For while the Late Engoroy bottles lay at
the center of the funerary platform, the Bahía II–Early Guangala phase double
compoteras and bottles were neither so centrally situated nor necessarily associ-
ated with individuals identifiable as spirit professionals. Rather they accompa-
nied members of a new general aristocratic class that had appropriated to itself,
although by no means exclusively, the rights of access to the spirit world and its
sacred power through association with the water spirit.
At the same time, the offering of the Guangala effigy at the entrance may
have been part of a larger ritual performance that linked Salango and La Liber-
tad. For these identical vessels, identically treated, would have necessarily taken
to each site of burial the identity and substance of the same spirit being. What
happened in Salango were not events of purely local interest, and the rituals
performed there did not limit themselves to establishing the value of Salango as
a site in itself, as it were. They were performed with reference to a social, politi-
cal, and territorial context of a much wider scale.
An important function of the principal spirit, then, in all its different
guises, was that of mediating and reconciling sociopolitical difference. Of
course, the primary role was that of guaranteeing water. But in that sense, the
supernatural can also be understood as a supreme force controlling human
destiny. And thus it would have been logical that all appeal be addressed to
this being, and all ritualized interaction, at the highest level, recognize its
authority and power.
In sum, and first at a philosophical and general level, thinking of Salango
as a huaca, by directing us to the idea of the sacred in terms of place and spirit
engaged in active relationships with human society, requires us to contemplate
the ever-changing and richly textured design of the site in terms of the ritual
74 Richard Lunniss
performances conducted there and to attempt to recreate the mythical context
of those events. Second, and in parallel, the archeological record points to the
enormous importance of human burial and artifact offerings in organizing and
maintaining the sacred energy that flowed through the earth at this point. For
it was precisely in the context of this channeling of spirit force that the different
groups who occupied, visited, and claimed Salango were able to negotiate and
confirm their own social and political relationships. Third, while the foundation
offerings of shells beneath the first house are perhaps the most vivid example
of Salango’s participation in a system of religious values of macroregional scale,
other substances, devices, and structuring principles described will also be fa-
miliar to students of Andean archaeology. This does not mean, however, that
Salango or other peri-Andean sites should be seen as secondary manifestations
of a purer or more valid “Andean” ontology. Rather, we should see in what ways
comparison in both directions helps us understand the original values that each
place itself had for those who visited them.
Acknowledgements
Excavation of the main structures at 141B was carried by the Programa de

Antropología para el Ecuador between 1979 and 1989. Rescue excavations at
Calle 22 were carried out in 2014–2016 by the Universidad Técnica de Manabí,
Portoviejo. I thank María Cecilia Lozada and Henry Tantaleán for the opportu-
nity to present this first synthesis of the data, and Luke Dalla Bona for preparing
the site map and structure plans.
Notes
1. This raises the possibility that the two principal burial orientations of Late Engoroy
may have reflected a similar differential association with the land and the sea.
2. Salaite is a looted site of definitive significance for the central coast, but has still to
be discussed in more than anecdotal terms.
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78 Richard Lunniss
pppppppppppppp
3
Analogism at Chavín de Huántar
N ic c o L a M at t i na a n d M at t h ew Say r e
Approaches to understanding the core beliefs and worldviews of ancient peoples

are, of course, not superficially facilitated by the predominately material archae-
ological record. Sometimes, pre-Columbian people are compared by analogy
to presumably similar contemporary people; that is, a theoretical framework
applicable to certain modern peoples is applied a priori in the investigation of a
pre-Columbian site. This chapter argues that, at Chavín de Huántar, interpreta-
tions centered around animism and shamanism employ these concepts a priori
as ways of understanding the material record. Many of the references to sha-
manism make specific analogies to Amazonian practices and import these ideas
to Chavín de Huántar. Furthermore, this chapter argues that, if the iconographic
and material record at Chavín de Huántar, as well as interpretations of these
in the established literature, are carefully evaluated, interpretations centered
around animism and shamanism will not follow; that is, these are not supported
by the material record per se. Rather, as this chapter hopes to demonstrate, the
analogist ontology formulated by Descola (2005) finds a firmer grounding in the
iconographic and material record when these are considered together.
Site Background
Chavín de Huántar is a major Formative Period archaeological site (circa
1200–200 BCE) in the north central highlands of Peru (Rick et al. 2009),
consisting of a monumental temple and associated occupation areas (Figure
3.1). The site is known for its elaborate stone iconography as well as its fine ce-
ramic ware, extensive labyrinth galleries, and large stone sculptures. The early
Figure 3.1. Chavín de Huántar and site sectors (from Rick 2005).
spread of Chavín iconography across the central Andean region is captured

in what was traditionally called the “Chavín Horizon” or the “Early Horizon”
(Burger 1992).
Julio C. Tello (1960, 2009a) described Chavín as the ritual center of the
mother culture of the Andes, although later radiocarbon dating has demon-
strated that several monumental sites predate Chavín itself (Burger 1992). Tello
first visited the site of Chavín in 1919 as part of his larger survey of the Marañon
River (Tello 1943), where he searched for evidence in the highland region for the
independent development of Andean civilization, as opposed to the prevailing
diffusionist views of the time such as those of Max Uhle (1902).
The formal rediscovery of the temple did not initially lead to extensive exca-
vations, rather the first visits to the temple were devoted to cleaning and map-
80 Nicco La Mattina and Matthew Sayre

ping, but soon after the site was cleared it became host to a parade of archae-
ologists excavating and analyzing the site. Little of this early work challenged
the assumption that Chavín was the primordial site of Andean civilization. In
recent years (Shady Solis 2005), this view has been mostly discredited, but the
site continues to be a source of great debate in broader discussions of the rise of
political authority in the region (Rick 2008).
Chavín was predominantly in use as a ceremonial center between 900 and
500 BCE (Kembel 2008; Rick 2008; Rick et al. 2009), although archaeological
investigations at the site over the last 20 years have revealed that the architec-
ture of the monumental center changed dramatically over time (Kembel 2008).
There were initial construction events that focused on the creation of gallery
space, but there were also significant building events that were focused on the
construction of public space. The Mosna River’s course was shifted in order
to provide additional space for the creation of a large and open square plaza
(Rick 2008). This focus on communal space was later replaced by a greater
focus on enclosed spaces that were likely the center of elite ritual events (Rick
2008). While the construction of monumental buildings ceased around 500
BCE, there continued to be people living in the monument until modern times.
Basic facts about Chavín’s economy are fairly well established. The site is
located among diverse and highly agriculturally productive lands in which a
“larger-than-normal” stratified farming population may have developed (Rick
2008: 4, 9). The local economy centered on farming and pastoralism (Rosen-
feld and Sayre 2016; Sayre 2010), including camelids, which were raised on site.
Among the major crops are included corn (Zea mays), quinoa (Chenopodium qui-
noa), and beans (Phaseolus sp.) (Sayre 2010). Furthermore, research at the site has
confirmed that Chavín had broad economic ties to external regions of the Andes
(Contreras 2011; Sayre et al. 2016). There is abundant evidence for the exchange
of exotic goods such as obsidian, spondylus shell (Spondylus princeps), strombus
trumpets (Strombus galeatus), cinnabar, and marine bone (Burger 1992; Contre-
ras 2011; Sayre and López Aldave 2010; Sayre et al. 2016; Van Valkenburgh 2005).
This evidence for exchange of relatively lightweight exotic goods is contrasted
with limited evidence for the trade of staple goods such as agricultural products
(Sayre et al. 2016). This research strongly suggests that Chavín’s local population
was dependent on regional food production, although also bound in an extensive
trade network by the power and importance of its ritual and political connections.
The art at Chavín, recognizable from its unique patterns and chimerical
figures, has also been the subject of considerable examination (Burger 1993;
Analogism at Chavín de Huántar 81

Conklin 2008; Lathrap 1973; Roe 2008; Rowe 1962; Tello 2009b; Urton 2008;
Weismantel 2013, 2015). Its distinct surreal iconography—the Lanzón sculp-
ture, agnathic teeth, pendant eye, and the Janabarriu ceramic style—defined
the Chavín-style horizon. The figure of the staff god and some of core Chavín
imagery may appear earlier at other sites west and south of Chavín, suggesting
that this site is more of a culmination of this phase rather than its instigator
(Shady Solis and Leyva 2003). As Burger (1985) and Williams Leon (1985) have
noted, there were clear antecedents on the coast, such as Cardal and Garagay,
for many of the architectural forms constructed at Chavín.
Ontology
When we examine Chavín de Huántar ontologically, we necessarily enter into

the discourse of the “ontological turn” (Kelly 2014) in which the meanings of
terms are contested, the raisons d’être are disparate (if not antithetic at times),
and the starting points of analysis are various. It is perhaps appropriate to ex-
tend Geoffrey Lloyd’s (2012, 2015a, 2015b) consideration of incommensurability
between ontologies to a similar consideration of incommensurability between
anthropological ontologisms. Are, for instance, Philippe Descola and Eduardo
Viveiros de Castro both truly engaged in the same project, and to what extent is
their work cross-pollinating? If we, as so many etymologists, look to the foun-
dations of the “ontological turn,” we might reasonably consider the “turn” to
be the development of anthropological theories out of the dissolution of the
nature-culture divide, at least insofar as the “belief that nature does exist” is
historically situated (Descola 1996: 88) and not universally equivalent (“Culture
is the Subject’s nature” [Viveiros de Castro 1998: 477]).
Drawing on Hallowell’s (1958, 1969) “ethno-metaphysics” of the Ojibwa,
sometimes troublingly compatible with Tempels’ (1945) “logically coherent”
ethno-ontological determinism,1 the various projects of OTers (that is, “onto-
logical turn”ers [Graeber 2015]) sometimes take as their object “the roots of
human diversity . . . where basic inferences are made about the kinds of beings
the world is made of and how they relate to each other” (Descola 2014b: 273).
Instead of a program for the investigation of “basic interferences,” Viveiros de
Castro’s work instead seeks to further antagonise and destabilise “Western phi-
losophy” (Latour 2009; Viveiros de Castro 2015b: 22–23). Viveiros de Castro
(2014: 81–84; compare 2015b: 87) has criticized Descola’s typology, and rather
than distinguish between animism and naturalism, the distinction is between

multinaturalism and multiculturalism with a perspectivist mechanic. Perspectiv-
ism is not meant to denote a configuration of interiority and physicality, but
rather “a mode of functioning” (Viveiros de Castro 2014: 82) between the distinc-
tions. In this sense, multinatural perspectivism holds that “humanity is recipro-
cally reflexive” (Viveiros de Castro 2014: 69) such that jaguars are (1) jaguars to
humans, but (2) humans to other jaguars. Humans are (1) prey animals to jag-
uars, (2) humans to other humans, but (3) cannibalistic spirits to prey animals.
The oscillation between these perspectives by a shaman destabilises the fixity
or the ontological integrity of any given being, and so too poses a challenge to
uninaturalist philosophies of being. Although Viveiros de Castro’s ontological
perspectivism, by challenging naturalist-rooted interpretations, is a useful tool
for understanding at least one animistic mode or relation (Weismantel 2013,
2015; Willerslev 2011), our investigation takes Descolian ethno-ontology2 as its
framework in order to argue for an analogist ontology at Chavín de Huántar,
where animism (variously defined) is typically presumed.
Ontology from a Descolian Point of View
Ethno-ontological regimes are distinguished not by their social relationship to

nature (Descola 1992, 1996), but rather by their understanding of interiority—
understood variously as the soul, mind, or essence—and physicality (Descola
2005), whereby animism, totemism, naturalism, and analogism are established.
Within Descola’s fourfold framework, animism is understood as a continuity of
interiority and a discontinuity of physicality, such that nonhuman animals share
with humans a common spiritual or social substrate against a background of
differing appearances and physical compositions. In this sense, Descola’s ani-
mism accounts for the personhood of nonhuman animals in the classic analysis
of Ojibwa “ethno-metaphysics” by Hallowell (1969) as well as the social inclu-
sion of animals in his own ethnography of the Achuar (Descola 1986). Unlike in
Descola’s earlier writings, and very unlike Tylorian animism, this new Desco-
lian ontological animism is about a tacit inference about reality on the part of
animists. Rather succinctly, this point is described by Hallowell 60 years earlier
when he notes that the soul “defines the conceptual substratum of beings with
self-awareness and other related attributes (speech, memory, volition, and so
on) that we associate only with a stabilized anthropomorphic structure” (1955:
180), famously remarking that “the soul is the only necessary substratum. Any
particular form or appearance is incidental” (1955: 176).

Naturalism is no longer simply the belief in nature, but is now the inverse
of animism: humans have a unique interiority in that they are conscious, set-
ting them distinctly apart from other animals, but physicality is universal such
that “natural laws” govern the movement of the stars, the falling of apples from
trees, and even the mechanical operation of the body. The naturalist ontology,
furthermore, considers these two fields (interiority and physicality) to be uni-
ties, which is to say that all of physical reality is subject to the same natural
laws, and the person is normally an indivisible unit. The Descolian totemism
has continuities of both interiority and physicality within analytically relevant
classes such as moieties. Again, rather than classical formulations of totemism,
wherein the totem group is essentially the fetish of a plant or animal, or even
the “intellectualism” of Lévi-Straussean totemism (Descola 2005: 203–204), this
ontological totemism entails the tacit recognition of a shared substance or even
a consubstantiality of members within a totemic group. To eat the plant or ani-
mal with which one shares a totemic group is regarded as cannibalism or even
auto-cannibalism (Lévi-Strauss 2008a: 639; 2008b: 483), that is, the eating of the
shared substance in the former or the eating of one’s-self through the consub-
stantial in the latter.
In its first formulation, analogism is an inversion of Descolian totemism,
which is to say that it is a discontinuity of both interiority and physicality, al-
though as a consequence it is perhaps more fitting to describe analogism as the
ontology of a priori discontinuity (Descola 2005: 286, 288) of which analogical
links are only a consequence (281). Descola states, following logically from its
configuration, that a dominant aspect of all analogist ethno-ontologies is the
plural nature of every existent, each depending on the correct order of said
plurality to maintain stability (295). As such, analogist regimes logically take
the form of “holistic and hierarchically organized collectives,” (2010a: 220), al-
though not necessarily in the form of states or empires (2005: 376). Descola ex-
plains that “in collectives that function under an analogist regime, humans and
nonhumans always appear as constitutive elements of a wider set, coextensive
with the universe” (2010a: 221; emphasis added), which is to say that analogist
ethno-ontologies place exceptional emphasis on the relationship between the
microcosm and the macrocosm, especially on the correspondences between
humans and the cosmos (2005: 286–287). Hierarchy is, as it were, necessitated
by the fact that the person is not a bounded and isolate entity whose freedom is
of its own will, but rather is made meaningful only as a component of a cosmos
within which its coherence is imperative.

Perspectivism, Analogism, and Chimeras
Returning to Chavín de Huántar, this section will review the literature on the site’s
iconography. First, two other approaches to the material will be evaluated—the
naturalist and the perspectivist—before moving on to Descola’s conception of
a chimera, which will be followed by interpretations of Chavín iconography by
Tello and Urton that are largely consistent with analogism and Descolian chime-
ras. This section, then, intends to demonstrate that, when a theoretical construct
per se is not taken a priori as the method for understanding the materials, as is
more closely the case in Urton and especially Tello, the iconography and interpre-
tations of it are much more closely in line diagnostically with analogism.
In his classic analysis of Chavín art, John Howland Rowe proposed a “figu-
rative treatment of [the] representations” (1962: 15). For Rowe, the composite
nature of the images at Chavín is deconstructed to “comparisons by substitu-
tion . . . in a figurative or metaphorical fashion” (1962: 14), such as the direct
comparison suggested between hair and snakes, which is to say that the hair
is kenned by snakes, almost evoking a proper kenning in the form of “head-
snakes” and possibly more abstractly, as pointed out by Urton (2008: 220), sim-
ply “nest of snakes.” If hair is kenned as snakes simply to add an artistic figura-
tion, then we might reasonably conclude that Chavín’s art was merely aesthetic;
that is, Rowe’s interpretation of the chimeras can be understood as assuming
a naturalist ontology. Nonetheless, Rowe recognized several affordances of the
iconography that, as will be shown, are diagnostic of analogism: namely, that
they contain composite wholes comprising heterogeneous assemblages of vari-
ous natural species. To assume that these composites were simply artistic figura-
tion neutralizes their potential cosmological significance.
In his 2010 Malinowski Memorial Lecture, Rane Willerslev (2011) proposed
a possible solution to the interpretation of chimeras: namely, as the product of a
“view from everywhere.” Building off of the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty
and the perspectivism of Viveiros de Castro, Willerslev claims that The “Dancing
Sorcerer” of Les Trois-Frères “is a person, human or non-human, seen from all
predatory viewpoints at once. This would explain why . . . his body is a mosaic of
animal body parts, since each external perspective perceives him as one kind of
prey or another” (2011: 522; emphasis added). Mary Weismantel (2013, 2015) ap-
plies a similar method to the interpretation of the chimerical figures of Chavín de
Huántar, writing of the so-called “guardian angel figure” from the north column
of the Black and White Portal (Figure 3.2) that “it’s what humans see . . . when they

Figure 3.2. Roll-out drawing of the Black and White Portal (modified from Rowe 1962).
hunt. They glimpse the animal from multiple perspectives. . . . So here we have an
inside-out, living-dead jaguar/human/bird that we see from too many different
perspectives to ever achieve a coherent whole” (2015: 149; emphasis added). The
prime difference between Willerslev’s chimera and Weismantel’s is that in the lat-
ter the materiality and complexity of the chimera is the catalyst for a perspectivist
oscillation whereby the mode of functioning of the shaman, instead of just the
vision, is made available to the viewer. Where they are similar, however, is that
for each there is a multitude of bodies and body-affects alongside a psychic unity,
which is to say that their chimeras assume an animist ontology.
Descola finds chimeras, or composite beings, to be diagnostic of an analogist
ontology. Interiority and physicality, both being discontinuous, are pluralities.

The classic figure of the analogist ontology, which allows for the highest
probability of correct identification, is the chimera, a being composed of
the attributes belonging to different species while exhibiting a certain an-
atomical coherence. The chimera is a hybrid whose constitutive elements
are derived from heterogeneous sources—from animal species taken
from different classes and orders, or even the human species—but which
are uniquely assembled in a being sui generis, which is rarely thought of
immediately as imaginary, sometimes envisaged as a singular animal or a
divinity, more often perceived to be a member of an uncommon species
although real. (Descola 2010b: 165–168; translation ours)
In this way the chimera reflects society, being reminiscent of Descola’s remark
that “the analogist collective is unique, divided into hierarchized segments and
in almost exclusive relation with itself” (2010a: 222; emphasis added). The person
is comprised of different aspects whose correct ordering establishes harmony
and the person is an aspect of a larger whole, the macrocosm, with which it
is coextensive or iterative. In fact, the nature of the relationship between the
microcosm and the macrocosm is only given a posteriori, such as was the case
in ancient China where the macrocosm and the microcosms (the state and the
person) were variously understood as either analogously related or else form-
ing a seamless whole (Lloyd and Sivin 2002: 174; compare Lloyd 2015a: 44). The
iteration of the microcosm into the macrocosm, fractal holography, is another
manner of analogist relation, which Mosko describes among the Trobrianders
where “yams and people are analogous” and “children are fractal recursions
of their parents” (Mosko 2010: 155, 165). The person is comprised of different
aspects whose correct ordering establishes harmony, and society is comprised
of different persons whose correct ordering establishes harmony, ad infinitum.
Julio C. Tello, the legendary archaeologist after whom the Tello Obelisk takes
its name (Figure 3.3), wrote of the obelisk’s inner arrangement, that “all these
different elements which appear reunited here in a complex and mysterious
whole surely form part of a mythological cycle that is related to the powers of
nature which directly influence the preservation or destruction of the socioeco-
nomic values of humanity” (2009b: 198). The different, let us say heterogeneous,
elements forming a complex whole are the very ontological constituents charac-
teristic of an analogical ontology. Tello’s suggestion that these wholes represent
a mythological cycle is itself in keeping with Descolian analogical chimeras,
who, we will recall, are “illustrations of the stories that describe their quali-

Figure 3.3. Tello Obelisk (modified from Urton 2008).
ties” (2010b: 172), which Roe echoes when he suggests that Chavín iconography
in general consists in “instantiated myths, sacred oral tales” (2008: 214). Roe
describes the bodies of the chimeras as “cosmological bodies with an intricate
somatic geography” (2008: 190), such that “all Chavín depictions are really pro-
jections, maps of ancient cosmological bodies, rather than mere portraits of
naturalistic beings” (182). The difference between naturalistic beings—which as
naturalists “we are wont to see”—and Chavín beings is that a Chavín body does
not comprise physical unity, but rather consists in cosmological aggregates. The
legacy of Tello’s broadly analogist interpretation is also found in Urton:
Chavín art represent models of and for structured relations among ac-
tors (or other elements), processes, and systems of classification in other
domains of life (for example, kinship, hunting, curing, eating). The “map-
ping” of sets of non-corporeal objects and relations onto the body repre-
sented the strategy whereby Chavín artists constructed their iconographic
conventions on the proper and “natural” order of things according to
Chavín cosmology. The resulting frameworks and paradigms of the body
constituted what I refer to here as the “well-ordered body.” (2008: 221)
Urton’s “well-ordered body” situated in a network of relations comprising the

Chavín cosmology is very neatly in alignment with an analogist ontology, even
without employing Descolian analogism in the interpretation.
The Case for Analogism at Chavín de Huántar
Sahlins (2014) takes analogism to be the animism of hierarchically organized

collectives. It is perhaps problematic to ascribe particular ethno-ontologies to
certain types of social organization, and in fact Descola (2014a) cautions against
doing just this, but social hierarchy at Chavín de Huántar is also diagnostic, if
only loosely, of analogism (or at least the emergence of analogism). This is to
say that the established literature is consistent with Descolian analogism, as will
be shown, rather than animism, through a bottom-up investigation of various
lines of evidence including site organization, agricultural practices, and eco-
nomic activity. Before considering the literature and how it fits into an analogist
interpretation, it is important to caution that these are diagnostically suggestive,
but not sufficient in themselves, to argue for analogism.
Pre-ontologically minded interpretations (see especially Rowe 1962) typi-
cally extended to the Chavín a real metaphoric binary, itself a transformation

of the nature-culture binary, which in turn made naturalists of them. Many of
the contemporary approaches to the archaeology of the pre-Columbian An-
des instead assume an animist ontology among the highlanders, extending the
ethnographic context of a few contemporary Amazonian peoples to the “high
cultures” of the Andes, which Viveiros de Castro is careful to not do in his
own analysis (2015a: 212). For example, recall that in Weismantel (2015: 149) the
Chavín chimeras are “what humans see . . . when they hunt”; applying animist
hunting theories to an agricultural economy. Finding “animism,” broadly un-
derstood, among present-day Quechua speakers as well as in the text of Span-
ish chroniclers, animism is often attributed to the Andes, and even projected
backward into the pre-Columbian past as far back as to Chavín itself (Bray 2015:
12). But, although we must always be critical of such attributions, we must also
consider whether terms like animism and shamanism are even relevant to the
context as given. Here we consider analogism as the appropriate ontology in
which to frame the investigation into the Andean past, especially with regard
to Chavín, which we take to be the frame of reference for our claim.
Jerry Moore’s writings serve as a useful analysis of other archaeologists’ work
and provide insights that can be used to further future research. His survey of
the connections between South American religious practice and architectural
forms is detailed in Table 3.1.
Table 3.1 Connections between religious authority and practice
South American Ecstatic

Ethnographic Case Medium Shaman Canonist Ceremonial Architecture
Yanomamo + No ceremonial architecture

Waiwai + Shaman’s hut only
Bororo + Men’s house, dance area
Mehi + Men’s house, dance area
Guaraní + Dance area, shrine
Warao + Dance area, shrine, temple
Kogi + Dance areas, temples, sacred
centers
Mapuche + + Dance areas, shrines, mounds
Source: Religious authority/practice based on Sullivan (1988: 387); ceremonial architecture

reproduced from Moore (2005: 85).

One important conclusion from Moore’s work is that we should reconsider
certain assumptions about Chavín, in particular the nature of religious practice
and formal societal roles. Moore notes (2005: 220) there is broad consensus that
these Formative Period structures were religious constructions; he also states
that there are distinct differences between theorists on the nature of authority at
these sites. The ethnographic record of South America does not appear to sup-
port the idea that there were formal temples run by ecstatic shamans (see Klein
et al. 2002 for a similar discussion of shamanism in Mesoamerica). Shamans
were generally described as ritual practitioners imbued with special powers that
they enact in unique, charismatic events; usually their powers were not consid-
ered to be rooted in established institutions. Rather, every time we see formal
temples we see examples of priests who practice some form of a canonical reli-
gion. The canon may not have been inscribed in written language but there are
elements of the iconography at Chavín that would have been clearly decipher-
able to visitors to the monument, or else at least to priests or other specialists,
as priests are considered to be ritual practitioners granted societal positions
based on their specialized religious knowledge. Based on this analysis as well
as a five-point variable architectural study of permanence, centrality, ubiquity,
scale, and visibility, Moore (2005: 220) concludes that priests—not ecstatic sha-
mans—directed the activities, as well as possibly informed the iconography, of
Chavín and similar sites.
Insofar as shamanism—especially ecstatic shamanism—is an animist in-
stitution, it is perhaps safe to rule out shamanism as such, as well as animism
narrowly defined (sensu Descola 2005), from Chavín. Rather, the “theological
engineering” of priests is diagnostic of analogism (Viveiros de Castro 2014:
128), and so where we find priests rather than shamans we should expect anal-
ogism as opposed to animism narrowly defined. But here we should clarify
why we must insist on distinguishing animism narrowly defined—which is
to say Descolian animism—for animism broadly defined, which is simply the
recognition of agency beyond the human (so that it is always in opposition
to naturalism). Analogists may recognize animacy, and thus may appear as
animists in some ways, and may in fact recognize animacy in a broader array
of beings than animists, but analogists recognize animacy in degrees accord-
ing to the possession and ordering of certain component parts (Descola 2005:
295–296). Hence, when Allen (1982: 179) describes the “animistic ideology”
of the Sonqo Quechua of southern Peru as holding that “all material things
partake of life—although in various modes and to different degrees”—she is

perhaps more accurately describing a hierarchical “animistic” tenet of Que-
chua analogism.
The economy of the ancient inhabitants of Chavín de Huántar is fairly well
established. It is documented that hunting declined over time (Miller and
Burger 1995), and recent research demonstrates that there is solid evidence for
the raising of domesticated camelids on site (Rosenfeld and Sayre 2016). The
botanical evidence supports this line of reasoning as it provides data that indi-
cates that highland plants were grown nearby, and there is limited evidence for
the extensive importation of foodstuffs from outside regions (Sayre 2010). These
analytical lines, when combined with the abundant ceramic and architectural
evidence for long-term settlements, reveal that inhabitants of the site were pro-
ducing their own goods while engaging in trade for exotic artifacts (Contreras
2011; Sayre et al. 2016). Accordingly, any ontologically minded exploration of
the site and its materials should consider them in relation to a people engaging
primarily in nonhunting subsistence activities.
The discussion of hierarchy at Chavín may not have here been considered
in itself, but rather is immanent in much of the preceding discussion, although
much work has indeed focused on the hierarchy and the emergence of rela-
tions of power in the Andes and specifically of Chavín de Huantar (Lumbreras
1974, 1989; Moore 1996; Rick 2005, 2008; Sayre et al. 2016). While the site is
considered to be a religious center that received pilgrims from across the re-
gion, there were undoubtedly political and economic aspects associated with
the religious activities that took place at the site. While the lack of burials
at the site limits the direct evidence for powerful individuals, there is ample
iconographic evidence that depicts powerful priests and warriors marching
procession at the site (Rick 2008: 21). This material record, when combined
with the architectural evidence of a site that was constructed over the course
of centuries, reveals that there was long-term planning and a shifting emphasis
from basic structure building to the construction of both constrained and lim-
ited internal spaces (such as galleries and canals), along with plazas, that could
hold large masses of people who may not have been permitted into the internal
galleries. It allows us to postulate that there was an emphasis on attracting elite
pilgrims from distinct regions and impressing them with the sheer magnitude
of buildings and experiences that were not available elsewhere (Kembel 2008;
Rick 2005). Importantly, hierarchy here is not being taken for analogism in a
vacuum—we believe that when taken together, composite beings represented
in the iconography, an agricultural rather than hunting population, arranged

hierarchically, as well as the likely presence of priests as opposed to shamans,
make a clear case for analogism as opposed to animism.
Conclusion
In making the case for an analogist ontology at Chavín de Huántar, this chap-
ter hopes to contribute to the investigation of the site by problematizing some
of the current frameworks in which questions about the site are formulated,
which we take to be animist/perspectivist, as well as to propose another way of
approaching the site: as an analogist collective. It is important to note, however,
that a Descolian ethno-ontology is not meant to give an account of a culture,
and so is not identical with culture (compare Venkatesan et al. 2010), but is
rather a “thought experiment” of “the kind of worlds which would be gener-
ated by the strict application of rules of composition of principles of identity
and difference” (Taylor 2013: 201). This is to say that analogism is not meant to
describe and classify a culture, nor is it meant to provide rigid deterministic
mechanics for the types of cultures, but it is rather a tool both for thinking about
and taking seriously the worlds in which people live, as well as for framing
questions without importing distinctions and categories that may not have been
meaningful. As this chapter has demonstrated, when animism and shamanism
are not employed a priori in the analysis of Chavín de Huántar, they do not
easily follow; in other words, Chavín’s iconography is not best understood by
transposing an ontological mechanism (that is, ontological perspectivism) out
of an Amazonian context. This chapter has argued that when the site’s charac-
teristics are considered as justification for presuming an ontological regime, a
clearer case for analogism can be made. It is in this vein that we propose that the
investigation of the agricultural economy, social organization, and iconography
of Chavín provide greater insights into the ontological orientation and general
worldview, so far as these can be discerned, of those who built and maintained
the site throughout the Formative Period.
Notes
1. “[L’]ontologie . . . pénètre et informe toute la pensée du primitif, elle domine et
oriente tout son comportement” (Tempels 1945: 9).
2. We may use the prefix ethno-, in the spirit of Hallowell (1969), to capture the indi-
vidual philosophies that are the object of Descola’s logical metaphilosophy, but it also
hopes to capture the distinction made by Graeber (2015) between Ontology1 and Ontol-

ogy2, where the former designates the systematic investigation of reality per se, and the
latter is “the sort of Ontology1 one imagines the people one is studying would construct,
were they the sort of people who spent their time engaging in speculative philosophy”
(Graeber 2015, 19).
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pppppppppppppp
4
Indigenous Anatomies
Ontological Dissections of the Indigenous Body
M a r í a C e c i l i a L oz a da
Any attempt to understand indigenous anatomy and perceptions of the body

from an emic perspective in the Andes is a challenging endeavor, beginning
with basic definitions that differ substantially from Western traditions (Clas-
sen 1993; Stark 1969). Furthermore, definitions changed across space and time
throughout Andean prehistory, making it challenging to discuss the topic in
a unified, monolithic manner. However, as stated in Tantaleán’s introductory
chapter, there are a variety of ontological data on this subject in the Andes.
These are based on ethnohistorical, linguistic, ethnographic, materiality, and
phenomenological studies that provide insights into an emic perspective of the
Andean worldview, including perceptions of the body.
Interestingly enough, bioarchaeologists and mortuary specialists are just be-
ginning to take part in such ontological studies (Boutin 2016; Buikstra and Nys-
trom 2015; Marsteller et al. 2011; Shimada and Fitzsimmons 2015; Sofaer 2006;
Tiesler and Lozada 2018; Weismantel 2015). I would argue that by using a mul-
tidisciplinary approach to analyze human remains, we are uniquely equipped to
explore conceptions of the body and its place in indigenous worldviews. As bio-
archaeologists and mortuary specialists, we deal directly with the physical body:
a biological unit that takes on cultural and social meaning when interpreted
within a particular context. As the concept is broad and fluid, scholars need to
address specific research questions using multidisciplinary approaches in order
to avoid making generalizations or oversimplifying various concepts of the body.
We are quite fortunate in Peru because organic material is extremely well
preserved in archaeological contexts. Furthermore, there is a wealth of detailed
ethnohistorical accounts written during and after the Spanish conquest that
helps to create contextualized models of interpretation. However, it should be
emphasized that they are not direct sources, and therefore must be approached
with some degree of caution.
In this chapter, I will provide a brief introduction to studies regarding the
Andean body, and offer three examples from diverse archaeological and contex-
tual settings that illustrate how the body was seen in the Andes during pre-Co-
lumbian times using an integrated approach. There are many key anthropologi-
cal themes such as life cycles, illness, and disability that require some reflection
as they are central to issues regarding the relationship between the biological
and cultural body, and thus to an understanding of the body as a whole, and its
place it the indigenous world.
Anatomy of the Andean Body
Perhaps one of the most complete treatises regarding the way the body was
understood by the pre-Hispanic peoples of Peru is the one provided by Con-
stance Classen in her book, Inca Cosmology and the Human Body (1993). In this
detailed ethnohistorical study, she argues that the human body served as an
essential model to understand the external world, including the natural land-
scape and structure of the universe. In this respect, the body was an essential
organizing model for the Inca worldview.
This view included the concept of duality based on body morphology and
anatomical landmarks, body parts, and bodily functions. The body, or ucu, was
conceptualized as an entity comprised of right/left, high/low, external/internal,
male/female elements (Classen 1993: 12). These structural principals were also
essential to understanding the world and social order, as male was associated
with right, high, and external, while female was associated with left, low, and
internal elements. In turn, each of these groups also had specific features such as
structure, clarity, and fertilizing power for the first one, while the second group
was connected to fluidity, obscurity, and fecundity.
The term yanantin in Quechua defines the contributing and complementary
forces that each of these elements adds to a fundamental unit of well-being in
the body and, by extension, the natural world. Unlike Western thought, however,
such elements are seen as interdependent but not contradictory, as the concepts
of good and evil (Webb 2012). While this worldview of “complementary op-
100 María Cecilia Lozada

posites” was documented for the Incas, it remains a distinctive feature in many
contemporary Andean societies (Flores Ochoa 1989; Platt 1986; Webb 2012).
This system exemplifies the essential perspective of complementarity; how-
ever, it is also relevant to highlight the fact that the body as a whole, with its
physical components, represented a metaphor for the natural world. This in-
trinsic relationship has been documented linguistically by Louisa Stark (1969)
who states that in Quechua there is a significant overlap between body termi-
nology and geographical features in the Andes. Furthermore, Classen provides
an extensive list of Quechua body terms that reinforce this particular way of
conceptualizing the body and the natural world (Classen 1993; see also Men-
doza 2003: 231). Uma, for instance, refers to the head as well as a mountain
peak. Urton (1997) argues that the sequence of numbers in Quechua also follow
notions of the body, with the first number spatially located in the head. The An-
dean head, as stated by Arnold and Hastorf (2008), is considered the most es-
sential part of the body, as it represents the seat of the soul (see also Glowacki in
this volume; Tiesler and Lozada 2018; Weismantel 2015). In addition, the term
denotes its paramount location in the upright human body position similar to
a mountain embedded in the natural landscape. Unlike other body parts, the
human head in archaeological contexts is often modified, severed, decorated,
venerated, or intentionally destroyed throughout nearly all pre-Hispanic soci-
eties in the Andes, highlighting its unique status in the indigenous body and
worldview (Tiesler and Lozada 2018).
As seen above, salient features and body parts such as the head are equated
with features of the natural landscape. Even more important in this body car-
tography are the in-between areas that are seen as “dividers and mediators” of
two complementary parts. For instance, there is a specific term that denotes
the vertical space between the shoulder blades “wasa wayq’u” (right and left
parts), and the horizontal furrow between the chest and the stomach is known
as “q’squ puxyu” (upper and lower parts). For the face, similar concepts govern
the spatial and functional features. As an example, “simi pata” describes the area
between the nose and upper lip (Stark 1969). Likewise, features in the landscape
that divide, such as cracks, rivers, and caves, are also viewed as liminal, and
even sacred, as they are considered areas of transition (Dean 2010). This same
manner of conceptualizing space using the body is further extended to Que-
chua terms that refer to day cycles, specifically those that describe transitional
times from day to night and night to day (Urton 1981). Based on her extensive
research, Classen asserts that, among the Inca, the human body and its physical
Indigenous Anatomies: Ontological Dissections of the Indigenous Body 101

constituents mirrored the cosmos, including both the terrestrial and celestial
spaces as defined by Urton (1981), and that the well-balanced relationship of
parts was essential for its existence and survival. In this sense there was a notion
of reciprocity, not only with community members but also with their environ-
ment. As will be discussed below, any transgression or disruption of this system
could cause illness, death, and even destruction such as that committed by the
European conquest.
While Classen bases her study on linguistic and ethnohistorical accounts,
another key treaty regarding the body from the ethnographic perspective is
the one provided by Joseph Bastien (Bastien 1978). The Kallawaya (also Qolla-
huaya) is a Quechua-speaking ethnic community that resides in the northern
part of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia and they are known particularly for their heal-
ing and curative abilities as documented by the Spaniards and also Bastien
(1981). Similar to the Incas, the Kallawaya believed that the body was repre-
sented in the natural landscape including its hydraulic system. Not surpris-
ingly, the title of Bastien’s ethnographic study, “Mountain/Body Metaphor in
the Andes” (1978), alludes to the fact that features in the Kallawaya human
anatomy corresponded to features in their landscape. The Kallawaya “geo-
graphic body” was divided into three parts that corresponded to different al-
titudinal levels. The head was in the upper level, specifically located on the top
of the mountain and also considered the place of origin of ayllus. The central
level was the trunk, and the lower level comprised the legs. These elements in
the landscape were part of a whole and geographically linked through well-
balanced underground hydraulic and tunnel systems. In this context, diseases
were viewed as a disruption of the well-balanced systems both in the body and
the landscape. The etiology and classification of diseases were based on the
way liquids and semiliquid elements were dispersed, and absorbed both in the
internal and external part of the body (Bastien 1978; Mendoza 2003).
As explained above, the studies by Stark, Classen, and Bastien reflect, in a va-
riety of contexts, a similar structuring principle of the Andean worldview based
on the perception and cognition of the human body. Since there is significant
overlap between the Inca and Kallawaya ideology, it is conceivable that these
principles had their roots in the earlier societies that inhabited the Andes. In
the absence of written sources, it is challenging to recover these cognitive di-
mensions from the archaeological context, although iconographic and semiotic
studies have proven to reveal some key elements of such views (Bourget 2001;
Cereceda 1986; Weismantel 2015).

For the bioarchaeologist and mortuary specialist, such emic views of the
body may be more difficult to decipher. The spatial arrangement of a dead in-
dividual and grave goods may also reflect the basic world structure, although
not necessarily the one described above (see, for example, Lau 2015). In ad-
dition, the basic concept of body complementarity may also be seen in the
position of the body, body parts, and arrangement of the bones in secondary
burials as well as in artistic depictions as observed, for instance, among the
Moche (Donnan 1978). Ultimately, as the body metaphor has been used to
describe the residential spatial layout of the Qollahuayas, and the Incas in
ancient Peru,1 the location of pre-Hispanic cemeteries within the landscape
may also be linked to this metaphorical conception.
Life and Death Stages
Comprised of multiple individual components, the body functioned as a har-

monious system within the living cosmos. It was not static, but in perpetual
change (Classen 1993). In fact, life as seen by the Incas had different stages
(Rowe 1958), some of which were marked by rites of passage that combined
both biological and cultural milestones. For instance, the birth of a baby was
celebrated by multiple festivities, as were his/her weaning, puberty, marriage,
and death rites (Classen 1993; D’Daltroy 2015). Life stages of the ancient An-
des were seen as transitional and cyclical stages that mirrored terrestrial and
astronomical cycles, including the “living body” and the “dead body” that
gave rise to a new life (Gose 1994; Isbell 1997; Lau 2015; Shimada and Fitzsim-
mons 2015).
Understanding life stages in the past is of particular relevance in the at-
tempt to delineate organizing principles of societies. Our own perception of
time and age norms have changed through time, as society has become more
conscious of time, and therefore age (see Chapters 6 and 10 in this volume for
a more detailed discussion of the concept of time in the Andes). For the oste-
ologist or biologist, the age of an individual is synonymous with chronological
age, that is, the number of years a person has lived. This definition is quite
relevant for the construction of life tables and paleodemographic profiles, and
also for comparisons between skeletal samples from different archaeological
contexts. Within specific cultural contexts, however, a person’s age was viewed
as a sequence of phases through which an individual passed throughout his/
her life, not necessarily linked to chronological age. These phases have been

described as life stages, a term that represents the merging of both biologi-
cal and social stages of life. I would contend that these categories, much like
status, represent social constructions particular to individual societies.
In the Andes, Guaman Poma offers a detailed account of the life stages used
by the indigenous people prior to the Spanish conquest. Poma used the term
“calles” (the Spanish for paths or roads), to describe 12 life stages based on age
grades in pre-Hispanic Peru. The series starts with the age group for both men
and women that appears to be most important to society (ages 25–50), then
continues upward with the “retired” but “active,” then the “aged and inactive.”
The next category has no age associated with it, but contains the sick and handi-
capped. An important determinant of each life stage was the activity level of
the individual or, more importantly, their productivity. Disease and/or disabil-
ity could dramatically change an individual’s perceived life stage by interfering
with their productivity, even if it did not alter their chronological age. This
view simply underscores the differences in how the term “age” may have been
defined, and what it was meant to measure: productivity as opposed to chro-
nology, which was, for them, a more practical issue. The rest of the series goes
chronologically downward from young adults to newborns. The order of this
presentation does not seem to be random, and appears to correspond to the im-
portance of social and/or physical productivity in each life stage. Furthermore,
his categories are not based on exact age ranges, such as those used in Western
analyses by osteologists—0–5, 5–10 years, and so on—again reflecting the im-
portance of social and biological transition as the foundation of this system.
Even the term “calle” conveys the notion that each life cycle was a stage along
the journey of life.
As with the unique notions of the body, the interpretation of such life transi-
tions demonstrates how closely interwoven biological and cultural dimensions
were in the Andes. In this respect, life cycles represented a blueprint for how
the Incas conceptualized and organized society as a whole. While the system
of “calles” described above was documented for this imperial society, I was
interested in determining whether this or a similar system was used in other
pre-Hispanic societies. In order to explore this question, I examined a large
mortuary collection of individuals recovered from Chiribaya Alta in southern
Peru. The Chiribaya developed during the Late Intermediate Period before the
Inca (AD 900–1350), and in a mid-valley context that was substantially different
from the altiplano. The well-documented mortuary assemblages are extensive
and there is excellent preservation of both organic and inorganic material. As

mentioned by chroniclers, Andean societies interred the deceased with their
own belongings. In this sense, an analysis of grave goods compared to the skel-
etal age (through an osteological estimation) of an individual may enable the
identification of some of the life stages described by Poma. I mentioned that
life stages were not purely defined by chronology; however, I was interested
in determining if material culture and burial patterning was age-specific and
whether any of these life transitions could be identified archaeologically.
In order to test this hypothesis, age and sex were estimated following stan-
dard procedures in physical anthropology, and the skeletal collection was di-
vided into the categories described by Poma. There were a total of 234 individu-
als. Furthermore, burial items were classified into one of 15 categories, and the
presence or absence of each artifact type was registered for each burial. Differ-
ences in artifact frequency between age categories were explored statistically
(Lozada and Rakita 2013).
Our initial analysis did not reveal any correlations between individual
“calles” and associated categories of material culture. The lack of any correla-
tions could be due to one of several possibilities. First, it is possible that these
life transitions were not manifested in the associated mortuary artifacts but in
other ways such as the use of new clothing, hair style, tattooing, or rituals that
included fasting, exercising, and the piercing of the ear lobes (D’Altroy 2015).
Another possibility is that the system described by Poma was unique to the Inca
system, and did not reflect that used by coastal groups from the Late Intermedi-
ate period.
Although associated artifacts do not appear to have reflected differences in
an individual’s life cycle, that was not completely the case with respect to burial
practices. We found that children under 6 years old were mostly buried in urns.
Interestingly, no adults were buried in urns. Although this may simply reflect
differences in size and the logistics of the burial process, the transition in the
life cycles that occurs at this time is perhaps one of the most important in the
Andes—the transition from dependent child to one who begins to work with
the family as a productive member.
While Guaman Poma did not discuss the concept of age categories apart from
his depictions, current ethnographic studies in the Andes that are specific to chil-
dren suggest that children between 5 and 6 years of age go through a number of
social transitions. For instance, children at this age become productive members
of society and, as a result, are viewed as part of the adult realm as recorded by Ur-
ton (1981) in the Misminay community in Cuzco. Furthermore, Classen indicates

that among the Incas the weaning period was marked by the first hair-cutting
ceremony called “rutuchico”; in this ritual, the child was integrated into the adult
community and also given also a new name (Classen 1993: 62).
Among the Chiribaya, grave goods do not seem to reflect the age catego-
ries depicted by Poma as these groups many not be tied exclusively to distinc-
tive chronological ages. However, the integration of children into society at
large seems to have been marked by a change in burial practices, with children
older than 6 buried according to the customs used for adults. The urn used for
younger children was typically a globular container, and children were placed
in a fetal position. This practice suggests that the urn may have served as a
symbolic “womb,” emphasizing the dependence of children under the age of
5–6 on the society at large, much like an unborn child on its mother. Thus, the
mortuary ritual among the Chiribaya marks an important life stage transition:
the passage from child to the adult world.
Elucidating life stages in the Andean past in other contexts also has been
documented through skeletal and mortuary analysis. For instance, at the high-
land Tiwanaku-affiliated cemetery of Rio Muerto M7OB in Moquegua, south-
ern Peru, Baitzel and Goldstein (2016) have found that older adult individuals
(45+ years) were not buried along with other members of their community.
Poor preservation does not explain the absence of older individuals, as even
very young infants have been recovered from this cemetery. The authors suggest
that older individuals, who may not have been seen as productive, may have had
to return to their homeland (that is, the highlands) prior to death. Alternatively,
they might have been buried in Rio Muerto; however, their remains might have
been “expatriated” back to the highlands in the Titicaca Basin at a later time.
Regardless of the specific rationale, this serves as another example of how mor-
tuary behavior is influenced by culturally determined age categories, many of
which, in the case of the Andes, are strongly determined by functionality, not
chronology.
In sum, ethnohistorical and ethnographic models of life transitions serve
as a basic model to reconstruct perceptions of social structure, all of which be-
come incorporated into the biological and cultural body that determines how
individuals were treated in life and in death. Although the Inca model of life
stages as proposed by Guaman Poma has not been detected in the archaeologi-
cal record, this pre-Hispanic model of life stages highlights the lack of a linear
chronological narrative in a person’s life, and invites scholars to consider other
social structure dimensions when reconstructing individual life histories.

Illness and Disability in the Andes
Similar to the study of life cycles in the past, the study of ancient diseases us-
ing archaeological materials needs to be interpreted within a robust biocultural
context. Since disease states can cause functional impairment, and physical
and social functionality appear to be the key defining component of life stages,
diseases can also cause dramatic changes in life cycles. In this respect, palaeo-
pathological research helps to shed light, not only on health per se, but also
on those social and cultural perceptions that influence an individual’s physical
well-being. Many technological advances in medicine have been translated into
the field of paleopathology, such as ancient DNA and other sophisticated diag-
nostic assays, resulting in an increased accuracy in the identification of specific
disease entities in ancient societies. With some exceptions, paleopathologists
often stop at the diagnosis, and overlook how disease was interpreted by the
individuals themselves (Boutin 2016; Klaus and Ortner 2014; Marsteller et al.
2011; Mendoza 2003; Verano 1997). The ways in which diseases were organized,
causality assessed, and treatments rendered varied considerably in the past, as
attested to by ethnohistorical and ethnographic research (Bastien 1978; Men-
doza 2003). As such, disease states can be viewed, at least in part, as cultur-
ally constructed entities, and I would propose that studies of disease must be
interpreted also in a context-specific manner. In the third part of this chapter,
I would like to review three paleopathologic conditions from southern Peru, to
highlight how disease was interpreted by pre-Hispanic populations using both
ethnohistorical and ethnographic data.
One of the most significant manuscripts with regard to the perception of
diseases in the Andes is Runa Indio Ñiscap Machoncuna, which describes spe-
cific cases of diseases in the Andes, and their perception by local communities
(Urioste 1981). This document was written in Quechua at a time when eyewit-
nesses of precolonial times could still be used as informants. According to the
manuscript, illness was seen as a disruption of the body fluid system, which
eventually led to the gradual disintegration and drying up of the body, a natural
process that was influenced and often accelerated by a number of nonphysi-
ological factors such as imbalances of nature, departures from normative be-
havior, divisions within family lineages, or even the wrath of ancestors.
For instance, Urioste (1981) makes the following observations regarding the
way venereal diseases were perceived in the minds of precolonial indigenous
people: Venereal diseases were felt to be the result of a breach of custom or

ritual, and could afflict anyone, regardless of rank, including the supreme lord.
Most cases could be reversed. In many instances, the illness was not caused by
the actions of the afflicted, but rather by close relatives or associates. In fact,
Urioste gives an example of a man whose illness was felt to be caused by the
actions of his wife. Interestingly, the causal chain of adulterous transgressions
could also include nonhuman intermediate agents such as two-headed toads or
a snake. Often, the illness was only one part of a larger constellation of punish-
ments that affected the sick person, most of which affected his/her residence
and his/her food, symbols in the Andean world for the household and subsis-
tence activities. The specific breach of custom that led to the illness generally
remained unknown until it was identified by a diviner, or curandero. In this re-
spect, the Andean idea of transgression is significantly different from the West-
ern European concept of sin, which is an intentional and immoral act (Urioste
1981). Diseases, according to this scholar, were produced by huacha, a term that
evokes the concept of sin, but without the moral infusion. While Urioste de-
scribes cases in a pre-Hispanic coastal region located in San Damián of Chiqa,
close to Lima, Classen also affirms that, among the Incas, diseases were caused
by huacha and that it was not necessarily knowingly or intentionally caused by
the individuals involved (Classen 1993).
Although the example above described a case of a venereal disease in an
adult lord, it can be applied to other categories of diseases. Additional studies
suggest that indigenous inhabitants of the Andes did not attribute the cause of
most illness to biological factors (Bastien 1978; Mendoza 2003). As explained
above, the Qollahuayas in Bolivia, for example, drew parallels between their
body and their landscape, which meant that their health was seen through
the physical state of their local mountain, Kaata (Bastien 1981). The parallels
between the body and the mountain extended to cases of diseases, implying
that illnesses were a sign of disequilibrium between man and the natural world
(Bastien 1981). For example, diseases were seen as disruptions of the landscape
and equated to landslides on the mountain that cause portions of the mountain
to collapse. Also, diseases were not seen as being isolated to one individual,
but affected the entire immediate social group, whether they had symptoms of
the disease or not. The key to reversing disease states was related to restoring
balance in the natural world, and most particularly to their local mountain. In
turn, this would restore the social order within the immediate group and help to
eradicate the disease (Bastien 1978). In this manner, the health of a community
was seen as a proxy for the state of the natural world around them.

In the archaeological record, there is evidence that supports the notion that
disease states were not viewed as individual afflictions. At the site of Omo M11
in southern Peru, for example, my colleagues and I have previously described
one of the earliest examples of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA) (Buikstra et
al. 1990). The burial dates between AD 900 and 1050, and the Omo site served
as a provincial center in the Osmore Drainage for the Tiwanaku state. The in-
dividual was an adolescent between 12 and 16 years old who was placed in a pit
in a semiflexed position facing east, as was customary. Sex cannot be accurately
assessed in subadults, so it is not clear whether the individual was female or
male. On evaluating the skeletal remains, the most notable changes occurred in
the joints, where there was extensive and symmetric destruction. Also, dental
measurements indicate that there was a significant decrease in permanent tooth
size in this specimen, and the overall size of the face was small compared to the
cranial vault. The osseous lesions of this individual indicate that this disease
was progressive and chronic, and the overall constellation of findings is highly
supportive of a diagnosis of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Based on the severity
and diffuse nature of the disease in this case, normal movement would not have
been possible for this adolescent during a significant portion of his/her life. The
destructive pattern suggests that this individual was frequently in a seated posi-
tion with the arms and legs flexed. Bipedal locomotion, functional use of the
upper extremities, and mastication would have been extremely limited if not
impossible for this Tiwanaku individual. The abnormalities in dental and osse-
ous development observed in the mandible suggest that the onset of the disease
was probably during the first years of life.
Although we may never know how this Tiwanaku adolescent felt, the ar-
chaeological record suggests that he/she was not isolated or shunned by the
local community. Based on mortuary treatment, this individual was well in-
tegrated into the society and was buried following the funerary traditions
used for healthy members of the Tiwanaku community in Moquegua. Given
the advanced changes seen in the skeletal remains, the individual would have
been visibly deformed, and it is unlikely that he/she could have walked inde-
pendently or even eaten normally. If this is indeed the case, it suggests that
the local community invested considerable resources to sustain the adolescent
throughout the course of the disease. This case represents an example of a very
rare disorder, which would not have been familiar to the community based on
symptoms. Furthermore, it could not be cured, and in fact progressed slowly as
a chronic condition. Still, there are no signs that the individual was ostracized,

or blamed, for his/her disorder; on the contrary, he/she was fully embraced by
the local community both in life and after death.
Within the same Tiwanaku community, although buried in a different cem-
etery, Allisen Dahlstedt (2015) recently identified an individual with treponemal
lesions and two individuals with tuberculosis, a disease that was likely endemic
to the region as it has also been observed among later groups such as Estuquiña
(Buikstra and Williams 1991) and Chiribaya (Burgess 1999). Tuberculosis is
a communicable disease, and can be spread by secondary vectors or directly
through airborne transmission during its more virulent phase (Roberts 2003).
The notion of disease communicability, as implied by the word “contagion,” was
understood in the Western world regarding many infectious diseases and led
to the separation of diseased individuals from healthy individuals, as occurred
in sanatoriums or leper colonies (Baker and Bolhofner 2014). After death, sick
individuals were buried in separate areas, continuing their expulsion from the
social order even after death. In stark comparison, the individuals with osse-
ous evidence of tuberculosis, many cases of which were very advanced, were
interred alongside other members of the community. Similar to the individual
with JRA, many of these individuals would not have been capable of sustaining
themselves, and would have required ongoing care for basic subsistence. These
examples, along with the absence of separation during burial, suggest that the
Tiwanaku inhabitants of Omo may not have ascribed personal responsibility for
disease conditions such as endemic tuberculosis or rare conditions such as JRA.
This pattern of mortuary inclusivity was also documented in two pre-Hispanic
cemeteries in Northern Chile where five adult females with extreme facial de-
fects produced by a type of lepra known as leishmaniasis were buried following
the same mortuary patterns as the individuals in their communities who were
not visibly sick (Marsteller et al. 2011).
Recently, I have excavated a cemetery from a Nasca-influenced tradition
known as La Ramada in the valley of Vitor, southern Peru, dated to 550 BC.
Within the skeletal collection, an adult male skeleton shows evidence of an in-
flammatory arthritis most consistent with a diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis.
The advanced stage of this disease in this individual would have also resulted
in significant functional limitations. In fact, it would have made this individual
dependent on his family and community. However, following a similar pattern
observed with the Tiwanaku adolescent, this adult male was buried with the
same funerary rituals of his community.
As mentioned earlier, among the Quechuas of Qollahuayas, there is evidence

that disease causality was often ascribed to the actions of the entire community
or natural world, even when the disease was confined to one individual. There is
no way to know with certainty whether the inhabitants of Omo, who lived over
500 years before the arrival of the Spanish, or of La Ramada, who lived 500 years
earlier, held similar views. Yet, the inclusiveness of the mortuary traditions in
both contexts suggests that sick individuals were not treated differently. Quite
the opposite, they were buried alongside the nondiseased members of commu-
nity, an extremely potent symbol of integration in death, even if their disease
distinguished them from others during life. If humans were felt to be agents of
disease, it does not appear to have been attributed to the individual with the
disease. Instead, human causes of disease could be other community members,
or even curanderos or maleros.
Furthermore, Urioste (1981) explains that diseases in the Andes were not
necessarily seen as permanent conditions. In fact, within the Andean view, ill-
ness was a condition that could be reversed. As such, it should not be surpris-
ing that individuals with such debilitating conditions were buried with their
belongings alongside their fellow healthy community members. This view of
age and disease is premised on changes in functionality, and does not ascribe
undue personal responsibility for the specific timing of transitions between dif-
ferent life stages. It is also quite possible that a funerary pattern similar to other
members of the community would in many ways symbolize the transition to a
disease-free phase.
The archaeological findings in the Osmore Drainage and Vitor Valley pro-
vide some archaeological support for ethnohistorical and ethnographic sources
in the Andes, and suggest that the perception of diseases and their causes may
have been extremely different from our own views. These examples highlight
some indigenous views of the cycles of the sick body before the arrival of the
Spaniards. However, after the arrival of the Spaniards, Christianization dramat-
ically changed the indigenous concept of the body. As an example, Klaus and
Ortner (2014) document the different burial treatment of a sick adult female
dated to the Early Colonial period in northern Peru. Her skeleton exhibited ex-
tensive treponemal infection. This woman would have shown obvious physical
signs of her sickness while alive, and would have been severely handicapped.
According to Klaus and Ornter (2014), it appears that she was thrown into the
burial pit and interred in a different pattern. This mortuary treatment stands
in stark contrast to the individual from Omo with similar treponemal lesions,
and I would argue that Spanish ideologies regarding the body and diseases may

have influenced the way she was treated at death and, quite possibly, while she
was still alive. In light of these findings, I would propose that paleopathological
conditions be carefully interpreted in their appropriate cultural and historical
context to ensure that they are understood, not just in their modern sense, but
in the same manner in which the individuals themselves viewed them. These
bioarchaeological cases illustrate highly contextualized multidisciplinary re-
search central to the notions of the indigenous body. Although challenging, our
ultimate goal is to provide emic insights of such native worldviews by develop-
ing specific research questions and using all lines of evidence available to us.
Note
1. When referring to Peru, Garcilazo de la Vega indicates that “all Peru is long and
narrow like the human body.”
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pppppppppppppp
5
Moche Corporeal Ontologies
Transfiguration, Ancestrality, and Death
A Perspective from the Late Moche Cemetery

of San José de Moro, Northern Peru
Luis Ar m ando Muro, Luis Jaime Castillo,

a n d El sa Tom asto - Cagigao
In the last three decades, social sciences have witnessed a growing and reno-
vated interest in the study of the body, both of its physical-natural and cultural-
social dimensions (Bourdieu 1977; Carman 1999; Csordas 1999; Foucault 1977;
La Fleur 1998; Mauss 1973; Turner 1984, 2012). In archaeology, the theorization of
the body is a relatively recent phenomenon that has been boosted by the devel-
opment of feminist archaeologies and discussions of gender identities. The body,
which within the archaeological rhetoric refers to the human body, has always
been considered in relation to personhood, subjectivity, and agency, that is, to at-
tributes peculiar to “the human” (Nanoglou 2012: 157). Nonetheless, recent theo-
retical developments emerging predominantly from Melanesian and Amazonian
ethnographies have seriously questioned the ontological status of the body. Here,
the body is no longer perceived as unitary, indivisible, and socially constructed,
conceptualizations derived from Western epistemologies; but as rather fractal,
unstable, and changing. Under the lens of this alternative (non-Western) ontol-
ogy, there is not, and never was, a single body, but a multiplicity of human and
nonhuman embodiments inhibiting the natural and social world.
Taking the ontological turn in archaeology as a starting point, this chapter
intends to contribute to the theoretical repositioning of the body within the dis-
course of Andean archaeology, which has remained isolated from the produc-
tion of a local social theory of the body. This lack of theoretical production is
paradoxical given the great amount of cross-temporal and cross-cultural data to
which Andean scholars have access. In this chapter, we characterize Viveiros de
Castro’s perspectivist ontology, and apply it to the study of past bodies. In doing
so, we review part of the historiography of the study of the body in archaeol-
ogy (Meskell 1996, 2000), and assess how an ontological understanding of the
body problematizes the traditional paradigms of representation and embodi-
ment. These two paradigms have been predominant in the study of the body
in the archaeological discipline. Furthermore we contextualize the body within
its own cultural and historical reality in order to explore its manifestations and
limitations in the pre-Hispanic Andean cosmology.
Archaeological evidence recovered at the Late Moche cemetery of San José
de Moro offers new glimpses into how the body was conceived and symboli-
cally constructed by the Moche from the Jequetepeque Valley, northern Peru in
the seventh–ninth centuries AD. The ambivalence between malleable body and
rigid body is explored through bioarchaeological and archaeological data, and
then used to conceptualize a Moche corporal ontology. This corporeal ontology
is opposed to the traditional object-centered approach to death under which
the bodies are interpreted as phenomena exclusively linked to hierarchy, status,
and power. The evidence from San José de Moro is finally contrasted with the
ethnographic information recovered by Catherine Allen (2002) in the Central
Andes. The Andean concepts of sami and machula aulanchis particularly echo
the notions of fractality, transfiguration, and rigidity presented in this chapter.
Moche corporeal ontology is particularly understood in the context of the rites
of symbolic transformation of corpses and of ancestrality at San José de Moro.
These rites had a twofold purpose: to attain the transcendence of the body to
other forms of existence and to legitimize the social and political order within
the ever-fragmented Moche world of the Jequetepeque Valley.
The Body in Archaeological Discourse: Multiple Trajectories
The study of the body in archaeology has followed multiple trajectories that
reflect major epistemological shifts in the discipline. Joyce (2005) has defined
three major breakthroughs in the understanding of the body: (1) the body as a
metaphor for society (legacy of social constructionism); (2) the body as a canvas
Moche Corporeal Ontologies in the Cemetery of San José de Moro, Northern Peru 117
for inscription (legacy of inscriptivism); and (3) the body as the basis of experi-
ence (legacy of phenomenological philosophy). It is pertinent to characterize
each of these in order to grasp the relevance of the ontological turn in the study
of the body in archaeology.
The body first came to the theoretical arenas of archaeology as a consequence
of anthropological understandings of the body as a micro version of larger so-
cial entities—that is, as a passive and dependent “mirror of society” (Foucault
1977; Mauss 1973). This notion impacted early archaeological studies of the body,
which were initially concerned with the ways in which past bodies were repre-
sented and publically shown through images. An emphasis on the aesthetics of
representation rapidly led to the conceptualization of the body as a discursive
and textual reality (Joyce 2005; Meskell 1996, 1999, 2000). For instance, under
this view, costumes and body ornaments were irrefutable markers of identity
and social status for those who wore them. Therefore, there was an implicit un-
derstanding of the surface of the body as always public and visible (Joyce 2005:
142). This conceptualization of the body also fueled the initial development of
an archaeology of death, in which dead bodies were considered as mere convey-
ers of identity, status, and power. Likewise, bodily treatments were understood
as analogous to the treatments conferred to individuals in life; they represented
hence the fossilized terminal status of individuals. Complementary to this view,
the notion of the body as a “surface of inscription” emerged from the concept of
“social skin” coined by White (Turner 1980; White 1992). White (1992) argued
that “the body’s surface is the point of articulation between an interior self and
exterior society, namely, between a physical body and its symbolically trans-
formed social presentation” (taken from Joyce 2005: 144). The idea of the body
as textualized or a surface of inscription also resonated with the notion of the
body as a “plane of consistency” or “body without organs” (Deleuze and Guatarri
1988), onto which meanings are written by a process of cultural inscription.
The development of feminist critiques in the early 1990s brought the discus-
sion of gender and gendered bodies into the terrain of archaeological debate.
The body, especially the female body, was moved from the periphery to the
center of the research agenda of the discipline. In this context, previous con-
ceptualizations of the body were criticized as reductionist and simplistic as they
reinforced preconceptions of the body as biologically determined. This reac-
tion was accompanied by a harsh critique of the Foucauldian legacy on the ar-
chaeological studies of the body (Meskell 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000). For Foucault
(1977, 1978, 1986) the body’s free will and desires are constantly conditioned by
118 Luis Armando Muro, Luis Jaime Castillo, and Elsa Tomasto-Cagigao
discursive discipline and power structures. Scholars accused Foucault of sup-
pressing the individuality of past people and depersonalizing history (Meskell
1996: 8; Meskell and Joyce 2003). Joyce was pivotal in this context (Joyce 1993,
1998, 1999, 2001) as she advanced the debate of past bodies from the idea of the
“body as a site of representation” to the “body as a subject for reflection and dis-
course” (Joyce 1998: 148). Based on the concepts of performativity and iterability
developed by Butler (1990, 1996), Joyce argued that elaborated and public rep-
resentations of the body and its parts in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica “marked
the limits of the intelligibility of the culturally formed pre-discursive body. The
body, then, actively constituted and re-affirmed its potential and limits, thereby
marking the acceptable ways of being-in-the-world” (Joyce 1998: 149).
At the same time, phenomenology came into the terrain of the archaeological
theory as a means to de-emancipate the body from social constructionism, as
well as to better understand the reflexive relations between practice, perception,
and experience. Here, it is important to differentiate the use of phenomenology
by early British scholars who, more engaged with Heideggerian concerns, made
use of their own bodily experience to “bring into life” past people’s experiences
and perceptions (Tilley 1994). This approach was rapidly accused of bias since
it not only dehistoricized past people’s experiences but also promoted the no-
tion of a “universal body that responds in universal ways to external stimuli”
(Barrett and Ko 2009; Hodder and Hutson 2003: 115). The more accepted ap-
plications of phenomenology were developed by archaeologists engaged with
Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical agenda (Meskell 1999; Meskell and Joyce 2003).
Meskell and Joyce’s contributions have been critical in this regard as they called
for an archaeology focused on past bodies whose emotions, feelings, and de-
sires are historically and culturally constituted through individual experience,
personhood, sex, age, power, and so on.
It is important here to point out how the ontological paradigm inserts into
this historiography of studies of the body. The ontological turn can be defined
as the set of theoretical approaches that emerge from Amazonian ethnographies
(and to a certain extent Melanesian ones) and that question the already-assumed
relations between nature and culture. Within the modernist philosophy, nature
and culture are seen as complementary, yet antagonistic, realities (Descola 1994,
2013, 2014; Viveiros de Castro 1998, 2004). The ontological turn posits an alter-
native intellectual landscape to reassess not only the nature-culture relationship
(questioning what is “the real”) but also the body-mind dichotomy inherited
from Cartesian philosophies. Thus, while the paradigm of embodiment human-
ized past bodies, bestowing upon them experiences, feelings, and desires, the
ontological turn dehumanizes them by bestowing upon them relationality, in-
stability, and properties of transmutability, all of which are nonhuman features.
Amerindian perspectivism, as developed by Viveiros de Castro (1998, 2004) has
been pivotal in a reconceptualization of the body in the context of the ontological
turn, which is further impacting contemporary archeological theory. For Viveiros
de Castro, the Amazonian material world is understood based on an extended
notion of the human: “a notion that comprises a series of beings (human, animals,
and objects), and that is defined above all as a position—an ephemeral vantage
point, the temporary outcome of a complex play of perspectives” (Vilaça 2009:
133).
Here, the concept of equivalence is extremely relevant. According to Am-
erindian ontology, the way a person acts is determined by “how the person
looks” or “what his/her body is like,” that is, its physical appearance (Alberti
and Marshall 2009; Alberti and Bray 2009). This applies to both living (human
and animals) and nonliving beings (things). This acting involves not only self-
awareness but also thinking, affection, and memory, all of which condition the
nature of social relationships among entities (Vilaça 2009: 133). Viveiros de Cas-
tro (1996, 1998) has coined this type of ontology perspectivist or multinaturalist,
which is opposed to traditional multiculturalism: “instead of the same nature
and multiple cultures, Amerindians posit the same culture and diverse natures”
( Vilaça 2009: 133). Vilaça further explains perspectivism as follows:
The perspectivist reading allows us to discern original properties in this

same Amazonian empirical material, enabling the emergence of a body
whose central feature is no longer its mindful aspects (although these
are not denied) but its capacity to differentiate types of subjects within
a universe far transcending the limits of what we conceive as human.
These different bodies do not afford specific views localized within a given
(single) universe, but inhabit different and incommensurate universes.
(Vilaça 2009: 130)
Amazonian perspectivism thus evokes the idea of the instability of bodies

that are constructed as relational configurations. In this view, both animate and
inanimate beings possess the capacity for metamorphosis and transfiguration,
thereby inhabiting an unstable reality of perpetual change that affects the bod-
ies of humans and other-than-human beings. The understanding of a body in-
habiting different worlds is extremely relevant to our discussion. The idea that
both human and nonhuman entities present changing physical qualities has
been widely accepted not only by Amazonian but also Andean ethnographers
(Allen 2002). For instance, as we will discuss in greater detail later on, the con-
cept sami is particularly relevant in the corporeal ontology of some modern
Andean groups. In both Amazonian and Andean ethnographies, there is not a
universally conceptualized “basic” body; instead, there are multiple historically
and culturally constituted bodies. Recognizing these bodies and exploring how
they manifested both in the material and social world becomes a critical task
for Andean archaeologists. This task is particularly promising as it allows us to
recognize the “otherness” of the past and, as Julian Thomas puts it, the different
“humanities that inhabited it” (Thomas 2002).
It follows to ask, how does Viveiros de Castro’s perspectivist ontology chal-
lenge our taken-for-granted conceptualization of the body in Andean archaeol-
ogy? While the lack of a written record system might represent an important
limitation to approach an emic understanding of the body in pre-Columbian
societies, a critical and reflexive integration of archaeological and bioarchaeo-
logical data, as this case study aims to demonstrate, offers a unique opportunity
to elucidate alternative understandings of the body, its transformative capaci-
ties, its materiality, and its agency. In Andean archaeology there is no better op-
portunity to explore these aspects than through ancient funerary areas, where
the body, and its sequential transformations, must have been a latent concern
for pre-Hispanic populations.
This chapter draws particular attention to the immanent relationships be-
tween the body, death, and ancestrality. As largely described in ethnohistorical
accounts, death and ancestrality played a pivotal role in the lives of the ancient
people of the Andes. However, while the importance of ancestors in the social
and political life of past Andean people has been recognized, little attention has
been placed on examining the corporal process involved in the “making of an-
cestors” and how these processes, in turn, suggest alternative conceptualizations
of bodies in the past (see recent advances on archaeology of ancestors in Lau
2008, 2013; Hill 2016; Matsumoto 2014). Rites of ancestrality should have in-
volved the essential transformation of corpses from a human and unitary entity
to one that is divisible and relational (Kaulicke 2000; Lau 2008; McAnany 1995).
This chapter suggests that this transformation was not only symbolical and
metaphorical, but also, and most importantly, physical and corporeal involving
the manipulation of the corpse of certain individuals, as well as their simulacra.
The idea that the body is permeable and its boundaries are permanently trans-
gressed and redefined through various practices resonates with the archaeo-
logical evidence found in various funerary spaces of the Moche territory. The
Late Moche (AD 650–850) cemetery of San José de Moro in the Jequetepeque-
Chamán basin in northern Peru offers a unique possibility to contextualize the
practice of “the making of ancestors” both in time and space. We analyze, first,
specific instances of the alteration and modification of corpses within three Late
Moche elite mausoleums. Then, we examine how the ancestor simulacra were
utilized in commemorative feasting orchestrated in the funerary plazas of the
cemetery. We propose that partition (destruction), rearrangement (restitution),
and stability (hardening) of dead bodies were in-between steps in the process of
“making the ancestors,” and express alternative ways to conceptualize the Moche
body. The transmutability of the persona into a divine entity involved a process of
“hardening” that was mediated through firing. This case study intends to reposi-
tion the ontological status of the body and its embodiment in the Moche world
as well as offer new insights on how the body was inscribed in the material and
social world. This chapter thus contributes to the study of the various ways of
being-in-the-world that are present in the pre-Hispanic Andean world.
San José de Moro and the Jequetepeque Valley

in Late Moche Times (AD 650–850)
San José de Moro is an extensive pre-Columbian cemetery and ceremonial cen-

ter located on the right bank of the Jequetepeque-Chamán drainage in northern
Peru. The site extends over a plain of nearly 10 hectares surrounded by dozens of
medium-scale cultural mounds. The site has been the object of preliminary explo-
rations since the late 1950s (Chodoff 1979; Disselhof 1958) and of intense excava-
tions since the early 1990s (Castillo 2000, 2001; Castillo et al. 2008; Donnan and
Castillo 1992). Excavations led by Luis Jaime Castillo have revealed a long-lasting
cultural history spanning the fourth to the fourteenth centuries AD. Throughout
this time, different cultural groups intensively used the site as a funerary area,
pilgrimage center, and production center of chicha beer (chicherío). While the site
played an important role in the religiosity of the pre-Columbian populations of
the Jequetepeque Valley, it was during the Late Moche (AD 650–850) period that
it seems to have acquired regional relevance as a cemetery and pilgrimage center
(Castillo 2000, 2001). San José de Moro, in fact, concentrates the greatest amount
of Late Moche elite burials archaeologically excavated in the valley as well as evi-
dence of large-scale funerary feasting in direct association with these burials.
Complex chamber tombs have been documented across the cemetery’s plains.
These chamber tombs contained elite individuals exquisitely ornamented with
objects made of wood, metal, ceramic, and semiprecious stones. Interestingly,
these elite individuals were inhumed by personifying mythological beings as
depicted in the Moche narrative art (Castillo and Rengifo 2008; Donnan and
Castillo 1992; Mauricio and Castro 2008b; Muro 2010b; Saldaña et al. 2014). It
is remarkable, and still intriguing, that the majority of the elite chamber tombs
at the site belonged to female individuals1 embodying “The Moche Female De-
ity,” also known as “Personage C.” The identification of these women with this
mythological character has been performed based on the recognition of a set of
material and iconographic attributes as Castillo and others have demonstrated
elsewhere (Donnan and Castillo 1992; Castillo and Rengifo 2008).
Furthermore, the evidence uncovered at San José de Moro indicates an un-
Figure 5.1. Evidence of feasting associated with Late Moche chamber tombs MU-1525 and MU-1727. Photo
of the archive of the San José de Moro Archaeological Program (published in Muro 2012).
questionable and direct correlation between Moche elite funerary chambers
and large-scale funerary feasting (Castillo 2000; Delibes and Barragán 2008).
Large ceramic vessels intended for the production and consumption of maize-
based beer, chicha, have been found embedded into occupation floors chrono-
logically associated to the funerary chambers (Figure 5.1). In addition, in as-
sociation with this floor, a significant density of organic garbage accumulated,
both in burning and discarding zones, have been recovered. This strongly sug-
gests massive preparation and consumption of foodstuffs regularly occurring
around Moche mortuary structures (Muro 2009, 2010b). Although it has been
argued that these remains could constitute the evidence of the rituals of death
themselves (Castillo 2000), it is more likely that they correspond, in reality, to
postinhumation commemorative practices. The dense superposition of celebra-
tion floors in direct association with the funerary mausoleums suggest ever-
continuous rites of ancestor veneration, which, in concordance with annual
ritual calendars, must have congregated considerable amounts of participants
(Castillo 2000). It follows that, although feasting was a recurrent activity at the
site, they seem not to have been formally organized events, but rather spontane-
ous and short-term. The archaeological evidence indicates that these events in-
volved the temporal construction of facilities intended for social congregations
of small audiences, as well as their subsequent and rapid destruction (Muro
2009, 2010a). These structures, made of mud and wattle and daub, seem to
have delimited differentiated spaces, giving shape to patio-like structures. In
this chapter, we refer to these spaces as “celebratory funerary patios.”
Celebratory activities at San José de Moro have to be particularly understood
within the context of the sociopolitical fragmentation that characterized the
Jequetepeque Valley between the seventh and ninth centuries AD. The settle-
ment pattern in the valley and the defensive nature of Middle (AD 450–650)
and Late Moche (AD 650–850) sites indicates a politically fragmented valley
with diverse Moche polities competing with each other for water sources and
arable land (Castillo 2001, 2010). Nonetheless, the political tension in the val-
ley could not have been permanent, but rather circumstantial. As Castillo has
suggested elsewhere (Castillo 2010), sporadic political integration could have
occurred under specific circumstances such as the celebration of large-scale
rituals, the construction and maintenance of irrigations canals, and the defense
against external political threats. In other words, “an ever-fluctuating politi-
cal organization that turned into either an integrated or disintegrated political
system depending on the opportunities and/or threats in the system” (Castillo
2010: 106). In this setting of fragmentation and opportunism, medium-scale
ceremonial centers such as San José de Moro and Huaca Colorada, in the north-
ern and southern side of the Jequetepeque, respectively, appear to have operated
as shared cult centers thus diminishing latent disputes over resources (Castillo
2000, 2010; Swenson 2004, 2008; Swenson and Warner 2015).
Why did San José de Moro acquire such relevance in the political and reli-
gious world of the Moche from the Jequetepeque Valley? What made San José
de Moro become one of the principal pilgrimage sites regularly visited by popu-
lations from the Jequetepeque Valley and beyond? It is provocative to think
that San José de Moro’s influence as a cult center was based on its prestige to
promote the transcendence of the persona after death. San José de Moro could
have constituted such a sacred place where the Moche body was physically and
symbolically prepared to initiate its journey to the afterlife. As described in
great detail for Dynastic Egypt, this process should have entailed complex rites
of preparation, manipulation, and transformation of corpses that culminated
with the transcendence and immortalization of a given individual, that is, its
conversion into an ancestor. Although there is nothing as detailed and descrip-
tive as the Egyptian “Book of the Dead” for the Moche world, Moche narrative
and figurative art offers important clues to trace actions possibly associated with
rites of corpse manipulation. This can be seen in sculptural vessels of the Moche
III style (Figure 5.2), and, in very great detail, in “The Moche Burial Theme”
(Donnan and McClelland 1979, 1999). The actions represented in these vessels
invite us to move away from object-centered approaches of death and reposi-
tion the body in the foreground of the debate of death and its role as a mediator
between the social-material and cognitive-immaterial world.
San José de Moro is a site particularly critical to explore the real and sym-
bolic boundaries of the body in the Moche world. The large amount of mate-
rial data recovered from the site constantly evokes the body and its diverse
forms and expressions: ornamented bodies inside coffins; bodies altered by the
removal of their parts; sacrificed bodies; desacralized bodies; body representa-
tions in the form of figurines and jars; and so on. It is provoking to think that
all ritual activity at the site revolved around a central concern in the body: its
manipulation, its transformation, its movement, and its public display. This is,
following Foucault, in the immanence of the body-as-spectacle (Foucault 1977).
In spite of San José de Moro having been intensively explored in the last two
decades (Castillo et al. 2008), the nature of corporeal rituals associated with
death remains unknown. Moche narrative art suggests that the death rituals
Figure 5.2. Moche sculptural vessel depicting an act of corpse manipulation where skeletal figures
are involved. Image credits: President and Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum of Ar-
chaeology and Ethnology, PM#16-62-30/F724 (digital file #95710012 and #98540071).
of elite individuals could have occurred in highly decorated public spaces and
involved the participation of large audiences, individuals impersonating Moche
deities, and ornamented corpses being manipulated through funerary proces-
sions (for example, “The Moche Burial Theme” and the “The Moche Proces-
sion Theme”; Donnan and McClelland 1979). These acts constituted true ritual
spectacles orchestrated around the symbolic removal and reinscription of new
identities on corpses. In this chapter, our main interest is the rites associated
with the “making of ancestors.” These rites could have constituted the final stage
of a larger sequence of actions through which given individuals went in order
to attain the final conversion into divine entities subject to cult.
A close examination of bioarchaeological data recovered from Late Moche
chamber burials at San José de Moro provides important information on post-
mortem manipulations of corpses that could be critically interpreted as prac-
tices aimed at the symbolic transformation of the human essence: the creation
of a new embodiment.
An Ontology of Malleable Bodies: Corpses
Three Late Moche funerary chambers discovered in the central plain of San José
de Moro are particularly useful for illustrating what appear to be intentional
practices of corpse manipulation. The recurrence of these practices, from cham-
ber to chamber, seems to reveal sequential and scripted acts of corpse alteration
as well as intentionality in the placement of specifically disarticulated bodies at
specifically arranged locations within funerary structures. We will describe in
greater detail each context below.
Chamber MU-1525 is an underground and rectangular-shaped mausoleum
from the Late Moche C period. It contained the remains of at least 14 human
bodies presenting varied states of disarticulation and decomposition (Figure
5.3). Two women (A) showed no evidence of disarticulated bones, which indi-
cates that they could be primary burials. The first individual (25–35 years old)
Figure 5.3. Evidence of postmortem corporeal modifications within Chamber MU-1525. A: Primary buri-
als; B: Skeletons preserving their individuality; C: Individuals commingled and cornered; D: Main occu-
pants. Photos of the archive of the San José de Moro Archaeological Program (published in Mauricio and
Castro 2008a and adapted by the authors).
was located on top of the grave goods, whereas the second individual (40–50
years old) was cornered toward the southwestern chamber wall. The careless-
ness observed in their mortuary treatment suggests that these individuals could
have died being sacrificed, as has been described elsewhere2 (Tomasto-Cagigao
et al. 2016).
By contrast, a third woman and a juvenile female (B), both located on the
chamber floor (not on the main platform) showed significant evidence of dis-
articulation and movement of the thoracic, hip, and limb bones. This pattern
is distinctive of what Nelson (1998) describes as “wandering bones,” namely,
bones displaced out of anatomical position in such a random manner as if the
coffin, containing decomposed corpses, was paraded (Nelson 1998: 22). Inter-
estingly, despite the patterns of displacement, both skeletons were found nearly
complete and distinctively separated from other individuals. This suggests that,
while the bodies were altered postmortem, there was an intentional desire to
keep their individuality and oneness. Relevant enough is the fact that the two
skeletons were placed in spots within the mortuary structure that could repre-
sent transitory spaces, that is, spaces that articulate internal subdivisions within
the chamber (for example, entrance, platform, floor). These locations could be
interpreted as “liminal zones”: the juvenile female was placed right next to the
chamber entrance and the adult woman was placed in the middle of the cham-
ber, delimiting the area where the only two male individuals were laid with the
rest of the occupants.
The only two male individuals (C), a young and a middle adult, were located
in an area adjacent to the main platform, namely, on a space that delimited the
lower and the upper sectors of the funerary structure. Moreover, three children
accompanied these two male individuals. This array of five bodies was appar-
ently pushed and cornered against the bench located to the eastern side of the
chamber. The five skeletons displayed evidence of severe disarticulation as well
as of having been drastically manipulated and commingled.
Finally, the two principal individuals (D) were identified as elderly women
and were located on the most prominent location of the mausoleum, the
raised platform. They presented the most drastic pattern of disarticulation
documented in the whole structure: their bones were completely out of ana-
tomical position and their skeletons mostly incomplete. One of the women
was placed inside a wooden coffin, which was in turn located near the cham-
ber’s rear wall. The coffin was well ornamented with copper plaques and a
frontal mask.
It is interesting that this pattern of disarticulation and alteration, as well as
of body placement, is recurrent in other two Late Moche funerary mausoleums.
Chamber MU-1727 is a double-chambered funerary structure from the Late
Moche B period. It presented at least four different bodily treatments and states
of body decay (Figure 5.4). A young male individual (A), located at the foot of the
raised platform, is presented with all his bones anatomically organized, yet with
Figure 5.4. Evidence of postmortem corporeal modifications within Chamber MU-1727. A: Prima-
ry burials; B: Skeletons preserving their individuality; C: Individuals commingled and cornered; D:
Main occupants. Image of the archive of the San José de Moro Archaeological Program (published
in Muro 2012 and adapted by the authors).
a very atypical position and orientation. While it could perfectly correspond to
a primary burial, the similarity between this context and others registered in
Moche burials (for example, in Sipán) suggests that this individual was a possibly
sacrificed guardian.3
Two other skeletons (B), also corresponding to two young adults, showed
a high degree of disarticulation of the thoracic bones as well as of intentional
movement of the limb bones. Similarly to those described in the chamber MU-
1525, and despite the registered alterations, there was an intentional desire not
to alter the individuality of the bodies. In the same manner as the previous
example, these skeletons were placed in transitory spaces or “liminal zones”
within the structure. The first skeleton (15–20 years old) was located at the an-
techamber and the second one (15–23 years old) at the center of the main cham-
ber, that is, in the area that delimited the space occupied by the main individual,
his guardian, and two other skeletons (C).
These latter skeletons (C) corresponded to two adult individuals, a female
and a male, that were placed one on top of the other. Both individuals were
found partially disarticulated and cornered against one of the chamber walls.
Elongated copper plaques and other metal ornaments were found surround-
ing these corpses, suggesting that at least one of them was placed inside a cof-
fin. The main individual of the funerary chamber was a middle-aged man (D)
(40–50 years old) whose body was placed inside a well-elaborated wooden
coffin decorated with copper plaques arranged in hatched designs. The cof-
fin was placed on top of the raised platform located on the western side of
the chamber. This skeleton, similar to its analogues, showed the most drastic
pattern of alteration registered in the whole chamber. His bones were found
completely out of their anatomical position and with significant evidence of
disturbance and manipulation.
The same aforementioned patterns have also been documented in a third
Late Moche funerary structure: Chamber MU-2111 (Figure 5.5). Chamber MU-
2111 is a quadrangular mausoleum belonging to the Late Moche C period. It
contained at least five individuals. Two skeletons (B), one corresponding to a
pregnant woman and the other to a male individual, showed evidence of severe
disarticulation of the thoracic bones as well as intentional movement of the
limb bones. The male was located delimiting the space occupied by four other
individuals whose skeletons (C) were incomplete, commingled, and cornered
near one of the chamber walls. A primary burial, belonging to an adult male
(A/D), was registered atop the raised platform. This location suggests that this
Figure 5.5. Evidence of postmortem corporeal modifications within Chamber MU-2111. A: Primary buri-
als; B: Skeletons preserving their individuality; C: Individuals severely commingled and cornered; D: Main
occupants. Photo of the archive of the San José de Moro Archaeological Program (published in Saldaña et
al. 2014 and adapted by the authors).
individual was the main occupant of the chamber, although in this case there
was no evidence of a coffin.
While all these postmortem alterations are usually assumed to be intention-
ally driven actions, the symbolic connotations of these practices are still a mat-
ter of debate. Sequence and partition appear to have been key notions within
the “Moche thinking of death,” and within what we define here as an ontology
of malleable bodies. The bioarchaeological evidence suggests that the body was
perceived as an entity in constant change, even after death (see also Lozada in
this volume). Sequential states of decomposition and alteration of the body are
observed within the same funerary structures. As has been previously argued,
the corpses in San José de Moro could have been stored for long spans of time
before their final placement within mausoleums (Castillo 2000; Nelson and
Castillo 1997). The evidence presented here also suggests that the deteriora-
tion of corpses was a process conceptualized not only as mediated by biological
and natural causes, but also by human intervention. Postmortem practices of
body alteration seem to reveal a desire to speed up the process of decay in the
corpses, which was attained through their direct manipulation in situ. Here, the
“deteriorated bodies” appear to represent a desired condition. We argue that
the body decay was perceived as a process of destruction but at the same time a
necessary step for subsequent (re)transformations and rebirth of the body into
a different entity.
This destruction of the body involved not only the evanescence of its own
materiality but also the eradication of its “human essence”: its dehumanization.
It is interesting to note that while in pre-Hispanic groups contemporary to the
Moche (for example, Nazca and Wari) there was an explicit desire to immortal-
ize the materiality of the body through complex processes of mummification,
the Moche of San José de Moro seem to have opted for its constant and continu-
ous alteration. The Moche, hence, seem to have had no intention of preserving
the corporal qualities of the body but rather the essence of its embodiment.
This essence was immortalized through the transfiguration from an abstract to
a material entity. We will come back to this point later.
Furthermore, the destruction of the human qualities of the body seem to
have entailed specific practices of desexualization aimed at altering and neutral-
izing the sexual identity of individuals. A recurrent pattern of manipulation of
pelvic bones has been documented in at least three out of six Late Moche funer-
ary chambers found at the site (Figure 5.6). For instance, in Chamber MU-1525
the pelvic bones and sacrum of the individual located at the chamber’s entrance
were intentionally, yet very carefully, twisted and relocated on the upper part
of the legs. The two individuals cornered near the bench also showed a similar
treatment. The same pattern of pelvic modification has been documented in
Chamber MU-2111, specifically, in one of the individuals cornered near one of
the chamber walls.
The concept of “destruction” appears to be intimately linked to that of
partition and fractalism, as developed by Strathern based on her Melanesian
ethnographies (Strathern 1988). Practices of dismembering bodies have been
documented in several Late Moche elite burials at San José de Moro present-
ing evidence of reopening and reentering (Figure 5.7). Skulls and limbs are the
parts of the body frequently elected for being extracted from elite burials and
relocated somewhere else. It seems evident that the “consumption” and circula-
Figure 5.6. (left). Evidence of
postmortem alteration of Os coxae
in Chamber MU-1525. Os coxae were
carefully removed from their anatomical
position and replaced. Photo of the
archive of the San José de Moro
Archaeological Program.
Figure 5.7. (below). Human skulls

registered within short-term structures
located at funerary patios of San José
de Moro. This structure was associated
with the Chamber MU-1727 and was
likely used for postinhumation activities.
Photo of the archive of the San José
de Moro Archaeological Program
(published in Muro 2010b and adapted
by the authors).
tion of these body parts were practices exclusively controlled by elite members
(Weismantel 2015).
As Hill has previously suggested, the process of corpse dismemberment and
partitioning seems to have had an intention of dehumanizing and depersonal-
izing the body (Hill 2000, 2003, 2005). In analyzing scenes of sacrificial vic-
tims, Hill argues that the practice of dismembering sacrificial victims aimed to
“transform the sacrificed body and its parts into sacred, cathected objects, or
sacra—objects charged or imbued with emotional or psychic energy and mean-
ing” (Hill 2003: 286). Following Hill, we argue that practices of human sacri-
fice registered in various Moche temples also sought to dehumanize corpses
through postmortem manipulation. Hence, the dismembering of the bodies of
both the sacrificial victims and the corpses of San José de Moro seems to have
aimed to alternately empty the body of meaning (depersonalize it) and then
transform it into a sacred (commodified) form before its circulation.
The Moche practice of body dismemberment also echoes Chris Fowler’s
concept of fractality, which refers to the immanent relationships between “the
part” and “its whole” (Fowler 2002, 2004, 2008). Bringing up the concept
of relational personhood (which applies to both objects and bodies), Fowler
argues that the body is composed of fractal relations; therefore, it is divisible
and partible. This means that the personal essence can be transferred between
bodies of both living and nonliving entities (Fowler 2008: 50). The body is
also inseparable from the life force that animates it, so the state of the body
and the persona are mutually dependent and affective. This is a generalized
concept that is also present in Andean ethnographies, and perfectly applicable
to the Moche, as we will discuss below in greater detail. In San José de Moro,
for instance, body parts of different individuals are distributed throughout the
cemetery (inside and outside burials) and landscape. It can be argued then,
the fractal nature of the body and its parts connects the person’s essence with
the nearby and distant world, with the material and immaterial world (see
Lozada in this volume).
Sequence and partition thus characterize what appear to be a type of ontol-
ogy where the body is conceptualized as unstable, changing, and malleable—a
malleability that is sought, desired, and necessary so that the body begins, and
traverses, its own process of “destruction” and, in this manner, advances to a
new (sequential) corporal reality. Achieving this new corporal reality entailed
the transfiguration of the body, that is, its rebirth as a “revitalized body” whose
agency surpassed the limitations of death, a real ancestral entity.
An Ontology of Rigid Bodies: Ancestor Imagery
The frontier between the “real body” and the “represented body” fades away
when we look through the lens of an alternative corporeal ontology. In this
chapter, we argue that an essential part of the ancestrality rites was to turn the
body into a lasting entity. This was attained through the construction and use of
a new corporality, a rigid body, which becomes a new physical receptacle for the
newly ancestralized individual. This rigid body (expressed in the form of a jar, a
figurine, or a pot) is no longer a representation but a body of its own, interacting
with the living in diverse contexts, especially celebratory events.
Excavations in the areas adjacent to the Late Moche funerary chambers have
demonstrated the ubiquitous presence of body simulacra both inside and out-
side the funerary structures. As described earlier, open patios spatially defined
by short-term adobe and wattle and daub structures have been documented in
the areas surrounding chambers MU-1525, MU-1727, and MU-2111 (Mauricio
and Castro 2008a; Muro 2009, 2012; Saldaña et al. 2014). These patios are ar-
ticulated with each other through corridors, passageways, and other enclosures,
giving shape to medium-scale architectural complexes. Excavations within
these complexes have revealed direct relationships between activities of produc-
tion and consumption of foodstuff and large amounts of chicha beer, judging by
the presence of large ceramic containers (paicas) and face-neck jars. Face-neck
jars are frequently found embedded in occupational floors. They depict realistic
face portrayals of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic entities ornamented with
body adornments such as earspools (of notorious size), headdresses, necklaces,
and what could be interpreted as facial painting (Castillo 2001; Muro 2012)
(Figure 5.8). Animal faces are sometimes depicted with exaggerated attributes
and disproportionate sizes. Interestingly, while occupational floors show clear
evidence of having been periodically repaired, replastered, and even covered
and reconstructed, face-neck jars were used continuously through subsequent
floor remodeling and reconstruction. This gave them a particular sense of du-
rability, permanence, and ubiquity.
Under the lens of a perspectivist ontology, these bodies “are” and “behave”
based on “what they look like.” In other words, they are not mere mimetic rep-
resentations of human beings or animals, they are persona in their own right
(Alberti and Marshall 2009; Karadimas 2012; Vilaça 2009; Viveiros de Castro
1998, 2004). The relationship between the malleable bodies contained in the
burials and the rigid entities located in the funerary plazas becomes clear when
Figure 5.8. Face-neck jars with ancestor imagery registered embedded in the occupational floors of
funerary patios at San José de Moro. They depict realistic portrayals with anthropomorphic (left)
and zoomorphic (right) features. Photos of the archive of the San José de Moro Archaeological
Program.
we think through the ancestors. Here, it is the vision of the world according to a
species-specific corporeal form that prevails, that is to say, his/her perspective.
The tangibilization (rather than materialization) of ancestral entities sought to
make their bodily presence more lasting, and, thus, bring their own essence into
life.
As one of the authors has suggested elsewhere (Muro, in press), the symbolic
transition between a malleable body and a rigid body could have involved a
process of transfiguration and transmutability that was mediated by clay and
fire. Fire is a symbolic element used by some preindustrial societies in their
mortuary rites and practices of spiritual invocation—a remarkable case is the
spectacles of cremation in Varanasi, India (Parry 1994). Likewise, in the Moche
world, fire could have been seen as an element of alteration as well as of trans-
formation both material and symbolic. Fire could have constituted a vehicle
of transfiguration so that the bodily existence transmutes from one entity to
another (Parry 1994: 184). In Parry’s words: “The vital breath of given (and in-
fluential) individuals transmute from his/her human and unitary body to a new
corporeal entity, which is fractal and relational. This assures a new mode of
existence, as an ancestor” (Parry 1994: 186).
It is interesting to note that fire and its effects are metaphorically present
in the material world of San José de Moro. In San José de Moro, the mate-
rial world could be classified in fired and unfired objects. This ambivalence
is remarkably visible in the grave goods of Late Moche chamber tombs. For
instance, architectural models and crisoles (ceramic miniatures), which are
extensively documented in chamber tombs, are objects of important symbolic
value in the Moche material world. These objects, although carefully mod-
eled, are made of mud and unfired clay. It seems evident that there was an
intention of not exposing these objects to fire, therefore avoiding its “harden-
ing.” “Hardening” can be seen as an ontological condition of permanent sta-
bility and durability. In this sense, it is likely that the action of “firing modeled
clay” was an action charged with magic, symbolism, and agency. Viveiros de
Castro’s concept of the “unstable body” has important parallels with the idea
of “hardening.” In Amazonian ethnographies, both matter and physical form
are considered as inherently unstable and changing. Here, fire “brings bodies
to life” through stabilization and rigidity. As Viveiros de Castro describes,
“The final destruction of an unstable body entails the making of its alter ego,
a new ontologically-rigid body. The transition between a malleable entity to a
hardened one expresses a concern with “shortening-up” the body, thus inhib-
iting its conversion into a undesirable entity with an undesirable perspective”
(Viveiros de Castro 1996, 1998).
Regarding the body simulacra found in the funerary patios, these simulacra
could have been conceived as “hardened bodies.” “Hardening” the body could
have been a necessary step to transforming the body into an entity amenable to
cult and social interaction. The ways in which the Moche people physically en-
gaged with personified entities must have constituted vital and essential forms
of sociality (Lau 2013: 153). This is clearly visible in the archaeological context
associated with feasting activities.
The celebratory funerary patios located either on top of or next to the funer-
ary mausoleums should have constituted not only the spatial receptacles for
encounters and interactions among the living but also the loci ancestral entities
“inhabited” through their physical presence. In these patios, ancestor imagery
is frequently placed in an upright position, as if standing. The only part of the
body visible is the head and face, giving the sense that the remaining part of the
body was absent or even covered. Lau (2013) has noticed the same pattern in
Recuay ancestor simulacra in Peru’s northern highlands (AD 1–700). He has ar-
gued that the head and face appear to have been essential in the Andean bodily
ontology associated with ancestors (Lau 2013: 142). The face was an important
locus of recognition since this, through facial markers, was a means for the ad-
scription and recognition of individual and group identity. Likewise, different
types of ear ornaments, headdresses, and other bodily ornaments could have
indicated an identity, affiliation, or rank among the entities themselves (Lau
2013: 162). In addition, the head was an essential locus of interaction. This was
considered the prime vehicle of communication and direct mediator between
the social actors and ancestors (see Glowacki in this volume). As Lau states:
Most of the physical interaction was directed to the ancestor’s ears (songs),
nose (aromas), and mouth (feeding). The eyes were an important means
for co-presence and ubiquity. The always oversized and wide-open eyes
marked the ancestor’s capacity to witness, observe, and give acquiescence
of living people’s action. It was impossible to pass by an ancestor’s imagery
without its recognition and acceptance. (Lau 2013: 143) (see Figure 5.8)
At San José de Moro, it seems to be evident that the living-ancestor interac-

tion was mediated by the production, circulation, and consumption of food-
stuffs and chicha beer. Chicha beer must have prompted a specific form of
sacred intersubjectivity, which was facilitated (and even heightened) through
intoxication and drunkenness. It is worth mentioning that some Andean eth-
nographers suggest a metaphoric relationship between chicha beer and human
blood, both contained in and emanating from ancestors’ bodies (reference taken
from Kaulicke 2000: 261). Likewise, analogies between the preparation of dead
bodies and the preparation of chuño-dried potatoes and chicha beer have been
identified and documented in contemporary groups from the Peruvian north-
ern highlands (Doyle 1988; Sillar 1996). As Lau has also suggested, “like these
products, the ancestral dead, once transformed, became an enriched source of
renewable substance, a kind of future-looking risk management” (Lau 2013:
146). The idea that the process of chicha aging parallels the ancestor aging and,
therefore, their own empowerment, offers a new alternative to link ancestrality
with the political economy promoted by funerary rites at San José de Moro.
Pre-Hispanic Corporeal Ontologies
Despite differences in the spatial-temporal contexts, ethnographical accounts

from specific zones of the Central Andes offer relevant information on pre-
Christian corporeal ontologies, which present suggestive parallels with our case
study, specifically with the idea of an “vital breath” capable of transforming and
transmuting. These ontologies can hardly be extended back to the whole deep
past; however, when critically analyzed, they can constitute an important source
of information to interpret archaeological deposits. Catherine Allen (2002) of-
fers an important case in point: the Runakuna from the central highlands of
Peru.
The Runakuna are a traditional Quechua-speaking group located in the Son-
qos province, modern-day Cuzco. Although not genetically related with the
Moche from the north coast of Peru, many aspects of the Runakuna’s ideology
of death have survived from pre-Hispanic times, and seem to echo the Moche
conceptualization of the body and death. The Runakuna conceptualize their
own world as a multiverse composed of multiple temporal and spatial reali-
ties. On one hand, time is discontinuous and is composed by a series of stages
disrupted by apocalyptic interruptions (Allen 2002: 47). On the other hand,
space is divided into three states of existence: Ukhu Pacha (inner world), Kay
Pacha (this world), and Hanan Pacha (upper world) (47). Human beings live
in Kay Pacha along with a multiplicity of other in-between beings: nonhuman
entities; living entities; wandering deceased; movable or not movable objects;
and evil and kind entities. The main difference among all these existing entities
is their corporeal state, which is, in turn, conditioned by their sami. Sami is the
animating essence present in objects, humans, and even landscapes. It trans-
figures, transmutes, and even renovates. Sami, in humans, can be removed and
transfigured from one (human) body into another (nonhuman) one.
Interestingly, sami is a fractal and divisible essence. For instance, when one
extracts the skulls of machulas (grandparents) from their places of origin and
placing them somewhere else, one transfers part of the machulas’ sami, which
is considered a source of protection, health, and fertility (khuyay) (Allen 2002:
41). Relevant to our discussion is the way in which the Runakuna conceptualize
the sequential stages of the body after death. These states are not only linked
to the progressive decay of the body but also to the sequential degree of “dan-
gerousness” of sami. These sequential states might have certain parallels to the
different states of corpse alteration identified within the Moche chamber burials
of San José de Moro.
For the Runakuna, the transformation of the body begins with the putrefac-
tion of the corpse’s soft tissue. This is a long and hazardous process. It is only
when the bones are fully cleansed of flesh that the body initiates its true trans-
formation into a new mode of existence, characterized by its perfection and
pureness. Sinful individuals are unable to attain this state of transformation.
They become kukuchis: errant individuals (zombie-like creatures) condemned
to ramble in search of human flesh. Likewise, they can become machukuni, the
animated dead who attack living individuals at night. Both kukuchi and machu-
kuni are described as evil entities, although possessing different corporalities.
While kukuchi are described as boneless and putrid flesh entities, machukuni
are dry bones or desiccated mummies (Allen 2002: 45). Both are described as
in-between entities, between a fleshy and skeletal condition, and sinful and evil.
None of these creatures can attain the proper separation of flesh and bone after
death since they are possessed by hucha (sin) and quayqa (the evil atmosphere
surrounding corpses) (45).
The proper process of separation of flesh and bones only occurs when flesh
merges with the Earth. This is a condition of purity only attained by machula
aulanchis. These are entities composed of “dry bones whose flesh has been
properly washed away by water and absorbed by the Earth” (Allen 2002: 45).
When this condition is achieved, machula aulanchis become protective entities
and “continue their influence from death as they convert in energy collaborat-
ing in life regeneration, for instance, through channels that fertilize agricultural
fields” (45). Besides, their influence is intimately linked to seminal and sexual
power. Machula aulanchis, thus, is considered as a state of purity that is not only
spiritual, but also, and fundamentally, corporeal.
The Runakuna’s corporal ontology seems to echo the practices of corpse
modification evidenced in San José de Moro in Late Moche times. The Runak-
una conceptualize dead bodies as entities that go across different states of decay,
which symbolizes its advancement to a state of maximum purity and perfec-
tion: an ancestor. Here the separation of the flesh and bones seems to be key.
The Moche from San José de Moro seem to have perceived the transformation
of the body in a very similar fashion. The destruction of corporeal qualities of
corpses might have guaranteed such a state of perfection. For both the Moche
and Runakuna, the malleable and fragmentary state of the body is a condition
highly desired. Moreover, the process of transformation of dead bodies is medi-
ated by natural forces and/or human intervention.
On the other side of the spectrum, references to the fragility/rigidity of
bodies are also largely present in Ranakuna ideology of death. Stones, bones,
and statues are considered rigid entities. This involves not a lack of animation
but rather a different state of animation (Allen 2002: 46). Here, sami is found
crystallized, yet with the same capacity to influence and alter the fate of other
living and not living entities. A crystallized sami can interestingly absorb and
condense energy, for instance, lightning and sunlight. Because of this capacity,
these entities are considered the most powerful source of energy in the Andean
world as a whole (46).
In the same regard, human-like rigid objects possess a type of petrified sami,
which is a by-product of sequential stages of the transfiguration of dead body.
This has a suggestive parallel with Viveiros de Castro’s perspectivist ontology
and, in turn, with what we define here as a Moche corporeal ontology. Here, hu-
man-like pots act not only based on what “they look like,” but are also boosted
by an immanent vital force, a sami, which transfigures from one corporality to
another after death. In the Runakuna cosmology, as likely in the Moche one, the
quality of rigidity (hardening) of bodies is highly valued, esteemed, and desired
since it is considered a state of purity, supremacy, agency, and maximum power.
Rigid bodies posses a destructive and generative power ever affecting the spiri-
tual, material, and social world.
Moche Corporeal Ontology in San José de Moro
A Moche corporal ontology can be thus defined as a way to conceptualize the

human body as relational, changing, and unstable. These corporeal features
were deployed once the human body transversed the threshold of death, that
is, the cessation of its physical existence. As indicated above, the sequential
transformations of the body after death must have been part of a complex and
long ritual process, which initiated with the preliminary preparation of the
deceased’s body at special, sacred enclosures (such as that recently discovered
in Huaca La Capilla-San José de Moro, Muro 2016). Although not described
in great detail in this chapter, the dead body, and its diverse manifestations,
seems to be a central topic in Moche art overall. For example, scenes such as
“The Burial Theme” suggest that the corpses of elite individuals were publicly
transformed, exhibited, and transported in extensive funerary processions. The
public exhibition of the dead body seems to have constituted a key aspect of
the mortuary rites at San José de Moro, as is suggested by the displacement
pattern of bodies inside funerary coffins. Some other scenes show actions or-
chestrated by nonhuman entities (skeletal beings) who seem to be involved in
(either helping or avoiding) the transition of the deceased to a differentiated
plain of existence (Bourget 2006: 180). In this chapter, we have focused on the
rites and practices orchestrated after the placement of the individuals in the
funerary chambers; whereas in the mythological realm, these practices would
have ended with the rebirth of the individual as a mythological ancestor, in the
real world, in his/her transformation as an ancestor transfigured with a new
embodiment: a rigid body.
An ontological understanding of the Moche body draws attention not only
to “what the body is,” but also to “what it can do.” Therefore, to explore the ef-
fect of the body in the Moche world, the body needs to be incorporated within
a specific historical and cultural reality—in this case, the fragmented politi-
cal world of the Moche from Jequetepeque. As Hill (2005) has suggested, the
body in the Moche world was seen as an entity eminently charged with political
symbolism and imbued with agency. The sequential transformation of the dead
body, from a malleable to a rigid condition, not only altered its corporal essence
but also marked its conversion from a private to a public entity. The possibility
to experience such a public—and now revitalized—body should have had sig-
nificant impact on those who regularly visited the celebratory patios of San José
de Moro, although the question of who exactly participated in funerary feasting
is still matter of debate.
The process of symbolic and corporeal transformation of the dead bodies
carried out in San José de Moro should have been exclusively reserved for the
members of the Moche elite; but not all of them. Deciding which members of
the elite were ancestralized was crucial and should have involved political nego-
tiation among the various Moche polities from the Jequetepeque Valley. In the
same manner, experiencing the ancestral bodies through feasting was an essen-
tial activity in the legitimization of political and economic rights of every group.
The identification with specific mythological ancestors could have served to
claim rights over lands, water, and other resources, all of which were objects of
constant dispute in the valley. Participating in rites of ancestral veneration at
San José de Moro thus could have been the only valid mechanism for claiming
control over specific resources. Reinforcing social, political, and religious ties
with the ancestral entities was hence pivotal in this political setting.
Conclusions
Viveiros de Castro’s perspectivist ontology has been used, in this particular case
study, as a theoretical framework to characterize a Moche corporal ontology. By
using contextualized bioarchaeological and archaeological evidence recovered
from the Late Moche cemetery of San José de Moro, this chapter suggests that
the Moche from Jequetepeque conceptualized the body as inherently unstable,
mutable, and constituted of relationships. Here, the physical and real transfor-
mations of the body represented, at the same time, its symbolic and metaphysi-
cal transformations: from a human to a divine entity—a process of ancestrality.
The dichotomy between instability/fragility and stability/hardness seems to
have been implicit not only in the Moche conception of death but also beyond.
It could be argued that both the body and the matter were conceived as gradu-
ally unstable. Hence, “stabilizing” them could have been a highly desired pro-
cess. The process to transform the changing nature of these entities involved a
direct intervention of their physical properties and, more importantly, of their
social nature. Entering into the sphere of social circulation (transformation,
use, and discard) entailed “bringing these entities into life,” from a generalized
background of changing and depersonalized matter to that of stability. As Al-
berti and Marshalls posit, “The issue is no longer how things get movement but
rather how they stabilize. Fragility is an inherent quality of matter and hence
constituted an ever-continuous threat to stabilization” (Alberto and Marshall,
2009: 353).
This particular ontology of changing and alternating bodies resembles the
corporeal ontology still present among the Runakuna from Sonqos. The Runak-
una conceptualize bodies as inhabited by an animating force (sami) that is ca-
pable of transfiguring and crystallizing as rigid entities amenable to worship.
Reminiscence in the belief systems in modern Andean communities offers a
fascinating vantage for Andean archaeologists to explore emic conceptualiza-
tions of the body. Moreover, these belief systems provide an alternative inter-
pretative framework through which researchers can analyze the past—a past
composed of multiple beings whose corporealities are further accessible to An-
dean archaeologists.
Notes
1. Identification based on bioarchaeological analyses.
2. The hypothesis of the sacrifice is based on the atypical position and location of spe-
cific bodies, which were carelessly disposed among the offerings (see Tomasto-Cagigao
et al. 2016 for further argumentation).
3. Individuals found either in prone, flexed, or otherwise aberrant positions are fre-
quently called “guardians”; one can infer that they were placed in the tombs so as to safe-
guard the main occupant. See Tomasto-Cagigao et al. 2016 for a developed and detailed
explanation about Moche individuals possibly sacrificed with no visible bone trauma.
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pppppppppppppp
6
Moche Mereology
Synecdochal Ontologies at the Late Moche Site
of Huaca Colorada, Peru
G i l e s S p e n c e - M o r r o w a n d E d wa r d S w e n s o n
Parts of the Whole: Toward a Moche Mereology
An interpretation of architecture to infer past worldviews, including deep

ontological orders, must start with an analysis of the component parts of the
built environment. Of course, individual bricks or posts alone cannot ac-
count for the value systems of the builders; we can only approximate the mo-
tivations, conceptual schemes, and even the underlying ontologies of place
through an examination of a larger “structure” comprised of the meaningful
collection of architectural elements. Accordingly, the definition of these fun-
damental component parts is entirely dependent on the context at hand, as
directly related to the scale of the objects and settings themselves, from the
domestic to the monumental. In this light, it has recently been argued that
archaeological scholarship largely operates according to principles of mereo-
logical reasoning, a framework of interpretation in which partial perspectives
sum up to a more complete understanding of a whole (Strathern 2010: 175;
Webmoor 2013: 107; Webmoor 2014: 473). As a branch of philosophy, mere-
ology (the study of parts and wholes and their relationship to one another)
is seldom compared to the ontologies of contemporary and ancient peoples
(Casati and Varzi 1999; Descola 2013; Viveiros de Castro 2004). In his recent
ethnographic work on mereological cosmovisions among Carib-speaking
groups in Venezuela and Colombia, Ernst Halbmayer stresses this paradox,
suggesting that the contemporary anthropological obsession with ontologies
would benefit from efforts to reconsider the parthood relations of the com-
ponents comprising larger ideological structures (Halbmayer 2012: 110). This
particular mode of interpretation would proceed by playing off ethnographic
and archaeological data in order to rethink our own analytical concepts (Hal-
bmayer 2012: 104; Carrithers et al. 2010; Zeitlyn 2009). In relating parts to
wholes, archaeological interpretation relies upon the accumulated knowledge
of variably delimited and interrelated components of both the material record
and established theories used to reconstruct past social realities. In order to
approximate past behavior through an analysis of the diverse traces of action,
archaeological research can only proceed by arranging parts to form a whole,
and, conversely, to deconstruct wholes through an analysis of their parts.
Archaeological interpretation thus entails a constant process of splitting and
division through which the unity of the “site” is physically deconstructed into
numerous parts followed by a conceptual reassembly as a multilevel parts-whole
structure. The varied integrations and changing parthood of archeological ob-
jects and their referents are determined by the form and style of the objects as
well as the meaning and intentions we impart to them in light of their location
and distribution in space (Casati and Varzi 1999; Halbmayer 2012). In examin-
ing the relations among wholes, parts, parts of parts, and the boundaries be-
tween parts, philosophers Roberto Casati and Achille C. Varzi (1999) developed
the theoretical framework of mereotopology in which mereology and topology
are combined. The latter term refers to the ways constituent parts are interre-
lated and (re)arranged. The formal logic of mereotopology effectively captures
how archaeological method is grounded in the analysis of parts, wholes, and
the boundaries and connectivity of parthood relations. This mereological or
mereotopological framework extends to the consideration of the built environ-
ment, as archaeologists tend to focus on the relationship between sequences
and phases of a structure’s development as expressions of changing social cir-
cumstances. At this particular scale of analysis, archaeologists attempt to read
ideology through mereological modes of definition and deconstruction of in-
ferred spatial patterns as materialized in stone, brick, and wood.
For our purposes, stressing the archaeological method as inherently mereo-
logical is particularly relevant to our argument given that certain ontological
orders were predicated on similar principles across the ancient Andes. This is
not to say that contemporary archaeologists and the Moche of our case study
thought identically or built worlds following the same logic or procedures.
Synecdochal Ontologies at the Late Moche Site of Huaca Colorada, Peru 151
Instead, we emphasize that Moche ritual interventions in space permit an
archaeological reconstruction of their underlying conceptions of space given
the parallel structures underling Moche ritual semiosis and archaeological in-
terpretation. The parallels between archaeological interpretation and Moche
ritualism lie in the realm of seeking and making order through the interplay
of part and whole, but the analogy obviously ends here. Indeed, the underly-
ing ontologies are obviously different; for the Moche, part and whole were un-
derstood as enlivened and materially co-constitutive. This chapter will focus
on the mereological relationship between human bodies and the spaces they
constructed as constituent parts of an integrated whole. More specifically,
we examine how human bodies and buildings constituted intertwined and
enfolded actors in Moche spatial ideologies.
Detailed architectural analysis of the construction sequence of the Late
Moche ceremonial center of Huaca Colorada (AD 650–850), demonstrates
that the site was characterized by cycles of ritualized architectural renova-
tion that coincided with human and animal sacrifices. These findings provide
interesting insights on Moche philosophies of embodiment and space that
appear to have been grounded in deep-seated dispositions on the nature and
interrelationships of beings (Descola 2013: 274). These often unquestioned
orientations are commonly equated with “ontology” in recent archaeological
research (Alberti 2016), but they no doubt were shaped by religious discourse
and political ideologies. As Butler admonishes: “Power often dissimulates as
ontology” and the ability to define what is real and forge relationships be-
tween beings confers considerable authority (Butler 2004: 215; also see Govin-
drajan 2018: 12). In considering the ontological orientations of Moche world-
views, the data strongly suggest that the Moche perceived architecture as an
animate, changing, and metabolizing body, the life history of which paralleled
the trajectory of different biological entities (human, divine, environmental)
(Swenson 2012, 2015; Swenson and Warner 2016; Swenson 2018a). The joint
sacrifice of architectural and living beings provides important data on Moche
worldview as pertains to constructions of place and personhood in the Je-
quetepeque Valley during the Middle Horizon Period. Ultimately, an inves-
tigation of the maintenance, renovation, and ritual treatment of architecture
at Huaca Colorada and other Moche sites offers a means to interpret Moche
ideologies of life, death, and vitality as founded on the corporeal interdepen-
dencies—and nested part-whole interchanges—between individuals and the
spaces that they produced.
152 Giles Spence-Morrow and Edward Swenson

Synecdochal Ontologies in the Andes
Comparable to social theories documented in Andean ethnographic materials,

Moche conceptions of being and life appear to have been predicated on recipro-
cally propelled rites of consumption that forged bonds and interdependencies
between ontological others: As Allen notes:
That the human body could serve as a conduit transmitting material sus-
tenance at a distance to different categories of being implies understand-
ings of body and soul, mind and matter, animate and inanimate objects
that are very different from “western” thinking. Taking this animistic at-
titude seriously requires in the words of Eduardo Vivieros de Castro, an
“ethnographically-based reshuffling of basic conceptual themes.” (Allen
2014: 74; Viveiros de Castro 1998: 470)
Allen argues that contemporary Andean ritual practice is based on the idea that
all beings (animate or otherwise) are interconnected through ayni, the funda-
mental reciprocal “give-and-take” that controls and circulates vitality between
interconnected agents. As a cosmology that does not separate between mind
and matter, material objects could become animate and agentive. This recipro-
cal consubstantiality between people, places, animals, and things also relies on a
sense of envelopment or synecdoche, with parts standing for the whole, and the
whole standing for the part (see also Swenson 2015, Swenson and Warner 2016).
She argues that the synecdochal exchangeability of the whole and part act more
as a figure of thought and mode of practice as opposed to a figure of speech.
Allen notes (1997: 81): “Synecdochal thinking comprehends the world in terms
of mutually enveloping homologous structures that act upon each other: ayllus
[Andean lineages] are contained in ayllus; places are contained within places;
every potato field contains its own vertical ecology; thus every microcosm en-
ergizes its macrocosm and vice-versa.”
As mentioned in the introduction, an important objective of the chapter is to
demonstrate that just such a material and reciprocal interpenetration of whole
and part was materialized in the recurrent architectural reconstructions docu-
mented at Huaca Colorada. Human and architectural bodies were comingled
as nested components of each other at Huaca Colorada, exemplifying a world-
view predicated on the mereological relationality between parts and wholes. A
Moche synecdochal corporeality is thus expressed in the material interactions
between human and architectural actors. The incorporation or even ingestion
of human bodies into the adobe fabric of the structure points to a particular
synecdochal ontology in which humans and buildings could alternate between
subject and object, as well as serve as representative parts that engendered and
vitalized the whole (Spence-Morrow 2017). An examination of the meretopo-
logical linkage of corporeal and architectural sacrifices at Huaca Colorada will
be preceded by a brief discussion of the theoretical limitations of identifying
ontological categories from archaeological remains.
The Archaeological Analysis of Ontology: Problems,

Potentials, and Limitations
Archaeologists increasingly base their analysis of past Andean practices and in-
stitutions as embedded in distinct relational ontologies (Alberti and Bray 2009;
Bray 2009). In such realities, places, peoples, and things formed part of interde-
pendent and animated collectivity, and nature and culture are not perceived as
opposed or absolute categories. Indeed, proponents of the ontological turn have
made an invaluable contribution, especially in recognizing that being, reality,
and subjectivity are irreducible to symbolic representations, but rather are the
product of deeply seated material and cultural constructions of the world. With
that said, we argue that Moche place making was not simply predetermined
by some deep-seated and static Andean ontology. In truth, privileging the lat-
ter as a cultural substratum of sorts risks sublimating Amerindian structures
of practice to the realm of the nondiscursive (for a more extensive critique of
the possible pitfalls of the ontological turn, see Graeber 2015; Swenson 2015).1
Certainly, a world understood as animated by interdependent and partible per-
sons, places, materials, and sacred powers no doubt shaped doxic dispositions
in a number of pre-Columbian societies (Alberti and Bray 2009; Zedeño 2009).
However, in elevating the ontological, archaeologists run the risk of unwittingly
homogenizing Amerindian cultures, an approach that perpetrates a West-vs.-
the-rest interpretive framework (Harrison-Buck 2012; Swenson 2015). In exam-
ining politically and religious charged spectacles centered on human sacrifice,
grounding interpretations in taken-for-granted or nondiscursive realities obvi-
ously has its limitations and fails to capture the conscious manipulation of both
human and architectural bodies. Indeed, religious ideologies, including that of
the Moche, were no doubt embedded in certain constructions of reality, but
they may also have contradicted or disrupted pre-existing ontological orders.
Of course, different religious and political ideologies can often best account for

the remarkable variation in Andean social institutions and landscapes, and it
would be wrong to assume that nature was socialized (or materialized) in any
predictable way. Indeed, the privileging of a relational ontology in the singular
to explain Andean landscapes could be charged with perpetuating lo Andino
essentialism.
In the end, ontology is a useful heuristic if one rejects that it is all-deter-
mining or monolithic. The prevalent ontological order of the postindustrial
west (methodological individualism, nature as objectified, existence as driven
by scarcity, commodity fetishism, and so on) may have roots in the Judeao-
Christian cosmology, but it has been most forcibly shaped by capitalism (see
Sahlins 1995; Swenson 2015). However, to call capitalism an “ontology” is as
specious as reducing Moche culture to the same category. In other words, equal
room must be made for the ideological and cosmological, and it is a dangerous,
Eurocentric assumption that ideas, beliefs (philosophies), and innovation were
only “movers” in an exclusively Cartesian and Enlightened world. Ontology is
commonly defined as the way the world works, and epistemology as the way
people come to understand these workings. However, it is important to keep
in mind that epistemology can radically rework basic ontological frames. We
argue that the synecdochal interchangeability of people and buildings among
the Moche is reflective of a historically particular relational ontology. Perhaps
the more interesting story is how the understanding of the world was variably
materialized and explicitly politicized.
In considering the Moche (Mochica) more specifically, this label designates
not so much a bounded culture but a politico-religious ideology propagated
throughout the desert north coast of Peru during the Andean Early Intermedi-
ate and Middle Horizon periods (AD 100–850) (Bawden 1996; Shimada 1994;
Quilter and Castillo 2010; Uceda and Mujica 1994, 2003). Archaeologists have
argued that societies structured according to this particular ideology were de-
fined by unprecedented social stratification, forming among the earliest state
polities in the Americas (Bawden 1996; Billman 2002; Shimada 1994; see Quil-
ter and Castillo 2010). However, recent investigations have questioned the ex-
istence of territorial Moche state(s), and it seems increasingly apparent that
Moche political organization varied considerably from region to region (see
Castillo and Donnan 1994a, 1994b; Quilter 2002; Quilter and Castillo 2010). The
exceptional beauty and iconographic richness of Moche material culture cer-
tainly points to shared religious conventions and moral philosophies that tran-
scended social and political divisions (Benson 1972, 2012; Donnan 1978, 2010).
However, few archaeologists have attempted to analyze the corpus in terms of
deeper ontological structures that could be compared, for instance, with one
of Descola’s “modes of identification” or Vivieros de Castro’s Amazonian “per-
spectivism” (Descola 2013: 138–143, Viveiros de Castro 2004). Certainly, icono-
graphic themes, including the famous “revolt of the objects,” suggest that ani-
mistic ontologies may have informed Moche culture and religious thought (see
Quilter 1990). The depiction of weaving implements, mats, belts, helmets, cloth-
ing, and other objects taking up arms and rebelling against human masters find
parallel in Amazonian ethnographies and the famed Huarochiri manuscript of
the highlands (Allen 1997; Jackson 2008: 145–146; Kroeber 1930; Levi-Strauss
1964; Quilter 1990; Santos Granero 2009: 3). This scene, which likely forms part
of a larger narrative of cosmological upheaval and reordering, points to how
objects as “subjected companions” (and not necessarily as subjects per se) could
assume alternate forms of agency in particular mythic or ritual conjunctures
(see Quilter 1990; also Santos Granero 2009: 22). Other scenes on ceramics and
wall murals also depict clothed and anthropomorphic objects waging war, and
weapons in particular (helmets, clubs, armor) are commonly animated (Benson
1972: 57–58), suggesting that the predatory actions of such objects may have
determined the degree to which they were subjectively empowered (whether in
real or possibly ancestral times) (Santos Granero 2009: 20–21). Anthropomor-
phized animal figures, clad in warrior garb, are also frequently engaging in war-
fare or assisting in sacrificial rituals (Donnan and McClelland 1999). Jars of sac-
rificial blood (some walking with legs) seemed also to have served as metonyms
of bound captives destined for sacrifice, further suggesting that blood may have
been perceived as animating, a transferable life force between different kinds
of bodies (Donnan and McClelland 1999: 113, 281–283; McClelland et al. 2007:
30, 122). The famed Sacrifice Ceremony or Presentation Theme of Moche ico-
nography represents one of the premier myths of Moche religion re-enacted by
elites in elaborate ritual performances (Alva and Donnan 1993). Decorating wall
murals and fineline ceramics, the theme depicts the consumption of sacrificial
blood by the principal fanged divinity, suggesting that the cosmos was sustained
by the consubstantial exchange of life-giving forces between interdependent
but possibly distinct and changing beings—a kind of ontological predation as
theorized by Viverios de Castro among the Tupi-Guarani of the Amazon.
Ultimately, we will never fully understand the hierarchies of being specific to
Moche communities, or how they differed from distinctive Amazonian or later
Andean “object regimes” and constructions of personhood (see Hugh-Jones

2009). However, much has been written on Moche religion and cosmology,
analytical categories that implicate ontological questions. As intimated above,
Moche cosmology was clearly grounded in a particular sacrificial construction
of the world. Moche political theology was defined by cycles of warfare, pris-
oner capture, and human sacrifice that likely conformed to poorly understood
cosmogonic myths and ideologies of legitimate religious authority and social
reproduction (Bawden 1996; Bourget 2006; Donnan 1978, 2001; Alva and Don-
nan 1993; Swenson 2003, 2012). Moche elites both directed spectacles of human
sacrifice and appear to have been the desired victims (Donnan 2001). At its
fundament, adherents of Moche religious ideology perceived death as a pre-
requisite of life and regeneration, if not to the overall movement of space-time.
Ritually encapsulated material destruction was conceived in an alimentary and
metabolic sense as the reciprocal enabler of creation, a force generative of life,
cosmos, time, and ultimately political power (Swenson 2003; Swenson 2018a).
The central role of ingestion (eating) and transferring vital substances between
different entities (gods, places, buildings, pots) is exemplified by the above-
mentioned Presentation Theme and in foundation sacrifices at Huaca Colorada
discussed in the following section (see also Weismantel 2004). In fact, such
reciprocal and sacrificial exchanges cemented ritual interdependencies between
persons and animated places and things among many traditional Andean peo-
ple (Salomon and Urioste 1991). Death was not understood as an end but as the
ultimate nexus of material transformation and mode of becoming; the sacrificial
control of reproduction constituted a means to intervene in and become part of
the fluid continuum of “being” that likely subsumed Western categories of hu-
man, animal, landscape, artifact, society, and the divine (Swenson and Warner
2012). In fact, the religious and political landscapes of the Moche are fruitfully
understood in terms of this specific sacrificial ontology, and the prevalence of
architectural dedication and termination rites in Moche centers suggests that
Moche conceptions of place resembled tenets of material-relational theories in
contemporary human geography (Swenson 2011, 2012; Uceda 2010; Thrift 2010).
The study of Moche artifacts, including the famed fineline stirrup vessels and
naturalist portrait vessels depicting Moche elites, also point to complex object
biographies. Indeed, certain pots appear to have been incorporated into sacri-
ficial life cycles similar to high-status humans, as exemplified by extraordinary
portrait vessels that depict specific individuals at different ages of development
(youth, maturity, and sacrificial death) (Donnan 2001). Anthropomorphic ves-
sels were also deliberately broken and deposited alongside executed human vic-
tims at Huaca de la Luna and other sites (Verano 2001). In this light, it is worth
considering that portrait vessels and other figurative ceramics acted as per-
sons, living substitutes or partitive subjects that distributed in space and time
the agency of their human co-essences (Gell 1998; Jackson 2008: 45; Strathern
1992). Therefore, the Moche likely perceived certain kinds of objects as alive,
imbued with personhood, and infused with vital agency. Matter in general was
perhaps experienced as ecologically intermeshed and vibrant, where “people
are not united in belief but in a way of being that is alive and open to a world in
continuous birth” (Ingold 2006: 9; see also Bennett 2010). In this regard, Moche
materialism would seem to have aligned closely with Ingold’s redefinition of
animic ontologies (see Ingold 2006). However, are the Moche best understood
in terms of “people united in being” when both human and things were alter-
natively subjectified, objectified, even abjectified in highly politicized sacrificial
rituals (Nilsson Stutz 2008)? To be sure, struggles over the means to harness or
activate the agency (animacy) of various peoples, places, and things likely lay at
the heart of both Moche political conflicts and building projects alike.
Made of Its Makers: The Nested Biographies

of Huaca Colorada and Its Builders
The complex, multigenerational construction of the ceremonial architecture at

Huaca Colorada clearly functioned to anchor people in space and time. Analy-
sis of the sequence of building phases have allowed us to sketch a nuanced
architectural biography marked by specific cycles of ritual construction and
pilgrimage to the site that were likely timed with public feasting events. Com-
munal acts of ritualized renovation that took place at Huaca Colorada served to
embody a collective memory about the past that formed a salient bond between
members of this particular community. The sequential spatial renovations of
the ceremonial architecture at Huaca Colorada were commemorated with at
least 14 human and animal sacrifices with subjects literally incorporated into
the fabric of the sacred space to enliven the built environment.
Huaca Colorada was the most prominent Late Moche ritual locale in the
southern Jequetepeque Valley (Swenson 2012, 2014; Swenson and Warner 2012).
The center is located approximately 100 km north of the Huacas de Moche, situ-
ated at the base of the Cerro Cañoncillo mountain range of the arid Pampa de
Mojucape (Figure 6.1). Surrounded by a largely agricultural settlement covering
approximately 24 ha, Huaca Colorada is dominated by an elongated adobe brick

platform structure built atop a modified sand dune. It measures approximately
390 m by 140 m and rises nearly 20 m at its highest point above the agricultural
fields that surround it. The principal ceremonial precinct under investigation,
Sector B, is located at the peak of the structure above and between two manu-
facturing and residential areas to the north and south, Sectors A and C, respec-
tively (Figure 6.2). Serving as the ceremonial and political headquarters of a
powerful polity, the principal religious constructions of the monumental core
of Huaca Colorada consist of 11 daises or altars, all of which were intentionally
interred under floors or construction fill (Swenson 2012; Swenson 2017, Spence-
Morrow 2017).
The ceremonial precincts of Huaca Colorada were places of conspicuous con-
sumption, with feasting middens found in direct association with the ceremonial
precinct containing high quantities of prestige food remains and ceramic vessels.
Figure 6.1. Map of Jequetepeque with location of Huaca Colorada. Source: Giles Spence-Morrow and Ed-
ward Swenson.
Figure 6.2. Map of Huaca Colorada sectors. Source: Giles Spence-Morrow and Edward Swenson.
It is clear that feasting events were fundamental to the use of this space; hu-
man participants ate with the huaca, feeding offerings to the monument through
structured deposits of exotic refuse (Lynch 2013; Swenson 2018a; Swenson and
Warner 2016: 46). Commensal rites involving individual sacrifices of animals,
peoples, and things may have been deemed necessary to nourish the huaca, and
to ensure the boons of fertility and community well-being that the huaca re-

ciprocated in return. As Bruce Mannheim and Mary Weismantel have recently
argued, the act of eating with and feeding huacas formed the nexus of reciprocal
and ritual bonds uniting great powers and their human dependents (Mannheim
and Salas Carreño 2015, Weismantel 2004, 2009; Weismantel and Meskell 2014).
This central ceremonial district was comprised of two complementary but
opposed parts, each anchored by a stepped ritual platform at the southern end
of two precincts (which will be referred to as the Western Chamber and the
Eastern Terrace) (Figure 6.3). The ritually terminated and well-preserved West-
ern Chamber measures 10 m (NS) by 7 m (EW) and contains a two-stepped
platform or dais that served as a stage for ritual performances (Swenson et al.
2010, 2011; Swenson 2012). Excavations have revealed that this Western platform
chamber was repeatedly remodeled, with each renovation raising the level of the
previous floor while simultaneously diminishing the overall length of the room,
compressing the space both laterally and vertically, incrementally reducing the
original area from 154 m2 to 70 m2 prior to termination and abandonment (Fig-
ure 6.4). In fact, the ceremonial precinct of Huaca Colorada appears to have
been in a constant state of renovation, and it is evident that there was a religious
expectation to ritually terminate and rededicate altars, rooms, and platforms,
perhaps as dictated by a religious calendar or festival round (Swenson 2012:
11). Measuring 2 m long by 4 m wide, the two-stepped platform located in the
southern end of this central chamber maintained its position and dimensions
across all phases of construction, indicating that this altar clearly served as the
point of focus for the activities that took place in this interior space throughout
all occupation phases (Figure 6.2). As mentioned, the ultimate phase of use of
the platform chamber had compressed the space to cover an area of less than
half the original dimensions, and it was extraordinarily well preserved due to
an intentional decommissioning episode that saw the entire chamber filled with
upward of 180 m3 of clean sand fill. This singular termination event encased and
preserved two plaster-coated wooden pillars found rising from the platform,
highly curated architectural components that once supported a simple gable
roof commonly depicted in Moche iconography (Figure 6.5).
We have discovered at least seven distinct phases of renovation of the West
Chamber, each of which incrementally reduced the precinct while carefully
maintaining and reiterating fundamental components of its spatial organiza-
tion. These lateral reductions maintained the overall width of the chamber
throughout every phase of use, with new points of access built through walls
as the chamber area was reduced. These entrances through the eastern, west-
Figure 6.3. Isometric model of the Western Chamber and Eastern Terrace in relation to each other.
Source: Giles Spence-Morrow and Edward Swenson.
Figure 6.4. Construction phases of the Western Chamber in profile (bottom) with a photo of northern wall
reductions and a sequence of isometric models of each phase (top left and right). Source: Giles Spence-
Morrow and Edward Swenson.
Figure 6.5. Comparison of Moche iconographic representation of the cover platform (top left) in relation to
the western private chamber platform with posts in situ (upper and lower right), and the complete western
platform chamber following excavation (lower left). Source: Giles Spence-Morrow and Edward Swenson.
ern, and southern walls of the room were carefully re-created in each phase,
maintaining access patterns into and out of the chamber through time. These
reductions clearly defined the use of this space as focused on the gable-roofed
structure found at the southern end of the central chamber. Most of these archi-
tectural renovations were commemorated by the incorporation of human sacri-
ficial victims beneath successive floors and within the construction fill behind
various reductions of the northern wall of the chamber (Swenson et al. 2010,
2011, 2012, 2013, 2015) (Figure 6.6).
Within the West Chamber, the discovery of six foundation sacrifices associ-
ated with both the closure and rededication of the different phases of use of
the altar platforms corroborates the hypothetical linkages between corporeal
and architectural sacrifice. The periodic ritual renovations of the monumental
chamber thus seem to exemplify a concern to control and regulate the move-
Figure 6.6. Sacrificial locations (ovals) in relation to the eastern public ramp and platform complex
(left), and the western private platform chamber (right). Source: Giles Spence-Morrow and Edward
Swenson.
ment of time itself (see Swenson 2011, 2012, 2014, 2017; Spence-Morrow 2017).
As a direct materialization of Moche conceptions of time, these changing spaces
served as a “chronotope” of sorts that was animated by the sacrificial incorpo-
ration of young women. Therefore, the multiple rebuilding phases encapsu-
lated the metamorphic and possibly the procreative power of Huaca Colorada’s
ceremonial architecture (Bakhtin 1981: 7; Swenson 2015: 689, Swenson 2017;
Spence-Morrow 2017). The incorporation of human burials as offerings dur-
ing ritualized closure of altars, ramps, and chambers sealed under floors and
tons of clean sand indicate that the Moche of Huaca Colorada were aware of
the power of invisible but immanently present agents as vitalizing components
of the architectural constructions. In previous publications, it has been argued

that Huaca Colorada formed part of a “sacramental landscape” involving the
consubstantiation of humans and architecture, wherein the foundation sacrifice
of young women perhaps served to transfer the life force and youthful vigour of
the offerings to the sacred space in question. (Swenson 2015: 690).
Excavation of the final phase of construction within the Western Chamber
uncovered adjacent burial cuts containing two adolescent women laid supine
before the dais (Figure 6.6). Located immediately north of the bottom step of
the twin-stepped platform, these two individuals were oriented with their heads
to the south and both bore evidence of rope ligatures around their necks. The
pair of burials was accompanied by a dog and a guinea pig (cuy) that had been
deposited immediately to the west. It is clear that these sacrificial offerings and
the act of renovation occurred in short order, if not simultaneously, as the open
grave was filled with clean sand fill before being encased in a new compact clay
floor that covered the entire area of the chamber as a final reduction.
Three additional female sacrificial burials were found in direct association
with a small terrace that abutted the exterior of the southern wall of the central
ceremonial chamber, each placed in shallow single graves in semiflexed supine
positions (Figure 6.6). Found in close proximity to one another, each of these
individuals was between 13 and 25 years of age; two bodies were buried supine
and the third laid in a somewhat haphazard position with her right arm ex-
tended above their head.
Evidence of the ceremonial relationship between the sacrifice of human and
architectural bodies is best illustrated by one particularly noteworthy sacrificial
burial found within the construction fill that served to terminate the penulti-
mate lateral reduction of the central platform chamber. Oriented with her head
to the east toward Cerro Cañoncillo, this 25–35-year-old female was sprawled
supine across the area between the newly constructed northern perimeter and
the wall that preceded it, seemingly tossed into the rubble while the space was
being closed (Swenson et al. 2012). Directly beneath this individual were the
fragile remains of a large wooden post, approximately 30 cm in diameter and
nearly 2 m long, laid in the adobe rubble in an almost identical orientation and
position as the sacrificial victim. The combined offering of these two distinct
yet connected dedications speaks to the shared importance of both human and
architectural subjects as vital component parts in the creation and sustenance
of Huaca Colorada (Figure 6.7).
The Eastern Terrace of Sector B was in use simultaneously with the vari-
ous phases of the more enclosed Western Chamber and constituted important
Figure 6.7. Human sacrifice (left) in relation to a sacrifice post directly below burial (right). Source: Giles
Spence-Morrow and Edward Swenson.
foci for more public ceremonial activities. The public Eastern Terrace of the
huaca was covered by a roofed veranda that sheltered a second stepped platform
and ramp complex, which served as the public counterpart to the more private
dais found in the central chamber (Figure 6.8). Recent investigations west of
the Western Chamber exposed a tiered sequence of landings ascending to the
south beside a monumental ramp that provided access to the interior ceremo-
nial chamber. Akin to a broad staircase, this western terrace appears to accen-
tuate what is now understood to be the major access route along the western
side of the ceremonial sector. Excavations of the eastern and western terraces
presented a complex sequence of remodeling episodes that both paralleled and
differed from construction phases in the central chamber. Renovation of these
exterior terraces was renewed with vertical shifts rather than horizontal reduc-
tions, encasing earlier platforms by increasing the elevation of the surrounding
floors. On the Eastern Terrace, this vertical growth required careful extraction

Figure 6.8. Eastern public platform. Source: Giles Spence-Morrow and Edward Swenson.
and reuse of substantial wooden posts that supported the roofed areas of this
visible public area. Recent investigations on the eastern terrace uncovered align-
ments of unusual circular adobe-lined pits that acted as the supporting bases
for large wooden posts, two of which held dedicatory offerings of finely worked
spondylus shell (Figure 6.9). The construction of these post emplacement bins
is now interpreted as acts of architectural curation, built one atop each other in
synch with the construction of new and superimposed clay floors that allowed
the eastern terrace to change and grow between phases while maintaining the
relative positions of individual architectural elements through time (Swenson
et al. 2010, 2011, 2012). This desire to maintain the location of features could
easily have been achieved in other ways, but it seems that the continuity of
post emplacements cited the previous construction sequences, creating physical
conduits through which an association with the past was maintained, affirming
a continual connection to the earliest iteration of the structure and its ances-
tral inhabitants. The transference of cultural knowledge through the process
of removing, preparing, and resetting these posts may have allowed multiple
Figure 6.9. Post emplacements in the eastern public platform terrace. Source: Giles Spence-Morrow and
Edward Swenson.
generations of the builders of Huaca Colorada to commune through the materi-

ality and animated agency of the posts themselves (Pauketat and Alt 2005: 217).
This particular construction tradition was a vital and repeated component of
each major renovation event punctuated by combined human and architectural
sacrifices that marked and put into motion temporal cycles at Huaca Colorada
(Swenson 2017; Spence-Morrow 2017).
Excavations of the later Sican Period (circa AD 900–1100) Huacas Loro and
Lercanlech in the Lambayeque Valley (Batan Grande) have uncovered hundreds
of similar adobe brick post emplacement boxes or sockets that appear to have
served the same function as those at Huaca Colorada (Shimada 1990, Klaus and
Shimada 2016). However, within each of these later post sockets, along with small
foundation offerings of copper and shell, nearly half of all the post emplacements
at the Sican huacas contained sacrificial victims, often found blindfolded and
their limbs bound to the posts with rope, embracing the base of the pillar just
below the floor level (Klaus and Shimada 2016). The presence of these remarkable

human offerings at Batan Grande suggests a significant intensification of dedica-
tory rites in the Sican Period specifically linking human and architectural sacri-
fice as interdependent propitiatory acts. Although the post burial found at Huaca
Colorada is unique and admittedly less dramatic than the multiple Sican period
examples, similar beliefs may have been in play at the earlier Moche site.
The recycling, erection, and reanimation of posts may have served to main-
tain and circulate vital energies, and this distinctive form or renovation differs
from the envelopment of earlier sacrifices and altars under new floors. Repeated
acts of human and architectural sacrifice played a vital role in the renewal of
Huaca Colorada; the deposition of synecdochally nested organic and inorganic
bodies, bounded wholes that became porous parts and vice-versa, were no
doubt seen as integral to sustaining the larger structure as a living totality.
The ceremonial platform found at the southern end of the Eastern Terrace was
slightly larger than the equivalent platform in the West Chamber but was other-
wise identical in form, composed of two steps in exactly the same north-facing
orientation (Swenson et al. 2015). Unlike the central platform, the dais of the
eastern terrace was accessed by a central 2-m-wide ramp immediately north of
the platform, a configuration that is commonly portrayed in iconographic depic-
tions of Moche ceremonial platforms (Bourget 2006; Donnan and McClelland
1999) (Figure 6.10). With this iconic ritual stage located at the very eastern edge
of the huaca, this terrace would have been clearly visible from the open plaza
that stretches eastward from the base of Huaca Colorada toward the ruins of the
site of Tecapa (Swenson et al. 2015). Investigation of this public platform revealed
that it was enlarged laterally at least once before being intentionally destroyed in
an intense burning episode. This dramatic termination event effectively “fired”
the floor surfaces of both the platform and surrounding area as well as the clay-
coated gabled roof that once stood over the eastern ramped platform (Figure
6.8) (Swenson 2018a, 2018b). Considerable amounts of fragmentary burnt roof
plaster, bearing impressions of cane, were found across the surface of the entire
southern limit of the eastern terrace. Considering the size of the platform, the
clay-covered cane roof would have been of considerable weight, requiring the
support of large wooden columns, the burnt bases of which remained deeply
embedded in the floor of the platform within the adjacent post emplacement
bins. The concentration of burnt rubble and the extent of the burning across
the entire eastern platform area indicates that it was intentionally immolated,
likely requiring considerable volumes of combustible material to be amassed in
preparation for this dramatic act of architectural termination.
Figure 6.10. Ramp iconography (modified from Bourget 2006).
Recent excavations immediately north of the eastern ramp and platform

complex exposed two superimposed north-facing platforms (Swenson 2018a,
2018b, 2018c). These were built in succession following the burning of the
original dais, which was sealed under a thick floor immediately after the ritu-
alized immolation. Built upon a sequence of solid floors and compact rubble,
each of these finely plastered platforms was also directly associated with dedi-
catory sacrificial burials of young women. The earlier of these two burials, an
adolescent female, was found supine on the burnt surface of the floor of the
original ramp and platform complex within a thick sand fill that terminated
and elevated this early phase of the eastern terrace. In other words, this hu-
man burial directly coincided with the ritual firing of the first dais. Oriented
with her head to the south and her face tilted toward Cerro Cañoncillo, this
commemorated the closing of the original public platform in a manner that
paralleled the treatment of the double sacrifices found immediately north of
the more private platform to the west (see above). Since the original phases
of the eastern and central platforms were occupied concurrently, these three
dedicatory burials occurred in a single phase of architectural termination on
either side of the central dividing wall differentiating the private and public
ceremonial spaces. Two additional burials were found during excavations of
this early floor level at the northern extreme of the eastern terrace. Both of
these individuals were juveniles; the youngest, aged approximately 3 years,
was buried supine while the elder female individual (11–14 years old) was
sprawled on her left side. The latter was associated with the building of an-

Figure 6.11. Sacrificial burials and Tumi knife, detail. Source: Giles Spence-Morrow
and Edward Swenson.
other platform to the north. Considering the stratigraphic relation of these

early burials to others found across the eastern terrace, it seems that these
two individuals may have served as foundation sacrifices for the entire area,
which appears to have coincided with the completion of the initial construc-
tion phase of Huaca Colorada. Immediately above these individuals, a finely
made copper tumi knife decorated with an interlocking fish and bird motif
was found imbedded in the clay floor that capped these two burials, further
alluding to the importance of this particular offering (Figure 6.11).
Following the immolation and closure of the original public ramped plat-
form complex, the first of two superimposed platforms contained a second
dedicatory burial, almost immediately above the first. Nevertheless, it remains
unclear whether the intention of each rite was to serve as a propitiatory act
commemorating the foundation or closure of either phase. This second burial
was found carefully laid within the floor of the earlier platform, with a cap of
fine plaster placed over the burial cut to seal the individual within the inte-
rior of the dais (Figure 6.12) (Swenson 2018b, 2018c). This interred individual
was a pregnant woman in her third trimester. She was placed directly within
the most visible ceremonial structure during this phase of occupation. The
23–29-year-old woman was oriented with her head to the east toward Cerro
Cañoncillo following a clear pattern shared by half of the discovered burials
discovered within the monumental complex. All of the burials oriented east
are associated with the later construction phases, and they differ from the
earlier interments (heads are oriented to the south). It is important to note
that 12 of the 15 sacrificial burials found within the ceremonial sector were
securely sexed as female (excluding one juvenile of indeterminate sex). There-
fore, the recurring dedicatory rites of architectural renewal appear to have
been founded on harnessing and transferring the powers of female creation
and fertility (Swenson 2018a; Swenson and Warner 2012).
Stratigraphic comparison of the construction sequence of Sector B has shown
that the Eastern Terrace and the Monumental Entrance Terrace to the west of
Figure 6.12. Pregnant sacrifice in situ beneath clay floor cap (left) and in relation to eastern
ramped platform reduction (right). Source: Giles Spence-Morrow and Edward Swenson.

the West Chamber were built contemporaneously to the earliest phases of the
central chamber, indicating that public and private ceremonial performances
could have been held concurrently on these ritual stages, linked by a phased
sequence of entrances (Swenson et al. 2015). As the Western Chamber was re-
duced in length and volume, doorways that provided access to the east and west
were carefully bricked up and plastered over, actively maintaining accessibility
between these spaces over time. While the Eastern Terrace would have been vis-
ible to audiences that could have gathered in the plaza at the base of the huaca,
the more private chamber to the west was an intimate space wherein access and
movement was highly controlled. The dualistic configuration of public and pri-
vate spaces within the ceremonial nucleus of Huaca Colorada materialized the
synecdochal relationship between variable nested “bodies”; the whole edifice
was enlivened through the operation of two separate but interdependent and
complementary parts. Some of the oppositions between the East Terrace and
West Chamber, each anchored by comparable stepped platforms, further ex-
press this interplay of whole as parts forming larger wholes. The Eastern Terrace
was public, higher, and renovated through vertical reconstructions, with phases
of use that were clearly terminated by fire. In contrast, the Western Chamber
was private, lower, public, and characterized by phased, horizontal reductions,
and was terminated by interment in rubble and sand. The incremental and re-
peated architectural terminations in the three main sectors of the ceremonial
zone (the East Terrace, West Chamber, and Monumental Entrance Terraces)
provide further testament to this synecdochal continuum of bodies and build-
ings—in which wholes were continually divided into parts, each part contain-
ing and enveloping the essence of the whole. This relationship was maintained
in each iteration, speaking to the continuity of a particular architectural tra-
dition that was clearly remembered, repeated, and revered as a fundamental
component of building this structure. Both the labor involved in the construc-
tion of the huaca and the physical incorporation of bodies served to enliven the
monument through the consubstantiation of parts (humans, animals, bricks,
posts) within the growing and contracting whole of the entire structure.
Conclusion
As Swenson and Warner note (2016: 45): “Rituals of cosmic and somatic re-
assembly at Huaca Colorada appear to have been propelled by comparable acts
of eating, digestion and growth, as evidenced not only by the paramount impor-
tance of commensal rites at the site, but by the juxtaposition of distinct mate-
rial elements bundled into the sacrifices of architectural remodelling.” The cel-
ebrants at Huaca Colorada viewed the monument as an integrated organic whole
composed of interdependent and substitutable peoples, places, and things. This
mereological or synecdochal control of the life force is immediately evident in
the interplay of the individual human sacrifices, the decommissioned posts, and
the remarkably compressed rededication rites. These exceptional “structured de-
posits” (Richards and Thomas 1984) lend themselves to archaeological interpre-
tation that inevitably relies on the identification of meaningful parts and wholes.
In light of the apparent interconnection of human and architectural sacri-
fice described in this chapter, it is clear that the Moche perceived adobe walls
and matter in general to be in a state of “continuous birth” and “continuous
movement” (Ingold 2006: 12–13; see Swenson 2015: 691). The ritual renovations
further suggest that matter was perceived as fluid, constantly in flow and in for-
mation, a viewpoint that would appeal to Ingold’s particular brand of ecological
thinking (Ingold 2012).
Architectural constructions at the site thus mirrored generative processes of
growth and change (food preparation, eating, pregnancy, gestation, and birth),
propelled by the dissolution, re-assembly, and fabrication of matter (Hugh-Jones
2009: 41; Swenson 2015: 691). As Swenson notes (2015: 691): “Huaca Colorada’s
ceremonial architecture was clearly grounded in an aesthetic of violence that cel-
ebrated rebirth, creation, and fertility. This aesthetic appears to have been linked
to a particular conception of temporality [and spatiality] understood as gesta-
tional, animated, and inherently material.” As mentioned, almost all of the sacri-
ficial victims offered in conjunction with the ritual termination and rededication
of ceremonial architecture at Huaca Colorada were adolescent or young women
(Swenson 2016; Swenson et al. 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013). The discovery of female
sacrificial offerings deposited to commemorate the ritual closure of the numer-
ous platforms thus points to the transference of the youthful vitality of the offer-
ings to the sacred space in question. The presence of a pregnant sacrificial victim
at Huaca Colorada powerfully underscores this procreative symbolism, as the
inherently nested relationship between mother and unborn child provides the
most salient example of the synecdochal foundation of life and creation. Indeed,
a pregnant woman—interred in a series of nested altars—perfectly exemplifies
the generative indivisibility of part and whole in Moche worldview, one that finds
analogy with the mereotopological foundations of archaeological interpretation.
In the end, Huaca Colorada can be productively interpreted as a topology

as theorized by Deleuze and Guattari or even as a mereotopology as theorized
by Casati and Varzi (Casati and Varzi 1999; Deleuze and Guattari 1987; see also
Harris 2005, DeLanda 2005, Knappett 2011; Witmore 2007; Swenson 2015: 691;
2017). The continual rebuilding of the huaca appear to have conformed to a set
template or architectural blueprint, however the multiple renovations varied
notably in configuration, scale, and morphology reflecting the changing social
realities of each generation of builders (Swenson et al. 2010, 2011, 2012). Accord-
ingly, the morphing monument appears to have encapsulated an “activity of
metabolization,” and an “idea of vital materiality” whereby the outside and in-
side mingle and recombine as an amalgam of interdependent parts and wholes
(Bennett 2010: 50; Swenson 2015: 693).
Standard archaeological techniques of excavation, mapping, drawing, and
photography are inherently reductive operations, and it is only once these partial
media are recombined that complex patterns become tangible and amenable to
interpretation (Lucas 2001: 102–106). The reduction of the complex assemblage
of material traces of an archaeological site into constituent “types” or categories
entails the splitting of wholes into parts so that their “functions” or “meanings”
may be better grasped. In his discussion of the mereological foundations of ar-
chaeological practice, Timothy Webmoor notes: “The material whole may not
be reassembled, but the bits of knowledge are summed up to a supposedly more
complete understanding. It is additive knowledge” (Webmoor 2014: 473). Of
course, the inherent mereological procedures of archaeological research have lit-
tle in common with Moche ontology—understood as a deep-seated disposition
toward being, reality, and life. If anything, it highlights the analytical limitations
of the latter term. The complex rituals of architectural renovation documented
at Huaca Colorada demand the equal application of other etic categories—in-
cluding ideology, epistemology, and philosophy. Nevertheless, the synechodocal
thinking informing Moche architectural projects reinforces our understanding
of how the Moche construction of the world and being was predicated on the
concept of parts engendering and enlivening the whole and vice-versa, as ma-
terialized in the exceptional structured deposits of Huaca Colorada. The ritual
creation and recreation of the monument resulted in an “archaeological record”
readily amenable to interpretation. The meanings we derived also inevitably
relied on inferring the interrelationship of defined wholes and parts through
inductive-deductive reasoning. In the end, the archaeological reliance on inter-
preting wholes from a myriad of parts was ideally suited for the analysis of place
making at Huaca Colorda founded on a mereological logic specific to the Moche.
Note
1. Much of the critique presented in this section was first published in Swenson 2015.
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pppppppppppppp
7
The Head as the Seat of the Soul
A Medium for Spiritual Reciprocity in the Early Andes
M a r y G l o wa c k i
There are many archaeological representations and historic accounts span-

ning the temporal and geographical dimensions of the early Andes that point
to man’s spiritual being associated with the head and its hair. These examples
suggest that this power was transferable and facilitated the reciprocal balance
between men, man and nature, and the earthly and supernatural realm. This
chapter discusses the human head and head hair in Andean belief as a conduit
for this flow of spiritual power, drawing on archaeological, ethnographic, and
historic examples. The intent is to demonstrate how, among early Andean
peoples, human essence, or sami,1 and its transcendence emanated from the
head and head hair, and that the basic Andean concepts, namely, reciproc-
ity and symmetry or balance, are heuristic to understanding this ontological
interpretation.
As is known from historic and contemporary traditional Andean peoples,
everything depends on maintaining an equilibrium—a balance in social ties
and relations, resources, political power, the natural and supernatural worlds,
and the living and the dead. It is argued that the head and head hair figura-
tively serve as the medium for this process, and that this belief has great time
depth and spatial distribution. Thus, the balanced, back-and-forth (recipro-
cal) exchange made by individuals and social groups via food, drink, and
coca, and by individuals and societal representatives and the cosmic realms
via spiritual essence, is mediated by the head and head hair. This discussion
focuses on the latter.
Heads and Head Hair as Ontological Elements
The Universal
Heads and head hair universally have been given special significance by cul-
tures, and among many groups they provide an ontological perspective of how
“being” and “existence” is reckoned. While the head is the source of the hair,
the hair manifests its essence. Edmond Leach (1958: 160) in his early, formative
article entitled “Magical Hair,” addressed this very subject. He wrote that “it has
been a common postulate among anthropologists that human [head] hair has
some universal symbolic value. . . . [and] the general consensus [is] that hair
stands for the total individual or for the soul, or for the individual’s personal
power (mana).” Here are some examples that show how the head and head hair
have been given such empowerment cross-culturally, as Leach described.
The first example comes from Judeo-Christian scriptures, the story of Samp-
son, one of the last judges of the ancient Israelites (Judges 13–16). He was given
supernatural strength by God to combat his enemies and perform heroic feats.
Samson’s power was contained in his head hair, and when his love, Delilah, cuts
it, his pact with God is broken; hence, the loss of his gift. The Old Testament
likewise established the tradition of payot, maintaining sidelocks or sidecurls
among Orthodox Jewish men, based on a biblical prohibition of cutting certain
head hair (Leviticus 19: 27). According to Maimonides, one of the most prolific
and influential Torah scholars and philosophers of the Middle Ages, shaving
the sidelocks was a heathen practice, suggesting that one’s identity as a Jew
(versus a non-Jew) was traditionally associated with head hair. In this case, the
collective “self ” is the Jewish body, and head hair (sidelocks) holds this ethnic
quality.
Another example of how head hair is viewed as possessing the spiritual em-
bodiment of a person is tonsure, an ancient Hindu custom of cutting the hair or
shaving the head after the death of an elder member of the family. In Hinduism,
cutting one’s hair is considered a symbolic offering to the gods, representing a
sacrifice of beauty and self (Rajbali 2013). Therefore, shaving one’s head is an
effort to express one’s grief by giving of one’s self for the departed soul.
There are several interesting beliefs among various native groups of North
America that likewise express a spiritual or soulful quality of head hair. For
example, among traditional Yakutat Tlingit of the northwest coast, a shaman’s
life force and curative strength was his hair. He was prohibited from cutting it or
combing out the long locks (De Laguna 1972: 684). The Yakutat shamans as de-
184 Mary Glowacki

scribed by the missionary, Albin Johnson (2014 [1924]: 43), were “ragged, their
clothes were filthy, as if they had been dipped in seal fat, stinking, the hair long,
a braid dragging several feet behind them as they walked.” De Laguna remarks
it could not have grown so long on its own, but had been combined with extra
hair, “fastened on with filth, to give people the impression of magical power or
authority over the evil spirits, and [ability to] drive out illness.”
In ancient Japan, Shinto religious beliefs, which took the form of animism,
also connected human head hair and spirituality. A person’s hair contained his
tama, his life essence or spirit. In women it was not only the source of life but
also fertility. The tama could travel, protect, cause harm or prosperity, and at-
tract other spirits to it (Ebersole 1998: 86–97).
Although these examples are few, the literature is replete with accounts that
point to the head, and by extension, head hair as being tied to the core of man’s
being. So, while this volume is focused on seeking indigenous etic ontological
perspectives (Tantaleán, Chapter 1), it is important to acknowledge that there
are human universals that help to recognize beliefs and practices that may not
be easily understood from a purely native view. And from this vantage point, it
is clear there is some basis for an overarching Amerindian universal with many
local and regional differences across time and space. In the Andes, it is particu-
larly compelling.
The Andean Ontology
From the earliest Andean cultures to the present, human heads and head hair
are common themes expressing spiritual identity and power. For example,
among prehistoric peoples, decapitation was a pre-eminent form of ritual sac-
rifice (Benson 2001: 5). In her discussion of human sacrifice in the ancient An-
des, Elizabeth Benson references art and archaeological illustrations of ritually
decapitated heads and trophy heads; two examples are a tomb built for only a
decapitated head found at Alto Huallaga (Onuki 1993: 84) and a gold crown
decorated with trophy head images from Kuntur Wasi (Millones and Onuki
1993: lámina I-I). Donald Proulx (2001: 121) states that “every major culture in
the long sequence for this area, including Chavín, Cupisnique, Moche, Paracas
Nazca, Huari, Chimú, and Inca, practiced the tradition of taking heads for ritual
use,” demonstrating the fundamental importance of the head in Andean belief.
Another example is the predominance of faceneck/portrait head vessels from
the Middle Horizon through the Late Horizon, interpreted to have been used
The Head as a Medium for Spiritual Reciprocity in the Early Andes 185
for imbibing rituals associated with the transference of spiritual power (see, for
example, Turner 2011: 6). And, ethnographic studies of traditional Andean peo-
ples show that the human head and head hair continue to be part of significant
rituals perpetuating life and spirit. One is the head-hair-cutting ritual of young
children as a rite of passage into society. It is tied to the concept of the Quechua
word tejjsie, “origin,” head hair metaphorically representing the source of a per-
son’s being (Bastien 1978: 113). Another is the use of ancestors’ skulls to imbue
a family or community with spiritual protection. During Bolivia’s Day of the
Skulls (Olsen 2012), ancestors’ skulls are decorated and paraded through the
town to spread their life-giving force.
The point here is that there is a long Andean tradition of ritual focus on the
human head and head hair, which can be traced back to the earliest occupants
of the New World and their practice of shamanism. This system of belief places
the seat of the soul and one’s spiritual essence at the head, emanating through
head hair. A discussion of this belief system follows.
Ideological Origins and the Universal
The origin of key Andean ontological and ideological concepts can be traced
to early religious belief and practice—that is, shamanism. Shamanism was fun-
damental to many early Old and New World religions and is still practiced by
tribal and traditional societies (Harner 1980; Langdon and Baer 1992; Pearson
2002; Reichel-Dolmatoff 1975; Stone 2012: 2). It is within the fundamental sha-
manic teachings that the head and head hair are given focus.
It is useful to start by reviewing some of the basic aspects of shamanism
relevant to this discussion. As various scholars have documented, the antiquity
of shamanism can be traced to at least as early as the Upper Paleolithic period
(Hayden 2003; Winkelman 1990), between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago. This
is documented in rock art (Clottes and Lewis-Davis 1998) and burials from the
Upper Paleolithic and Late Mesolithic periods in Europe (Oliva 2000; Porr and
Alt 2006) and Israel (Grosman et al. 2008). Shamanism came to the New World
with the occupation of the Americas. Archaeological evidence dating to the Pa-
leoindian period recorded in North, Central, and South America demonstrates
its Old World antiquity and seminal presence in early hunter-gatherer societies
and small settled groups (Dillehay 1997, 2008; Harner 1980; Hayden 2003; Jodry
and Owsley 2014: 589; Winkelman 1990). As time progressed and societies re-
gionally adapted and grew, evidence shows how shamanism remained rooted in
186 Mary Glowacki

the new religious and political systems (Reilly 1989). For example, Maya priests
are argued to have evolved from the older shamanic tradition (Danien 1992: 95–
97), rooted in nonelite farming populations. According to Robert Sharer (2009:
215), “shamans undoubtedly helped establish the basis of the Maya calendar
and were seen as essential to the World order because they knew how to tract
the cycles of time reckoned by the movements of the ‘Sky Wanderers.’” It can be
argued that shamanism’s long and widespread influence occurred because of its
important role in maintaining reciprocal balance between man and nature by
mediation of the earthly and spiritual world (Furst 1972: ix).
In South America, it is interesting to see how early complex societies of the
Andes were influenced by shamanism practiced in the Amazonian lowlands.
Art and other material culture from the Early Horizon (900–200 BC) and Early
Intermediate Period (200 BC–AD 600) provide an excellent illustration of this
exchange of ideology (Burger 1995; Cordy-Collins 1977). The focus will be on
some of these examples with reference to the head and head hair as the conduit
of spiritual transformation. The interpretation of this imagery is facilitated by
the fact that some tribal societies of lowland South American still preserve core
shamanic views and practices (Stone 2012: 2), serving as an analogy for views
and practices in traditional sierra societies and in societies that preceded them.
Fundamental Shamanic Traits and Associations
Some common South American shamanic traits associated with spiritual heal-
ing help shed light on the prehistoric archaeological record and related art im-
agery, ultimately leading back to the human head and head hair. Most basic
to this chapter is the notion that in order to mediate the spiritual and mortal
worlds to maintain cosmological order and balance, the shaman must spiritu-
ally transform (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1975: 108; Sharon and Donnan 1974: 57). This
transformation process is physically described as reversing oneself inside out
and upside down as though falling backward, both being facilitated by the head
and head hair (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1975: 120).
In South America, during the transformation process, the shaman becomes
his alter ego, which is most often the jaguar or other feline, but the cayman
is also common in Amazonian contexts (Furst 1968: 154; Stone 2012: 63). One
character that may be involved in the shaman’s transformation is the bird,
which can mediate and guide this process. This is said to be because the bird
can fly, facilitating movement between earthly and spiritual worlds (Roe 1982:
121, 258; Whitten 1976: 44). The snake is also a key figure in shamanic trans-
formation, serving as a mediating figure as well. The snake can slither between
the earthly and underworld, likewise aiding in cosmic interaction. It is fre-
quently represented and substitutes for the shaman’s staff, a fundamental tool
of the shaman (Roe 1982: 136–138, 152), or as a belt worn around the shaman’s
waist (see, for example fig. 42 from Cordy-Collins 1976, depicting Chavín Staff
God figure with snake staffs and belts, derived from Amazonian shamanism).
Other associations are the shaman’s tools of the trade. The first is his power
object, generally taking the form of a staff, a spear, or a knife (Reichel-Dolmatoff
1971: 128). The importance of the shaman’s power device must be emphasized.
In mythology of the Tukano (peoples of the northwestern Amazonian region),
it is associated with the axis mundi, the bridge between worlds, in addition to
serving as a fertility object (Roe 1982: 136–138). Various and sundry objects may
be used as well, such as crystals and other amulets, to make up the shaman’s
mesa. The mesa is the table that the shaman uses, much like a surgical table, to
spiritually invoke the supernatural powers (Sharon and Donnan 1974: 52–57).
Another essential item employed by the shaman toward his spiritual quest is psy-
chotropic drugs, which facilitate crossing worlds through an altered state. There
are numerous drugs that have been identified with South American shamanic
practice. A few common ones include Ayahuasca/yaje or Banisteriopsis caapi and
inebrans, vilca or Anadenanthera colubrina, tobacco or Nicotiana tabacum, and
San Pedro cactus or Trichocereus pachanoi. The use of these substances creates
the experience of spiritual death necessary to transcend realms (Furst 1972: 65;
Reichel-Dolmatoff 1975: 28; Schultes 1972: 35; Wilbert 1972: 55). Peter Furst, in his
assessment of the role of these drugs in Amazonian shamanic practice, asserts:
The narcotic substances taken by the shaman do not cause him to as-
sume jaguar form but rather allow the jaguar already within to reveal
himself. . . . Nor is the shaman in the power of the intoxicant; it is he who
controls it, and through it, the spirits of nature. (Furst 1968: 163)
And, to underscore the theme of this chapter, head hair is seen as a fundamental
element to the shaman’s curative operations. A traditional, contemporary sha-
man of Peru’s north coast named Eduardo Calderon was consulted by Douglas
Sharon and Christopher Donnan to interpret Early Intermediate period Moche
imagery associated with shamanic practice. The archaeologists observed:
Hair is still important today in Eduardo’s shamanism. He keeps hairs from

the crown of his head in a jar along with perfumes, saint’s medals, magical
188 Mary Glowacki

herbs, etc. This jar, which Eduardo considers to be his alter ego, is used to
divine the cause of a patient’s malady during night curing sessions. One of
the most common ailments so divined is witchcraft performed with hair
from the head of victims. (Sharon and Donnan 1974: 58)
Sharon (1972: 133–134) further relates his observations of Eduardo’s therapy dur-
ing which participants claimed to see a monster pulling the patient’s hair from
behind. “It seems that today—as in the past—head hair is believed to have a
vital link with the life force.”
Examining the Archaeological Record
Having laid the ground work for understanding the operational role of the
South American shaman, the discussion turns to archaeological examples that
suggest shamanism underlaid the beliefs of earlier societies of the Andes, and
that the head and head hair were considered to be the seat of spiritual essence
and fundamental to spiritual transcendence.
Paracas Burials, Shamanic Imagery, and Death

as Spiritual Transformation
Paracas culture flourished on the south coast of Peru from the late Early Hori-
zon to the Early Intermediate period, that is, between circa 450 and 175 BC. The
coastal climate allowed for excellent preservation of elite burials, which were
comprised of the dead placed in a seated, fetal position and wrapped with layers
of textile shrouds. One frequently depicted image on many Paracas mortuary
textiles is a figure identified as a shamanic personage in spiritual flight (see
Figure 7.1) (Stone-Miller 1995: 63–64, and figs. 48, 49). While we are not sure
why this being is depicted so commonly on funerary cloth, it should be noted
that the shaman must spiritually die in order to engage in supernatural battle.
Death, then, may be seen as the ultimate spiritual crossover. So, perhaps one of
the shaman’s duties is to spiritually escort the dead into the supernatural after-
life. Note how the shaman appears emaciated and death-like, depicted with an
exposed ribcage and a skull-like head. He holds his power object, ready to fight
or guide, and his hair is flowing, a sign of spiritual activity of the soul and self,
as will be further discussed below.
The shaman figure, as referenced above, is depicted in two orientations. Not
only is he shown in spiritual flight, but he is also shown bending backward, an
act to physically initiate the transformation process. This individual is shown
A. B.
Figure 7.1. (a) Drawing of Paracas ecstatic shaman in flight

(courtesy of Mary Frame); (b) drawing of Paracas ecstatic
shaman in the process of transformation (courtesy of Mary Frame).
not only as an ecstatic shaman, but also one in the process of reaching that
status. What is interesting about this Paracas textile figure is that both shaman
orientations are repeated over and over on a single cloth, stressing that the mes-
sage they convey is the process and the outcome of transformation. And, to
further emphasize the importance of this dual imagery, various other Paracas
mortuary mantles bear it, suggesting its fundamental role in connecting and
mediating the natural and supernatural worlds.
One intriguing example that underscores this concept is burial bundles or
fardos from Paracas Necropolis recorded by Jane Dwyer (1979: 121). Accord-
ing to Dwyer, a single individual’s spiritual transformation was depicted by his
burial shrouds. The textile motifs vary through the different layers, so that as
each is unwrapped, the image shows greater transformation of the personage.
Just like reading a book page by page, these textile layers depict the gradual
transformation of the deceased individual from a mortal to a spiritual status.
Moche Effigy Vessels: The Shaman’s Head and His Alter Ego
as Transformational “Shorthand”
Now that it has been shown that the shaman is a key figure in Paracas mortuary
art, the discussion turns to partial shamanic traits, with the emphasis on the
head and head hair, seen in other Andean imagery. The first is the shaman and
his alter ego, the head being the locus of its depiction (see Figure 7.2). Several of
these figures are rendered in Moche pottery. During the Early Intermediate pe-
riod (approximately 200 BC–AD 600), the Moche city-states of the north coast
190 Mary Glowacki

produced a wide array of mortuary art, with ceramic vessels being a principal
item. One class of vessel was the effigy pot, a number of which had human bod-
ies with animal heads. While Moche scholars have interpreted these figures in
many different ways (for example Donnan 1976; Hocquenghem 1987), and de-
bated the issue of whether or not these figures were impersonating supernatural
beings or were actually supernatual beings themselves, it is argued that what is
most meaningful is the nonhuman heads. If the head is central to the transfor-
mation process, then we may interpret these figures as shamans or shaman-like
personages possessing other-self qualities. The other “self ” or latent ego is be-
Figure 7.2. Moche effigy vessel

showing human’s alter ego, his
animal self. Courtesy of the Lowe
Art Museum, University of Miami,
artifact 87.0183.
ing revealed in the head. These figures represented as effigy pots may be either
impersonators or actual beings manifesting their spiritual selves. Scholars have
interpreted comparable Olmec period (1,800–200 BC) vessels and images in
a similar fashion, referencing back to early shamanic belief identified in the
Veracruz region of Mexico (see, for example, Diehl (2004: 106).
This interpretation is supported by the shamanic research of Rebecca Stone
(2012: 76–85). In her book on Central and South America pre-Columbian art
and shamanic representation, similar interpretations are offered as examples
of “cephalocentrism,” the focus of the head in artistically depicting a shaman’s
alter ego or double. Stone’s view is that the emphasis of the head in these art
depictions can take different forms, some of which are subtler than merely an
animal substitution. However, whether symbolically or abstractly represented,
the principal is the same. The head serves as the source of the spiritual self.
Chavín Art, Transformation through Reversal,

and the Head and Head Hair as the Conduits
In Chavín art, head representations explicitly express the reversal process of
the shaman by way of the head and head hair. This is from Chavín de Huántar,
an important late Initial period–Early Horizon (approximately 1200 BC–200
BC) site complex in the central highlands, which had easy access to the tropi-
cal lowlands. Chavín imagery shows contact with or knowledge of Amazonian
peoples, including the belief in shamanism (Burger 1992: 129, 151–159; Lathrap
1971), which had a significant impact on Chavín religion. It, in turn, influenced
many contemporary and subsequent Andean societies. Many of the examples
were reported from the religious ceremonial complex of Chavín.
The Chavín complex was constructed and modified in two phases. During the
first phase, a temple was built, which housed a stone carving of a cayman deity
known as “Lanzón.” A later temple was constructed subsuming the earlier tem-
ple. Its central deity was represented on a carved stone stela (the Raimondi Stela;
see Figure 7.3), which combined the Lanzón creature with a feline deity referred
to as “Staff God.” Staff God is the predominant image on the stela, with the Lan-
zón figure known as “Smiling God” as secondary. Staff God has many shamanic
qualities. He holds two staffs, one in each hand, he wears a belt around his waist
represented by snakes, and, on the basis of other contexts of Staff God, he is as-
sociated with birds, an eagle and a hawk. In the case of the Raimondi Stela, while
it was not found in context, its location is believed to have been flanked by two
existing stela carvings of these birds (Burger 1992: 128–164; Rowe 1967: 74–76).
192 Mary Glowacki

Most important to this chapter is that Staff God is in a transformation pose, with
his eyes gazing upward. Out of the top of his head and head hair emerges Smil-
ing God, which is clearly observed when the stela is reversed. What is depicted
is the spiritual transformation process from human-feline to cayman creature
(Staff God to Smiling God) by way of the head and head hair. It occurs by the
figure reversing itself by bending backward, and inside out by another figure
emanating from the head. Observing the Raimondi Stela both right side up and
Figure 7.3. Images of the Raimondi Stella, upright and in reverse (after Rowe 1967).
upside down, we can see the spiritual transcendence from Staff God to his alter
ego, Smiling God. Like the shaman figures in Paracas imagery, the carving seems
to have been intended to be viewed to observe both perspectives. Moreover, this
piece probably would have been displayed from the ceiling, to view it looking
up, or on the floor, to view it looking down, for the sole purpose of seeing both
images simultaneously, neither having dominance over the other.
Chavín Imagery, Hallucinogens and Related Paraphernalia,

and Spiritual Transformation
The Head as Graphic Illustration
Another shamanic trait associated with spiritual transformation is the use of

hallucinogens, and it, too, is physically and symbolically tied to the head. Sur-
rounding the exterior of the Old Temple were a series of large stone-carved
head sculptures (see Figure 7.4). They are believed to have been displayed in
an order to physically show the process of a human inhaling a hallucinogen,
which causes mucous to exude from the nostrils, and then its transformation
to its alter ego, nonhuman self (Burger 1992: 157–158; Tello 1960). Again, what
is significant is that the sculptures are only of heads, emphasizing that spiritual
transformation is initiated at the head, where one’s essence is concentrated.
In addition to the pervasiveness of Chavín-influenced art that is clearly tied
to shamanic and supernatural themes associated with drug use, there are also
a number of examples of artifacts recovered from Chavín and Chavín-period
Figure 7.4. Chavín tenon heads, ordered to illustrate the process of transformation (Latinamericanstudies.org).
194 Mary Glowacki

sites that were likely employed in the ingestion or inhalation of hallucinogens.
One very interesting example was collected by Rafael Larco Hoyle at the large
ceremonial center of Pacopampa, a site contemporary with Chavín located in the
northern highlands region of Cajamarca. The find was a mortar and pestle, likely
used for grinding hallucinogenic snuff (see Burger 1992: 200 for illustration; also
citing Duvoils 1967: 22; Kaulicke 1976: 44; Larco 1946, pl. 65; Rowe 1946: 292; von
Reiss Altschul 1967: 304). Its form mimics the Raimondi Stela carving, with Staff
God below as the mortar and Smiling God emerging from above as the pestle,
and certainly conveying the same meaning as the actual Raimondi Stela.
Chavin Art, Spiritual Transformation, and the Head

in Metaphoric Expression
A further example of the shamanic transformation process and the head serving
as its conduit is expressed in “kenning” (see Figure 7.5), an artistic device origi-
nating in Chavín art, identified and coined by John Rowe (1967: 78). Derived
from Norse poetry, kenning is a verbal substitution of a word or phrase with a
metaphor, for example, the sea = the alluring woman. One needs only to know
the references, that is, the “code,” in order to understand the full literary state-
ment. This literary reference was applied by Rowe to Chavín art; he saw signifi-
cant, repeated patterns paralleled in its visual representation. Some years ago,
the author reviewed Chavín’s visual art substitutions not only within Chavín art
proper, but also in related applications of other Andean art (Glowacki 1986).
This artistic expression showed strong consistency with the focus being on the
head. In particular, the primary substitution in Chavín kenning is heads with
tongues sticking out of mouths, which equated to spiritual transformation (in-
side out). Heads allow for the essence to leave, and thus, transform. The second-
ary substitution in Chavín kenning is locks of head hair, wrinkles, eyebrows,
whiskers, and corners of eyes that turn into snakes. Lesser hair and surface
treatment thus facilitate the transformation process just as snakes facilitate
transformation for the shaman. The point here is twofold: First, that kenning
is high-patterned and consistent, indicating that it held importance and had to
be rendered correctly; secondly, and more importantly, it clearly focuses on the
head and its spiritual centrality.
It has been proposed that Chavín textiles served as catechisms or ideologi-
cal instruction manuals (Cordy-Collins 1976, 1977). They were easy to trans-
port and carried key information about fundamental Chavín beliefs, helping to
spread “the word” to other groups. Whether or not the “full” meaning embed-
Figure 7.5. Image of Chavín figure exhibiting elements of kenning. After Rowe 1967.
ded in the designs was conveyed, elements of kenning and possibly its related
meaning can be found in various early Andean art styles spanning significant
geographic and temporal distance (Glowacki 1986). For this reason, it is argued
that kenning conveyed a fundamental Andean concept that was broadly under-
stood, that is, the process of spiritual transformation emanating from the head
and the spiritual essence of hair.
Derived Expression
Andean Head and Head Hair as Donned Political Power
One example of derived kenning influence is seen in Paracas art associated

with “impersonator” figures (Dwyer 1971: 42–46). These figures appear to be
shamanic in nature, but instead of being depicted as actually transforming be-
ings, they wear costumes, which convey the same concept. The headdresses that
are worn are very elaborate and portray creatures and other forms emerging
from them. They are much like what is shown emerging from the head of the
Raimondi Stela Staff God, but in the case of the Paracas impersonators, they
are actual headdresses. Perhaps by donning a headdress the personage takes on
the qualities of his alter ego, his spiritual self, thus making the process of trans-
formation conceptual or figurative, not literal. Anne Paul (1990: 98–99), in her
publication of Paracas ritual attire, discusses the ritual quality of imitation and
the role of the “impersonator” in Paracas art. Citing A. Holcart (1970 [1936]:
46–47), who explains how imitation allows the individual to become identical
with what or whom he imitates, Paul surmises that the impersonators represent
196 Mary Glowacki

the broad office of rulership of the ones interred. This speaks to the metaphoric
nature of “heads of state,” whereby the headdress signifies the political power of
leaders. Thus, to impersonate a supernatural being makes him one.
Additionally, Paracas mummy bundles included facial masks and head-
dresses, perhaps ensuring, through emphasis—much like the impersonator
figures—that the soul of the dead was transported to the spiritual world after
interment. It is the head of the mummy bundle that receives the added adorn-
ment, accentuating the part of the body where this process took place.
This discussion should include mention of royal Inca (AD 1438–AD 1532)
headdresses made from human hair. One example is in the University of Miami’s
Lowe Art Museum collection, but other similar pieces exist. This piece (see Fig-
ure 7.6) was made from more than four pounds of human hair, woven into 160
Figure 7.6. Inca headdress with

human hair braids (Courtesy of
the Lowe Art Museum, University
of Miami, artifact 87.0183).
braids. Here again, this headdress suggests that by actually wearing it, the indi-
vidual takes on the spiritual strength and qualities of those whose hair comprised
it, not so unlike the role of headdresses worn by Paracas impersonators.
The Andean Spiritual Quintessentials
Trophy Heads and Skulls
Other examples of head representations associated with the seat of the soul
concept are Paracas trophy head effigy vessels. The trophy head is a very com-
mon theme in Paracas art, and its representation as a vessel from which some-
one would drink is particularly telling, if we consider ethnohistoric accounts
of Amazonian head taking. Throughout much of this general lowland region,
taking and ritually treating heads and scalps was once commonly practiced
(Karsten 1926: 62). The Jívaro of northern Peru and eastern Ecuador, and the
Mundurucús of the Rio Tapayo (Karsten 1923: 32, 87) were renowned for tak-
ing trophy heads and shrinking them (Steward and Métraux 1948: 625; Stirling
1938: 61; Harner 1962: 265). This was because the head and head hair contained
the spiritual essence of a person, and taking it gave power to the possessor
(Karsten 1923: 66). Among the Jívaro, the trophy head, or tsantsa, was treated
to contain the soul of the dead. It had to be shrunk and the orifices magically
sealed, hence the sewn mouth. The taker then consumed a beverage made from
Banisteriopsis caapi, tobacco water, and manioc from it to achieve the spiritual
benefits (Karsten 1923: 70–71).
Returning to the Paracas trophy head vessels, one could infer that by imbibing
from a vessel of this form, one may be seen as symbolically consuming human
spiritual essence and power. If this is the case, then these vessels as well as other
Paracas depictions of trophy heads may not be as much about warfare under-
taken to defeat the enemy as controlling and enhancing spiritual power. And in
turn, other images of trophy heads in other early Andean contexts may be simi-
larly interpreted. For example, various Moche themes depict head taking that
appear as battle scenes (see, for example, Kutscher 1983, fig. 267; Laurencich-Mi-
nelli 1984, fig. 19) yet are set in ceremonial and supernatural contexts. This trophy
head imagery suggests that head taking was much more ritually tied to acquiring
spiritual power than solely vanquishing the enemy. After years of inventory and
analysis of early trophy skulls and heads from the Andean region and observing
their thematic focus in art styles spanning from the Initial Period through the
Later Horizon (approximately 1800 BC–AD 1532), John Verano indicates that
198 Mary Glowacki

there is certainly some validity to this view. In a discussion of ritual sacrifice in
the Andes, he remarks, “Indeed, decapitation at the hands of supernatural be-
ings seems to be the quintessential signifier of ritual death in the Andean world”
(2001: 172), placing many examples of head taking into a sacred status.
In the same vein, it is telling that other early Andean cultures also valued
drinking from trophy heads and effigy head vessels. Historic accounts (Betanzos
1880 [1551]; ch. 1; Sarmiento de Gamboa et al. 1906, ch. 33; Guaman Poma de
Ayala 1936 [circa 1615]: 153, 194) tell us that Inca military officers toasted special
victories by drinking from the skull of the defeated. Perhaps Inca effigy head keros
(tall drinking cups) served a similar purpose. In light of what we know about Inca
warriors and drinking from an enemy’s skull, there are other examples that should
be assessed in terms of their function, such as Moche, Nazca (Figure 7.7), Chimú,
and Tiwanaku portrait vessels, as well as Wari effigy head and faceneck vessels.
These vessels likewise could have been used to symbolically imbibe another’s soul.
In some instances, as part of ancestor worship or acknowledging the greatness of
an historic personage, one symbolically drank his spiritual essence.
Figure 7.7. Nazca human effigy head bowl. Courtesy of the Lowe Art Museum, University of Mi-
ami, artifact 94.0064.06.
Going back to the idea that human heads and skulls were trophies imbued
with spiritual power, an example from the Wari period is noteworthy. At
the Wari southern provincial complex of Huaro, located southeast from the
city of Cuzco, an early elite cemetery known as Ccotototuyoc was identified
(Glowacki and Arredondo Dueñas, in press). Associated with one of the inter-
ments was a human trophy skull, placed there as a grave good. While there is
evidence for militarism in Wari society, many art examples suggest a spiritual
association with head taking in addition to its obvious role in warfare. For
example, a cache of figurines was excavated in 2004 at the Wari complex of
Pikillacta, approximately 17 km northwest from Huaro. Archaeologists with
the then–Peru Institute of Culture discovered a ceremonial dedication to the
site, a deeply buried offering cache placed in the southeast corner of Sector 1.
The principal offering included 56 figurines crafted of metal, stone, and shell,
all of which were associated with warfare. These included figurines of warriors
and prisoners, as well as supernatural creatures. What is curious about the
cache is that there were no actual weapons or victims included, only objects
supporting symbolic or ritual warfare (Arriola Tuni and Tesar 2011). With re-
gard to the trophy skull from Ccotocotuyoc, it displayed evidence of ritual
treatment. It was highly modified with a large carved-out skull base, artificial
dentition, and scalping cut marks, along with gold alloy tacks designed to read-
here portions of the hair. Great effort was made to treat this skull, suggesting
that it was more than just a trophy of war. Rather, it seems more like a Jívaro
tsantsa, ritually processed and preserved to possess the spiritual power of the
victim’s head and head hair. Moreover, the modifications to it strongly indicate
that this trophy skull most certainly was used as a vessel from which to drink
(see other comparable examples in Verano 2008: 1054, fig. 52.8). While some
Wari trophy heads were taken from societal members and served as relics in
ancestor-veneration rites, strontium analysis from Wari trophy skulls recov-
ered from the Ayacucho ceremonial site of Conchopata indicate that certain
skulls were nonlocal peoples, likely the victims of warfare (Tung and Knudson
2008: 916, 923). The point that I emphasize is that head taking by the Wari may
have been important in rituals because of the spiritual power the heads and
hair contained, be it of an ancestor or an enemy.
This discussion should also address trephanation—perforating the skull
for medical curing—practiced by many early Andean societies. A formidable
sample was studied by John Verano (2016) with an especially high percentage
recorded from the early Paracas cemeteries of Paracas Cabeza and Necropolis
200 Mary Glowacki

(Verano 2016: 92–101). The latter sample may reflect ritual warfare over time,
since the associated tombs were too elaborate and planned out to suggest an im-
mediate response to a series of battle losses. While the majority of trephanations
have been identified as efforts to heal head wounds, particularly blows to the
head, there are others that were performed to relieve different head ailments.
Still others do not seem to have had any obvious purpose. Curiously, the Paracas
trephanated openings are distinctively large—in fact, the largest in the ancient
Americas (Verano 2016: 90). Is it possible that trephanation was performed not
only to relieve pressure to the brain due to an injury or illness, but also to release
the spirit as a nonphysical medicinal treatment? Could it be that regardless of
the type of trauma, be it physical pain or mental suffering of a patient, early
Andeans perceived such problems to be associated with things causing pain to
the soul? Verano (2016: 250–258) references modern-day trephanation prac-
tices in Western culture, considered to be ways in which to expand one’s mind
and consciousness, inviting the idea that pre-Columbian peoples may also have
considered trephanation to achieve similar objectives.
Additionally, archaeological sites on the south coast of Peru, and particularly
those associated with Paracas culture, have produced the largest Peruvian sam-
ple of head deformation/modification. These are primarily from the tombs of
Cabeza Larga, named for the numerous deformed skulls recorded there (Verano
2016: 98–99). Head deformation took two forms: elongated and bilobular, the
latter emphasizing lateral accentuation of the parietal bones. While there is not
enough information to assign meaning to these different head modifications, it
is not unreasonable to suggest that the key to head variation was to amplify the
size, thereby underscoring the spiritual power associated with the head. One
distant analogy is people of the Tomman Island and the south-southwestern
Malakulan (Australasia). An individual with an elongated head is believed to be
more intelligent than those without this head modification, as well as being of
higher status, and thus closer to the spiritual world (Barras 2014). According to
Mercedes Okumura (2014), there is bioarchaeological evidence that in certain
populations in ancient Peru (Okumura addressed burials from Pasamayo [AD
1200–1450] on the central coast), individuals with cranial modification were
likely to have better health than their nonmodified counterparts, suggesting
that social status played some part in determining who would undergo this
head treatment. And we know that the Inca used cranial deformation to mark
themselves as elite in order to stand out from the rest of the imperial population
(Hoshower et al. 1995), and perhaps even to distinguish themselves as godly.
The Andean Body Paradigm and the Spiritual Role of the Head
Somewhere in the evolution of Andean society, many groups recognized an

ideological parallel of the human body and the landscape. As is well summa-
rized by Maria Lozada in Chapter 4, the Andean body, both past and present,
has many metaphorical references that provide valuable insight into the on-
tologies of indigenous peoples of the region, and, when drawing on various
sets of data, is an effective approach to understanding the pre-Columbian
Andean past.
These body paradigms typically cast the head as the seat of the “soul.” A
number of ethnographic and ethnohistoric studies document this. Joseph Bas-
tien’s research among western Bolivian Aymara from the community of Kaata
focuses on this ideological belief. According to Bastien (1978: 46–47), the Kaata
perceive the mountain that they lived on to be analogous to the human body:
The highlands are the head (uma). Bushgrass grows near the summit of
the mountain, as hair on the head. The wool of llamas that graze on this
grass resemble [sic] human hair. As new hair grows after cutting, so do
llama wool and bushgrass continually grow in the highlands. . . . Animals
and people originated from and return to the head of the mountain. It is
the place of origin and return, like the human head which [is] the point
of entry and exit for the inner self.
The Kaata also believe that Uma Pacha (earth), the mountain peaks, are the
origin place of both time and space, “from which all originates and to which
all returns” (Bastien 1978: 157). So, if we were to project from this concept to a
more cosmological level, we have again the sense that the head is the point at
which the spirit may travel to the supernatural realm and move from the earthly
plain of existence to death and the afterlife. This mountain-body metaphor cor-
roborates the archaeological record of human head representations in the early
Andes as symbolizing the seat of the soul.
The Kaata’s body paradigm could certainly have its origins in Inca ideol-
ogy. Lozada (Chapter 4) references Constance Classen’s ethnohistoric research
(1993) on the Inca human body as a model for understanding many aspects of
the Inca worldview. The head plays a similar metaphoric role as the head in
Kaata society. For example, the Inca employed the body metaphor in relation
to the sacred landscape. They interpreted the city of Cuzco, their capital, as the
body of a puma (Betanzos, cap. XVII; 1880 [1551]: 116–117; Zuidema 1985: 212).
202 Mary Glowacki

The head of the puma was the fortress of Saqsayhuaman, located on a hilltop to
the north of the city (Sarmiento de Gamboa 1947: cap. 53, 233). Today archae-
ologists view this site as a ceremonial center, where many important events and
rites were carried out (Barreda Murillo and Valencia Espinosa 2007: 149; Silva
Gonzalez 2007: 179; Valencia Zagarra 2007: 207). The ceremonial nature of Saq-
sayhuaman provides us with a better understanding of the body metaphor for
Cuzco, making it the spiritual seat of the Inca capital.
A further example would be the death of the royal Inca Atahualpa at the
hands of the Spanish. While Spanish history tells that Atahualpa was garroted,
Andean accounts refer to his beheading (Classen 1993: 114; and referencing
Guaman Poma de Ayala, vol. 2, fig. 16). According to Classen, Guaman Poma
de Ayala’s depiction of Atahualpa’s execution by beheading signified not only
the death of the ruling Inca but the disembodiment of the imperial body—the
head, in this case, representing human and the political life essence.
Evaluating Analogies across Time and Space

This discussion would not be complete without addressing the legitimacy of
interpreting ontological associations of societies separated by temporal and
spatial differences. First, the ethnographic records and archaeological data
provide many examples of shamanic practice as far back as possibly the Ne-
anderthals (Solecki 1975) and as recent as today. When considering the con-
tinuity of its core features, it is hard to dispute that shamanism was so basic
to early and noncomplex societies that it continues to be a widely practiced
spiritual institution. Together, the strength of these sources validates the use
of a shamanic “structure” to derive meaning from early imagery and other
archaeological associations. Second, there are many scholars who report re-
markable continuity in Andean culture, making comparisons within the An-
des a viable method of interpreting ideology of ancient societies there. Claude
Levi-Strauss (1963: 269–273) demonstrated how oral traditions and their the-
matic art can survive intact for centuries and spread to distant places, main-
taining both meaning and form, having illustrated this case with prehistoric
south coast pottery imagery. And, Catherine Allen (1988: 2), who has spent
years studying traditional, contemporary Andean communities, had this to
say about Andean cultural continuity:
Five hundred years after the Spanish Conquest I did not expect analogies
to exist at the level of specific detail but in general ways of thinking. . . .
[However,] the mental shifts I had to make [as an ethnographer] to enter
the discourse of my Andean acquaintances might help us “interrogate”
the pre-Columbian material.
Moreover, cultural continuity can be demonstrated using certain criteria. From

a structuralist perspective, a highly complex configuration of cultural elements
is less likely to be misinterpreted. And, when other aspects of culture besides
those of ideology are analyzed, such as technological, political, and social el-
ements, which are ordered by the same underlying system, it increases the
chances of accurate interpretation of meaning (Isbell 1976: 271; Schneider 1976:
209). Furthermore, it helps avoid the pitfall of a priori assumptions (see Sayre
and La Mattina, Chapter 3). While some consider a structuralist approach to be
passé, it has, in fact, been shown to be highly effective in systematically examin-
ing and interpreting culture, particularly its underlying ideology.
Finally, there are numerous examples of regular interaction among peoples
of the early Andes, despite the geographic distance and variability of the regions
(for example, the Spondylus and feather trades, llama caravans, Inca chaskis, to
name a few). Thus, actual exchange of ideas and things by people facilitated
continuity in their meanings and functions. Why should we think that the
commonalities of tradition Andean lifeways, such as diet, dress, and livelihood,
should not include various ideological beliefs? This is not to promulgate pan-
Andean culture practices (Isbell 1976: 270), but to propose that religion, being
the most resilient aspect of culture to change, could certainly have perpetuated
fundamental aspects of these indigenous beliefs.
Conclusion
In attempting to understand early Andean ideologies and ontological perspec-
tives, it is important to recognize the congruence of certain basic Andean con-
cepts—the head as the seat of the soul, its role in spiritual transformation, and
the balance this process maintains between and across different groups and
spheres. A society’s prosperity—it’s economic productivity, success in war, po-
litical power, and health and well-being—all seem connected to the spiritual
essence of the individual and the cultural collective. The head, whether symbolic
or physical, is this agency. It allows for the cyclical, reciprocal flow of the Andean
worlds: kay pacha, the human here and now; hanan pacha, the upper, celestial
world; and ukhu pacha, the underworld of death and new life. With such a cen-
tral role, the spiritual essence of head, and, by extension, head hair, is possibly
204 Mary Glowacki

the quintessential ontological element of the early Andes. By considering the
cephalocentric nature of much of ancient Andean art (as discussed by Stone
2012: 76–85), it becomes clear that the head not only serves as the seat of the
soul, as a point of spiritual transformation, but also as a way of thinking about
the larger ontological scheme that underlies much of early cultures of the region.
In order to reach such an interpretation, it vital to understand, step-by-step,
the process that led to this ontological perspective. It is not a casual “throw
and see what sticks” approach, but one that takes a structural view of cultural
organization by seeking relevant elements in finding commonality. In an age of
academic interest in identifying and interpreting early indigenous ontologies,
structural, cognitive approaches should not be forgotten.
Note
1. I am referring to an idea akin to the Quechua “sami.” As discussed in Catherine
Allen’s ethnography of a southern highland, in an Andean community known as Sonqo,
three spiritual concepts are recognized. The first two, animu (a spirit animating a living
being) and alma (a soul or bones of the dead), are of Spanish origin. While they play
a role in the way people of Sonqo think about spirituality, the term that seems more
relevant is sami (animating essence). Similar to the Polynesian concept of mana, sami
is an indigenous concept that expresses a life force that exists in everything. All things
revolve around controlling and directing this flow of life (Allen 1988: 49–50, 207–208,
257, 262). Although Catholicism is part of traditional Andean societies, pre-Columbian
religious beliefs may be better understood by focusing on the concept of sami in inter-
preting early ideology.
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212 Mary Glowacki

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8
Toward a Situated Ontology of Bodies and
Landscapes in the Archaeology of the Southern
Andes (First Millennium AD, Northwest Argentina)
Ben ja m i n A l berti a n d A n dr e s L agu ens
Archaeologies of landscape implicitly work from a particular idea of what a body

is. What happens to the archaeological notion of landscape when one starts from
an idea of body that differs ontologically from the default universal body of em-
bodiment theory? Underlying conventional responses to how people live in dif-
ferent environments are both the idea of body, in which body and landscape
are separate, if related, things, and the idea that human groups adapt to certain
ecological niches. Leaving one’s environment is assumed to cause cultural stress
and lead to culture change. In this chapter, we first examine conventional and
more recent ideas of landscape and the bodies implied, drawing inspiration from
recent phenomenological and ontologically oriented research in archaeology and
anthropology. We then part ways with such approaches, arguing that they retain
a notion of perceiving subject—implicitly human—as central to the engagement
between landscapes and being. Subsequently, we explore the potential of Ama-
zonian perspectivism with its radically different ontology of bodies to inform a
new archaeology of landscapes. Approaches to past ontologies of the Andean
world have been explored, not only in relation to landscapes, where local notions
such as Apu, wa’ka, and Pacha (see Bray 2015) provide theories of a relational
and animated world, but also in relation to material culture from Amazonian
perspectivism, such as within Chavín and Recuay (Lau 2013; Weismantel 2015).
We intend to go a step further: we propose an archaeology that takes into
account local theories as on a par with our own anthropological theories (see
Alberti and Marshall 2009). We therefore start from a fundamentally different
ontological premise: things do not need to be animated, nor are they simply
believed to be animated. Rather, they just are fundamentally animated. More
precisely, “subjectivity” is a condition of being and relating as much as its result.
Here we explore the consequences for an archaeology of landscape.
We choose to work with Amazonian perspectivism as a broad-based Am-
erindian ontology, and, as such, is valid for our Andean case study, because it
deliberately challenges ontological assumptions beginning from the body. Ac-
cording to this theory, undifferentiated humanity is the universal and original
condition of all entities, human and nonhuman (Viveiros de Castro 2002). A
humanlike subjectivity is shared: everything potentially has a human spirit or
soul; anything might be a person. We take dwelling, therefore, as inherently re-
lational where human and nonhuman bodies participate actively. Our position
is that this notion of what the body is does not work with a conventional idea of
“landscape” as conventionally understood, but rather points toward ecologies
of multiple selves (Kohn 2013) that constitute relationally every element of their
worlds.
Recognizing the theoretical mutuality of the concepts of body and land-
scape, we explore what happens to landscape when we start from an alternative
ontology of bodies. We develop these ideas in relation to a case study of the
first-millennium La Candelaria archaeological culture of northwest Argentina.
Although La Candelaria culture is traditionally understood to occupy an area
from the yungas, or tropical forest, to the relatively lowland eastern part of the
region, similarities in material culture across a broader area and into the semi-
arid valleys to the west demand explanation. We therefore explore the relation-
ships between La Candelaria and these two different environments. We argue
that perceptual and experiential engagement with landscapes should not be
theoretically primary in understanding this case, but rather “social” relation-
ships between all beings that made up their worlds.
Landscape in Archaeology
The common archaeological idea of the landscape as a set of resources to be

adapted more or less successfully by human groups is a powerful one—it al-
lows us to understand the limits and potentials of certain places for human
settlement or life. Nonetheless, as its critics have remarked, it tends to reduce
ideas about those landscapes—whether economically based or ideological—to
214 Benjamin Alberti and Andres Laguens

epiphenomena of the resource structure (David and Thomas 2008; Van Dyke
2007). Any idea of landscape clearly depends on and is part of more general
ontologies and theories of world. As such, the concept of landscape goes hand-
in-hand with quite specific ideas about personhood, individuals, subjects, and
bodies. All imply each other; they make an ontological whole. Working with a
particular notion of landscape by extension involves a particular ontology of
personhood, and so on. Each idea of landscape implies both a particular type
of body and certain types of relationships between that body and the landscape.
Notwithstanding exceptional work that endeavors to bridge the gap, in essence,
we argue, all contemporary archaeological ideas of landscape rely on a prior
separation of body from landscape, in which the body is a universal, generalized
unit endowed with certain capacities, and the landscape is an environment that
impinges on and can be modified by that body. While physical landscapes are
in some ways relativized by talk of “multiple” landscapes, the bodies that move
around these landscapes are based on a single concept of body. The end result
is a very particular Western idea of landscape, one associated with a particular
idea of body. A new ontology of the body, as we will show, changes the nature
of the relationship.
The idea of the culturally constructed landscape replete with meaning took
force in archaeology during the postprocessualist response to processualism’s
focus on environmental factors. Already by the early 1990s, Ingold’s (1993) fun-
damentally important article on the temporality of the landscape demonstrated
the weaknesses of the model. The model of “cultural construction,” he showed,
relies on Cartesian notions of time and space and the separation of culture from
nature, resulting in a strange dislocation of bodies and landscapes. The result
is a human body or person standing inside a three-dimensional space, bestow-
ing meaning on the objects within that space. Ingold’s paper and subsequent
work is widely cited, although its lessons continue to be overlooked (Alberti
et al. 2011; Hicks 2016). Phenomenological approaches to landscape have since
dominated (Johnson 2012; Thomas 2008; Tilley 1994; Van Dyke 2007). Perhaps
the most rigorous has been Thomas’ development of Ingold’s “dwelling perspec-
tive.” Here, the concern is very much to think landscapes and bodies together,
challenging the Cartesianism of cultural construction models. In fact, Thomas
is at pains to point out that the type of landscape conceptualized by both cul-
tural construction and phenomenological approaches is one that “implies a
quite particular understanding of what landscape is: a set of things or entities
that can be objectively described” (Thomas 2008: 301).
Toward a Situated Ontology of Bodies and Landscapes in the Southern Andes 215
It is clear that both Ingold and Thomas move from strongly worked out
ontological positions based on the work of philosophers such as Deleuze and
Heidegger. Rather than challenge the conclusions of their work—whether they
do in fact unite body, mind, and landscape—our concern is with the type of
body that continues to be implied by such approaches and, by extension, a
particular ontology of landscape. Earlier critiques have shown that the neutral
objective observer necessary for both functionalist and symbolic construction
approaches relies on a position-less, universal subject. This body-less subject
is, in fact, very much embodied. We agree, therefore, with Johnson (2012), who
points out in a recent survey that a situated subject can and should be the ba-
sis for analytical and interpretive work. In characterizing phenomenological
approaches to landscape in archaeology, authors such as Thomas (2008) and
Johnson (2012) are careful, therefore, to include the variability inherent in var-
ied “bodily experiences.”
In his move from the symbolic approach to a dwelling perspective in archae-
ology, Thomas (2008: 305) argues that the question shifts from “What was the
symbolic structure?” to “How did people relate to [the landscape]?” The move
is not trivial, as it involves a new conceptualization of what it means to be, and
a recognition that the substantivist view of ontology motivates the first question
and a phenomenologically more accurate view of ontology, the second. We take
a further step in the direction Thomas indicates, by relativizing the ontological
question in light of ontological theory from outside the Western tradition. As
we will see, relations do turn out to be key, but the type of “landscape” dwelled
in turns out to be very different. The route to demonstrating this difference is
through the body.
From Embodiment to Perspectivism
The varieties of bodily experience are a foundational point for phenomenologi-

cally oriented approaches. The general metaphysical model that underlies the
dwelling perspective corresponds to a model of the body that is thoroughly
integrated with its world—not a freestanding, neutral apparatus for sense se-
lection and perception, but a living organism among other organisms. Thomas’
(1996) thorough grounding in Heideggerian phenomenology leads to bodies
that are not ontologically given but rather come into being through practice in a
world already significant. Nevertheless, phenomenological approaches can fall
foul of a similar critique as that leveled at processualism: while their subjects

are firmly rooted in bodies, and bodies have become diversified, a universalism
still lies in the relationship between the capacities of these varied bodies and the
environment in which they reside. A particular kind of sensing body is implied.
Underlying Thomas’ generalized ontology, therefore, is a universal notion of
what a human body is and, therefore, what a landscape is. The problem contin-
ues in nonrepresentational approaches to understanding landscape (see below):
both see the distancing effect of the Cartesian notion of space as a problem and
focus on proximity and relations established through bodies and their abilities
to be affected and to produce meaning.
But are all bodies unitary, sensing things? If our contention is that a specific
landscape theory implies a specific kind of body, and that that kind of body
is most frequently aligned with a singular, biologically constituted, perceptu-
ally informed organism, then what happens when we start from another kind
of body? In asking whether embodiment is useful as a cross-culturally valid
analytic, Vilaça (2009: 129), for example, argues that embodiment as a theory
has been imposed wholesale on the anthropology of the Amazonian region
precisely because of the apparent close fit between phenomenological and local
notions of bodies. The theory, however, is based on the Euro-American concept
of the individual, which has no counterpart in the Amazon. It treats Amazonian
bodies as examples of a kind—the mindful body—the prototype for which be-
longs to the industrialized West. What it misses out, she argues, is the peculiar-
ity of Amazonian theories of subjects and bodies. What difference would that
kind of body make to how we conceive of landscape?
In what follows, we draw from archaeologies of landscape that recognize the
theoretical mutuality of the concepts of body and landscape and ideas of bod-
ies that come from Amazonian ethnographies, to both illustrate this incredibly
close relationship as well as provide an alternative idea of landscape that ar-
chaeologists can use. Instead of a relationship between a generic body (however
socially modified) and a variety of container-type landscapes, we see a land-
scape/body constituted by multiple beings through relationships. In effect, the
distance between bodies and landscapes collapses. For example, as we explore
the literature on Amazonian bodies and space, we see that rather than an open
space of encounter, people live in worlds constituted by multiple subjectivities,
or persons. Space or landscape is conceived as relations among living beings,
or an “ecology of selves” (Kohn 2013; see below). If we extend these relations
to include landforms, plants, and so on (something that Kohn can only do to
a limited degree, see De la Cadena 2014), we have a world that is made up of
interactions among beings—a society through and through. Much the same is
valid for the Andes, where for many societies the world is peopled with multiple
potential subjectivities, including stones, mountains, rivers, the sky, animals,
ancestors, objects, and many other animated entities. Terms such as camay (Sa-
lomon 1991), sami (Arnold and Hastorf 2008), and wak’a (Allen 2015; Bray 2015)
are some of the concepts that synthesize a world that blurs boundaries between
humanity, materiality, and subjectivity.
When thinking about alternative ontologies of bodies that could lead to new
notions of landscapes, a number of options are apparent. Strathern’s “dividuals”
and Wagner’s concept of fractal bodies have been used by archaeologists to
theorize the relationship between bodies, persons, and material culture (Fowler
2004). Both fractality and dividuality have been taken up in recent work on
the Amazon and in the Andes (for example, Allen 2015). In particular, in the
Quechua world the notion of body is inconceivable without landscape—body
and mountain are reciprocal metaphors (Bastien 1978), and the human body
is linked to topography by common terms used to describe its internal and
external parts. Notwithstanding these possibilities, we choose to work with
Amazonian perspectivism—a theory developed by Brazilian anthropologists
on the basis of a broad-based Amerindian ontology—because it deliberately
challenges our basic ontological assumptions about culture and nature begin-
ning from the body. Moreover, its geographic proximity to our case study lends
it some authority as a locally situated alternative ontological model.
South American Perspectivist Archaeologies
Perspectivism, both as theory and practice, is grounded in the anthropology of

Amerindians, mostly lowland South American native groups, although it has
also been attributed to other geographically located people (for example, Ped-
ersen 2007; Willerslev 2007). The theory was developed principally by Brazil-
ian anthropologists, among whom Viveiros de Castro (1998; 2004a; 2010) and
Lima (1999, 2000) stand out. Viveiros de Castro summarizes perspectivism as
follows:
I use “perspectivism” as a name for a set of ideas and practices found

throughout indigenous America and to which I shall refer . . . as though
it were a “cosmology.” This cosmology imagines a universe peopled by
different types of subjective agencies, human as well as non-human, each

endowed with the same generic type of soul, i.e. the same set of cognitive
and volitional capacities. The possession of a similar soul implies the pos-
session of similar concepts, which determine that all subjects see things
in the same way; in particular, individuals of the same species see each
other (and each other only) as humans see themselves; that is, as beings
endowed with human shape and habits, seeing their bodily and behav-
ioral aspects in the form of human culture. What changes when passing
from one species of subject to another is the “objective correlative,” the
referent of these concepts: what jaguars see as “manioc beer” . . . humans
see as “blood;” where we see a muddy salt-lick on a river bank, tapirs see
their big ceremonial house, and so on. Such difference of perspective—
not a plurality of views of a single world, mind you, but a single view
of different worlds—cannot derive from the soul, since the latter is the
common original ground of being; such difference is located in the bodily
differences between species, for the body and its affections . . . is the site
and instrument of ontological differentiation and referential disjunction.
(Viveiros de Castro 2004b, 3–4)
Amerindian perspectivism is an indigenous conception according to which the

world is populated by different entities, agents, or persons (that is, certain ani-
mals, spirits, objects, phenomena of nature, artifacts, and plants) all of which
are considered subjects, and who, as such, see the world in the same way as
humans do. The distinctiveness resides in their bodies, which are the home of
subjectivity and of their point of view or perspective. Consequently, different
types of beings do not see the same things, but see things specific to their own
cultural world. For example, humans see peccaries as animals, but peccaries see
themselves as persons and see humans as prey or enemies. The way of seeing,
therefore, is always the same—it is a cultural act. What is different is what is
seen. Culture is one, what changes is the world, or nature. This is the basis of
what Viveiros de Castro calls “multinaturalism” as opposed to multiculturalism.
Understanding the archaeological record from a perspectivist standpoint
has a certain popularity at present (for example, Betts et al. 2012; Conneller
2004; Lau 2013; Weismantel 2015). Of particular interest is the work of Brazil-
ian archaeologists who are thinking in new ways about precolonial Amazonian
cultures. Items of material culture (mainly ceramic vessels and funerary urns,
as well as stone and ceramic figurines) were traditionally taken either as evi-
dence of cultural types or, later, as indexes of social complexity (Barreto 2014;
Gomes 2001, 2010). A new perspective has gained ground since the publication
of the edited volume Unknown Amazon (McEwan et al. 2001), since which work
regularly takes into account current contributions from Amazonian ethnology.
Cosmology has become a source for new interpretations of art, material culture,
and agency (for example, Barcelos Neto 2009; Lagrou 2007; Santos-Granero
2009). Perspectivism has inspired several of these interpretations. For example,
Gomes (2010) has analyzed the Santarem Culture (CE 1000) ceramic iconog-
raphy, in particular modeled depictions of human/animal metamorphoses, an-
thropomorphic vases of sitting humans, and spatial distributions of ceramic
residues at Santarem sites on the basis of perspectivist ontology. She concludes
that material culture materializes a relationship that exists among the processes
of social complexity, shamanism, and perspectivist cosmology. Barreto (2014)
resorts to a perspectivist idea of body in her discussion of ceramic objects and
lithic statuettes. Drawing on the transformational and constructed character-
istic of bodies in this pan-Amazonic ontology, she analyses how bodies (hu-
man and animal, and human-animal hybrid bodies) were depicted in ways that
clearly made allusion to reproduction and transformation. Interestingly, she
considers how human-modeled depictions in anthropomorphic funerary urns
placed in cemeteries as memorials were intended to stabilize bodies, preventing
the loss of their humanity (see Alberti 2007).
Perspectivist approaches to archaeological objects and contexts have also
been attempted in the Andes. George Lau (2012, 2013) turns to Amazonian
perspectivism in attempting to understand alterity in Recuay societies of the
central Andes during the first half of the first millennium CE. Drawing on Vi-
veiros de Castro’s notion of “ontological predation,” Lau argues that predation
is a unifying principle behind a symbolic economy of alterity, found in hunting,
warfare, and also in Andean ancestrality. Here, identity building is a relational
process based on the symbolic as well as the material appropriation of the other,
human or nonhuman. This is expressed through different archaeological mate-
rials, mainly in ceramic and stone-carved iconography. Also working in the An-
des, Weismantel (2015) proposes a new, perspectivist reading of Chavín (3000
BCE) lithic ceremonial sculptures. She argues that the images in their particular
materiality impose their point of view on the observer in a mutual relationship
of seeing and being actively seen. The images do not merely represent a world,
but rather enact an animist ontology in practice (2015: 15).
It is noteworthy that these approaches to perspectivism in the Andes, al-
though different in scope, demonstrate its widespread contemporary and his-

torical valence among many South American peoples. Methodologically, they
center on objects of material culture, suggesting new readings of particular ma-
terialities, whether sensory, experiential, textual, or theoretical interpretations.
Although suggestive, they do not appraise the very notion of materiality or the
particularity of the body in perspectivist terms. Perhaps Lau’s approach is fur-
thest from a Western body, since he writes about alterity in a way that implies
relationships among peers, that is, what the Others were for a perspectivist soci-
ety. While Weismantel’s approach is closer to a perspectivist notion of an object
(as unstable, multifarious, and agentive, although not explicitly endowed with
subjectivity), her notion of relatedness and experience would appear to rely
on a Western kind of body or subject. In contrast, we seek to understand the
archaeological record and its materiality in terms of a perspectival world. This
is not, therefore, about a particular interpretation of certain iconographic and
morphological attributes and associations, but about utilizing the fundamen-
tal principles of a relational ontology when confronted by the archaeological
record and its objects. This is not, then, about objects, bodies, landscape, or
any other entity; rather, is about another conceptualization of humankind and
otherness which fully encompasses the former terms.
Perspectivist Bodies
Perspectivism jettisons the idea of landscape altogether, we argue, because ev-

erything you are interacting with could be a being if it has a body. Bodies are of
central importance to perspectivism. According to Viveiros de Castro, bodies
are not so much the biological component of our selves but are “bundles of af-
fects,” a series of capacities and ways of responding that bodies share with like
bodies. All beings share the same capacity to see and know the world, as we have
seen. What differentiates them are their bodies—bodies that are not stable ob-
jective referents, but must be worked on and capacitated to produce the correct
“bundle of affects” that ensures they will do and see the same way as their kin or
species members. Perspectives are thus situated in bodies. Bodies are what dif-
ferentiate subjects and, ultimately, the worlds they occupy. Whereas the theory
of embodiment presupposes a “mindful body” as the site of difference among
subjects defined by their shared bodies, perspectivism considers that bodies
differentiate among subjects; embodiment presupposes subjects in advance.
Perspectivism argues that there is “no pure perception anterior to the interac-
tions” between subjects and objects (Vilaça 2009: 136). The consequences are
far from trivial, as Vilaça (2009, 136) points out: different sets of relations do
not produce different objectifications of a singular object world, but “different
bodily constitutions of the subject,” and hence different worlds.
It is notable that recent work in nonrepresentational theory—an explicitly
ontologically oriented approach originating largely in human geography (see
Waterton 2013)—uses the same language of “affects” to talk about how bodies
and worlds come together. The nonrepresentational research agenda includes
a focus on bodies and landscapes, where the relationship between the two is
recognized to be inevitable and necessary. Concepts such as “affect” and “per-
formativity” mark out a research agenda that encompasses the multiple extra-
discursive elements of experience and how to present them. Proximity, rela-
tions, and affect can provide us with a much more vivid sense of what it means
to be in a landscape, to live in relation and prediscursively. Bodies are sensing,
living things, brought into being and bringing into being a particular environ-
ment/landscape. By positing the variety of human responses to landscape as
various bodily experiences, a specific definition of a universal body is avoided,
as experience becomes the relevant arbiter of cultural difference. Here the idea
is that sentient bodies experience and form affective ties with their surround-
ings, hence constituting meaningful places even when obvious symbolization
is not present. However, even though a great deal of sensitivity is added to the
body-landscape relationship, landscape remains a thing external to the human
subject—formative of human experience, yes, but not ultimately constituted by
that relationship. Perspectivist understandings of bodies beg the question of
what happens when the ontology of bodies (as precisely universal, if situated,
thinking-feeling machines) is challenged. Amazonian bodies start from a dif-
ferent premise that collapses landscape/body because the body is the point of
view and the world is full of beings and relations, not inert “world” ready to be
sculpted by human action. Bodies are perspectives; they are what make a world
appear in a given way. “Affects” in perspectivism are precisely what distinguish
bodies and therefore worlds; they are not generalized ways in which a general-
ized body distinguishes itself in its relationship with a generalized landscape,
hence making it specific.
Amazonian Non-landscapes
It is conspicuous that Amazonian perspectivism is silent on the topic of land-

scape. It is noteworthy that neither Kohn (2013) in How Forests Think, nor Vi-

veiros de Castro1 use the term. The fact that the people with whom they have
worked are more concerned with the cosmological or with the intimacies of
more ecological type relations goes some way to explaining the absence. Ecol-
ogy rather than landscape holds theoretical sway.2 Landscape has, however,
been a topic of debate in recent archaeological literature on the Amazon. Tra-
ditionally considered as pristine nature, archaeologists have recently demon-
strated that the Amazon’s current state is in fact the outcome of very ancient,
continuous, and deep transformations due to human interactions with the en-
vironment (Balée 2010; Erickson 2008; Heckenberger 2005). There is no nature
to be found in the Amazonia but a profoundly domesticated landscape (Balée
2010; Erickson 2008, 160; Raffles 2002). Known as “historical ecology,” authors
in the field reject mere adaptation and envision landscape as a relational effect
of human knowledge, intentions, and practices. The idea of anthropogenic cul-
tural landscapes has revolutionized the archaeology of the Amazon, giving it
historical depth and significance. One could read perspectivism as supporting
a strangely similar version of the Amazon: rather than a pristine “nature” that
exists above and beyond humans, the rainforest is alive and fully cultural. The
difference is that while Erickson posits the complex modification of a landscape
over time, it remains a cultural-natural artifact. For perspectivism, in contrast,
“nature” is part and parcel of society, so is a priori historical.
Indigenous ecologies reverse the relationship between nature and culture.
Mora (2006) illustrates the difference that such a reversal makes when he
combines Amazonian history, anthropology, and archaeology with Indige-
nous histories from contemporary Amazonian peoples. The result is a local
perspective on landscape—a form of animism or perspectivism—which takes
into account local ontologies and cosmologies in ecological relations. Such
relationships, Mora (2006: 15) argues, are in fact socioecological relationships,
since all species are conceived as social beings, and any geographic space is
defined and occupied by social relationships. The organizational principle
that governs the universe is that of social relationships and kinship between
peers—of any species. Through social relationships, different beings self-de-
fine as humans. They inhabit worlds very similar to ours in which real humans
are seen as other creatures of the universe with which they maintain relation-
ships of affinity and reciprocity. Thus, space or geography is in permanent
movement and transformation, while at the same time being the outcome of
history and mythic narratives that are continuously actualized through so-
cioecological relationships. To live in that landscape is not to maintain mere
ecological and economic relationships with a given space, but to live in a world
inhabited by many living others.3
What one begins to see here is a landscape that is a “non-landscape,” a space
that is impossible to either settle or distance oneself from—something that re-
fuses to be different in kind from other entities, of which it is fully composed.
The self-consciously perspectivist-influenced work of archaeologists Green
and Green among the Palikur (Green and Green 2013) and Kohn’s (2013) work
provide important clues to how we might go about an archaeology of these
“non-landscapes.” Kohn (2013) points strongly toward an alternative ontology
of landscape, although he does not refer to it as such, from the vantage point
of his ethnographic work among the Runa in the Ecuadorian Amazon. While
Runa people are perspectivist, Kohn combines this ontology with Pierce’s se-
miotic without reproducing or translating native into Western terms, render-
ing instead a new anthropological ontology. For our argument, his concept of
ecologies of the selves is key. According to Kohn, all beings are selves, as long
as they have the capacity to manage signs and representations. A monkey in
the forest hears the noise of a broken branch made by a hunter, and reacts;
he interpreted that noise as a sign, and acted in consequence. All beings are
constitutively semiotic. Sensing beings are thinking subjects and the forest is
an ecology of selves: a complex web of relations between thinking beings in
interaction that “merge, dissolve, and also merge into new kinds of we as they
interact” (Kohn 2013: 15, original emphasis). As a consequence, forests think. In
our case, it is landscapes as a whole that can “think” in this way. All selves have
points of view, and humans must be alert when entering relationships not to
lose their own in acts of ontological predation. The forest—or landscape—is a
space of unstable and ambiguous relationships among peers.
Kohn’s ontology clearly challenges much that we take for granted when think-
ing about ecology. We have moved far from landscape as a piece of perceived
and experienced materiality from a human point of view. It is not a Cartesian
space of stable, nonhuman entities that can be animated by humans into active
relationships. Landscape is peopled by living—not “animated”—and thoughtful
beings with whom humans come into relation. From this perspective, to live in
a landscape is to inhabit a space of relationships with others, humans and other-
than-humans, with communicative capacities. It is not just a landscape; it is a
space that is fully made up of interacting selves.
The archaeological possibility of a situated ontological approach to Amazonian
(non-)landscapes is illustrated by the work of Green and Green (2013) among the

Palikur community of northeast Brazil. Dissatisfied with distanced, scientific dis-
course and shamed, to a degree, by their hosts, they ultimately found that they
needed to particularize radically their archaeological discourse in line with local
concepts of time, space, and the definition of archaeology itself. The Palikur, the
Greens explain, live with an ontology that stresses movement, traces, and worlds
brought into being through continuous interactions (Green and Green 2013: 148).
The Greens begin with a critical reading of space and place, rather than land-
scape, moving from these more general terms to a consideration of Palikur to-
pologies. This critical reading provides us with some important clues on how to
develop a notion of landscape that encompasses other ontologies rather than re-
produces our own. The Palikur notion of space is clearly in contrast to Euclidian
geometry. According to the Greens, the Palikur think about space as relational,
including landforms, persons, and certain animals, all of which are “partners
and participants in movements” (Green and Green 2013: 144). They write: “As
one moves through the world, one is making space by naming forms. Yet the
naming of those forms is not confined to the forms of objects—round rock,
cylindrical finger—but attends also to the interaction of forms: something is not
just ‘on’ but ‘on-round’ or ‘on-flat.’ Yet . . . the forms themselves are not confined
to the familiar range of solid shapes” (Green and Green: 145–146). Space is topo-
logically conceived, demonstrated through narratives that mix time and place
and ignore distance while following established paths. We begin to see how a
perspectivist account might take into consideration landscape without falling
foul of constructivist understanding. The continuous interaction that forms the
world accords with our thinking.
Case Study: La Candelaria
Taking the La Candelaria culture of northwest Argentina as a case study, we ask

why stylistically similar material culture is found across distinct environmen-
tal zones—in this case, yungas (subtropical forests) and the arid sub-Andean
valleys (see Figure 8.1). Traditionally, when stylistically similar material culture
is found in very different environmental areas in the Andes, it has been inter-
preted in a variety of ways, from evidence for the existence of distinct cultures,
to cultural contact, diffusion, and political dominance, firmly based on environ-
ment—culture correspondence. Alternatively, the pieces that differ somewhat
and in a regular, iterative way are assigned to a local cultural manifestation, often
left unnamed. Murra’s (1972) models of ecological complementarity were par-
Figure 8.1. Map of the geographic areas mentioned in the text.
ticularly innovative as economic and political explanations. We lack, however, a

good standard explanation for the disparity in more specific terms.
Here, we make two parallel arguments. The first is based on material culture
similarities and differences in patterning principally across two different land-
scapes. The absence/presence of stylistically similar—although not identical—
material culture can be taken as evidence of the presence of peoples with shared
cultural affiliation, or modes of life, and ontological commitments. The specific
form and type of material culture is irrelevant as we are making an argument
about general presence/absence in different physical environments. The mate-
rial is similar enough to raise the question of why they are treated as evidence of

distinct cultures. Our second argument is that a perspectivist-influenced theory
of landscape that is built on the notion that bodies/landscapes are relationally
constituted provides a model for understanding how people were able to move
between and coexist in distinct environments without changing their material
culture substantially, which they did by “carrying their landscape” with them.
The material is amenable to a perspectivist-influenced analysis partly because of
the form of the material culture, principally the ceramics (Alberti 2007, 2014).
In essence, ontology rather than economy or diffusion provides a better frame-
work to understand this material patterning.
La Candelaria culture is characterized by ceramic stylistic similarities in a
core area centered on east-central Tucuman and southern-central Salta prov-
inces, northwest Argentina (north of Cadillal, west of the Sierras de Santa Bar-
bara, east of the Aconquiqa, and south of Rosario de la Frontera in Salta Prov-
ince) (see Figure 8.1). The ceramic style was described originally on the basis of
a “female” prototype anthropomorphic vessel found not in this area but further
west, in the Santamaria Valley (Gonzalez 1977). What constitutes a Candelaria
style, according to Gonzalez (1977), are jars in the form of a truncated cone or
cylinder, double vases, pucos or bowls, and timbales. The quality of the paste is
excellent, and the larger urns are notable for their thin walls. Most ceramic is
grey or black, with some pieces in red. Very few pieces are painted; molded and
incised decoration dominates. Most representative are molded “effigy” vases,
representing humans, animals, and fantastical creatures (Figure 8.2). Occasion-
ally a human face is molded and incised on the neck of both small vessels and
urns, often including a pointed “beard,” coffee grain eyes, a notable brow, and
incised features (Gonzalez 1977: 134–36). Pronounced bulges on many pieces
are also representative (“mamelones”). While heavily based on the identification
of stylistically diagnostic ceramics, associated materials that make up a good
Candelaria assemblage include the distinctive use of primary burial in urns of
both adults and children. Funerary goods included ceramic pieces within or
near the burial urn (Heredia 1974; Ryden 1936).
In the traditional Candelaria area, settlements are sparse, poorly preserved,
and probably relied on perishable building materials to a large extent. At some
sites, evidence of the La Candelaria settlements is sufficient to characterize
them as consisting of small, subcircular patio grouped structures, dispersed
rather than agglomerated (Heredia 1969, 1974). This is fairly characteristic of
a range of cultures from the formative period of northwest Argentina. Much
of the material was found as increased density of artifact scatters. Sites were
Figure 8.2. La Candelaria zoomorphic ceramic vessel.
located on the shoulders of low hills within an environment of dense under-

growth. The yungas would have presented a sea of green to people at the time,
interspersed with areas of rolling hills to the east, and the impressive wall of the
Anconquija rising to the west (Figure 8.3). Traveling southwest, one reaches the
alpine Tafi Valley, with its grazeable grasslands and numerous formative period
settlements (Figure 8.4). A sudden change in life announces entry into the arid
valleys beyond to the west, dominated by the cardon cactuses and dispersed
algarrobo of the Santamaría and Calchaquí Valleys (Figure 8.5).
It is at this point that the change in environment is privileged in the determi-
nation of cultural type in conventional archaeological accounts. The Tafi Valley
is intimately connected to the history of the Candelaria culture. The earliest
of the five periods of Candelaria are found at the El Mollar site, the largest
in Tafi. Yet it is not considered part of La Candelaria. Moving west, into the
Santamaria Valley and Calchaqui valleys, the history with Candelaria has been
more spotted but no less important. The relationship between the styles of the
ceramics in this area and that from the heartland of the La Candelaria has long
been recognized (Heredia 1974; Scattolin 2006). When a piece is sufficiently
Candelaria-like, it is explained as an intrusion, brought in by trade, or made
by intrusive immigrants from lands to the east. Alternatively, the pieces that

Figure 8.3. The yungas, looking west toward the Aconquija mountain range.
Figure 8.4. Tafi del Valle.
differ somewhat and in a regular, iterative way are assigned to a local cultural
manifestation, often left unnamed.
Gonzalez’ student, Heredia (1969, 1974), further delimited the La Candelaria
culture and its relationship to the environment. He identified five chronological
phases on the basis of percentages of types of ceramic decoration. These, how-
ever, were based on particular sites rather than a series, and could instead have
Figure 8.5. The Santamaria Valley.
been used to reinforce the spread of Candelaria ceramics across distinct environ-
mental zones. They are geographic as much as temporal. Heredia (1974) did in
fact recognize at least four distinct “zones” along with the five phases. Nonethe-
less, the conclusions reached by Heredia minimized the geographic spread of the
culture and establish an enduring sense of an eastern, yungas, society.
It is possible, however, to identify the material expression of a stylistically
similar cultural manifestation across a broad geographic area, bearing in mind
the base similarity in settlement form. Numerous archaeologists have identi-
fied Candelaria-style material culture in the Tafi, Santamaria, and Calchaqui
valleys, what we will call “local” Candelaria. Notably, Heredia (1974) recognized
the stylistic similarities of material in the Santamaria Valley, but named this
latter group the San Carlos culture. There is as much variation within the core
Candelaria area as between this and the various local Candelaria. For example,
one primary evidence type—the jars with oblique neck profiles—are common
outside the core area and show a great deal of variation within it (Figure 8.6). In
other words, the relationship between the styles of the ceramics in these areas
and that from the heartland of the La Candelaria has long been recognized but
its significance reduced.

Figure 8.6. Vase from the La Candelaria core area.
Beyond the Geographic Model of Culture

In the classic cultural scheme, the Candelaria are people of the yungas, or for-
est—that is their signature environment. But, what, therefore, are they doing
in the arid valleys to the west? In the classic archaeology of northwest Argen-
tina, culture areas dominated as a comprehensive analytical tool as national
archaeology grew (Politis 1995). It is the glue-like relationship between culture
area and environment that has produced distinct interpretations of the dif-
ferent cultures of the northwest, and has heavily influenced the panorama of
the formative period population of the area. The environment acts as a trap
that prevents alternative explanations for culture change from being devel-
oped. This danger has been recognized most forcefully in the work of Scatto-
lin (2006; Scattolin et al. 2009), who has commented on the structural divide
between the east and west in the archaeology of the Argentine northwest. The
east—lowland, yungas, stylistically more Amazonian than Andean—has been
associated with the feminine and is less studied. The west is dominated by the
archaeology of the famous Aguada culture, with its images of felines and war-
riors—hence Andean, masculine, and much more researched. Scattolin shows
that this line is essentially illusory. The supposed presence of Aguada in the
dry valleys of the west is null. In fact, although she is cautious not to use any
classificatory schema that relies on culture areas, she shows time and again
that the material culture is most closely related to Candelaria (for example,
Scattolin 2006).
The environmental determinism that Scatollin uncovers can clearly be seen
working in the different treatment of the two cases of the Aguada and Cande-
laria when internal variations are considered. The Aguada are assumed to be a
homogenizing force, spreading a single ideology and more or less standardized
material culture across a broad area during the latter half of the first millennium
CE. It is well known, however, that there are in fact two quite distinct areas
with distinct manifestations of the Aguada style: the Aguada of the Hualfin
Valley and the Aguada of the Ambato Valley. Nobody, however, denies that
these are both Aguada. The similarities between the material culture of the core
Candelaria area and the “local” Candelaria, however, are not recognized as the
same phenomenon. Rather than culturally continuous, they are conventionally
treated as intrusive. The reason for the difference, we suggest, has to do exactly
with this delimitation of environmental zones and their classic association with
archaeological cultures. The Aguada can continue to be Aguada although there
are internal differences because they occupy the same environment; the Cande-
laria cannot be Candelaria in Santamaria, for example, because this is a different
environmental zone.
Carrying Their Landscapes with Them

The Candelaria were lowland people of the forests: it is this bias with its deep
roots that we want to question with a new approach to bodies and landscape.
We argue that adopting a position of ontological continuity better enables
us to understand the continuity in material culture manifestation. Once an
ontological view—perspectivist in our case—is adopted the presence of the
material culture in the two areas demands explanation. We need not resort
to economic or diffusionist models to explain the spread of material culture
when we could understand this ontologically, as local developments of a
shared ontology of body-landscape. Heredia’s phases, therefore, can be un-
derstood as local manifestations or materializations of the same ontology in
a different place. Moving into a new area goes beyond learning to adapt to a
new set of resources. In the case of La Candelaria and its local manifestations,
we argue that it was this shared ontology that enabled people to adapt without
changing radically their physical imprint on the environment, nor their form
of material culture.
One could understand this model as “carrying their landscape” with them.

Rather than imagining the movement of people from an established to a new
landscape, which imposes itself on the group, we could think of La Candelaria
as carrying their landscape—their point of view, anchored in their bodies—
with them when they moved from lowlands to highlands. This implies a type
of relationship with other inhabitants of the world (subjects, bodies, humans
and nonhumans) that is co-constitutive of all elements of that world, humans
and nonhumans. The world is made up these social relations of affinity. And
the world itself, rather than external to this process, in a very literal sense was
the same, irrespective of whether the “bodies” were externally distinct (such
as trees, mountains, the stars, and so forth). Consequently, the variation in the
details of the material culture within and between what we have called the local
Candelaria areas is less important than the morphological similarities. That is,
similarities in bodies (see Alberti 2007) indicate underlying relationships of a
similar type (including practical relations).
As such, differences in material culture can be understood to reflect the con-
tingency and ongoing nature of the formation of relationships constitutive of all
beings through a perspectivist ontology. In a study of the Yine (Piro) people of
Amazonia, Opas (2005) argues, in common with other Amazonian accounts,
that bodies are relationally constituted and likewise act to constitute social rela-
tions. Human and nonhuman are bound through relations of mutual generativ-
ity. Opas (2005) stresses the morally grounded boundary formation (between
the human and nonhuman) that such relations engender. These relations are
always incomplete, or unstable, just as the corporeal forms that characterize
La Candelaria ceramics are incomplete and, as Alberti (2007, 2014) has argued,
ultimately unstable.
In sum, we need to shift attention away from environmental difference.
What is of concern is an alternative means of adaptation that relies on a dif-
ferent notion of body and hence landscape. In the traditional model, bodies
and landscapes are distinct: the former has the tools to adapt to the latter.
Humans must learn to conquer, or, more kindly, live with their environments.
When one starts from an ontological perspectivism, in contrast, what matters
is how the change in environment is locally and ontologically resolved. The
move is from relation between humans and world to relation among many be-
ings, including all elements of what is traditionally called the landscape. The
way of relating and constituting oneself as human or nonhuman among the
multitude of selves is what made life possible for the La Candelaria in these
different places.
Conclusion: Alternative Ontologies of Landscape
We are at pains to stress that this is not ethnographic analogy. We do not ex-
pect to find Amazonian bodies and landscapes, whatever they might be. We
are developing an alternative way to look at the idea of landscape that accords
better with what we might find archaeologically by working through theories
developed on the basis of other ontologies (see Alberti and Marshall 2009). Our
argument is that we cannot get at these archaeological landscapes from tradi-
tional theories because they imply a specific kind of conceptualization of the
body that cuts off a host of ontological alternatives. The very idea of landscape is
an artifact or effect of the Western concept of bodies as either neutral platforms
of observation, or sensing things through which we form relations with and
bring particular landscapes into being.
In this chapter, we have explored Amazonian theories of bodies as our
entry point to ask after the relationships that make up the distinct elements
of the La Candelaria landscapes. Of course, working this way marks “ele-
ments of landscape” as a placeholder for whatever results from thinking about
landscape through these Amazonian bodies. As we saw, landscape as concept
is at risk of disappearing, or being transformed to such a degree that it is no
longer recognizable. As others have noted, the validity of the concept depends
on the archaeological case in question. Rather that turn to available, phe-
nomenological alternatives, we have argued that we need to work from new
ontologies to understand how people in the past existed with their worlds
and explored new ones. We have indicated in a very preliminary fashion how
a particular archaeological case, that of the geographic extension of the La
Candelaria culture of northwest Argentina, could look quite different from
such a perspective. There are further implications for the archaeology of the
region, including the integrity of the concept of the formative period. One
could also understand the crises that heralded the late period in the area—
new, agglomerated settlements in defensive positions, among other changes—
as born from ontological tension or rupture rather than economic or social
strife.
Notes
1. A search for the keyword “landscape” turned up nothing in our readings of the
works of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro.

2. It occurs to us that the notion of landscape requires a kind of visual distancing
that is impossible in the rainforests of their accounts—a further lesson, perhaps, in the
limitations of a visually inspired, modern concept that requires a vantage point where
one can set up one’s easel.
3. This points toward a subtle bias often found in landscape archaeology: that of the
underlying association of landscape with open spaces. This, for instance, contrasts with
the Andean world, where there exist particular ontologies of landscapes, and notions
such as Apu, wa’ka, and Pacha, among others, lend support to theories of a relational,
animated world (Wilkinson 2013; Bray 2015).
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pppppppppppppp
9
Ontological Foundations for Inka Archaeology
Bruce M a n n h ei m
This chapter outlines a research program for grounding Inka archaeology in

an ontologically driven integrated view of Inka culture and language.1 By “in-
tegrated” I mean that the several anthropological subdisciplines are treated as
supplying distinct kinds of evidence for common analytic questions; by “onto-
logically driven” that my key concern is what there is in the world, social and
material, the causal relations among what there is in the world, and the distinc-
tively Inka (and southern Quechua) ways of interacting with it. I locate the proj-
ect squarely within what has been called “the ontological turn” in anthropology,
a cluster of theoretical approaches that share only the most abstract of precepts:
(1) a rejection of treating the social as bounded by the activities of humans; (2)
an opening to the agency of other-than-humans (a position that was already
well established by analytic philosophers studying causality, for example, Harré
and Madden 1975); (3) an ethnographic view of language and culture as actively
engaged in making the world we take for granted, rather than representing it.
My goal is to identify interconnections among ontological principles, embodied
in language, cognition, social relations, and material culture—interconnections
that are strong enough to identify certain of these principles as mutually com-
patible, and others as incompatible, within a relational typology, one that can
warrant certain material outcomes and not others, such as the incompatibility
of allocentric frame-of-reference with lineage structures. These in turn can be
tested archaeologically. I call these interconnections “fields of interaction” or
“sectors”; critical here are the interconnections, not that they are closed systems
or correspond to named institutions.
For expository purposes, I focus on three interrelated ontological fields of in-
teraction, each with specific material consequences: (1) Properties of the world.
Kinds of objects vary in the properties attributed to them and in the relation-
ships that they have to other kinds. These are projected through social activi-
ties, and always as parts of conceptual assemblages, rather than atomistically.
That Quechua-speaking herders follow animals rather than lead or herd them
is grounded in the organization of herding as a social activity as well as by the
Quechua semantics of agency. (2) Frame of reference. In “allocentric” systems
(like Quechua), social interaction (in all activities, important and mundane)
is anchored primarily in the physical space surrounding the interaction rather
than in the participants; in contrast, in “egocentric” systems (like English), the
frame of reference is projected from the speaker. Among the consequences is
that Quechua speakers move through geographic and settlement space place-
by-place rather than through a top-down abstract spatial layout. (3) Causal
structures. Concepts emerge from more general and broad knowledge that
people have about the world; in other words, concepts are embedded in over-
arching theories, called “domains,” such as living kinds, social kinds, nonliv-
ing natural kinds, and artefacts (Gelman 2012: 545–546). These tacit theories
establish ontologies (in the first sense), causal relationships, and unobservable
entities specific to domains. For causal structures, Quechua adults are natu-
ralists with respect to living kinds, and U.S. adults, artifactualists, the cross-
cultural variability in domain membership notwithstanding. So for Quechua
adults, animals have certain properties because that’s just the way they are; for
English-speaking adults in the United States, it’s because of what the properties
accomplish functionally, particularly for the benefit of humans.
Some Methodological Preliminaries
In distinguishing a representational from an ontological approach to analysis, it

is important to further specify the notion of “representation,” which is complex
and multivocal (Dokic 2014). Relevant here are two radically different uses of
the word “representation,” one grounded in folk ideas of language and cultural
forms “standing for” things (I’ll call this “representation1”) and the other which
means roughly “essential properties” of an expression (I’ll call this use “repre-
sentation2”). Representation1 is commonplace in interpretative anthropology, in
archaeology, in art history, and in literary studies. Representation2 is common-
place in mathematics, linguistics, and cognitive science. When I call for “an eth-
Ontological Foundations for Inka Archaeology 241

nographic view of language and culture as actively engaged in making the world
we take for granted, rather than representing it,” I am rejecting representation1
in favor of representation2 (see Dean 2014). Anthropologists have traditionally
treated the world as an always-already constituted set of representational af-
fordances for culture. There are notable exceptions: Edward Sapir (1929) and
Irving Hallowell (1960, 1991) to name two, but even relativists such as Benjamin
Lee Whorf (1945) tended to see culture and language as variables against a con-
stant, uniform world. The “ontological turn,” as it is called, strikes a novel path
in suggesting that the material interactions of people and their physical and
social worlds can vary from society to society (see Salomon 2018: 184–204; Sw-
enson 2015: 678). Under representational approaches, the differences between
a set of practices in one culture and another are treated as matters of distinct
knowledge; for an ethnographer, the other culture is densely symbolic, with
people speaking in figures; for the archaeologist, the serpent carved into rock
stands for water. Under ontological approaches, the nature of the world, of the
interactions between humans and the world, and of social relations, vary from
society to society (see Keane 2018a: 33–34; 2018b). Where I differ from other re-
searchers working within this program is that I regard ontological variability as
limited, constrained by cognitive processes (not by representations; Mannheim
2015b), restricted by the compatibility or incompatibility of social forms and
institutions with each other (compare Descola 2005: 119, 137), and constrained
historically. The constraints on ontological variability are relational, and do not
lend themselves to an easy sortal typology.
But can we follow the representational approach (that is, a representational
approach in the first sense) and treat language and culture as simply carving the
world at its joints?2 In the 1960s, the philosopher W.V.O. Quine (1960) argued
that linguistic reference is inscrutable, that words and other linguistic and cul-
tural forms do not—in fact, cannot—be anchored in a pre-existing ontology.
Quine instead assumed a flat, austere ontology in which the objects of reference
were projected from languages, not languages from ontologies. To echo a famous
thought experiment in his Word and Object, imagine a linguist in a forest mak-
ing contact with an individual who speaks only a language that the linguist does
not; the linguist has no intermediaries, no translation manuals such as bilingual
dictionaries, and no interpreter. During their interaction, a rabbit darts by, and
the linguist’s interlocutor points to it and says “gavagai.” The linguist makes a
mental note of it as gavagai = rabbit. But, Quine observers, the linguist’s equiva-
lence, gavagai = rabbit, is not warranted by the stimulus. For example, it might
242 Bruce Mannheim

be a guess on the part of the linguist’s interlocutor, as rabbits had been seen in
the area; it might be rather “animal,” its color, “rabbit flies,” “it runs,” “undetached
rabbit parts,” “rabbit in a 10-second slice of time,” and so forth. Here Quine sug-
gests that the linguist’s translation of “rabbit” as an integral whole is a product of
the obligatory grammatical categories of English (in the Boasian sense; Jakobson
1959; Whorf 1945) rather than something that is given a priori, and thus that a
calibration of gavagai = rabbit depends on the prior translational calibration of
grammatical categories such as definiteness, number, and person (see Silverstein
2003a). Calibration maintains, rather than sutures, ontological differences (Cas-
tro 2004: 20). Radical translation is thus “epistemolophobic” (to echo a coinage
by the master Indo-Europeanist Antoine Meillet [Saussure 1894]).3
Not only is reference indeterminate on the basis of individual stimuli; so too
is ontology projected onto the world by the structures of the languages and the
linguistic practices of the speakers. For Quine, radical translation entailed an
equally radical ontological relativity (Quine 1968). But in the half-century since
the publication of Quine’s influential book, Word and Object (which directly
or indirectly shaped analytical philosophy through the remainder of the twen-
tieth century and the first decades of the twenty-first), substantial research in
cognitive psychology and in linguistic anthropology falsified some of Quine’s
examples, and placed the principle of ontic projection (my term for Quine’s prin-
ciple that entities are projected from the grammatical categories of languages)
in a much more complex setting than Quine suggested. In my recent article, All
Translation Is Radical Translation (2015b), I proposed reimagining Quine’s radi-
cal translation through three more recent research programs (and their conse-
quent findings) and showed how doing so allowed us to investigate the social and
historical complexities of Quechua word meaning in ways that more traditional
ways of translating Quechua word meanings and concepts—Inka, colonial, and
contemporary—could not. The three programs ask us to reimagine the relation-
ships between word and object—and among social practices in ways that efface
the distinctions between culture and the material world, between the universal
and the language-specific, and between language and other social practices.
For example, the individuation of objects such as rabbits is accomplished by
mental structures that psychologist Susan Carey (2009, chap. 3) calls core cogni-
tion, “highly structured innate mechanisms designed to build representations
with specific content” in the case of individuation identifiable in very young
infants, younger than a year old, with converging evidence provided by numer-
ous other researchers.4 Their reliance on spatiotemporal features to individuate

objects effectively rules out translations such as “undetached rabbit parts” or
“rabbit in a particular slice of time.”5 Notice, however, that core cognition con-
strains, but does not specify, a denotational set of ontological categories. Indeed,
while Quine’s gavagai example is absolutely falsified by Carey’s findings, there
are features of the Quinean framework that are compatible with core cognition.
Core cognition retains Quine’s a priori ontological austerity (the world does not
contain a priori entities that are merely named); and its ontological projection
(“entification begins at arm’s length”), although grammatical categories do not
have the exclusive (or perhaps any) role in projecting ontological categories;
and within the limits of core cognition, ontological relativity.
The development of concepts for kinds (dogs, llamas, gold, chairs, chicha
de jora) produces a similar picture (Gelman and Coley 1991; Gelman 2003;
Mannheim and Gelman 2013). In a traditional, representational framework, the
world was populated with entities, and concepts built up by observing simi-
larities among the entities. In contrast, cognitive psychologists have adduced
evidence that concepts emerge from a more general and broad knowledge that
people have about the world—that concepts are embedded in overarching theo-
ries (for example, Gelman and Williams 1998; Gopnik and Wellman 1994; Keil
1991; Murphy and Medin 1985; Simons and Keil 1995; Wellman and Gelman
1998). These tacit theories establish ontologies, causal relationships, and unob-
servable entities specific to domains. From this point of view, the early acqui-
sition of concepts is not strictly perceptual in origin but is related to broader
ontological configurations (for example, a distinction between animate and in-
animate entities) and expectations regarding the causal laws of which the con-
cepts are part (for example, a dog is initially classified as a living being, an agent
capable of autonomous movement). The tacit theories that scaffold concept for-
mation are specific to domains (psychology, biology, physics, and so forth), and
have domain-specific object-ontologies built into them, and these are in turn
attributed to the kinds subsumed by them. (Kinds are routinely subsumed un-
der multiple domains.) Yet there is cross-linguistic and cross-cultural variability
in the recruitment of concepts to domains (in Quechua, both mountains and
rock are frequently treated as living kinds, whereas in English neither is) and
in the causal structures assigned to domains. For both Quechua and English-
speaking adults, as we’ll see later, properties of artifacts are normally explained
in terms of human-directed teleology; however, Quechua adults commonly ex-
plain the properties of living kinds by appealing to an inevitable natural order
to the animal world, whereas U.S. adults had more of a “design” perspective on
244 Bruce Mannheim

biological features, constructing explanations of animal features as if they were
artifacts (Sánchez Tapia et al. 2016). These findings upset the usual perspective
baked into much recent anthropological work on ontology (for example, Desc-
ola 2005: chap. 8), which take for granted that we understand how ontology
works for Europeans and for Euro-Americans—in which we are naturalists and
understand other people from a naturalist ground. Sánchez Tapia et al. (2016)
identify southern Quechua speakers—primarily monolinguals—as naturalists,
and we are something that’s entirely distinct (and falls off of Descola’s typology
of ontological regimes), artifactualists.
Like core cognition, domain-specific theory constrains but does not specify
concepts and ontology. (Indeed, as analytic frameworks, core cognition and
domain-specific theory may well be fully continuous.) Assignment of entities
to domains can vary culturally, and the causal structures vary both culturally
and developmentally. Key aspects of “radical translation” are retained in the two
cognitive frameworks, particularly what I will call “ontic projection”—that is,
that the objects of denotational relationships are not a priori but are projected
from encompassing cognitive structures.
Finally, concepts are also embedded in assemblages of indexical relation-
ships that connect them to each other (through “collateral acquaintance” [Par-
mentier 2016: 34, after Peirce; Benveniste 1954), to material qualia (Gal 2015,
Keane 2006, Harkness 2015, and Lemon 2013),6 and that embed them in con-
crete social practices (Hanks 1992; Irvine and Gal 2000; Severi 2015; Silver-
stein 1976, 2003b, 2016). These indexical linkages connect the expressions to
verbal and behavioral contexts and imbue them with cultural and social value.
While anthropologists, linguists, and philosophers have emphasized the role
of indexicality in embedding signs in concrete social practices and to material
qualia, indexes of collateral acquaintance, binding signs to the contexts of their
occurrence—often arrayed in complex, interlacing networks—are critically im-
portant as well. Consider some simple examples: The scarlet gentian, phallcha
in Quechua, is a critical element of animal increase rituals in southern Peru,
so much so that one of the recurrent occasions for such rituals—Carnaval—is
often called “phallcha,” and the word is used as a synecdoche for the ritual as a
whole. So it is not surprising to find it used as an epithet for the Virgin Mary in a
seventeenth-century Quechua hymn praising her for her fecundity (Mannheim
1998b). For the Inkas, worked stone frequently indexed water sources (Cum-
mins and Mannheim 2011: 14; Dean 2010: 32). Similarly, the Quechua vocabu-
lary of twists and turns, along with words for physical deformities, is bound into

an indexical network by glottalization (and likely by retraction of the tongue
root), the phonetic feature rhematizing or iconizing the network of mutually
interinanimating meanings (Mannheim 1991: 192–193). The key here is that the
individual signs themselves are not loaded with rich symbolic meanings to be
unpacked through an anthropologist’s free associations; rather, the indexical
relationships among the signs constrain their individual meanings. As with the
two cognitive frameworks, it is the whole that constrains the meanings of the
parts, not the other way around—constrains not determines.
At this point in the argument, there are five major take-aways:
1. Ontology—what there is in the world, and the relationships among

things in the world—is constrained cognitively and sociohistorically.
2. Two popular approaches to materiality are ruled out: A precultural ontol-
ogy that is appropriated culturally; a material world with unspecified
affordances that are hooked into by individuals. (The language of af-
fordances is methodologically nonce unless they are specified along the
lines of the three frameworks discussed earlier; see Davidson 1984: 195.)
3. The objects of study are material social practices rather than represen-
tations of the practices, such as beliefs or cosmologies. Beliefs and
cosmologies inhere in a distinct, metacognitive linguistic register,
which has semantic and social properties of its own. Anthropologists
working within a representational framework often confuse con-
cepts (which may or may not be accessible to conscious awareness)
with metalinguistic beliefs (Gal 2015: 232–233), assuming (falsely)
that people normatively act by virtue of consciously aware beliefs
and intentions. And while it is often suggested that metacognitive
representations—“explicit, reportable representations of ‘who knows’”
(Heyes 2016: 214), such as explicit beliefs and cosmologies—are ab-
solutely essential for human social learning, this is clearly false, both
developmentally and comparatively. Metacognitive representations—
explicitly expressible through language—are unevenly distributed
across domains of social practice and among societies (Nuckolls and
Swanson 2018; Proust and Fortier 2018). For southern Quechuas—as
is likely for their Inka ancestors—there are no public institutions
through which a coordinated cosmology can be established, in con-
trast to—for example—the pre-Columbian societies of Mesoamerica.
(See Mannheim 1986 and 2015d.)
246 Bruce Mannheim

4. The distinct structures discussed here, up to this point and in the
remainder of this chapter—core cognition; concepts-and-theories;
bundled indexicalities; lexical concepts; generics; frame-of-reference;
settlement patterns; mortuary practices; social organization—each
have their own organizational principles, orthogonal to the other
structures at the same time as they interact. Interaction between, for
example, biocognitive systems and historically grounded, structured
material practices neither requires nor permits the one to be reduced
to the other,7 Rather, the interconnections are mutually constraining.
As a methodological strategy, this means that they need be approached
consiliently; evidence from distinct disciplines converge to account for
distinct aspects of the fields of interaction. A consilient approach, one
that brings the methods and evidence of distinct disciplines to bear on
a single object, requires a particular ethic of terminology; one must not
do terminological violence to analyses from other disciplines. As a re-
sult, the reader will occasionally encounter technical terms from other
disciplines—for instance, egocentric, ancestor, concept, domain—that
seem familiar but are being used in the sense of the other discipline.
5. While in the structure-and-practice discussions of the late 1970s and
the 1980s, it was commonplace to imagine “structure” as a unified
template for practice—and to criticize it as such,8 here I use “struc-
ture” and “structures” for any organized domain, be they cognitive or
material, individual or interactional, social organizational or capil-
lary, embedded in practices—with no scalarity claims whatsoever.
Structured externalities (“cultural logic” [Enfield 2000]; “replicators”
[Urban 1996, 2017; Mannheim 2014]) configure the input to develop-
ing neurocognitive structures, for example, song couplets configuring
the relationships among lexical concepts, which are also configured
through material installations (below, “Properties of the world”);
gesture, movement through space, settlement pattern, and other
structured practices configuring frame of reference (below, “Frame of
reference”); and generic syntactic expressions circumscribing input
to natural kind concepts (Cimpian and Markman 2009; Gelman et al.
1998; Goldin-Meadow et al. 2005; Leslie 2008).9
My primary interest is understanding Andean social, cultural, and linguistic

forms from the Late Intermediate period (LIP) up to the present, centered

on the Inka. The extension backward to the Late Intermediate period recog-
nizes that, culturally and organizationally, there is no sharp boundary from
the LIP to the Inka Horizon. An extension forward recognizes that despite
organizational changes among Quechua speakers since the European invasion
in 1532, there are substantial continuities cognitively and linguistically, and
these maintain significant organizational and material practices in place, albeit
unevenly. Geographically, there are substantial discontinuities between Pacific
coast societies attested archaeologically and those of the central highlands of
Peru and Bolivia.10 The commonplace of treating the highlands and the coast
of the modern Andean republics as a single unit across which easy generaliza-
tions can be made, set in stone in Julian Steward’s typologies of native South
American peoples (Steward 1946; Steward and Faron 1959), has always had
more purchase as a way of organizing academic research than it had empiri-
cally. At the same time, it is important to recognize that discontinuities are the
very stuff of comparison. The fields of interaction can be set into a comparative
framework that reaches out toward other native South American societies by
means of relational typology, with the goal of identifying compatibilities and
incompatibilities among social institutions and practices, following a tradi-
tion of relational comparison that goes back to the linguist N. S. Trubetzkoy
(1939) and the social anthropologist Lévi-Strauss (1949; see also Mannheim
et al. 2018: 224–225). In a relational typology, relations of compatibility or in-
compatibility between structures or institutions define a space within which
one can get cross-cultural variability. A relationship can be falsified by the
existence of structures that are hypothesized to be impossible. In a canonical
typology, such as Weberian ideal types or the stadial typologies of societies that
were popular in the archaeology of the 1960s, there are no such implications.
A structure that falls outside of the predicted range of variation is simply an
outlier to the canonical types.
Three Relational Fields of Interaction
Drawing on evidence—ethnographic, grammatical, cognitive, and visual—

from the central Andes (and principally from southern Quechua language and
society), I discuss three sets of ontological phenomena: properties of the world;
spatial orientation; and causal structures within conceptual domains. Each field
defines a range of material and social practices that is compatible with Inka
practices, some linguistic, some social, and some material: exchange, settlement
248 Bruce Mannheim

patterns, engineering, mortuary practices, visual design, textual structures.
Within each case there is a range of interrelated practices that makes it fruitful
to consider them together, and there are interrelationships among the sets.
Properties of the World

“Properties of the world” is the most commonplace sense of “ontology.” These
can include such commonplaces as that maki refers to hand and arm without
distinguishing between them, that a pencil has an uma (“head”) and a siki (“ass
and loins”); that rocks and mountains have insides in which beings can dwell;
that named places are social beings; that a lake and the ocean are the same kind
of object; that the same verb is used for a liquid leaving the body, regardless of
whether it is urine, the blood from a wound, menstrual blood, or feces; but also
more complex ones, such as that artifacts are frequently named with verbs for
the activity that one does with them regardless of form, so tiyana is a place to
be, whether it is a chair, a stool, a bench, or a rock; that textiles have mouths,
and mountains have portals. Properties attributed to everyday objects also vary
culturally: one does not herd animals, one follows them. Similarly, an irrigation
canal does not carry water; it rather guides (pusay) it. The objects “in the world”
for Quechua speakers11—and “in the world” for their Inka ancestors—are not the
same objects as for Spanish speakers or English speakers. This is not a matter of
“symbolic richness” or of “figurative language”—this is truly the world. While one
might be tempted to describe these piecemeal, as idiosyncratic word meanings,
it is important to recognize that each of them is a part of a ontological-semantic
assemblage, and an analysis, be it ethnographic, historical, archaeological, or lin-
guistic, requires attention to the constellation of practices within which it occurs.
The relationships among kinds of things—objects and actions—vary cultur-
ally. In southern Quechua, conceptually related objects and events are taken up
in semantic couplets, pervasive in huaynos (and so heard in many everyday set-
tings; Mannheim 1998a), but also in ritual song (Mannheim 2015c, drawing on
Guaman Poma’s description of a rite in Inka Cuzco). For example, in a huayno
from the 1960s, Urpischallay, the singer asks:
Maytaq chay munakusqayki

Maytaq chay wayllukusqayki
But where is your desire (munakusqa)?
But where is your affection (wayllukusqa)?
And then asserts,

Mayullawaqchá aparachiwanki
Qaqallawaqchá ñit’irachiwank
Perhaps you’ve had river (mayu) carry me off
Perhaps you’ve had rock (qaqa) crush me
The huayno lyrics are organized by semantic parallelism, in which the lines
are organized in pairs with identical grammatical morphology and lexical stems
that “rhyme” semantically. In the first couplet, the verb munay, “to want” is
paired with the verb waylluy, “to care for, with shows of affection.” These are a
semantic minimal pair in Quechua—they are as closely related to each other
semantically as two words can be, with no third value coming between them (so
there is no verb for “slightly affectionate,” for example). But what do we make of
the second couplet, in which “river” (mayu) pairs with “rock” (qaqa)? These two
are a conceptual minimal pair, and the stem qaqa (rock as a substance) in turn
is paired with rumi “individuated stone.” The river/rock couplet is common in
Quechua song, and its patterning is no different from that of more transparent
couplets such as the munay “want” / waylluy “to care for with shows of affec-
tion.” These couplets entail specific ontic relationships among the objects that
they refer to, and so project them into the Quechua world.
Thus, famously, in Machu Picchu, living rock is carved in tapers, crossing
agricultural terraces, so as to appear to flow across the mountainside as a rush-
ing river would, a river of living rock flowing toward the Urubamba River below
(Cummins and Mannheim 2011: 8–12). Similarly, stepped fret designs around
portals carved into living rock, which can be activated either by water flowing
through them or by water being poured on them—a motif found at multiple
Inka sites—are not figurations of water, but are indexes (actually metaindexes)
that signal the ontic bind between mayu and qaqa as substances. The relation-
ship between qaqa as a substance and rumi as individuated stone is replicated
elsewhere in the Quechua lexicon, for example, by rit’i as frozen water—ice or
snow—and chullunku as individuated chunks of glacial ice or even ice cubes, or
(historically) unu—water as a substance—and yaku—water flowing in a natural
or artifactual channel, as, for example, irrigation water.
Similarly, social ontology—what there is in the social world, and the re-
lationships that persons of distinct kinds have to each other—are grounded
in song and narrative, below the threshold of awareness (Mannheim 2015a).
Three mechanisms—semantic presupposition (Chierchia and McConnell-Gi-
net 1990: 280; Karttunen 1974),12 implicature (Grice 1975; Sperber and Wilson
250 Bruce Mannheim

1986), and interactional lamination (Irvine 1996; Mannheim 2015a) are built
into practices in such a way as to interpret an utterance, even nonconsciously,
that requires one to acquiesce in the ontic commitments entailed by the ut-
terance, including (or perhaps especially including) social commitments).
Merely listening to the opening quatrain of a popular huayno—a highland
song genre (discussed in Mannheim 2015a)—entails acquiescing in the power
of a state that can imprison a bird arbitrarily for doing what comes naturally
to it, much as it can impress a youth into military service by picking him up
as he walks home from his field.
Chuchiku Lima-pi-ña-s prisu

thrush Lima-in-already-reportive prisoner
It is said that the thrush is already imprisoned in Lima
Chuchiku Lima-pi-ña-s prisu
thrush Lima-in-already-reportive prisoner
It is said that the thrush is already imprisoned in Lima
Hawas-pa t’ika-cha-n palla-ri-sqa-n-manta, chuchiku
Favas-of flower-diminutive-it’s gather-begin-past participle-it’s-about
thrush
For gathering fava flowers, thrush
Hawas-pa t’ika-cha-n wis.i-ru-sqa-n-manta, chuchiku
Favas-of flower-diminutive-it’s spill-purposefully-past participle-it’s-about
thrush
For spilling fava flowers, thrush
Similarly, a small detail in a narrative about an old man who is thrown out of
a wedding party gives it verisimilitude. The wedding party takes place in a city
that is flooded by the old man. A caring woman follows the old man out of the
city, but when she disobeys his instruction not to look back she is turned to
stone. The stone is today an index of the verisimilitude of the story (Allen 2011:
214–215; the story is discussed in Mannheim and Van Vleet 1998).
Listening to a song might entail acquiescing to the arbitrary power of the
state or to a narrative that a rock is the trace of a narrative protagonist, acqui-
escences that are inescapable, and—like other social processes that unfold in
the small spaces of everyday life—habitual (Canessa 2012). In all these cases,
public material practices—song, or carving live rock to resemble water flow-
ing down a hillside—entail specific ontic commitments on the part of their
users.

Frame of Reference
Frame of reference is a cognitive/linguistic system that partitions space and lo-

cates people within space, by a single set of principles that coordinates cognition,
language, and physical movement. There is substantial comparative research
(for example, Danziger [2010]; Haviland [1998]; Levinson [2003]; Levinson and
Wilkins [2006]; Majid et al. [2004])—largely experimental—that shows vari-
ability among languages, constrained within narrow typological parameters.
The frame of reference system constrains the semantics of grammar, gestures,
the relationship of behaviors to the immediate topography, movement through
the landscape, and such large-scale matters as engineering (constructed rela-
tionally rather than on a grid), and settlement pattern. Inasmuch as the frame
of reference is habitual, structured, and nonconscious, the physical relationships
within a specific frame of reference appear to speakers to be features of the world
rather than features of the culture.
Frame of reference systems identify an object as a figure against a ground,
the linkage established by an anchor (Danziger 2010; Levinson 2003). Here’s the
point at which it becomes linguistic. If the anchor is a participant in the speech
situation, such as the speaker or the addressee, the frame of reference is egocen-
tric. If the anchor is not part of the speech situation—say it is a place, or a llama,
or a cardinal direction—then the frame of reference is allocentric. The distinc-
tion between “egocentric” and “allocentric” is well established in neuroscience,
cognitive psychology, art history, and linguistic anthropology, with senses that
overlap. Neither makes the moral claims that might be suggested by lay uses of
“egocentric.”
Egocentric frame of reference is anchored in the “I”s and “you”s; allocen-
tric frame of reference is anchored elsewhere, for example, in a feature of the
landscape or in the relationship between two objects. Within these two types,
the anchor can be identified with the ground or not. If an egocentric anchor is
part of ground, the frame of reference is direct egocentric (essentially the case in
English or in Spanish); if it is not part of the ground, it is relative or relational
deictic (a common—but not the only—system in Mesoamerica). Similarly, if
an allocentric anchor is part of the ground, it is intrinsic or object-centered. If
it is not part of the ground, it is absolute. In living populations, each of these
distinctions can be identified through experiments using nonlinguistic stimuli.
Comparative research has identified additional frame of reference schemes that
build on these and circumstances that afford a shift from one frame of reference
252 Bruce Mannheim

to another (for example, whether the participants are in an enclosed space), but
for the purposes of our discussion the basic typology will suffice.13
Although frame of reference is technically established by means of experi-
ment, and defined by means of language, the dominant frame of reference spills
out into all fields of endeavor, including interactions with the natural and built
environments (compare Alberti and Laguens, this volume). While the gold
standard for identifying frame of reference is experimental, which means that
it can be done only with living populations, the material signatures of an allo-
centric absolute system are clear enough that it should be possible to read the
frame of reference back from settlement pattern and other aspects of material
culture for archaeologically attested peoples. No population has a single frame
of reference. Rather, each seems to have a basic frame of reference that under-
girds a range of social practices—from grammar to settlement pattern—with
additional strategies available for specialized situations.
Up to now, little work has been carried out among native South Americans.
Meira (2006: 350) identified Tiriyó (Carib) as primarily absolute and object-
centered—that is, allocentric; Rybka (2016) identified two allocentric frames
of reference as primary in Lokono, an Arawakan language of Guiana, and sug-
gested that “relative” (egocentric) frames of references had few grammatical
affordances; Shapero (2014, 2017a, 2017b), working with Ancash Quechua ag-
riculturalists and pastoralists in Huaraz (which is a good experimental proxy
for the southern Quechua/Inka pattern), observed a basic absolute (allocentric)
pattern. According to Shapero (2017a), pastoralists showed a stronger absolute
allocentric bias than agriculturalists, regardless of exposure to Spanish (which
is primarily egocentric). For Ancash Quechua speakers, the allocentric abso-
lute frame of reference means that that spatial orientation is established with
reference to external, physical objects (which can be mobile, such as a cow, or
fixed, such as a particular mountain). In all of these cases, the primary frames
of reference were overlain with a geocentric frame, one in which people moved
through the landscape by means of named, and singular, places.
Frame of reference is a critical lynchpin of Andean ontology, one that has im-
plications across multiple fields of practice, including personhood (Mannheim
et al. 2018), local-level social organization, settlement pattern, landscape and
movement through landscape (Kosiba 2015a), political organization, exchange
and redistribution, and mortuary practices. For example, a lineage structure—
and by extension, a system of ancestor veneration—is built up by projecting an
apical ancestor from an ego, and requires an egocentric frame of reference. That

Quechua speakers use an allocentric frame of reference would predict that there
are no lineages as such, but that inheritance is established through much shal-
lower social configurations, and consequently predict the absence of systems
of ancestor veneration.14 Indeed, although scholars have suggested that both
existed in the Inka state, there arguably is no clear archaeological evidence of
either one. The earliest historical evidence is similar. A striking feature of early
colonial documents (pre-1580 or so)15 claiming royal descent is that they con-
form to a residence-based house model—rather than a lineage, with no identi-
fied ancestor further than three generations removed from the claimant. The
Inka “royal dynasty” is a single, marked exception, but the historiography of the
royal dynasty is far more complex than a simple king list would suggest (Covey
2006; Ramírez 2006; Yaya McKenzie 2012; Zuidema 1964). The order of royal
names in pre-1580 Spanish sources may have been signaling social hierarchy
rather than chronology (Yaya McKenzie 2011: 49ff; indeed, in the case of Diez
de Betanzos 2015 (1551), within a single elite house, House Qhapaq).
Sources from the earliest period after Spanish control of Peru generally show
the shallow inheritance structure that is characteristic of residence-based kin-
ship systems (“house societies” or “sociétés à maison”; Yaya McKenzie 2012:
33–34),16 and consistent with an allocentric frame of reference, as the social
unit is constituted externally to an ego and identified with a physical place.
Individuals are recruited to the “house,” potentially by multiple mechanisms—
“house” in this case referring to an actual house structure or to a patio group.
People move through the social unit—self-identified with the place, and are
buried in the place (in the Late Intermediate period and in the Inka Horizon,
often in house burials but also in localized aboveground tombs [Kosiba 2015b]
and in mortuary structures built into the side of a tutelary mountain [Velasco
2018; Wernke 2013: 140–143]). The Inka ruler himself was the very embodiment
of place. His title—and perhaps name—was Cuzco (Ramírez 2005: chap. 2). In
short, I would suggest that, consistent with an allocentric frame of reference, the
Inkas were a société à maison, as indeed are their contemporary descendents.
Frame of reference also plays a critical (external) role in Inka and contem-
porary Quechua principles of semiotic interpretation. The visual and literary art
of the early colonial period (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) are divided
between literary and visual forms that functioned by means of allocentric prin-
ciples, forms that functioned by means of egocentric principles, and composites
that could be interpreted through both systems, each one accounting for many,
but not all, the properties of the object (Mannheim 1998b, 2019b chap. 9). Span-
254 Bruce Mannheim

iards introduced visual forms—for example, two-dimensional paintings, even
paintings by Native Andean artists—that required an egocentric frame of refer-
ence to be interpretable, using a mix of perspective and other compositional
techniques, such as color and spatial hierarchy to construct a two-dimensional
system of representational art to contest the primarily (although not exclu-
sively) geometric forms used by Native Andeans.
In contrast, Native Andean visual and literary forms used several strategies
to build the interpretation into the object itself. For example, the Warikza arawi
song text in Guaman Poma has a synecdoche of the whole within the song text
itself in the form of two interspersed couplets in Quechua (Mannheim 2015c);
the Dumbarton Oaks tunic has multiple representations of a tunic, perhaps of
the tunic itself, woven into it; Inka khipus have summary strings that interpret
the data coded into it (Urton 2010: 65), similarly building the interpretation into
the object itself. Other objects repeat structural relationships in nested hierar-
chies, a common strategy followed in southern Quechua textiles, a strategy of
involution, in which a single relationship or figure is replicated at several levels
of scale (compare Spence-Morrow and Swenson, this volume). A similar strat-
egy of structural involution is followed in the internal structure of the system of
the radial ziqi (ceque) lines that connect named sacred places to the landscape
surrounding Inka Cuzco (Zuidema 1964). A third strategy was to use a smaller
scale object to signal the presence the proximity of an object organized by the
same principles, as, for example, the Sayhuite stone east of Abancay (and other
so-called maquetas of settlements), in which the parts of a settlement, including
houses organized around patios and irrigation canals, are carved into the stone.
These strategies constructed a world of objects and forms that were self-inter-
preting—an introversive semiosis (Allen 1997, 1998; Mannheim 2019b: chap. 9;
Molinié 2012; Smith 2010, 2016; and La Mattina and Sayre, this volume). The ef-
fect on the viewer—the social subject—was to be pushed away from the object,
which could live an interpretative life of its own perfectly well without a view-
ing subject. The key distinction here is that extroversive semiosis establishes a
direct relationship with the interpreter as an embodied social subject, precisely
in the way that egocentric frames of reference do. In contrast, Inka introversive
semiosis achieved semiotic closure object-to-object, just as allocentric frames
of reference do. Although the Inkas did indeed use representational forms, they
did so exclusively in portable, three-dimensional objects such as drinking ves-
sels and miniatures (see Allen 1997, 1998; Cummins 2002).
In an allocentric world, the space of social action is delineated by objects

and places; it would be easy to think of speakers who establish frames of refer-
ence using allocentric strategies as “animists” but for the fact that frame-of-
reference analysis precisely delimits the mechanisms and scope of allocentric
frame of reference in a way that a theory of animism does not. In addition,
while animism is normally attributed to people on an ad hoc, case-by-case ba-
sis, a specific frame of reference (or a skein of related frames of reference) can
be identified in living communities through formal experimental methods. A
strategy for extending frame of reference to prehistory is to identify the social
and material entailments of a specific frame of reference (as I have sketched
above) in specific material assemblages.
Causal Structures
Cognitive psychologists have adduced evidence that concepts emerge from a
more general and broader knowledge that people have about the world. More-
over, they are not atomistic “building blocks” of thought (Keane 2006); rather,
from the very beginning they are embedded in overarching theories (for exam-
ple, Gelman and Williams 1998; Gopnik and Wellman 1994; Keil 1991; Murphy
and Medin 1985; Simons and Keil 1995; Wellman and Gelman 1998). These tacit
theories, or domains, establish ontologies (in the first sense in this chapter; that
is, “what there is” in the world), causal relationships, and unobservable enti-
ties specific to the domains. From this point of view, the early acquisition of
concepts is not strictly perceptual in origin but is related to broader ontological
configurations (for example, a distinction between animate and inanimate en-
tities) and to expectations regarding the causal laws of which the concepts are
part (for example, a dog is initially classified as a living being, an agent capable
of autonomous movement). The tacit theories that scaffold concept formation
are specific to domains (psychology, biology, physics, and so forth), and have
domain-specific object-ontologies built into them, and these are in turn attrib-
uted to the kinds subsumed by them. (Kinds are routinely subsumed under
multiple domains.) Central to this account are two observations: that there is a
disjunction between appearances and underlying realities, the underlying reali-
ties bound to an ontological configuration (the “domain”), so that the construal
of an underlying reality is domain-specific; and that kinds have underlying psy-
chological essences (Gelman 2003).
While the same domains are found across cultures, there is cross-linguistic
and cross-cultural variability in the recruitment of concepts to domains. For
example, in Quechua, both mountains and rock are frequently treated as liv-
256 Bruce Mannheim

ing kinds, whereas in English neither is (see “Properties of the World,” above).
Linguistic and social factors, such as syntactic generics (Mannheim et al. 2011)
and other grammatical affordances identify concepts as kinds and assign them
to domains.
Distinct domains may have distinct causal structures assigned to them. An
English-speaking adult might explain a zebra’s stripes as allowing it “to get away
from predators” (Sánchez Tapia et al. 2016: app. S4), assigning a teleological
causal structure to the concept in which the morphology of the neck benefits
the animal itself. Conversely, for both Quechua- and English-speaking adults,
properties of artifacts are normally explained in terms of human-directed tele-
ology of design: clocks are for telling time, a tiyana is for sitting. These findings
generalize to the domains of “living kinds” and “artifacts,” respectively.
For living kinds however, Quechua adults commonly explain their prop-
erties by appealing to an inevitable natural order to the animal world (frogs
catch flies because “that’s the way they are”), whereas U.S. adults had more
of a “design” perspective on biological features, constructing explanations of
animal features in an artifactualist mode (Gelman et al. 2015; Sánchez Tapia
et al. 2016: 754; compare Muro, Castillo, and Tomasto-Caggigao, this volume).
Within Descola’s four-fold typology of ontological regimes—naturalism, ani-
mism, totemism, and analogism, then—Quechua adults tend toward naturalism
with respect to living kinds, and U.S. adults toward something that falls outside
of this scheme—artifactualism, the cross-cultural variability in domain member-
ship notwithstanding. Languages and societies differ in the causal structures that
they assign to conceptual domains, differences that can be detected both devel-
opmentally and comparatively. What implications do these differences play out
in interactions between humans and living kinds in the two societies? What are
the externalities, linguistic and cultural, that give shape to these differences?
These questions can be answered only through a combination of experimental
research with immersive ethnography.
Conclusions
In this chapter, I have proposed a set of ontological foundations for Inka ar-
chaeology, constrained on the one hand by independently attested cognitive
processes, and on the other by local, culturally specific indexicalities, through
which Quechua speakers—like their Inka ancestors—commit themselves to it,
below the threshold of awareness, and I have traced them through three fields

of interaction. Each field of interaction integrates different kinds of evidence—
cognitive, linguistic, social, and material—with the goals of identifying compat-
ibilities (and incompatibilities) among them, and of identifying the material
signatures of cognitive, linguistic, and social processes. For each of the fields
of interaction, there are substantial cultural and linguistic continuities between
contemporary Quechua-speaking smallholders and pastoralists and their Inka
ancestors. (Indeed, this chapter might be seen as an extended brief for bringing
the direct historical method more centrally into Inka studies.) For each of these
core ontological fields, I discussed the cognitive principles and social mecha-
nisms through which Andean people project the world they inhabit, tacitly,
through mundane social practices.
Notes
1. The current chapter draws extensively on ideas discussed in three prior publica-
tions, Mannheim (2015 and 2019a) and Sánchez Tapia et al (2016). I am grateful to Linda
J. Seligmann for her comments on an earlier draft.
2. This is essentially the position of Ingold (1993, 2018) who rejects what he calls
“cognitivism” (although, if I understand him correctly, he means “concepts”) in favor
of a noncultural, fully specified field of perceptual objects that offer precognitive and
precultural “affordances.” His version of “cognitivism” is an impoverished version of
contemporary cognitive science.
3. Amira Salmond (2014: 172ff.) discusses the limited, primarily epistemological im-
pact of Quine’s radical translation in anthropology.
4. Notice that Carey’s (2009) use of “representation” here falls into the second sense
of “representation” that I discussed above.
5. In addition to individuation of objects, there is neurological evidence that object
motion allows the visual system to project details from incomplete sensory information
(Chong et al. 2016).
6. Qualia “can be words, gestures, images, demarcations of space, etc., by which people
indicate what they perceive (or misrecognize) to be a material affordance or quality, here
especially qualities considered to express the essence of relationship” (Lemon 2013: 68).
7. For a classic account of the failure of reductionist programs in the social and cogni-
tive sciences, see Fodor (1974).
8. For three excellent entryways into this vast discussion, see Ortner (1984) and Sewell
(1992), and—specifically speaking to archaeologists—Beck et al. (2007).
9. Polemic notwithstanding, an architecture in which structured externalities sup-
ply input to developing conceptual systems is commonplace in studies of language and
cognition, including all parameter-setting models in formal syntax.
10. Compare Villanueva Criales’s discussion of chronological variability on the Boliv-
ian altiplano (this volume).
11. When I use the expression “Quechua speaker” here, I refer to speakers of the
258 Bruce Mannheim

monolingual or the Quechua-dominant bilingual registers of Quechua, not to speak-
ers of the Spanish-regimented “overlay.” For an explanation of these differences, see
Mannheim and Huayhua (2016) and Mannheim (2018). Experimental research by
Margarita Huayhua (2019) shows that the difference between the the monolingual and
Quechua-dominant bilingual registers of Quechua on the one hand and the Spanish-
regimented overlay is observable to speakers of both, below their thresholds of aware-
ness, and is a focus of social discrimination.
12. Levinson (1983: 181–184) and Karttunen (2016), among others, have suggested that
presupposition is not a linguistically uniform mechanism. That does not affect the pro-
posal here.
13. Levinson and his collaborators (Levinson and Wilkins 2006) and Shapero (2017b)
use a closely related three-category typology with similar formal properties. Since both
typologies include a primary split between allocentric and egocentric frames of refer-
ence, the differences between Levinson’s typology and Danziger’s does not materially
affect the argument here.
14. Indeed, in contemporary Southern Quechua communities, it is critical to main-
tain a distance between the living and the dead. While the recent noninfant dead are
buried in individual graves and fed ritually on All Saints Day, their bones are eventually
disinterred and added to an ossuary heap, in which they lack any distinguishable social
identity (Allen 1988, 2015b; Robin Azevedo 2008; Salas 2018).
15. Mannheim (2015c) identifies a “generic fade” in colonial sources on the Inka, in
which references to particular events and practices are replaced with generic statements
about classes of events and practices. This can be traced by comparing the specific lan-
guage used in two or more descriptions of “the same” events.
16. “Société à maison” is a framework for kinship analysis, developed since the late
1970s. See Lévi-Strauss 1974, 1979]; Feeley Harnik (1980): Carsten and Hugh-Jones
(1995); Gillespie (2000); Hamberger (2012).
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pppppppppppppp
10
A Past as a Place
Examining the Archaeological Implications
of the Aymara Pacha Concept in the Bolivian Altiplano
J u a n V i l l a n u e va C r i a l e s
The past is a key element in the construction of narratives for quite evident rea-
sons. The past is constructed from social practices, it is conceptualized within
specific cultural contexts and, according to its ontological status, it may be sub-
ject to interactions that leave material traces. In this chapter, I discuss the topic
of time in the pre-Hispanic high plateau, or altiplano, of today’s Bolivia, from a
concept well established in Andean ontology studies: pacha or time/space. By
the inextricable union of space and time, the pacha concept locates the past in a
place, identifiable and adjacent to the present. If the past is conceptualized as in-
habited by active entities that affect the world of the living, as has been often sug-
gested within the animist Andean ontological framework, relationships with the
past through a matrix of mutual feeding and consumption could be established.
These concepts can be considered common among Andean societies of dif-
ferent places and times. However, as archaeologists we run the risk of falling
into an essentialism if we extrapolate the specific forms of the relationship with
the past from one moment to the other, without considering material changes
in detail. The main argument of this chapter is that the same ontological frame-
work that governs the relationships between the living and the past, allows for
multiple material expressions, specific to ideological and historic moments, to
potentially emerge. The agents that reside in the past, their location, and the
material forms crafted and employed to interact with them, can vary signifi-
cantly between moments and places. To illustrate and reflect on these topics, I
discuss three case studies from the following periods: (1) Middle Horizon (AD
900–1100), (2) the beginnings of the Late Intermediate period (AD 1100–1300),
and (3) the later part of the Late Intermediate period (AD 1300–1450). These
cases come from the Bolivian altiplano, specifically the Titicaca Basin and the
neighboring central plateau.
I start this chapter with a brief theoretical discussion regarding time, includ-
ing a description of the model of Andean space/time, or pacha. Subsequently, I
will describe the three case studies and end with a discussion and some closing
thoughts.
Brief Notes about the Archaeology of Time
This section discusses the ontological status of time in the pre-Hispanic alti-
plano in today’s Bolivia. The theoretical discussions about time in archaeol-
ogy are typically postprocessual, mainly from the beginning of the 1990s, and
problematize the role of time within archeological interpretation from differ-
ent angles. Some authors have criticized the interpretative character of archeo-
logical chronologies (Lucas 2005), or have worked with alternative models of
multilinear change, as antidotes for the unilineal and usually forced approach
toward archeological chronologies (McGlade 1999). Other standpoints advo-
cate for the employment of an experiential concept of time and its socially con-
structed character (Gosden 1994, Thomas 1996). Additionally, some scholars
have discussed the multitemporal nature of the archeological record, frequently
overshadowed by chronological perception (Olivier 2001). In the following, I
explore some of these ideas.
According to Lucas (2005), archaeology is traditionally based on chronolo-
gies, understood as systems for computing dates. This author underlines the
influence of chronological thinking in the interpretation of the past, as it is
represented as a uniform and linear phenomenon. In this sense, historical phe-
nomena tend by analogy to be seen as uniform and linear, supporting major
interpretations or historical narratives, such as evolution (Lucas 2005). Alter-
native approaches to this idea of linear historic change have been explored,
suggesting that historic phenomena occur at different temporal scales. From
the theory of history, some of the first and most important contributions come
from the French school of Annales (Braudel 1980), which recognizes three his-
torical time scales: long, medium, and short, related respectively to very slow
processes such as those related to the environment; to phenomena of social
272 Juan Villanueva Criales

or structural history; and to events and individuals. These notions influenced
archaeology through the work of Knapp (1992), among others.
This chapter considers the issue of time scales, but places a stronger focus on
the inherent characteristics of chronological time. From an anthropology-of-
time perspective, it has been proposed that the omnipresence of time-measuring
devices, such as clocks and calendars, in Western culture, usually leads us to for-
get the social character of time. Indeed, according to Adam (1994), every society,
be it “Western” or “traditional,” constructs time in reference to events, processes,
and social relationships. In other words, the objectification of time, or its trans-
formation into a resource even measurable in monetary terms, is a consequence
of Western industrialization. Such objectification leads us to perceive time as
an entity per se (Adam 1994; Ingold 2000), when in reality it is permanently
constructed by human practices. In the same vein, McGlade (1999) criticizes the
common archaeological assumption of an objectified, static chronological time,
an abstract container for human activities, in which multiple periodicities are
reduced to a date sequence. This author claims there is an approach based on a
social or kairological time linked to human experiences and activities.
Another important aspect discussed by Adam (1994) is that human be-
ings tend to construct their notions of time based on the extension of their
existences, being the idea of temporal transcendence fundamental for any
conceptualization of time. This results in a universal presence of myths and
beliefs concerning the relationship of human beings with life and death. This
also leads to the creation of tools, artifacts, and spaces that allow an extension
of past and future to wider scales of transcendence, such as the seasonal cycle
or a person’s lifespan (Adam 1994). As a consequence, the division between
life and death is blurred, and the dead, modernly conceptualized as part of a
distant past, become present. In this chapter, I emphasize this characteristic
of time: its potential to project vital human experience toward other moments
and places.
All of these aspects consistently point to the idea that the ways to articulate
and represent time are subjected to significant cultural variation (Lucas 2005).
According to Leone (1978), one of the first archaeologists to discuss time, it is
possible to apprehend the different time perceptions of past societies through
the archaeological record. In this respect and in relation to the scale of histori-
cal or ancestral time discussed above, Gosden (1994) suggests that prehistoric
societies always oriented their actions with the past in mind, and that ritualized
actions could have had special properties regarding time management. There-
Archaeological Implications of the Aymara Pacha Concept in the Bolivian Altiplano 273
fore, the identification of places and material assemblages related to ritualistic
activity could be important in order to understand a group’s notion of past. In
a similar vein, Connerton (1989) emphasizes the commemorative practices—
those intentionally dedicated to the collection of past—of past societies, attrib-
uting a central role to ceremonies and material culture.
I synthesize the brief theoretical notes in five points: (1) the notion of time
is constructed from human social practices; (2) ontologies of time vary among
societies; (3) the ontological status of the past relates to the temporal transcen-
dence in relation to human death and the extension of vital limits; (4) ritualized
actions and their related spaces and objects are important to trace conceptions
of time and past, due to their commemorative character; and (5) a given mo-
ment in the past can be a palimpsest composed of various elements that proceed
from different temporalities. Hereinafter, I will focus on the Andean altiplano,
using analogical referents that come from ethnography and ethnohistory: the
concept of time/space or pacha, and past time/space conceived as a realm in-
habited by diverse entities.
Pacha and Uywaña: Relating to the Realm of the Past
Significant ethnographic and ethnohistoric work has been devoted to An-

dean concepts like auca, puruma, and tinku (Bouysse-Cassagne and Harris
1987; Cereceda 1987; Harris 1986; Platt 1986). Auca is the differentiation or
precise disjunction between complementary opposites, expressed metaphori-
cally, for example, in the man/woman division. In opposition to auca, puruma
(Bouysse-Cassagne and Harris 1987) is the virginal, “wild,” and liminal, with
connotations of darkness, mixing, lack of differentiation, and diffused con-
tours. Cereceda (1987) also highlights the germinating role of puruma, by as-
similating the concept to the function of the plain part of a textile, pampa or
tayqa (mother). Puruma is associated with deep water, subsoil, and the high-
est summits; in other words, with the social margins, but also with provision
and care. Another important notion is tinku. Following Platt (1986), tinku is
the way to balance momentarily the auca or nonidentical pairs. For Cerceda
(1987), it is more a process or structure than a contact point or instance. I
consider that tinku should be thought not only as a moment/place of union
for both auca halves, but ultimately as a transitional action between the auca
and puruma moments, namely, between the realms of the differentiated and
the nondifferentiated.

The Andean world has in the term pacha a concept that signifies both time
and space, as has been long established by ethnohistory and anthropology
(Bouysse-Cassagne 1986; Bouysse-Cassagne and Harris 1987). Following an
idea similar to that of the school of Annales, I add the possibility of a certain
degree of fractality within the concept of pacha, thus applicable to many spatial
and temporal scales, since it involves the space and time for daily tasks as well
as, for instance, communal territory, annual cycles, and even the times of myth
and history, inscribed in the landscape. The different scales of time and space
share the same substances and principles (Figure 10.1).
On a daily scale, pacha is differentiated between the areas/moments of
auca and puruma. In temporal terms, it is expressed by the day/night divi-
sion. The day is a time of solar light, with marked contrasts and activities
based on age and gender, and spatially differentiated. During the daytime,
puruma is confined to the unworked lands, and to the marginal summits and
depths. In contrast, night time is puruma domain: an obscure or dimly lighted
space—the moon is the presolar light of the chullpas, inhabitants of ancient
times, with blurry surroundings and thus lacking differentiation. Nocturnal
spaces are dominated by dangerous spirits (Speeding 1992), explaining why
rural Andean people tend to avoid going out at night. But even at home, night
is when/where the boundaries of differentiation dilute: during sleep, in the
Figure 10.1. Different scales of the concept of pacha. Source: Juan Villanueva Criales.
oneiric experience, limits are blurry, and the dead spirits use this instance to
communicate with living humans. The encounters, or quotidian tinkus, are
those transitions between day and night; sunrises and sunsets are important
moments for family gatherings (Sillar 2000). In that sense, home can be a
taypi or meeting point.
The seasonal scale of the community requires a more extended, annual
time. The year is divided into dry and rainy seasons that define neatly dif-
ferentiated activities. Dry season is a time for semiautonomous labor of each
domestic unit (Sillar 2000). In contrast, rainy season is the moment of com-
munal endeavors, in which family activities are integrated into the commu-
nity, and it is also the time of agricultural germination promoted by ancestral
entities. During the rainy season, the interaction between the living and the
dead or between present and past becomes fluid. With solar luminosity hid-
den by clouds, rain and thunder communicate in the upper and lower realms.
This season of fusion is conceptually related to puruma, contrasting sharply
with the auca characteristic of the dry season. The tinkus in this scale are rep-
resented by the tinkus or encounters between partialities of the ayllus (Platt
1986), strongly associated with the spaces of the dead or with other sacred
spaces or taypi. These meetings occur in the two annual festivities that sig-
nal interseasonal transition, currently translated in terms of the Gregorian
European calendar as the welcoming of the dead—All Saints—and their fare-
well—Carnival (Sillar 2000). Another result of the wet season at the spatial
level is the establishment of a physical relationship between the altiplano and
Eastern regions such as the Amazon lowlands, understood as the origin of
rainy clouds (Bouysse-Cassagne 2004).
Finally, the cosmogonic scale is the scale of historical time and cosmo-
logical space. A common denominator in the Andean view of history is the
existence of a past of darkness and constant transformation, lacking differ-
entiation: the time of the chullpas or ch’amak pacha, associated with puruma
and preceding the sun itself (Bastien 1996; Bouysse-Cassagne 1988; Bouysse-
Cassagne and Harris 1987; Dransart 2002). In ch’amak pacha, the ancestors
traveled traversing the subsoil, later emerging to the light of differentiation
through their points of origin (Bouysse-Cassagne and Harris 1987). In spatial
terms, this implies a differentiation between the underworld (uku pacha), the
world in the middle (kay pacha), and the upper world (alax pacha). The un-
derworld, dark and nondifferentiated, but with a germinating potential as it
is also the place for seeds and agricultural growth, is puruma, the world of the

ancestors. On the other hand, alax pacha is inhabited by forces of light like
the sun, and is the world of colors and differentiation, of day, light and clear
contrasts.
To inhabit the kay pacha as a living person may be understood as a sus-
pended state between present and past. As such, tinkus at this scale involve the
processes of making and “un-making” a person, although they cannot be simply
equated to birth and death. The Andean person is not born already made up,
but becomes one in a relational and gradual manner (Sillar 2004; see chapter 4
of this volume for a more extensive consideration of Andean life stages). Simi-
larly, a person does not end immediately after death, but undergoes a process of
disintegration of bodily matter and of its various spiritual components or souls,
such as ayaju and q’amasa (Paredes 1920), until becoming and indistinguishable
part of the collective dead (amaya), which are considered in turn as seeds, or
generators of new life (Arnold 2006).
The three-fractal scales of the time/space or pacha concept characterize pu-
ruma as obscure, undefined, and with blurry contours, while at the same time
fertile and with germinating properties. Puruma is associated with the past and
the spirits of the dead, the night, the wet season, the lowlands, and the subsoil.
Puruma, then, does not contain an abstract or purely conceptual past, but a past
that can appear in different instances and places, inhabited by agents that exert
an influence on the present.
An animist ontology that attributes agency to objects and to the landscape,
from which the notion of a flux of vital essence is derived, has been well docu-
mented in the Andean world (Allen 1997; Arnold 2006; Jennings and Bowser
2008; Sillar 2004). Andean sociality is a relational network that involves hu-
mans, landscapes, spirits, animals, and objects (Allen 1997; Crickmay 2002).
Haber (2007) defines uywaña as the concept that governs these relationships
or relationship between relationships. Uywaña describes a substantial recipro-
cal flux, expressed through metaphors of maternal/paternal care and feeding,
which Sillar (2004) calls “mutual consumption,” and implies that social rela-
tionships between humans and nonhumans are expressed frequently through
the sharing of food and drink (Bouysse-Cassagne and Harris 1987; Jennings and
Bowser 2008; Sillar 2000).
Then, if the past as an identifiable phenomenological realm can be conceptu-
alized as an agent or a conglomerate of agents with an effect on the present, so-
cial interactions with such a past will be expressed by mutual feeding. In the fol-
lowing section, I present briefly three case studies from the Bolivian altiplano,
Figure 10.2. Location of the cases discussed in this chapter: (1) Pariti Island; (2) Con-
doramaya; (3) K’amacha and Kusillavi, Carangas. Source: Juan Villanueva Criales.
correspondent to three consecutive chronological phases, in order to illustrate

changes in the ceremonial materiality that could be correlated with changes in
the conceptualization and the relation with the past (Figure 10.2). These three
cases include the Tiwanaku ceramic offerings of Pariti Island, in the southern
area of Lake Titicaca and dated to the Late Middle Horizon (AD 900–1100); the
necropolis of Condoramaya, in the northern part of the central altiplano and
dated to the beginning of the Late Intermediate period (1100–1300 AD); and
the funeral towers, or chullpares, of the central altiplano, which date from the
second half of the Late Intermediate and Inka periods (AD 1300–1500). I will
first describe each case separately, to discuss them later in relation to diachronic
changes in funerary and ceremonial customs.

Pariti Island
Ceramics are often seen as the main markers of Tiwanaku influence, displaying
a sophisticated iconography akin to that carved in the lithic stelae and architec-
tural components of the monumental center, and widely used for commensal-
ist and ceremonial purposes throughout the south-central Andes during the
Middle Horizon (Anderson 2008; Goldstein 2003; Janusek 2005). The pottery
offering of Pariti Island adds more layers of complexity to the Tiwanaku mor-
phologic and iconographic repertoire.
The Bolivian-Finnish archaeological project “Chachapuma” conducted field-
work on Pariti between 2003 and 2006. Excavations documented two deep pits
filled with fragmented pottery, which corresponded to more than 400 Tiwan-
aku semicomplete vessels with diverse shapes and iconographic motifs, dated
by C14 to AD 900–1100 (Korpisaari et al. 2012). There is a tendency to interpret
the offerings of Pariti as the result of a large feasting ceremony, since pots were
intentionally smashed before being deposited in the pits (Korpisaari and Pärss-
inen 2011, Korpisaari et al. 2012), and appeared intermixed with faunal remains
corresponding to dozens of consumed llamas (Callisaya 2005). Moreover, the
set is fundamentally made of ceremonial ceramic shapes (Korpisaari et al. 2012,
Väisänen 2008).
A recent approach to the Pariti ceramic offering analyzed the morphologi-
cal/performative aspects of the ceramics in the commensalism ritual, as well as
their chromatics and iconography (Villanueva and Korpisaari 2013), identifying
four subsets as a result: common ceramics, sculptural ceramics, transitional
ceramics, and funnel-shaped vessels, or ch’alladores. I will compare the com-
mon ceramics and ch’alladores subsets, which display rich painted iconogra-
phies with significant chromatic differences: while common ceramic presents
red slips, they are mainly black or multicolor in the ch’alladores subset.
An analysis of the iconographic contents of the common ceramics subset
shows a very restricted and organized repertoire, with icons such as: (1) radiated
frontal faces with appendixes ending in feline or bird heads; (2) hybrid beings
presenting bird and feline features, usually a profile gray feline with avian head
and wings; (3) gray-colored profile felines, usually interpreted as wildcats or
titis (Alconini 1995, Villanueva 2007); (4) stepped motifs ending in yellow bird
heads, possibly of eagles (paka) or falcons (waman) (Alconini 1995; Villanueva
2016); and (5) human heads in profile. These icons are strongly related to spe-
cific ceramic shapes, and mostly depict steps in an organized transition of feline
Figure 10.3. Decorative motifs in Pariti ceramics. Above: common ceramics. Below: ch’alladores. Source: Juan
Villanueva Criales.
and bird motifs, from full differentiation toward complete fusion (Figure 10.3).
The common ceramic subset maintains strong similarities with ceremonial and
commensalist pottery from other areas of the wider Tiwanaku sphere of influ-
ence, and also with iconography shown in other material supports, such as lithic
sculpture (Agüero et al. 2003) or wooden snuff tablets (Llagostera 2006).
Turning to the ch’alladores subset, the disposition of icons in these ves-
sels is much more clashing and heterogeneous (Figure 10.3); it is practically
impossible to find two ch’alladores sharing the same combination of pictorial
motifs, thus they differ sharply from the previous ceramic subset. Their motifs
are also much more diverse, including: (1) profile heads frequently incorpo-
rated to the feline-man or chachapuma theme; (2) spiral fretwork of various
sizes and colors; (3) an assortment of hybrid animal motifs that incorporate
anatomical parts of animals from highland, lowland, or even unrecognizable
origins; (4) serpents, either with ophidian or feline heads; (5) amphibians, in
some cases with human characteristics; (6) circles with several internal motifs
and geometric motifs; and (7) hands with five, four, or three fingers. Unlike
common ceramics, ch’alladores, especially those displaying such complex ico-
nography, are quite unusual in other Tiwanaku contexts.
A consideration of the moments when these icons were first created or intro-
duced to the Titicaca basin shows great diversity (Villanueva 2015c). The frontal
radiated face or “Staff God” is a typical Middle Horizon theme (Makowski 2002;
Portugal Ortíz 1998), although some earlier examples of Pukara materials from
the northern region by Titicaca have been also identified (Chávez 2004; Young-
Sánchez 2004). Instead, birds, human heads, and profile hybrid beings appear
first in the Late Formative Pukara ceramic and sculptural iconography (circa
200 BC–200 AD) (Chávez 2004), marking a strong departure from the Early/
Middle Formative period sculptural traditions. Feline motifs begin to appear
in the Mocachi substyle from the Pa-Ajanu sculpture of the Middle Formative
period (circa 600–200 BC) (Browman 1997), although they are present after-
ward in the Pukara tradition, and in Late Formative Pukara–influenced styles in
the southern Titicaca basin such as Kalasasaya or Qeya pottery (Bennett 1934;
Wallace 1957), or Late Formative 2 period sculpture (Janusek 2008; Portugal
Ortíz 1998). Toads, serpents, and circles are associated with the sculptural sub-
style Asiruni from the Middle Formative (1997), the most ancient sculpture of
the Titicaca basin. Finally, the hand icon does not have precedents in ceramics
or sculpture from the Titicaca basin, the closest hypothetical reference being
rock art from the Chuquisaca valleys (Ibarra Grasso and Querejazu Lewis 1986,
Figure 10.4. Relationship between the chronological origin of icons and vessel shapes in the afore-
mentioned Pariti ceramic subsets. Source: Juan Villanueva Criales.
Lizárraga-Mehringer 2004), estimated to date from Late Archaic to Early For-

mative times.
Noticeably, the antiquity of these motifs tends to relate to their location on
certain vessel shapes within the Pariti set (Figure 10.4). Later motifs, such as
frontal faces and birds, are present only on the common, red-slipped ceramic
subset. Something similar happens with the motifs of Late Formative origins,
such as hybrid profile characters, heads, and felines, although the last two ap-
pear also, less frequently, on certain painted ch’alladores. The serpent, strongly
related to the Middle Formative, appears especially on the ch’alladores sub-
set—although also on some transitional shapes such as basins and vegetable
skeuomorphs. Toads and circles, originated in the earliest Middle Formative
sculpture, appear exclusively on painted ch’alladores. The same occurs with the

hand motifs, presumably related to Late Archaic to Early Formative rock art
from Western valley areas related to Tiwanaku.
Considering the principle of present as a palimpsest (Olivier 2001), it
seems logical to suggest that those who crafted and used the Pariti vessels
during the Middle Horizon, would have coexisted with material manifesta-
tions—especially sculpture, but also ceramics and rock art, that by then were
already remnants of the past. The integration of such icons in the Pariti ce-
ramic assemblage reflects a reinterpretation of that past in terms of Tiwanaku
ontology and worldview. The time/space or pacha past is represented not only
in the ancient origin of the icons in the ch’alladores, but in the relation of those
icons to the lowlands, the use of black slips that evoke nocturnal contexts or
the underworld, their disorganized, mottled nature, and their hybridization
that suggests a realm of blurry boundaries and darkness.
The role of ch’alladores in the ritual is also radically different from that of
common ceramics. While the common shapes—such as jars, vases, bowls, or
bottles—were probably employed for political commensalism and feasting in-
teraction between humans, the ch’alladores are not morphologically apt for that
kind of ceremonial function. With their perforated bases, they are not strictly
containers, but funnels intentionally designed to allow liquids to flux into the
ground, relating their human users with “the world below.” Apparently then, the
ch’alladores from Pariti are linked with the past not only in terms of narrative
or evocation, but in terms of effective performance. Through the use of these
objects, a social relationship of feeding is established with the spatial realm of
the past.
Condoramaya
The Middle Horizon to Late Intermediate period transition in the Titicaca basin
is commonly seen today as a process of politic disaggregation with population
continuity (Albarracín-Jordán 1996; Janusek 2004), that entails strong changes
in materiality. One of these changes is the abandonment of the lithic cist as the
preferred interment structure, and its replacement by either lithic chambers,
slab tombs, or burial towers in the southern Titicaca region (Janusek 2008; Ko-
rpisaari 2006). However, research in the altiplano south of Tiwanaku shows
increasing evidence of the replacement of Tiwanaku lithic cists with direct un-
derground interments (Patiño and Villanueva 2008; Plaza 2017). One of those
cases is a funerary context documented by “Amaya Uta” Archaeological Project
between 2007 and 2008 in the site of Wayllani-Kuntur Amaya. Although the
site’s most noticeable components are the numerous burial towers, chullpares,
(Sagárnaga 2003), our excavations also found an extensive underground cem-
etery area, with individual flexed burials in simple pits, accompanied by com-
plete ceramic offerings (Patiño Sánchez and Villanueva 2008). The excavated
sample of this necropolis is stratigraphically located over a Tiwanaku lithic cist,
and under Late Horizon Inka and Pacajes-Inka ceramic materials. Those mate-
rials are also found on the site surface, suggesting that feasting associated with
the construction and use of burial towers started later than the underground
interments, possibly at the beginning of the fourteenth century.
Complete vessels associated with the Condoramaya underground burials
correspond to the Pacajes style as defined by Albarracín-Jordán (1996), without
any presence of Inka components. One of the most noticeable changes between

Figure 10.5. Similar relationships of opposition, regarding decorative structure,
between ceramic jars and bowls, and between textile mantles (awayus) and sacks
of the central altiplano. Source: Juan Villanueva Criales.
the Tiwanaku and Late Intermediate periods is the abandonment of the Tiwa-
naku figurative iconography in all material domains (Janusek 2004), including
a sharp reduction of the Tiwanaku wide repertoire of ceramic serving shapes.
In fact, the pottery that accompanies the burials of Condoramaya corresponds
only to three shapes: pots, jars, and bowls. The last two have a red slip and geo-
metrical motifs painted in black or dark brown.
Elsewhere I suggested that the two painted ceramic shapes could have had
separate functions possibly associated with gender divisions during commen-
salist ceremonies (Villanueva 2015a). Their pictorial structures, bipartite in jars
and rather radial in bowls, could imitate some designs seen in ethnographic
textile pieces such as mantles or awayus and sacks (Figure 10.5), which nowa-
days distinguish the serving and transportation of vegetables by women (using
awayus) from the serving of meat by men (using bags) in feasts. Hypothetically,
the inside of the drinking domain bowls and jars would have been conceptual-
ized metaphorically based on similar divisions, given their performative and
iconographic differences.
Excavations in the Condoramaya underground cemetery documented doz-
ens of male, female, and infant burials, and numerous ceramic offerings. Two
main observations can be made regarding their distribution. First, the ceramic
offerings are not accompanying the deceased bodies inside the tombs, showing
a radical departure from the funerary tradition started in the Late Formative
(Machicado 2009) and strongly standardized among the cist burials of the Ti-
wanaku period (Korpisaari 2006). In Condoramaya, vessels are rather placed
in their own small pits, and do not relate spatially to any particular burial, be-
ing randomly distributed (Figure 10.6). Secondly, ceramic offerings are not re-
Figure 10.6. Distribution of ceramic offerings related to burials from the Condoramaya cemetery.
Source: Juan Villanueva Criales.

stricted to any specific shape, presenting rather varied combinations of jars,
pots, and bowls, in different positions. We were not able to detect patterns relat-
ing specific vessel shapes either to burial types or to gender or age categories of
the deceased individuals.
If the ceramic vessels were in fact differentiated conceptually through gender
metaphors in daily or feasting contexts, as suggested by previous research (Sillar
2000; Villanueva 2015a), we would expect a stronger relationship between pots
or jars and female interments, on one side, and between bowls and male inter-
ments on the other. A similar pattern is seen in other grave goods such as pins
(tupus) or spinning wheels, associated more with female burials (in the case
of pins as part of the dress), and boleadoras and hair tweezers, associated with
male burials. The absence of these associations in the realm of ceramic funerary
offerings, suggests that those materials external to burial pits function in quite
a different way than the grave goods placed inside burials.
According to our hypothesis, these offering were not dedicated to a specific
deceased individual, but to the subsoil seen as a space of the dead. This world
would be the uku pacha, the place where the dead are buried but also the an-
cestral time of the puruma. In the underworld, then, both vessels and people
appear to participate in a nondifferentiated realm, where/when individual
limits are dissolved. The ceramics from the Condoramaya cemetery are not
offered to an individual, arguably, because in this world individual persons
would not exist, but instead to the dead (amaya) as a collective. Thus, the use
of the objects in the burial context would imitate a person’s disaggregation
and its integration to other collectives of nonhuman beings.
Chullpares of Carangas
The site of Condoramaya exemplifies the trend of building chullpares frequently

over earlier burials, such as simple pits or cists, throughout the altiplano. Some
research regarding radiocarbon dating of chullpares suggests that their con-
struction began around the thirteenth century AD, increasing their popularity
during the fourteenth century and continuing even during Inka times (Kesseli
and Pärssinen 2005). Thus, burial towers correspond to the second half of the
Late Intermediate period in the central altiplano in a similar way to the neigh-
boring Lípez region (Nielsen 2002).
In this section, I will discuss one of the cases studied by the “Altiplano Cen-
tral” Archaeological Project between 2012 and 2014, whose main goal was to
study: (1) the boundaries used to define archaeological constructions, and (2)
the dynamics of the formation of imagined communities in the Carangas alti-
plano (Villanueva 2015b). Although the project covered four dispersed regions
over the vast Carangas altiplano, studying funerary architecture, residential
sites, and associated ceramics, I will focus my attention on the southwestern
region of Carangas. This area is marked by the presence of two high hills known
as Kamacha and K’usillavi, which dominate the landscape.
The southwest is the most arid region of the Carangas altiplano. It is different
from others because of its limited land for cultivation and lack of big wetlands for
intensive alpaca pastoralism. In this area, the life of people and flocks would de-
pend on water from the streams that flow from both hills during the wet season.
Fortified settlements or pukaras constitute a well-documented settlement pattern
during the Late Intermediate period over most of the altiplano, from northern
Lípez (Nielsen 2002) to the whole Titicaca basin (Arkush 2012; Janusek 2008),
obviously including the central altiplano of Pacajes and Carangas (Gisbert 2001;
Michel 2000; Pärssinen 2005). However, in contrast to northwestern Carangas,
where pukaras extend over lengths of 18 to 20 ha, in the southwest, settlements
are usually open with nearby but much smaller fortified refugees that range from
2 to 4 ha. They are also more numerous and less spread out. In this area we docu-
mented seven settlements, four in Kamacha hill and three in K’usillavi.
Chullpares in this region are located at the base of hill slopes, at about 2 km
from the settlements and concentrated in discrete clusters (Figure 10.7). These
towers were looted between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but human
bones inside and surrounding them suggest that they were used extensively as
tombs. Likewise, as in all of the central altiplano, the surface immediately sur-
rounding chullpares is littered with serving pottery sherds, evidencing feasting
practices during the Late Intermediate period, and in some cases also during
the Late Horizon.
A petrographic analysis of ceramic pastes from these funeral/ceremonial
sites, in comparison to neighboring settlements, indicates that all pastes tend
to be associated with certain regions of the Carangas altiplano, with the excep-
tion of paste 2, which is more widely distributed. Paste 1 is associated with the
northwest (Sajama and Curahuara from Carangas), paste 6 with the northeast
(Chuquichambi), and pastes 3, 4, and 5 with the southwest. In the southwestern
case, the presence of all six pastes suggests strong ceremonial ties with other
regions of the Carangas altiplano. Also, the distribution of pastes between lo-
calities within the southwest suggests strong internal heterogeneity. In the case

Figure 10.7. Location of settlements and chullpares in southwestern Carangas. Source: Juan Villanueva Criales.
of K’amacha, three of its four localities (Escara, Romero Pampa, and Payru-
mani) share similar proportions of ceramic components. In contrast, Charcollo
presents a composition with high quantities of paste 1 related to the northwest.
On the other hand, at Kusillavi hill, the westernmost Florida province site, the
composition of the ceramic components is distinctively marked by ample use
of the local paste 4; Esmeraldas, in the east, has high proportions of paste 6,
suggesting particular ties with northeastern Carangas.
A striking pattern is noticeable when comparing settlements and sites with
chullpares (chullperíos) from each locality. The ceramic composition of a settle-
ment can resemble more closely a chullperío situated many kilometers away
than most chullperíos nearby. At the same time, the paste compositions of these
last chullperíos may be akin to quite remote settlements (Figure 10.8).
Figure 10.8. Distribution of ceramic pastes according to their sources, southwestern Carangas. Source:
Juan Villanueva Criales.
If we attempt to trace directions and fluxes of exchange, social interaction,

and/or extended kinship through ceramic materials, the chullperíos of Caran-
gas, in particular its southwestern portion, were local arenas aimed to construct
and reproduce wider imagined communities through periodical feasting. In the
segmentary context of the Andean altiplano (sensu Albarracín-Jordán 2007),
the commensalist festivity is fundamental to supralocal political articulation
and to the corporative management of authority and power (see also Nielsen
2006). According to these data, even the burial towers clearly affiliated to a
residential or natural community defined by a neighboring settlement could
have been used to construct community with those who lived further away.
In this sense, both the deceased contained in a funerary tower and the
landscape, conceived ontologically as animated, could have played a funda-
mental role in chullparian ceremonies (Gil García 2010). However, it is worth
it to emphasize that, in spatial terms, these dead bodies have been already

extracted from the underground and transferred to the world of the living.
Burial towers permitted the physical conservation of dead bodies in order to
maintain a social and almost personal relationship with them through regular
feeding, dressing, and a wide range of ceremonial actions, similar to those
recorded, for example, by Andean ethnohistory (Salomon 1995).
Discussion
The ethnohistorical influence over Andean archaeology entails a tendency to

extrapolate the existence of practices based on the conservation, feeding, and
cult of the dead, recorded in fifteenth and sixteenth century writings, to earlier
periods. An example of this phenomenon, in the case of the Bolivian altiplano,
is the suggestion that mummies similar to those from the Inka period could
have been located in certain specialized ceremonial architecture of the Middle
Horizon, such as the Putuni compound of Tiwanaku (Couture and Sampeck
2003). However, other authors notice that the Tiwanaku underground stone
cists seem to cause a rather adverse effect on the conservation of a “mummy,”
as concentrated humidity produces the disintegration of the dead body (Kor-
pisaari 2006); also, in sharp contrast to the neighboring Wari, Tiwanaku burials
do not possess holes or any opening designed to allow communication with the
interment (Isbell and Korpisaari 2012). This tendency seems to have a precedent
in Middle Formative and Late Formative funerary customs in the Taraco penin-
sula of the southern Titicaca basin, where the postburial “ancestral” treatment
common in later pre-Hispanic times is absent (Machicado 2009). The finding
of a technique for the reduction of corpses to bones, using quicklime during
Tiwanaku times in Khonkho Wankane (Smith and Pérez 2015), supports the
idea of dead bodies being dismembered or dissolved rather than preserved.
It will be difficult to know if these “dissolved” dead belonged to a defined
place of the past, but we do know that the repertoire of Tiwanaku iconography
in ceramic funnels performatively associated with the underground, which
can be interpreted as the place of the past, was certainly populated by other
kinds of entities. Animals related to the lowlands, to night and humidity, such
as toads and snakes, in constant mutation and combination, were the main
protagonists of this mottled iconographic realm, which rarely makes refer-
ence to dead humans. In fact, the human head was part of the opposite sphere:
the sphere dominated by order and marked contours that is portrayed in the
common ceramics, destined mainly to commensalism among humans and
not precisely to establish a feeding link with the subsoil (Chapter 7 of this
volume focuses on the ontology of the Andean human head). An interesting
point when considering the concepts of what is located in the subsoil/past
sphere during Tiwanaku times is the strong emphasis placed in representing
this realm—and cosmology in general—through a diverse and richly elabo-
rated iconography, carefully executed both in ceramics and in other material
domains, from textiles and wood carvings to sculpture and architecture. It
seems that, as emphasis on iconographic and architectural domains increased,
the relevance of dead bodies within the mortuary realm decreased, reaching
its lowest point in Tiwanaku times.
Coincidentally, the ideological breakdown around the year AD 1100 in-
volves the reversal of both tendencies. The construction and use of monumen-
tal sculpture and architecture ceases (Albarracín-Jordán 1996; Alconini 1995),
and there is a marked rejection of Tiwanaku iconography in every material
domain (Janusek 2005). Simultaneously, the importance of dead humans as
inhabitants of the past seems to increase. The case of Condoramaya testifies
to the abandonment of the lithic cist and its replacement by other forms of
underground burial, but also to the establishment of social ties with a space for
the dead through ceramic offerings. This pottery, iconographically and mor-
phologically less elaborate, does not portray the entities of this underground
space, although the subsoil is now shared with actual dead bodies. The dead do
not seem to be personalized; they are probably still dissolved within a collec-
tive—and the offerings are thus destined to a general space of the dead, a place
of the past clearly located in the subsoil. It is even possible for these ceramic
offerings to be changed and renewed periodically without disturbing the actual
human burials, a conduct that would anticipate the later tendency of periodi-
cally feeding the dead.
The figurative iconography will not return to the ceramic styles of the Bo-
livian altiplano, but the dynamics of ceremonial construction will. From the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries on, human communities from the whole
altiplano get involved in the building of burial towers in a scope and quantity
that suggest a significant labor investment. However, two main differences dis-
tinguish this new period of monumental building from the earlier one: first, its
dispersed nature, opposed to the centralization of the ceremonial/sculptural
activities during Tiwanaku times; secondly, its primarily funerary function,
preserving dead bodies and thus allowing physical interaction between them,
as separate individuals, and the living human communities. In a way, the past

is extracted from the subsoil in this moment. Its place stops being adjacent to
the living and coexists, even discontinuously, with the living. The dead that
had gained importance gradually during previous centuries occupy now the
apex of the social altiplano hierarchy, with an ancestral status tied to the social
segments of the living humans within corporative social constructions, as sug-
gested by Nielsen (2006) and documented in ethnohistorical testimonies. Then,
the powerful entities of the past, now discretely individualized as ancestors, will
act as an axis through which the living will negotiate supralocal community
articulation and power.
As an epilogue, these links of ancestral familiarity with the dead seem to
break only with the reduction and extirpation of idolatry policies imposed by
Spanish Viceroy Toledo from the sixteenth century on. The alienation of the
living regarding the dead, enacted through the destruction of mummies and
a demonization of any practice of interaction with the dead and with ancient
places, will attempt to send dead Christian souls to a distant heaven, recasting
local ontologies into a modernist and representationalist, allochronic ontologi-
cal framework. The underground and the ancient sites will then be repopulated
with mythical beings like the chullpas, moros, gentiles, or antiguos, thought to
cause damage and disease (Villanueva et al. 2019). However, those beings were
rapidly understood as people from “other times”; thus, Christianization was
not completely successful in eradicating the notion of a past inhabited by active
entities that, being capable to influence the present, deserve proper treatments
of ceremonial interaction. I believe that the uywaña, or mutual feeding logic,
is maintained throughout the long sequence, governing the relationships with
that space/time or pacha of the past.
Closing Thoughts
The three case studies described above employ distinct methodological ap-
proaches as well as different sets of evidence, although the use of ceramics as
data is a common feature. This is not coincidental since ceramics, as contain-
ers of food and beverages, were tools frequently used to create social ties with,
among other entities, the past itself.
It is possible that the ontological status of the past as a concrete, identifiable
space/place, based on the concept of pacha, was a common construct to the
altiplano populations from pre-Hispanic times to current days. This ontological
construct permits the establishment of relational and material links, rather than
purely symbolic or evocative ones. Such a past, endowed with agency over the
present, is a neighboring past. However, along the sequence there were clearly
many ways to conceptualize the entities of such a past and to interact with
them. In this chapter, I intended to distinguish and illustrate three of these
ways, which without a doubt respond to different historical, sociopolitical, and
ideological circumstances.
I consider that a detailed understanding of the concepts of the past in diverse
Andean societies is essential for our depiction of them, given that past is an
ontological extension of human vital time, and as such an important indica-
tor of the values held by a society. Likewise, through these examples I hope to
generate a discussion regarding the variety of behaviors and material practices
that can be enacted, even within a posited common ontological framework. I
also hope these examples will be employed as antidotes to the essentialisms that
usually occur in our narrative constructions of the pre-Hispanic Andean past.
Acknowledgments
I want to thank the community of Isla Pariti and the “Chachapuma” Project 2005–
2006 team, especially its directors Jédu Sagárnaga and Antti Korpisaari, for the
constant openness that allowed me to continue inquiring about the fascinating
Pariti iconography. I also thank the “Amaya Uta” Archaeological Project 2007–
2008 team, especially to its director Jédu Sagárnaga, and also to the communities
of Cóndor Amaya and Wayllani. My gratitude also goes to the team of “Altiplano
Central” Archaeological Project and the municipalities of Escara and Huacha-
calla. Professor Marcela Sepúlveda guided this project within the PhD Anthro-
pology program at Universidad Católica del Norte–Universidad de Tarapacá in
Arica, Chile, with funding support of MECESUP2. Finally, I want to thank María
Cecilia Lozada and Henry Tantaleán for their gentile invitation to participate in
this volume, and to Claudia Giribaldi and Brandy Norton from the University of
Chicago for the translation and helpful editorial comments of this chapter.
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11
Rock Art, Historical Ontologies,
and the Genealogy of Landscape
A Case Study from the Southern Andes (30° lat. S)
Andr és Troncoso
The ontological turn in the social sciences has led to a reconsideration of the
traditional divisions between humans and other-than-humans, opening the door
to questions regarding the formation of premodern worlds and their collectives
(Alberti et al. 2011; Bird David 1999; Descola 2005, 2012; Viveiros de Castro 1996,
2010). The recognition of the relational character of all ontologies (Descola 2012)
has marked the beginning of archeological debates about affective abilities and
the role of the other-than-humans in the formation of social relations and the
reproduction of premodern communities (Alberti and Marshall 2009; Brown and
Walker 2008; Harris 2013; Laguens and Gastaldi 2008; Pauketat 2013; Watts 2013).
These proposals have had important repercussions in Andean archeology.
This is due to, among other things, the rich corpus of ethnographic, linguistic,
and ethnohistorical information that shows the relevance of a series of nonhu-
man actors in the production of social life (Allen 2002, 2015; Bray 2009, 2015b;
Haber 2009; Laguens and Gastaldi 2008; Mannheim and Salas Carreño 2015;
Sillar 2009). The relevance of these actors is based on their particular animation
abilities because, in the Andes, “the material world is experienced as animate,
powerful, and responsive to human activity” (Allen 2002: 22).
Archeological research has focused on the central Andes and later periods,
specifically on the Inka period. Despite the contributions of these proposals, in-
terpretation cannot be founded upon the primacy of ethnohistorical and linguis-
tic data in all regions of the Andes. Accordingly, although these perspectives en-
rich interpretation, they do not always allow us to recognize the heterogeneities
and the historically constituted nature of ontologies. Therefore, it is necessary to
historicize Andean ontologies, acknowledging “the historical contingency and
dynamism of material-ontological orders” (Swenson 2015: 679).
In this study, we develop an approximation of the historical dynamics of
pre-Hispanic ontologies based on an evaluation of the production and con-
sumption of rock art at a specific site in the southern Andes. We develop a ge-
nealogy of the Valle El Encanto site (a hydrographic watershed of the Limarí
River in north-central Chile, 30° S), which shows a sequence of occupation
and production of rock art from the beginning of the late Holocene (circa
2000 BC) until contact with the Spanish Empire (circa AD 1530) (Figure 11.1).
Due to this long occupation, it presents rock art associated both with hunter-
gatherer and agricultural communities, making it a particularly useful case
study for this kind of research. This is the only site in the region with such a
long history of rock art production, as the rock art produced by hunter-gath-
erer communities and agricultural groups are usually spatially segregated. It
is expected, then, that within this site, different historical landscapes and on-
tologies were shaped.
As noted by different authors, ontologies express and reproduce themselves
through relational fields that are historically constituted (Jones and Alberti
2013; Pauketat 2013; Robb and Pauketat 2013; Watts 2013). The structure of col-
lectives and the animation capacities of the other-than-humans are distributed
throughout these relational fields (Descola 2012; Pauketat 2013; Watts 2013;
Zedeño 2009). The creation of a genealogy of the Valle El Encanto site based on
the production and consumption of rock art allows us to discuss how one space,
one practice, and materiality insert themselves into differential relational fields
that are historically constituted throughout the regional sequence. Through this
genealogy of “making place,” we can understand how these historical ontolo-
gies articulate with the practices and social dynamics in the pre-Hispanic world
(Swenson 2015).
To develop this study, we combine visual, spatial, and technological data
about rock art and the results of stratigraphic excavations. This information is
integrated with the social, spatial, and material dynamics that are recognized
at the regional level. The temporal depth of our work and the absence of docu-
mentary sources imply that this debate is structured from a purely archeological
perspective. Despite its interpretative limitations, our work contributes to the
302 Andrés Troncoso

Figure 11.1. Map of the area of study including detail of Valle El Encanto. Source: Andrés Troncoso.
development of relational perspectives that draw from materiality itself to gain

a better understanding of pre-Hispanic historical ontologies.
Framing Historical Ontologies: Some Theoretical Remarks
The ontological turn has had the rich South American ethnographic record as
one of its principal sources (Descola 1996, 2005; Viveiros de Castro 1996, 2010).
This situation has established Andean anthropology and archeology as areas of
study that are particularly favorable for debating such proposals. Therefore, a
Rock Art, Historical Ontologies, and Landscape in the Southern Andes 303
series of authors have evaluated the participation and animation of a series of
other-than-human beings in a diversity of social practices and material spheres
(Allen 2002, 2015; Bray 2009, 2015a [see papers therein]; Haber 2009; Laguens
and Gastaldi 2008; Sillar 2009; Weismantel 2013, 2015).
These authors’ contributions notwithstanding, we feel that it is necessary
to explore the historical character of these ontologies. As noted by Robb and
Pauketat (2013), ontologies respond to and are the product of situated histori-
cal processes. For this reason, they are not timeless, nor are they necessarily
internally homogenous (see also Harris and Robb 2012; Pauketat 2013; Swenson
2015). Historical ontologies make references to bounded cultural worlds that
provide orientational frameworks for social action, including historically spe-
cific proposals regarding being, presence, collectives, reality, and personhood
(Kohn 2016; Robb and Pauketat 2013). Understanding these historical ontolo-
gies allows us to consider how collectives have been constituted by different
types of beings and how the animation capacities of the other-than-humans
have changed throughout history. With this understanding, beyond recover-
ing just the otherness of the past (Alberti and Marshall 2009), we can begin to
explore the interplay and unfolding among practices, being, substances, places,
and past social processes (Pauketat 2013; Swenson 2015).
The fact that these collectives are neither static nor unchanging implies the
recognition that their constituents, properties, and animacies are historically,
spatially, and experientially distributed and positioned within these meshwork
(sensu Ingold 2011, 2015). In the Andes, Mannheim and Salas Carreño (2015)
have discussed the relevance of these relational positions for understanding the
agentive abilities of the wak’as and the nature of their being.
Therefore, focusing on historical ontologies means approaching how these re-
lational meshworks constitute themselves over time, the ways in which different
beings engage in their inner workings, and their differential possibilities of ani-
mation and affect on social life. The formation of these meshworks (or bundles,
sensu Pauketat 2013) is a process that is continuously unfolding through the reit-
erative articulations that occur among different entangling beings. Through this
constant movement over the course of human history, the other-than-humans
and places can perform bundling in various ways, entangled, disassembled, or
dispersed in particular webs of relationships (Pauketat 2013; see also De Landa
2006). Similarly, the intensities and extensities of the connections themselves are
subject to these historical unfoldings (Pauketat 2013; Robb and Pauketat 2013).
For the above reasons, understanding historical ontologies in the Andes

requires recognizing their spatial and historically situated nature, thus un-
folding a diachronic approach based on an understanding of the genealogies
of material practices and their engagement with the landscape (Bray 2015b;
Pauketat 2013; Robb and Pauketat 2013). Through the genealogy of material
practices, we can understand how articulations and differential meshworks
establish themselves over time among humans, other-than-humans, and land-
scapes as well as the multiple games of affection that they weave among them.
The relevance that Ingold (1993, 2015) gives to the process of making and task-
scapes shows how, through this practical interlacing, animations, affections,
experiences, and engagements unfold and reproduce themselves, allowing us
to gain a better understanding of the different nodes of these meshworks and
the positions that their members take on.
These genealogies of material practices are completely interlaced with pro-
cesses of spatial construction and the formation of historical landscapes (Ingold
1993; Pauketat 2013, Robb and Pauketat 2013; Swenson 2015). This is a result of
the relevance that space has in the formation of social-historical experiences
and social collectives and because one of the threads that ties the knots in which
the different beings of these meshworks are interlaced necessarily has a spa-
tial dimension (Ingold 1993, 2015). For this reason, historical landscapes show
particular assemblages and similarly long-lived places throughout their his-
tory (Robb and Pauketat 2013). Understanding space along these lines implies
changing the manner in which we view it: from its constitution as context to its
formation as one more element of the assembly of specific historical ontologies.
We must understand how space, or some places, affected and were engaged in
different assemblages throughout the history of human occupation in an area
(Jones and Alberti 2013).
Following this line of study from an archeological perspective implies de-
ploying contextual perspectives that allow us to understand the unfolding of
the different members that compose these relational meshworks rather than
conducting an isolated study of elements of material culture. Only by under-
standing these historically constituted relationships can we begin to understand
the otherness of collectives in the past, the different animacies of beings, and
the distinguishing sociohistorical features of these meshworks. By contrast, al-
though an archeological perspective that centers exclusively on isolated objects
may contribute to discussions, it is not possible from this perspective to per-
form a profound evaluation of these bundles because it does not articulate the
units within their relational fields.
For this reason, one way of understanding how these historical meshworks
unfold is by using the genealogy of particular spaces. The genealogies of places
have focused on discussing the formation of memories, the dynamics of rec-
ollection, and the biographies of places, among other aspects (Bradley 1993;
Tilley 1997). In many cases, they have been founded upon representational log-
ics that attempt to illuminate the different meanings assigned to places or the
value ascribed to them in the past. Recently, Moore (2010) has criticized these
perspectives due to the equality they make among memory and reiteration of
practices in the same space, without recognizing that the latter are articulated
with structures and differential dynamics over time. Similarly, we can under-
stand the genealogy of a space as being a product of a series of reiterative prac-
tices that are performed in the same place. However, these practices engage in
differential relational fields through the production and reproduction of differ-
ent articulations among humans, other-than-humans, and a specific place. We
can approach a genealogy of these historical ontologies through these different
articulations, evaluating the different positions and animations that the other-
than-human being presents, the characteristics of the collectives that unfold
therein, and the differential affection that the same place generates for humans
(Fowler in Alberti et al. 2011).
Based on these proposals, we define our approach to studying the genealogy
of Valle El Encanto. This site was occupied for 3,000 years, and during this time,
the same practice was reiterated in it: the production of rock art (Troncoso et
al. 2008). In particular, we understand rock art to be more than a simple visual
display. Instead, it is the material result of a specific practice (inscription on
rocky foundations). In its execution, rock-art making establishes and produces
a field of relationships among practices, beings, imaginaries, and a place or
network of places. The resulting matter (a marked rock) reproduces and spa-
tializes a determined imaginary; at the same time, it fixes a combination of
relationalities among practices, substances, spaces, and beings. In this manner,
evaluating how the production and distribution of blocks of rock art occurred
at a particular site such as Valle El Encanto allows us to discuss these relational
genealogies without depending on, and without founding studies exclusively
upon, the ethnographic and ethnohistorical narratives that are associated with
this material record. This has been the tendency in studies of rock art that use
relational perspectives (Brady and Bradley 2014; Brady et al. 2016; Porr and Bell
2012; Robinson 2013). In this case, our discussion of these themes is based on
the very substance of rock art and its practical unfolding.

An Archaeological and Relational History of Valle El Encanto
The Valle El Encanto site is located in the north-central part of Chile, specifically
in the hydrographic watershed of the Limarí River. It runs along a narrow ravine
approximately 1.5 km long that is bathed by the Estero Las Peñas. The site was
recognized early on in archeological surveys of the region, which is known for
having a large quantity of rock art (Ampuero 1992; Ampuero and Rivera 1971;
Iribarren 1949). Previous works on the site have been focused on the character-
ization of rock art, its contextualization at a regional level, and evaluations of the
occupations identified in archaeological excavations, which date to the Late Ho-
locene (Ampuero 1992; Ampuero and Rivera 1964, 1971), and were produced by
hunter-gatherer communities. There are few interpretations linking rock art with
social and historical dynamics and with the logic behind the use of this space. This
is also the case for the broader region, where studies have focused mainly on the
ritual role—sometimes associated to shamanism—of rock art, without dealing
with its relationship to sociohistorical processes (Niemeyer and Ballereau 2004).
Our work in the region has centered on evaluating the spatial, visual, and
technological variability of rock art as well as its relationship with regional pre-
Hispanic social processes. To that end, we have performed regional surveying
that covers an area of approximately 150 m2, including excavation of archaeo-
logical sites, and recording of rock art sites. Using that data, we raised a series of
proposals regarding regional prehistoric settlement patterns and social dynam-
ics (Troncoso et al. 2016).
The regional sequence of rock art production covers a period of almost 3,500
years starting with the hunter-gatherers at the beginning of the Late Holocene
and ending in the era of contact with the Spanish conquerors. Although the
chronological-cultural assignation of rock art is always complex, we have based
our proposal on the conjugation of a set of lines of evidence that address the
three basic levels of variability of this materiality: visual, technical, and spatial.
We have conducted iconographic analyses, analyses of symmetry, composition
of panels and typological and technological analyses, as well as stratigraphic
excavation next to rocks marked. Visual characteristics of rock art have been
compared to the visuality of other medias. Finally, we have studied the spatial
distribution of the rock art and, in the case of paintings, we obtained radio-
metric datings. Using this corpus of information, we have proposed three large
groups of rock art that differ from one another in their spatial, visual, and tech-
nical aspects (Troncoso et al. 2008, 2015a, 2016).
Within the regional context, Valle El Encanto is an exceptional site. On the
one hand, it is the only site where we have found the complete historical se-
quence of rock art. On the other hand, the characteristics of its parietal mani-
festations are representative of the variety of rock art in the region. This latter
aspect of the site has been previously noted by other authors (Ampuero 1992).
Valle El Encanto is then the only known site in the region that combines rock
art produced by hunter-gatherer and agricultural communities. These charac-
teristics render Valle El Encanto an excellent case study for the evaluation of
how different relational meshworks unfold in this place through the production
and consumption of rock art. In fact, based on its long occupational history and
its grouping of rock art produced by communities with different economic and
social features, it is possible to hypothesize that in this site different landscapes
and ontologies were displayed and lived through time. Archaeological charac-
terisations of the site show that hunter-gatherer occupations are different from
those of groups with agricultural technologies. While both groups produced
rock art, hunter-gatherer occupations have been characterized as residential
camps with bedrock mortars; agricultural communities did not produce the
latter, marking rocks only through rock art, and did not occupy the site as a
residential area.
Regardless of the ubiquity of rock art in the site, no explanation has been
given to the reasons behind this intensive production. One could initially argue,
nonetheless, that Valle El Encanto is located in a watercourse that is an excel-
lent natural route linking inland and coastal areas, allowing for a movement
through different spaces and environments. Also, the watercourse in the site is
permanent, a unique feature in an area characterized by seasonally fed ravines.
This creates good conditions for habitation and use as a route. Finally, the area
where the site is located, shows a widening of the ravine, with terraces that
allow the aggregation of large numbers of people around the rocks. All these
characteristics make Valle El Encanto an optimal space for human movement
and habitation, as well as for the unfolding of different social practices. This is
different from other rock art sites in the area, which are located in hillsides or
narrow ravines where only few people could be gathered and have poorer con-
ditions for habitation. Nevertheless, due to present-day alteration of the area, it
is impossible to identify pre-Hispanic roads or paths.
In light of the above, in the next pages we focus on the relational dynamics
that correspond to each of the groups that are defined for the region in general
and for the site in particular.

Moment I: Pigments and the Animacy of a Space
As said before, the earliest evidence of site occupation and rock art in Valle
El Encanto links it to the hunter-gatherer groups of the beginning of the Late
Holocene. This rock art corresponds to red paintings that represent only non-
figurative motifs such as lines and circles (Figure 11.2). We have identified 14
rocks marked (Figure 11.3). These manifestations are similar to other rock art
paintings recognized in other sites of the region and ichnographically similar to
the decorations of bone tools from the same era. We have a set of direct absolute
Figure 11.2. Some examples of rock paintings and bedrock mortars in Valle El Encanto (Moment
I). Source: Andrés Troncoso.
Figure 11.3. Distribution of rock paintings in the site. Source: Andrés Troncoso.
dates of rock paintings ranging between around 2000 and 300 d.C. (Troncoso et
al. 2015b). Although none of them is from Valle El Encanto, the earliest dating
of the site coincides with the appearance of paintings in the region (Troncoso
et al. 2015b, 2016).
Together with the creation of rock paintings in this place, there was a series
of other social practices related to the use of Valle El Encanto as a residential
site of hunter-gatherers. Excavations in different sectors show stratigraphic evi-
dence that reveals the production and reactivation of lithic instruments, the fi-
nal stages of mammals consumption, and even funerary practices, as evidenced
by a pair of isolated burial sites located below the occupied layers (Ampuero
and Rivera 1964). The presence of bedrock mortars (piedras tacitas) suggest an
intense practice of grinding plant resources and pigments. These occupations
have been interpreted to be residential camps integrated into a mobility system
that covers different sectors of the lower basin of the Limarí. This system con-
nects sectors such as Valle El Encanto with the neighboring coast, where many
other sites show the presence of rock paintings (Ampuero 1992; Ampuero and
Rivera 1964; Troncoso et al. 2016).
Although Valle El Encanto is the site with the most painted rocks in the re-
gion, it is certain that the practice of marking rocks was not intense throughout
the nearly 2000-year period in which hunters-gatherer occupied this place. This
can be observed not only in the quantity of rocks painted but also in the fact that

the number of motifs on each panel is low, generally one or two. Moreover, once
a motif was painted, it was not modified by the superposition of other paintings
or by repainting. Therefore, rocks marked tend to show a painted face with a low
visual load and on which each motif under question can be clearly distinguished.
Spatially, many paintings are located in the central sector of the site (Figure
11.3 and 11.4), specifically in the area surrounding and close to a large rock out-
crop that cuts the ravine and produces a bifurcation in the water: on certain
occasions, the water bathes the rocks and then falls again into the bottom of
the ravine; on other occasions, the water circulates subterraneously without
bathing the rocks but then emerges to the surface meters downriver. It is at the
highest point of this same space where we find the rock with more complex
paintings. This rock has over a dozen motifs, including superimpositions, sug-
gesting the existence of several painting events (Figure 11.4). In this sector, we
also find the greatest concentration of bedrock mortars in the site.
Some rocks painted are set apart from this space, but they have a direct
spatial relationship to the water. Some of them are located at the bottom of the
ravine itself and are therefore bathed by the circulating water, whereas others
are immediately adjoining the bottom. In all cases, there are bedrock mortars
in the vicinity of these painted rocks.
Figure 11.4. Central sector of Valle El Encanto during Moment I, showing the large outcrop and the most-
painted rock of the site associated with the outcrop. Source: Andrés Troncoso.
The creation of paintings in Valle El Encanto shows an initial entangling of
practices, humans, other-than-humans, and this specific space. This entangling
is the result of the unfolding of a series of quotidian activities and painting-
marking practices of the space in the context of a regional residential mobility
system. The paintings become a central element for mediating the occupation
of this space and also for establishing articulations with the circulating water. In
this dynamic, the engagement with rock art is a collective practice and experi-
ence that includes all members of the social group who live in the residential
camps. Similarly, this experience is inserted into a complex sensory field that
is not only brought about by the elements belonging to these surroundings,
such as the movement of water, but also by the stimulus itself that is generated
through quotidian practices. The homogeneity of the practice of painting not-
withstanding, it is the case that one sector is painted or marked more than an-
other and in association with the particular geological formation and the water
mobility at this point. The particular nature of this microspace also permits the
principal rock on the outcropping to be clearly observed and be recognizable.
Compared to the majority of the other paintings that were scarcely visible (due
to the low number of designs), the visibility of the rock under question lends it
important abilities of visual attraction.
Pigments would have been a privileged substance in this context and place.
They are used not only in the creation of rock art but also as coating on projec-
tile points as well as on burials and sediments in funerary spaces (Schiappacasse
and Niemeyer 1965–1966). This situation illuminates the important animation
capacities of pigments. Pigments are a central element for setting the world
into motion and for weaving relationships in this moment. This corresponds to
what Zedeño (2009) has called index objects. In the case of Valle El Encanto,
the paintings would have animated the ravine and its residential areas, making
possible the articulation of the different members of the mobile group around
the pigments and marked rocks. The presence of pigments in bedrock mortars
and stratigraphic deposits shows that the last stages of their production are
performed in this residential context, in tune with the collective nature of the
experience of observation and knowledge of this material and practice.
The animation capacities of the paintings emphasizes another nonhuman
element that is, however, in constant motion: water. This emphasis is also rec-
ognized in other groups of paintings of the region (Nash and Troncoso 2017).
Although water itself can be a relevant and animated element (Strang 2014), the
particular abilities of pigments cause them to act upon the circulation and the

productive and fertile potential of water in Valle El Encanto. This should come
as no surprise, considering the given context associated with mobile commu-
nities that are transitioning, from an economy revolving around hunting, to
an economy focused more on the use of plant resources (Schiappacasse and
Niemeyer 1965–1966). In other words, the pigment’s animacies strengthen the
generative abilities of water in the formation of the lifecycle and the germina-
tion of different plant resources that were used by hunters in Valle El Encanto.
The effect of the animacies of the pigment was that, once the rock was
painted, it was not painted again in the site. In this context, although the pig-
ment animated a rock, the rock with the pigment allowed the continuation of
these capacities at different points of Valle El Encanto. Moreover, pigments not
only weave a meshwork of relationships within the site but also do so on a large
scale within the regional landscape. This occurs because of the citationality that
painting motifs generate in Valle El Encanto in conjunction with the visuality of
other sites with rock art. It also occurs because of the citationality generated by
the animation that the pigments of Valle El Encanto produce with other spaces,
beings, substances, and practices in which the same procedure is performed.
Therefore, pigments were central actors in the formation of this space and in
the social dynamics of the human groups that resided in this sector.
Moment II: Extracting Substances from Rocks
Toward the middle of the first millennium of our era, a change in the practice
of manufacturing rock art is observed in Valle El Encanto. This change has been
observed in other spaces in the region and consists of a transformation from
the painting to the carving of rocks. We have suggested that this new form of
manufacturing art spreads in the region between AD 500 and 1000. This asser-
tion is based on the latest dating that we have for the paintings, a superposition
of these carvings over the paintings, the similarities among the decorative pat-
terns, and the symmetry of some carved designs and pottery motifs dated for
this period (Troncoso et al. 2008, 2016).
The iconography of these carvings shows a change in relation to what is
known regarding the paintings. It basically consists of anthropomorphous and a
few nonfigurative motifs. Isolated heads with large cephalic headdresses known
as tiara-heads are recurrent (Figure 11.5). Other anthropomorphous representa-
tions are simple bodies with volume and small headdresses. The nonfigurative
motifs are basically circles with interior lines indicating some visual continuity
Figure 11.5. Some examples of petroglyhs of Moment II. Source: Andrés Troncoso.
with previous visualities. As in the case of the paintings, these carvings are rep-
resentative of what is observed at the regional level.
A particular characteristic of this grouping is that the grooves that delineate
the motifs reach depths of up to 3.6 cm (Figure 11.6a). This characteristic is the
product of a continuous and repetitive practice of chipping and scraping the

rock along one groove, which slowly deepens the motifs and lends these petro-
glyphs its own peculiar quality (Vergara and Troncoso 2015). The implication is
that this practice is less concerned with marking multiple rocks as it is with re-
marking motifs, which would explain the low number of marked rocks (n=11)
and the scarcity of motifs made on each rock. The petroglyphs would not have
been painted, as suggested by the absence of pigment in their grooves. This is in
line with the same manufacturing principles, given that each time a mark was
placed, it would have removed the paint.
Although the manner of marking the rocks changes, the spatial dynamic of
the carvings continues to be the same. The petroglyphs are once again concen-
trated in the central sector of the site and in relation to the rocky outcroppings
that are associated with the appearance/disappearance of water. There are other
isolated blocks along the length of the ravine. However, they are not a grouping
and do not have a direct spatial relationship with the bedrock mortars of previ-
ous times. Indeed, it is possible that these last were hardly used in this moment.
In the excavations associated with the bedrock mortars, we have not obtained
datings from this time (Troncoso et al. 2016). This situation is repeated to a large
extent at the regional level. The rocks with petroglyphs are not located along
the course of the ravine itself. With one exception, paintings and petroglyphs
do not coexist on the same rock. Although both share a general space (the site)
and distribution within the space, paintings and petroglyphs do not cohabit the
microspace of the rock. (Figure 11.6(b))
The excavations have allowed us to identify residential occupations in the ra-
vine. This suggests that, as with the paintings, the production and consumption
Figure 11.6. Comparison of the depth of the petroglyph grooves: (A) Moment II, (B) Moment III.
Source: Andrés Troncoso.
of these carvings are associated with residential contexts. However, the charac-
teristics of these contexts are slightly different from those of previous times. On
the one hand, there is a greater frequency of pottery fragments, and the vessels
are large in size. On the other hand, the lithic groups show less variability of raw
materials and greater use of local raw materials. Both of these aspects, together
with the greater regional intensity of occupations, suggest a reduction in the
patterns of residential mobility. This hypothesis is supported by the reduction
in evidence of malacological resources on the neighboring coast. This situation
is repeated in other spaces of the region (Troncoso et al. 2016).
Although there is a change in mobility dynamics, habitation in Valle El En-
canto is mediated again by rock art and by the formation of a collective ex-
perience with multiple sensory fields. However, these same experiences and
sensorialities go hand in hand with a different way of engaging with rocks and
with space, as evidenced by the existence of petroglyphs in sectors that did not
previously contain paintings.
We can perceive a game of continuities and transformations in the field of
relationships woven from rock art in relation to previous times. The continued
use of the same space and emphasis on practice in the same sector affirm a
way of engaging with this space (Figure 11.7). However, it would appear that a
change in the affective capacities of water occurs. Although there are carvings
at the bottom of the ravine, these unfold adjacent to it and without any further
contact with the circulation of this element. Nevertheless, the area where the
water appears and disappears is the spot most marked during this moment, and
it maintains its affective influence on the practice of marking the space. It could
be thought that it is mostly the paintings that unfold their affective capacities
on the carvings, but there are no observed coexistences between these on the
rocks. The maintenance of residential activities once again forms a collective
experience that is associated with the production and consumptions of rock art,
even though the unfolding of these residential activities has changed in relation
to previous times. Despite these continuities, the ways of articulating with rock
(technical and visual) have changed showing transformations in the imaginar-
ies, discourses, and relationships with this place and its rocks.
What is most relevant in this context is the pigment’s loss of animacies
given the technological transformation of the productive process. At the same
time, the rock would acquire relevance and capacities that it previously did
not present. Although the practice of painting rests on the application of a
substance to a rock foundation, it would now be focused on making images

Figure 11.7. Distribution of petroglyphs of Moment II in the site. Source: Andrés Troncoso.
move outward, through the extraction of the rock’s crust. Painting’s relation-
ship with the rock changes from additive to extractive. This change occurs
not only through the act of carving itself but also as a result of the need to
constantly reactivate the grooves. It is an act of repeatedly extracting material,
which is what allows the rocks’ animacies to be maintained and reactivated
throughout this moment.
The citationality of this new practice is notably reduced. Neither anthropo-
morphous figures nor heads are found on the pottery of this era. The absence
of covering substances prevents entanglement with other spaces and practices.
The only citationalities that unfolded were with other rock art sites and also
with pottery. The decoration of the pottery pieces was mostly incisions that
were produced through extraction from the surface of the vessels just as the
crust was extracted from the rock in the petroglyps. This decrease in citational-
ity is in tune with the reduction of the mobility of these communities and the
unfolding of a semisedentary life, which reveals that there were occupations of
longer duration at the sites.
However, these new practices of animating space in Valle El Encanto ar-
ticulate with new discourses and imaginaries associated with humans and es-
pecially with heads and headdresses that form an inseparable totality. When
the bodies are carved, even the small heads are given headdresses, acquiring
the capacities extracted from the rock through this continuous act of marking.
Heads with headresses would acquire a relevant position within this meshwork
by virtue of their visibility (they are the largest designs in metric terms), their
work inversion (they demand the most work because of their metric attributes
and their depth), and their preferential location in the central sector. Accord-
ingly, although the site’s central sector was formerly animated only by the pres-
ence of pigments, this now occurs through the capacities extracted from the
rock but conveyed through the heads with the headdresses carved there.
This greater centrality of humans as discourse and entity is supported by the
appearance of large cemeteries in the region, which are located on the summits
of hills. These cemeteries constitute true landmarks that organize the landscape
due to their wide regional visibility. The presence of stone rounded structures
and a subterraneous architecture associated with cemeteries reveal an impor-
tant inversion of manual labor oriented toward the monumentalizing of ances-
tors and their tombs.
New relationships are constructed and others are maintained in Valle El En-
canto during this moment, emphasizing the disassembled pigments, the cen-
trality that the rocks and their crusts acquire, and the discourses and imaginar-
ies associated with humans and heads.
Moment III: Marking to Bring Order to the World
A final moment of rock art production and consumption in Valle El Encanto

occurs during the Late period in the region (AD 1000 to 1530) with the pres-
ence of the Diaguita culture. The end of the manufacturing of rock art in the site
coincides with the Spanish conquest of the region and the processes associated
with this colonial dynamic.
These rock art manifestations are the most frequently reoccurring within the
site (n=47). They correspond to petroglyphs that display technical and visual
differences compared to those of previous times. In technical terms, the petro-
glyphs are composed of superficial grooves, which implies that their manu-
facture is the result of a low number of strokes. For this reason, the motifs are
not used again to reactivate the grooves with new blows, nor are they used to
construct new figures. Each motif is the result of a single productive act. Visu-
ally, this group is more heterogeneous. Nonfigurative representations such as
circles with interior lines and isolated or squared lines are predominant. There
are fewer figurative motifs, which basically consist of anthropomorphous fig-
ures. These can be found to correspond to lineal bodies but with representations

Figure 11.8. Some examples of petroglyphs of Moment III. Source: Andrés Troncoso.
of extremities. There are also figures of heads known in the literature as masks
that, in Valle El Encanto, are similar to the head-tiaras but differ in the compo-
sition of the faces and headdresses. These petroglyphs are associated with the
Diaguita culture given their patterns of symmetry, which are characteristic of
the pottery of this culture (Figure 11.8).
The practice of marking rocks and its resulting visuality construct a new
way of articulating with the site, thus breaking with the two previous mo-
ments. On the one hand, it broadens the zone of intervention through the em-
placement of petroglyphs in sectors that are more toward the extremes of the
ravine. Although these interventions follow the orientation of the ravine, they
now use higher spaces such as the summits and slopes of several low ridges,
which suggests a less significant relationship with water and its circulation.
On the other hand, the practice of marking rocks becomes more intense,
with more rocks being marked and more motifs per rock. Among these are
included large boulders that increase the visibility of the petroglyphs. However,
as occurred in the previous cases, only one or two faces of the rock are carved,
which makes it easier to observe the panels even though the greater abundance
of motifs makes it more difficult to appreciate them individually.
An important transformation occurs in the distribution of the marked
rocks (Figure 11.9). The inscriptive practices are no longer concentrated on
the geological formation associated with the flow of water. This situation reaf-
firms the water’s loss of affective capacities and its influence on the practice of
marking. It would appear that there does not exist an area of greater relevance
in terms of the inversion in rock art, the petroglyphs being continuously dis-
tributed along the entire length of the ravine. However, different authors have
noted the relevance that heads have within these visual repertoires (Ampuero
and Rivera 1964; Cabello 2011). Our work has suggested that heads tend to be
located in central positions associated with changes to visibility and move-
ment, thus acting as structuring centers of landscape rock art (Troncoso et al.
2015a, 2016). This situation occurs in Valle El Encanto. The heads are located
at points where there are inflections that change the visual field from the lower
sector to the central and upper sectors of the ravine (Figure 11.9). As such, the
heads construct a new center that is some distance from the older principal
sector of the site.
Another element that produces a difference between this and previous sit-
uations is the fact that the excavations do not indicate the presence of deposits
that are associated with this moment. Surveys performed in areas adjoining
the site have revealed a similar situation. The practices of rock art production
and consumption would separate themselves in particular from residential
and everyday spaces and practices. As occurs in other places of the region
(Troncoso et al. 2014, 2016), this location and distribution of petroglyphs is
associated with the intra and interregional dynamics of mobility because Valle

Figure 11.9. Distribution of petroglyphs of Moment III in the site indicating the placement of heads.
Source: Andrés Troncoso.
El Encanto is part of a natural route of movement that connects the valleys

with the adjoining coast.At the same time, the lineal ordination of the rocks
and the predominance of a particular orientation imply that these can only be
appreciated by following an axis of circulation: from west to east.
In this moment the practice of producing and consuming rock art differs from
that of previous time with no clear continuities among them. On the one hand,
although a practice of engraving rock is maintained, the principles upon which
it operates are different from those of previous times and focused on an exten-
sive practice of hammering. Its visual results are also different, showing a certain
continuity only in the representations of heads, even though the visuality and
spatiality of these heads are different. On the other hand, the experiential and
sensory contexts are different in that they separate themselves completely from
the residential spaces and associate themselves with mobility. For this reason, it
is possible that their observation is not a collective experience, nor do they imply
the combination of a previously recognized stimulus. Finally, the inner space of
Valle El Encanto differentially affects these communities, which therefore struc-
ture their practice of marking rocks in another manner, creating a new center
with the heads. Therefore, the absence of carvings associated with representa-
tions of previous moments on the same rock once again indicates the idea of
separation and segregation, as does the absence of the use of bedrock mortars.
These inflections in relational fields woven from rock art are also recognized
in the citationality that this materiality unfolds, generating ties with other
petroglyph sites. The recognized motifs are not found rendered in other me-
dias, nor are the techniques of extraction of material observed on other material
foundations. Neither do the engraved representations show scenes of everyday
life or even of human/human or human/animal interaction that would generate
this citationality.
In this manner, an entirely new relationship with the place and the ele-
ments present therein unfolds through these petroglyphs. Water is not an ele-
ment that significantly affects the production of carvings. Although rock con-
tinues to have a relevant position, the practice becomes more than a simple
extraction and bringing forth of representations from its depths, and centers
on the hammering of the rocks in different moments and places without ever
following the same groove. Thus, each productive act generates something
that is visually new. This situation opens the field to a greater participation of
the rocks in this process of spatial engagement. The same heads that change
their visual formation also transform their spatial relations. They articulate
with that which is visible and with the movement of bodies within the site
by situating themselves on these points of visual inflection. Finally, the ex-
perience of being and moving within the site is a particular experience that
is separated from the other phenomenical spheres of Diaguita inhabitance
in the region. Nonetheless, marking these rocks and moving between them
would be a central practice in the integration of this community. Given the
limited spatial integration of Diaguita groups due to their dispersed patterns
of settlement, the rocks would animate these communities to the extent that
they behaved as central spaces that made possible interactions between dif-
ferent human members based on the visualities and presence of the marked
rocks (Troncoso et al. 2014, 2016). In Valle El Encanto, marking the rocks was
an intense and recurring practice. Through this practice, the subjects who tra-
verse this space articulate and construct community with others who unfold
similar practices and visualities in the same place as well as with the marked
rocks that are part of these communities.
As we have discussed elsewhere, this practice animates not only the com-
munity but also a series of other nonhuman members (Troncoso et al. 2015a).
The ethnohistorical references and Diaguita decorative patterns indicate that
duality and complementary opposites are a characteristic that structures mul-
tiple spheres and practices of these communities. As a site that not only allows

human mediation but also contains places with different types of practices and
connotations, Valle El Encanto constitutes a center in which the different op-
posites and halves that compose the world are integrated. This idea of mediation
is expressed in Diaguita pottery, with pieces being organized into two fields but
with a human/feline figure set in the center between them, mediating between
each half (Latcham 1926).
In the Andes, these spaces of mediation become dangerous. They are spaces
where a series of other-than-human beings act and that should be controlled
and articulated by a center, a mediator that makes order possible and maintains
equilibrium between the halves and reproduction of the world (Cereceda 1988;
Harris and Bouysee-Cassagne 1988). The production of petroglyphs is oriented
to mark this center and, through the animation of rocks, to mediate between
the different halves that are found in Valle El Encanto. This makes it possible
to maintain the balance and order of the world by preventing the halves of the
world, with their different beings, from becoming integrated or from mixing
together in a disordered totality. This must be avoided given the dangers im-
plied if these segments of the world were to come into contact with one another
(Cereceda 1988; Harris and Bouysee-Cassagne 1988). The location of the heads,
as new centers that mediate between two visually segregated spaces in Valle
El Encanto, reaffirms their relevance and forms them as the principal mediat-
ing element within an already-central space. The rock would be an other-than-
human entity that articulates humans not only with other humans but also with
other nonhumans. Thus, it reaffirms this notion of center and allows its own
permanence.
Rock Art in Movement: Historical Ontologies in Valle El Encanto
Robb and Pauketat (2013) have suggested that, through genealogies of prac-
tices, we can become closer to understanding both historical ontologies and his-
torical landscapes. Following this hypothesis, we may ask ourselves how these
different lattices and genealogies of practices articulate with historical ontolo-
gies, recognizing that not all of the transformations in the archeological record
necessarily articulate with ontological changes (Swenson 2015). Understanding
these dynamics requires recognizing that these ontological transformations are
discernible only when viewed along a longer time scale, such as that which we
have described in this case study.
We think that, in Valle El Encanto, it is possible to recognize a dynamic
of reproduction and transformation of two specific historical ontologies. The
first of these would be associated with the hunter-gatherers associated with
the rock paintings that unfold a meshwork centered on the animation of pig-
ments. The second ontology would be more specific to the Diaguita and could
be understood as an Andean ontology. This last aspect had already been pro-
posed early on by a series of authors (González 2013; Latcham 1926), and it
is consistent with the appearance of an entire iconography associated with
felines, the notion of transformation, dual patterns, tripartites and quadri-
partites in their visuality, and the presence of heads as relevant elements. It
appears to us that the group associated with the second moment reveals the
process of transformation from one historical ontology to another. It is for
this reason that this group maintains ties and continuities with preceding and
succeeding groups.
This displacement not only implies differential forms of unfolding social
practices. It also implies positionings of substances, animation abilities of el-
ements and beings, and differential capacities to affect space. Thus, under-
standing the occupation of this landscape, before accounting for a dynamic
of memory, implies a presentation of the path of these ontological histories
that position, reposition, and displace some elements/beings over time. This
dynamic is more of an abrupt change than it is a continuous movement. As
Pauketat indicates (2013), in history, these fields can perform bundling in
various ways, entangling or disassembling elements. In parallel, an element
can move itself, occupying different positions and assemblages differentially
over time. This situation is clearly expressed with the progression of four dif-
ferential elements: pigments, rocks, heads, and water.
In the case of the pigments, although these are a central substance in the first
ontological dynamic, they lose their centrality in the transition and thereafter.
The rocks, however, acquire greater relevance insofar as the act of hammering
allows the extraction of abilities and the fixing of relationships around a center.
They cease to be simply receivers of a substance that is added to them. The
heads initially do not form part of any network, but they subsequently become
relevant in the other two relational fields, even though in these last two cases
they assemble themselves differently. In moment II, they articulate with water
in the central sector defined by the paintings, whereas in moment III, they con-
struct a new center based on a dual organization of space that is centered on
fields of visibility. This last situation also refers to the displacement of a fourth
other-than-human entity, namely, water. In moment I, water has far-reaching

abilities of affection and animation of space. In moment II, these abilities are
concentrated only in relation to a particular space of Valle El Encanto. Finally,
in moment III, these capacities are completely absent.
On a large scale, these repositionings and reorganizations of the relational
fields show that historical ontologies are not static entities. Instead, they are
constantly in motion and unfold throughout history, undergoing transforma-
tions at different scales and in different spheres. In parallel, this movement oc-
curs in microtime, given that each marking act in Valle El Encanto was a forma-
tive practice of these historical ontologies that put into play the relationships
among this place, humans, and the other-than-humans.
This historical genealogy of Valle El Encanto therefore shows that what we
can call Andean ontology, which proposes a certain articulation among hu-
mans, the other-than-humans, and places, only develops in the final moments
of regional prehistoric history.At the same time, although it presents elements
that are specific to other spaces in the Andes, what is certain is that these ele-
ments also display local characteristics that we think exhibit the same historical
and localized nature from which it emerges. Therefore, although a long tradi-
tion of practice is maintained in the zone, the formation of this historical on-
tology activates new fields of relationships, rests on differential animations of
other nonhumans, and displays an affection of a series of other-than-humans
and phenomena that are different compared to previous times.
The transformation that we have identified in Valle El Encanto can also
be observed at the regional level (Troncoso and Pavlovic 2013). Although it
is necessary to deepen our approach to the analysis of this transformation,
what is clear is that the latter cannot be thought of as a product of migration
processes. To the contrary, we think of it as a concurrence of different events
that partly explain this process. On the one hand, this transformation is the
result of the circulation of discourses, knowledge, practices, and materiali-
ties that are associated with the new ontologies and affective capacities of the
other-than-humans and are appropriated by local communities. On the other
hand, it is the result of a dynamic of practices and affections of the other-
than-humans and their impact on local communities that manage to establish
practical, experiential, discursive, and material relationships with these dif-
ferent elements that circulate throughout the different regions of the Andes.
In the movement and construction of relationships and articulations between
these actors, the history of the region and of Valle El Encanto unfolds while
also constituting an Andean ontology in the region.
As argued by Moore (2010), in relation to processes of the reuse of space,
the historization of Valle El Encanto shows that, before constructing a memory
that unites different times, what unfolds in this space is a reiteration of prac-
tices that are not differentially structured in time. Nonetheless, this historiza-
tion indicates that this is more than a matter of a reiteration of practices that
establish particular relationships with their particular social contexts. Through
these reiterations in Valle El Encanto, historical ontologies and worlds that are
animated by the other-than-humans were produced, reproduced, and trans-
formed. With them, humans constructed different relationships based on the
practices and experiences unfolded therein.
Concluding Remarks
As Bray has suggested (2015a), an Andean ontology is composed of a series of

other-than-human phenomena that are relevant for social reproduction. In this
study, by exploring the genealogies of practices in one space, we have addressed
how historical ontologies are produced and reproduced in a southern region of
the Andes. The absence of ethnohistorical and/or ethnographic records that are
specific to the region makes it necessary to explore these themes from purely
archeological perspectives, centered on the affective abilities of a series of other-
than-human phenomena and using genealogies of human practices. Although
this type of perspective has a number of limitations, especially interpretative
limitations, it allows us to perceive large-scale processes that show how different
historical ontologies occur in the same territory.
Following Robb and Pauketat (2013), the reoccupations of Valle El Encanto
therefore constitute differential historical landscapes over time that, during
their last period, showed the unfolding of two different historical ontologies
in the zone and their process of transformation. Therefore, these ontolog-
ical genealogies are points of departure from which to explore, in greater
depth and at the regional level, the particular meshwork that comprises each
of these ontologies, the different animations of the other-than-humans, and
the understanding of sociopolitical processes based on a recognition of the
particular characteristics of the worlds that unfolded in the area and in pre-
Hispanic communities.

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12
Final Commentaries
A Matter of Substance, and the Substance of Matter
C at h e r i n e J. A l l e n
I am honored and bit surprised by this opportunity to comment on this in-

novative volume edited by María Cecilia Lozada and Henry Tantaleán. I say
surprised because years ago I changed my focus from archaeology to ethnogra-
phy. I found archaeological materials interesting but I couldn’t figure out how
to think about them. For example, while reading an otherwise admirable paper
on the iconography of Nasca ceramics, I came across a hypothesis about why
depictions of trophy heads are more numerous in the later, more abstract phases
of the ceramic sequence. More depictions of trophy heads, it was suggested, re-
flected a societal shift from religiosity to militarism (Roark 1965: 56). This didn’t
sit right with me—in the first place because (as we know to our sorrow) religi-
osity and militarism are not mutually exclusive; more to the point, it seemed
inappropriate to impose those categories on Nasca potters, of whom we knew
next to nothing. Moreover, there seemed no reason to assume that changes in
iconography transparently reflect other kinds of social changes. In my one and
only archaeological publication (Allen 1981), I suggested that trophy head tra-
ditions among contemporary Amazonian peoples might point us toward more
appropriate interpretive categories. I did manage to get the paper published in
an obscure and now-defunct journal even though one of the readers declared
my approach “indefensible.” In those days that kind of speculation was being
done only on the fringes of the discipline.
As this volume so clearly demonstrates, things have changed. The “ontologi-
cal turn” in the social sciences challenges anthropologists to engage seriously
with alternate realities that defy the analytical terms of “Western” intellectual
tradition. We are challenged to think differently. Martin Holbraad, for example,
declares that:
anthropological and archaeological analysis must ultimately take the

form of what one might call thought-experimentation. Effectively, this
approach commits the analyst to a radical and copious effort to overcome
the contradictions in which his or her initial descriptions . . . are necessar-
ily mired, by reconceptualizing the very terms in which these descriptions
are cast. (Holbraad 2009: 434)
But how are we to engage in thought-experimentation without going off

the proverbial deep end? How is it different from what E. E. Evans-Pritchard
(1965: 108), in his criticism of E. B. Tylor’s theory of the origins of religion,
famously characterized as “if I were a horse” speculation? Evans-Pritchard
was alluding to an anecdote about a farmer who searched for his wayward
horse by standing in the paddock, munching grass, and musing, “If I were
a horse where would I go?” While I think this is a fair enough criticism of
Tylor, I’ve always thought it rather unfair to the farmer—who presumably
knew a lot about horses and might indeed have been able to put himself in an
equine frame of mind and imagine why, how, and where his horse had strayed.
(Eating grass was a bit over the top, but I suppose even that might serve a
purpose.) Tylor, on the other hand, drew on disparate sources to develop
a composite notion of “primitive man” whose head he then populated with
primitive thoughts. He was a great scholar but his theory presumed a subject
that never existed. The thought experiments Holbraad advocates are rather
like well-informed “if I were a horse” musings. I emphasize “well-informed”
because the strategy is workable only if one is deeply familiar with horses. The
farmer knows perfectly well that he can’t actually think horse thoughts, but
he knows the creatures well enough to surmise what he might do their place.
The proof of his musing is in the finding. Does he find his horse, or at least get
within whinnying distance?
But enough of metaphorical horses. Our thought experiments concern hu-
man beings and their creations, an endeavor both simpler than the farmer’s
(because we can converse together as members of the same species) and more
complex (for the same reason; compare Mannheim, this volume, Chapter 9).
Archaeologists are doubly challenged because they cannot converse directly
with people long dead, but must be guided by the material objects these people
Final Commentaries: A Matter of Substance, and the Substance of Matter 333

have left behind. Objects guide their archaeologist-interlocutors by displaying
apparent contradictions that resist the usual analytical approaches, or by pre-
senting anomalies that contradict our expectations. These thought-experiments
“work” if they make sense of what was otherwise inscrutable—and continue to
do so in light of new discoveries and scholarship. Such an approach recognizes
that, ideally, material remains should be understood in their own terms (which
are the terms of their makers). It may even point us, to paraphrase Holbraad,
toward a reconceptualization of the very terms in which archaeological descrip-
tions are cast.
The contributors to the present volume address a range of questions raised
by the Andean archaeological record. Henry Tantaleán’s introductory chapter
provides a comprehensive and well-chosen overview of the kinds of sources
from Andean ethnography, ethnohistory, and linguistics that may inform ar-
chaeologists in this endeavor. He suggests that the material traces left by ancient
Andean peoples be approached in ontological terms, that is, as expressions of
these peoples’ orientations to existence. This, in effect, means asking, “If I try to
think about this site (or burial practice, iconography, landscape, and so on) in
terms of the concepts and perspectives of its creators, can I make sense of what
otherwise resists explanation?” Of course, we can never know precisely what
these concepts and perspectives were, but we can try to come up with well-
informed approximations.
All the authors in this stimulating collection espouse an ontological ap-
proach. Although I welcome the “ontological turn” as long overdue, I have
some misgivings about such a broad use of the term “ontology,” which properly
refers to a theory (logos) about the nature of existence. Like Spence-Morrow
and Swenson (this volume, Chapter 6), I doubt that many (if any) societies can
be characterized as “having” a self-contained, internally consistent theory of
being, but I do think that members of a society may share certain orientations
to existence, that is, they share deeply ingrained tacit assumptions about how
the world works; orientations and assumptions that may be passed on through
the generations. Thus I prefer to refer to ontological orientations rather than
ontologies.
Contributions to this collection approach ontology in various ways. All pri-
oritize the explanatory capacity of indigenous ideas about the world, rejecting
a treatment of these ideas as epiphenomenal expressions of environmental and
economic factors. Nevertheless, they employ a spectrum of approaches rang-
ing from a prioritization of worldview to the more radical re-envisioning that
334 Catherine J. Allen

Benjamin Alberti calls “critical ontology,” which “aims to reconfigure archaeol-
ogy theoretically and conceptually on the basis of indigenous theory” (Alberti
2016: 164; see also Sillar 2004). In this volume, Alberti and Laguens “propose
an archaeology that takes into account local theories as on a par with our own
anthropological theories” (Chapter 2).
Most of our authors fall between the two ends of the spectrum, with Glowacki,
Troncoso, and Lozada near the “worldview” end, and Alberti and Laguens (not
surprisingly) at the “critical ontology” end. Glowacki brings a wealth of com-
parative data to bear on the head and hair, ubiquitous in Andean iconographies
spanning two millennia. She draws intriguing connections with Amerindian
shamanic traditions of spiritual transcendence. Troncoso approach hunter-
gatherers’ rock art sites as communication hubs for social networks, provid-
ing the spatial environment with a semantic structure. Lozada’s study equates
ontology with an emic approach, characterizing the body as “a biological unit
that takes on cultural and social meaning when interpreted within a particu-
lar context” (this volume, Chapter 4). Because emic is meaningful in relation
to etic, the emic/etic terminology implies the possibility of value-free (that is,
etic) description, an important aspect of Lozada’s bioarchaeological research.
Hard-core Ontological Turners, in contrast, question the possibility of neutral,
objective observation: “our” worlds are no more real than “their” worlds (for
example, Viveiros de Castro 2004).
Mannheim’s contribution is harder to place on the spectrum. Rather than
engaging in thought-experimentation about Inka archaeology, he attempts to
lay a groundwork that might inform such thought-experiments. He charac-
terizes his approach as ontological, ethnographic, and empirical. Like more
radical proponents of the “ontological turn,” he rejects “representational” ap-
proaches, holding that, through cognitive and social processes, people project
(rather than represent) their worlds. Language and other factors condition
these processes, he tells us, and this conditioning can be studied experimen-
tally. It seems to me that this appeal to controlled experimentation puts him
in the emic/etic camp and possibly contradicts his otherwise “critically on-
tological” stance. Be that as it may, the idea of frame of reference, the most
original contribution of this rich and highly technical chapter, emerges from
his collaboration with cognitive psychologists. According to Mannheim, frame
of reference is “a cognitive/linguistic system that partitions space and locates
people within space, by a single set of principles that coordinates cognition,
language, and physical movement.” Experiments indicate that English and

Spanish speakers operate in egocentric frames anchored in the participants in
the action, while Quechua speakers’ allocentric frames are anchored in action
outside the speakers. “The material signatures of an allocentric absolute system
are clear enough that it should be possible to read the frame of reference back
from settlement pattern and other aspects of material culture for archaeologi-
cally attested peoples” (this volume, Chapter 9). For example, he points out
that lineage, conceived as a long line of descent from an apical ancestor to ego,
implies an egocentric frame. An allocentric frame predicts broader and shal-
lower systems of inheritance and social configurations characteristic of what
is commonly called a “house model.” This supports ontologically informed
historiography that questions colonial Spaniards’ accounts of Inka rulers in
dynastic (lineage) terms (for example, Urton 1990; Zuidema 1964), and also
suggests a more nuanced understanding of Inka mortuary practices in the ar-
chaeological record. The dead would have maintained powerful connections
with their descendents as members of the same houses rather than as a series
of biblical-type “begats” stretching back generations.
Within this volume’s intriguingly broad ontological umbrella, I was struck
by three common themes: (1) using indigenous, postconquest concepts to inter-
rogate pre-Columbian materials; (2) rethinking the status of the human body;
and (3) applying relational, or mereological, thinking to illuminate the Andean
archaeological record.
Prioritizing Indigenous Concepts
Tantaleán’s introductory chapter suggests several concepts that have heuris-

tic value in relation to remains from the pre-Columbian past. These concepts,
which surface repeatedly in ethnohistorical and ethnographic sources, are, in
Quechua (and very roughly translated): cama (form-infusing force), pacha
(world: a configuration of time, space, matter, and consciousness), huaca (en-
ergetically powerful place), and runa (human being). Tantaleán is not arguing
that these very concepts, with their Quechua terminology, should be applied to
much earlier people like the Moche; rather that they expose us to certain onto-
logical premises about matter, agency, and animation that may guide our think-
ing in new channels. I was a bit surprised that our authors drew less on cama
than on my discussion of sami (flow of animating force) in Sonqo, a contempo-
rary Quechua-speaking community in southern Peru. I do think the notion of
sami, as I came to understand it, expresses an enduring ontological orientation

in the Andes and that the analogies suggested, for example, by Muro, Castillo
and Tomasto, are reasonable and valid. It is worth noting, however, that sami,
as used in Sonqo, is a local expression of a more widespread orientation to the
consubstantiality and animation of the world. The word had, moreover, a some-
what different semantic range in Inka times (as luck and bliss; see Tantaleán’s
note 8, this volume, Chapter 1). The word cama is seldom used anymore but,
as described by early sources, the concept entailed not simply a flow of force,
but the (always transitory) fixing of force in substantial form. In my recent
work on ritually powerful miniatures (enqaychus; Allen 2016a, 2016b), I found
particularly helpful Xavier Ricard Lanata’s (2007) nuanced discussion of cama
in relation to contemporary uses of the word anímu (glossed as esencia en acto;
see also Arnold and Yapita 1998).
Pacha is another fundamental concept. I felt it hovering in the background
of several papers (for example, Spence-Morrow and Swenson, Alberti and
Laguens), but it comes to the fore only in Villanueva’s nuanced exploration of
its implications for Bolivian archaeology. He makes the important point that
ontological premises may be widely shared and may persist over time, yet may
“have a multitude of possible material expressions.” Guided by a wide array of
ethnographic sources, Villanueva examines varying manifestations of the pacha
concept in different periods and areas of the Bolivian altiplano. Because pacha
entails time and space together, “the past is a place,” an idea Villanueva explores
in relation to evidence of varying ritual orientations in different archaeological
sites.
Andean Bodies
Collectively, the contributors to this volume make a compelling argument

that human bodies have to be understood as intrinsically connected to the
landscape. Lozada draws particularly on the “mountain metaphor” as de-
scribed in Joseph Bastien’s (1985[1978]) compelling ethnography of a Boliv-
ian Qollahuaya community whose inhabitants describe the topography of
their mountain home in terms of human anatomy. From this perspective, the
human body provides an organizing model for other entities in the natural
world. Like the human body’s inner circulation of blood, the mountain con-
tains an inner circulation of water. Disease is understood as an imbalance of
this interior hydraulic system.
For archaeologists, Bastien’s insightful account of the parallel constitutions

of body, community, and mountain is highly suggestive. If, however, we are
thinking in ontological terms, we should scrap the words “metaphor” and
“model.” Ontologically speaking, the Qollahuaya body-mountain connection
is not a figure of speech, nor does the body provide a cognitive model for un-
derstanding other aspects of the world: human bodies and mountain bodies are
fundamentally the same.
Lozada uses Bastien’s insights, along with other colonial and contemporary
sources, to illuminate the bioarchaeological record in various Middle Horizon
and Late Intermediate sites in southern Peru. She argues that because biological
and cultural dimensions of Andean life were interwoven, human remains need
to be interpreted in terms of cultural practices that have to be inferred from
indirect sources. Designing her research hypotheses in terms of indigenous be-
liefs and practices produced mixed, but always interesting, results. She found
that Inka understandings of the life cycle did not illuminate burial practices at
the sites under consideration, while information about the etiology of disease
was more helpful. Colonial sources and contemporary ethnography agree that
disease was understood as the individual manifestation of a communal problem
that called for collective treatment. This Lozada illuminates in the mortuary
traditions under study, as diseased individuals were not segregated from their
community but buried right along with their fellows.
Muro, Castillo, and Tomasto-Cagigao, as well as Alberti and Laguens, aim
for a more radical theoretical repositioning of the body in archaeological dis-
course “Under the lens of an alternate (non-Western) ontology there is not,
and never was, a single body, but a multiplicity of embodiments of human
and nonhuman entities inhabiting the natural and social world” (this volume,
Chapter 5). Orienting their analysis according to the premises of Amerin-
dian perspectivism (Viveiros de Castro 1998), the authors suggest that hu-
man bodies were understood as inherently unstable manifestations of a world
characterized by relational processes ever in flux. In a fascinating discussion
of San José de Moro, they argue that bodies of the dead were treated as mal-
leable—altered, disarticulated, and sequentially repositioned—while ritual
paraphernalia at the site indicates a contrasting concern with controlling this
flux by “hardening” certain individuals into a more permanent, ancestor-like
condition.
The exciting contribution by Alberti and Laguens uses this perspectivist ori-
entation to rethink the relationship between body and landscape in the context
of La Calendaria culture in northwest Argentina. They argue that assumptions

we normally take as given, such as the individual integrity of the body, and the
essential difference between body and environment, cannot illuminate the ar-
chaeological records of non-Western peoples. “Our argument is that we cannot
get at these archaeological landscapes from traditional theories because they
imply a specific conceptualization of the body that cuts off a host on onto-
logical alternatives.” Drawing on perspectivist premises and Andean sources,
they advocate a “radically different ontology of bodies” in which people and
landscape are mutually constitutive. Thinking about the archaeological record
of La Calendaria “as if I were a perspectivist” collapses the landscape/body dis-
tinction and makes sense of otherwise anomalous data. It is important to note
that Alberti and Laguens do not assume a priori that the La Calendaria people
were perspectivists. Their thought-experiment allows them to try on this gen-
eral orientation to the world and see if it helps makes sense of anomalous data.
Environmental determinist models, they argue, cannot explain why the Can-
delaria material culture extends, essentially unchanged, over different environ-
ments; in fact, such approaches fail even to recognize that it is the same culture.
(Troncoso, although not adopting Alberti and Laguen’s critically ontological
approach, offers a similar critique of environmental determinism.) Alberti and
Laguens argue that the archaeological data make more sense when viewed in
terms of ontological perspectivism; “The way of relating and constituting one-
self as human or nonhuman among a multitude of selves is what made life
possible for the La Calendaria in these different places” (this volume, Chapter
8). They “carried their landscape with them.” Human life was not a matter of
interacting with other humans while acting on objects, but of intraacting with
the whole range of animate beings in the universe. This constant flux of intra-
relationship is central to ontological understanding of all bodies, human and
nonhuman.
I borrow intraaction from physicist Karen Barad (2007) who introduced the
term to describe situations in which entities bring about each other within a
relation (as opposed to interaction in which the entities pre-exist their rela-
tion). In her book, Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice across Andean Worlds
(2015), Marisol De la Cadena adapts the concept to an Andean context: “Rather
than being instilled in the individual subject, the substance of the runakuna
[humans] and the other-than-humans that make an ayllu [community] is the
co-emergence of each with the others” (De la Cadena 2015: 102). While Alberti
and Laguens do not use this terminology, I think intraaction encapsulates well
the orientation they describe.

The World as a Play of Relationships
This brings us to the third theme that runs through this collection: the play
of relationships, especially part-whole relationships. Here, I think, is the crux
of understanding Andean orientations to substance as animate, unstable, and
subject to transformation. John and Marcia Ascher (1997[1981]), early pio-
neers in the study of Inka quipus, used the term “Inca insistence”1 to describe
a habitus, that is, an ingrained way of doing things that is manifested over
and over again in the things Inkas made, particularly in woven cloth, stone
walls, and, of course, khipus. One aspect of Inca insistence is a concern with
spatial arrangement: with fit (as mutual adjustment), and with symmetry and
repetition. Although the Aschers referred specifically to the Inka, I observed a
similar insistence in my research in contemporary communities. Boundaries,
encounters, ruptures, repetitions, and inversions are significant in themselves
(Allen 2011, 2016a, 2016b). Essays in this volume make it abundantly clear that
a similar insistence crops up in pre-Inka contexts as well.
Spence-Morrow and Swenson provide a lucid discussion of spatial relations
in terms of mereology (a branch of philosophy that studies part-whole rela-
tions). Part-whole relations are an important aspect of many realms of human
endeavor; in fact, Spence-Morrow and Swenson observe, archaeology itself is
a mereological enterprise.2 In my studies of miniaturization, weaving patterns,
and narrative composition (that is, Allen 1998, 2011), I noted a dynamic mode
of relationality that entails the interchangeability of whole and parts. I described
as this as synecdoche, although in some contexts fractality (where a form is re-
cursively reiterated at descending levels of scale) would do as well. Mannheim
describes this mode of relationality as a strategy of involution that builds inter-
pretation into the object itself (this volume, Chapter 9).
Spence-Morrow and Swenson’s carefully argued paper focuses on sequen-
tial renovations of ceremonial architecture at the late Moche site of Huaca
Colorada. Each renovation “incrementally reduced the precinct while care-
fully maintaining and reiterating fundamental components of its spatial or-
ganization” (this volume, Chapter 6). Each fractal iteration evoked its pre-
decessors, and, judging from the archaeological evidence, each iteration was
inaugurated with human and other kinds of sacrifice. The authors suggest
that this dynamic architectural biography provides a sense of “the internal
mereological logic specific to the Moche” (Chapter 6). What might seem like a
random piling up of structures and sacrifices makes sense once one perceives

it as “predicated on the part engendering and enlivening the whole, and vice
versa” (Chapter 6). Playing with fractal structures was not simply a matter of
restless intellectual play: “the apparent interconnection of human and archi-
tectural sacrifice [indicates} that the Moche perceived adobe walls and matter
in general to be in a state of ‘continuous birth’ and ‘continuous movement’”
(Chapter 6).
Huaca Salango, the Ecuadorean site discussed by Richard Lunnis, is another
marvelously rich site that underwent periodic processes of renovation. Lunnis
emphasizes that Salango was indeed a huaca—that is, it appears to have been
experienced as a powerful and intensely energetic place, a site of pilgrimage and
focus of human social and ritual activity. Ceremonial architecture was periodi-
cally renovated, with new structures anchored to the architecture design at their
center. Each phase was characterized by complex sacrifices. Although Lunnis
does not discuss the site in mereological terms, his careful discussion suggests
parallels with Huaca Colorada.
La Mattina and Sayre explore the play of relations at the famous site of
Chavín de Huantar. Unlike authors in this collection who draw upon the prem-
ises of Amerindian perspectivism as articulated by Viveiros de Castro (1998),
they take as their starting point Philippe Descola’s scheme of “ethno-ontolog-
ical regimes” (2013[2005]). Descola’s categories hinge on what he interprets
as the interplay of interiority (inner subjective experience) and physicality
(body, substance). Animists, in his terminology, assume that existent beings
(human and nonhuman) share the same kind of interiority but have different
bodies. Analogists assume that beings differ from each other in both dimen-
sions; analogism is “a mode of identification that divides up the whole collec-
tion of existing beings into a multiplicity of essences, forms and substances
separated by small distinctions . . . so that it becomes possible to recompose
the system of initial contrasts into a dense network of analogies.” (Descola
2013 [2005]: 201). According to this scheme most (probably all) Andean cul-
tures are analogistic. Indeed, anyone familiar with the play of relationships
in the Andean ethnographic and ethnohistoric record (see above) will agree
with this designation.
Arguing in terms of Descola’s categories, La Mattina and Sayre take issue
with scholars who interpret Chavín iconography as manifesting an animistic
orientation. Here the problem is partly a matter of terminology. Descola uses
“animism” in a restricted sense, while other scholars, including myself, use ani-
mism more broadly to describe an ontological premise that attributes mindful

life to nonhuman material forms. From this perspective, animism underlies
the shifting relationality of analogism (compare M. Sahlins 2014: 281). Perhaps,
as Mannheim implies (this volume, Chapter 9), we should just scrap the term
animism in favor of something else.
More substantively, La Mattina and Sayre do well to emphasize the intense
emphasis on relationality in Chavín iconography. Their caution against apply-
ing Amazonian schemes a priori to Andean material is well taken, and should
encourage more nuanced approaches to the complex individuality of this im-
portant site. Likewise, they make a good point, that religious specialists at the
pilgrimage site should be considered priests rather than shamans because the
institutional framework in which they operated was clearly distinct from that of
tropical forest shamans. Nevertheless, it is also worth keeping in mind that af-
finities between Chavín and Amazonian cultures are well-attested (for example,
Lathrap 1973) and it is not unreasonable for interpreters of Chavín to look to
the forests to the east for guidance (for example, Urton 2008). Similarly, while
Chavín religious practice must have operated within a canonical framework
with a resident hierarchy of ritual specialists, Chavín iconography manifests
exuberant transformations (for example, snake-hair, manioc-penis) that reso-
nate with shamanistic orientations.
La Mattina and Sayre’s Descolean interpretation of the Tello Obelisk as a
chimera brilliantly demonstrates a special kind of animic-analogism (for lack
of a better term). The hybrid creatures of the Tello Obelisk—caymans whose
body parts are felines, raptors, serpents, shellfish, and various plants—bring
us back to ontologies of the body (previous section). It evokes Muro, Castillo,
and Tomasto’s remark that there “is not, and never was, a single body, but
a multiplicity of embodiments of human and nonhuman entities inhabiting
the natural and social world” (this volume, Chapter 5). The authors show that
bodies at San José de Moro were malleable—disarticulated, dispersed, and
rearranged. But they also perceive a countertendency toward hardening, sta-
bilizing bodies and making them orderly. The Tello Obelisk beautifully mani-
fests these counterposing tendencies; an otherwise motley array of beings is
contained and organized as the cayman’s well-ordered parts. Yet the cayman-
chimera is not single, but double. On close examination (Figure 3.3) one sees
that the obelisk’s two sides depict nearly, but not exactly, identical caymans.
Certain locations in each cayman’s body are occupied by different creatures:
on one side, for example, the cayman is capped by a raptor; on the other, by a
fanged and snaky-tongued spondylus shellfish. The two identically structured

chimeras are differentiated and brought into dialogue with each other. As La
Mattina and Sayre observe, echoing Descola’s language, the chimera exists “in
almost exclusive relationship with itself ” (this volume, Chapter 3) as a play of
part-whole relationships. “The person is comprised of different aspects whose
correct ordering establishes harmony, and the person is an aspect of a larger
whole, the macrocosm, with which it is coextensive or iterative” (this volume,
Chapter 3).
“In almost exclusive relationship with itself ”: this, in effect, is how Mannheim
describes the products of Andean expressive culture. He comments, “Native
Andean visual . . . forms used several strategies to build the interpretation into
the object itself. . . . These strategies constructed a world of objects and forms
that were self interpreting—an introversive semiosis” (this volume, Chapter
9). As an ethnographer, I learned that my interlocutors were not prone to
exegesis—which meant I would get little help when I asked for interpreta-
tions of things people made or did. While listening to oral narratives in order
to understand the tellers’ compositional strategies, I realized that Quechua
and Aymara expressive cultures insist upon what might be called entegesis: a
kind of inner self-reflection that produces an oblique auto-commentary (Al-
len 2011). It is indeed “a world of objects and forms that are self-interpreting.”
That this held in past Andean cultures is well illustrated by the chimerical
Tello Obelisk, and the iterative renovations at Huaca Colorada and Salango.
It has been fascinating to see, in this collection of thought-experiments, how
archaeologists are learning to hear the interpretations Andean objects carry
within themselves.
Notes
1. The Aschers borrowed the rather odd term “insistence” from Gertrude Stein, as
exemplified in her famous aphorism, “A rose is a rose is a rose.”
2. Archaeology proceeds in a mereological fashion by identifying “traces of action”
in a site and arranging them to form a notion of the whole—which is then analyzed by
deconstruction into its parts.
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Contributors
Benjamin Alberti, associate professor, Framingham State University, is au-

thor of “‘Worlds Otherwise’: Archaeology, Anthropology, and Ontological Dif-
ferences,” in Current Anthropology. Alberti’s primary research areas are in North-
west Argentina, where he explores concepts of bodies and alternative ontologies
among the cultures of the first millennium AD. Currently he is researching an-
thropomorphism and notions of materiality in northwest Argentina.
Catherine J. Allen, professor emerita at George Washington University, is a

cultural anthropologist with an abiding interest in the relationship between the
Andean present and the pre-Columbian past. Her publications include articles
on pre-Columbian iconography as well as The Hold Life Has: Coca and Cultural
Identity in an Andean Community, Foxboy: Intimacy and Aesthetics in Andean
Stories, and Condor Qatay: Anthropology in Performance.
Luis Jaime Castillo is principal professor at the Pontificia Universidad

Católica del Perú, and has been director of the San José de Moro Archaeologi-
cal Program since 1991. He was also codirector of the Archaeological Project
at Pampa Grande from 2004 to 2006. Professor Castillo has written numer-
ous articles relating to funerary and ceremonial practices of the Moche, the
priestesses of San José de Moro, the role of women in northern coastal pre-
Hispanic societies, representations of warriors in Moche art, and the Sacrifice
Ceremony.
Mary Glowacki serves as state archaeologist for the State of Florida, Divi-
sion of Historic Resources. Her research focus is on early complex societies
of the Andes—in particular, Wari imperialism (AD 600–1000). She is the
author of “The Huaro Archaeological Site Complex” in Rethinking the Huari
Occupation of Cuzco, and has a forthcoming publication on site looting, the
escalation of Internet antiquity sales, and the state’s role in protecting the
state’s cultural resources.
Andres Laguens, of the Institution National University of Cordoba, Argen-

tina, is the author of Social Space and the Archaeology of Inequality: Insights into
Social Differences at Ambato Valley, Southern Andes, Argentina.
Nicco La Mattina is a linguistic anthropologist principally concerned with

understanding linguistic identities as founded on a complex of discursive prac-
tices and dispositions. His research interests include the ontology of language,
the economy of linguistic exchanges, and language as the object of discourse.
María Cecilia Lozada, research associate in anthropology at the University

of Chicago, is coeditor of Archaeological Human Remains: Legacies of Imperial-
ism, Communism and Colonialism.
Richard Lunniss is associated with the Universidad Técnica de Manabí,

Portoviejo, Ecuador. From 1983 to 1987, he directed fieldwork at Salango and
since then has, in one way or another, devoted most of his time to the study
of that site, publishing his results in Ecuador and abroad. Additionally, he has
had opportunity to excavate on Cerro Jaboncillo, the largest known Manteño
ceremonial center, and to investigate other sites of the period in Central and
South Manabí. His principal interests concern the nature and history of pre-
Columbian ritual practices, cosmology, iconography, sacred architecture, and
sacred landscapes.
Bruce Mannheim is professor of anthropology, University of Michigan, and

the editor of the Dialogic Emergence of Culture and Language of the Inka since
the European Invasion. He is a leading linguistic anthropologist who studies
the interrelations among language, culture, and history, particularly in South
America.
Luis Armando Muro, lecturer, Stanford University, is a Peruvian archaeolo-

gist who graduated from Católica del Perú (PUCP). His research interest fo-
cuses on the study of funerary spectacles, corporality, and monumental public
spaces in the ancient Moche world. He is coeditor of Huaca 20: A Lima Site in
the Ancient Maranga Complex.
348 Contributors
Matthew Sayre is chair and professor at the University of South Dakota.
Professor Sayre works at the site of Chavín de Huántar in the Peruvian Andes.
His work focuses on the ecological, agricultural, economic, and ritual practices
of people in the Andes. He is the author of “A Synonym for Sacred: Vilca Use
in the Pre-hispanic Andes” in Ancient Psychoactive Substances, edited by Scott
Fitzpatrick.
Giles Spence-Morrow, University of Toronto, is currently assistant to the

director of the Archaeology Centre and the author of “A New Aerial Photo-
grammetric Survey Method for Recording Inaccessible Rock Art,” in Digital Ap-
plications in Archaeology. His research has focused on spatial analysis of Moche
ceremonial architecture in the Jequetepeque Valley of northern coastal Peru.
Edward Swenson, associate professor, University of Toronto, has worked in

the Jequetepeque Valley of northern Peru since 1997, and he is currently con-
ducting archaeological fieldwork at the Moche Centre of Huaca Colorada in
northern Peru. Swenson’s theoretical interests include the preindustrial city,
violence and subject formation, the archaeology of ritual, and the politics of
time, landscape, and social memory. He is the author of “The Archaeology of
Ritual” in Annual Review of Anthropology.
Henry Tantaleán, professor in archaeology at Universidad Nacional Mayor

de San Marcos and associate director of the Institute for the Advanced Study of
Culture and the Environment at the University of South Florida, is the author
of Peruvian Archaeology: A Critical History.
Elsa Tomasto-Cagigao is a lecturer at Pontificia Universidad Católica del

Perú, and her research area is coastal and highland Peru. Her interests include
mortuary practices, pathology, warfare, and human sacrifice. She is the author
of “Paracas Funerary Practices in Palpa, South Coast of Perú” in Current An-
thropology.
Andrés Troncoso, Universidad de Chile, is the editor of Archaeology of Rock

Art: South American Perspectives. He has directed several projects in Chile,
and his research focuses on the way rock art was engaged in the social re-
production of past communities, ancient ontologies, and the construction of
landscapes.
Contributors 349
Juan Villanueva Criales of the Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore,
La Paz, is the editor of Personas, Cosas, Relaciones: Reﬂexiones arqueológicas
sobre las materialidades pasadas y presentes. His research area is the Bolivian al-
tiplano with a focus on the ceramic materiality and iconography of Middle-Ho-
rizon Tiwanaku and Late Intermediate period Carangas. His research includes
the role of ceramics in commensalism, rituality, and mortuary practices, and
the role of funerary architecture in the construction of communities, among
other current anthropological themes, in La Paz City.
350 Contributors
Index
Abancay, 255 Amerindian perspectivism, 2, 11, 15, 31, 120,

Abercrombie, Thomas, 10 219, 338, 341
Aca pacha, 21 Amerindian societies, 2
Achuar, 83 Analogism, 79, 83, 85, 89, 91, 93, 257, 341,
Aconquija, 229 342
Adelaar, Willem, 9 Analogist ontology, 79, 87
Adolescent, 109 Analogy, 79, 138, 152, 187, 203, 272, 337
Adults, 106, 111, 128, 130 Anatomy, 99, 100, 102, 337
Afterlife, 202 Ancestors, 21, 25, 50, 57, 59, 73, 107, 121, 122,
Age, 105, 111, 119, 275 125, 126, 135, 136, 137, 138, 140, 142, 167,
Agency, 14, 23, 91, 116, 121, 134, 137, 141, 142, 186, 199, 200, 218, 246, 247, 257, 258, 276,
158, 168, 204, 220, 240, 241, 294, 336 277, 293, 318, 338
Agency (in objects), 14, 277 Ancestor veneration, 124, 142, 253, 254
Agricultural fields, 140 Ancestrality, 116, 117, 121, 135, 143, 220
Aguada (archaeological culture), 231 Anchors, 63
Alakh pacha, 21 Andean archaeologists, 121, 143, 291
Alax Pacha, 276, 277 Andean archaeology, 5, 9, 13, 23, 29, 75, 117,
Albarracín-Jordán, Juan, 284 120, 121, 301
Alberti, Benjamin, 335, 338, 339 Andean area, 16
Albornoz, Cristóbal de, 8 Andean civilization, 80, 81
Allen, Catherine, 5, 11, 18, 31, 91, 117, 139, 153, Andean countries, 14
203, 205 Andean concepts, 26, 117
Allocentric (frame of reference), 240, 252, Andean cultures, 4
253, 254, 255, 256, 259, 336 Andean dualism, 56
Alma, 30, 205 Andean landscape, 23, 26, 155
Alpaca, 288 Andean mountains, 4, 50
Alterity, 220, 221 Andean notions, 16, 26
Alto Huallaga, 185 Andean ontologies, 3, 4, 6, 15, 16, 17, 26, 27,
Amaya, 277, 287 28, 29, 154, 185, 253, 301, 302, 324, 325, 326
Amazonia, 188, 217, 233 Andean past, 15, 90, 106
Amazonian ethnography, 11, 13, 116, 119, 137, Andean prehistory, 99
156, 217 Andean region, 3, 4, 49
Amazonian groups, 10, 11, 12 Andean rituals, 16
Amazonian peoples, 90, 192, 223, 332 Andean societies, 18, 21, 101, 105
Amazonian perspectivism, 120, 156, 213, Andean thought, 18
214, 218, 220, 222 Andean world, 6, 22, 23, 25, 26, 108, 141,
Ambato valley, 232 199, 235, 275, 277
Amerindian ontology, 120, 214, 218 Andean worldview, 6, 17, 18, 28, 31, 99, 102
Androcentric view, 25 Atahualpa (Inca), 203
Ánima, 19, 30 Auca, 274, 275, 276
Animal, 3, 20, 22, 24, 30, 31, 54, 83, 84, 87, Awayus, 285
120, 135, 153, 157, 173, 191, 218, 219, 225, Axis mundi, 188
227, 243, 245, 257, 277, 281, 291, 322 Ayahuasca, 188
Animation, 140, 312, 336, 337 Ayala, Felipe Guamán Poma de, 6, 7, 104,
Animism, 11, 14, 30, 79, 82, 83, 84, 89, 90, 105, 106, 203, 255
91, 93, 185, 223, 257, 341 Ayllu, 24, 50, 102, 153, 276, 339
Animist ontology, 86, 90, 220, 277 Aymara (language), 4, 9, 17, 30, 31, 343
Animu, 24, 30, 205, 337 Aymara concepts, 16
Annales (French school of), 272, 275 Ayni, 153
Anthropocentric perspectives, 1, 2
Anthropological studies, 22 Bahía (archaeological culture), 52, 54, 61,
Anthropology, 2, 5, 11, 12, 15, 23, 25, 213, 217, 62, 64, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74
240, 275 Balsa rafts, 63
Anthropomorphic, 59, 66, 68 Barad, Karen, 339
Apus, 23, 213, 235 Barreto, Cristiana, 220
Archaeological approachs, 27 Bastien, Joseph, 10, 102, 202, 337, 338
Archaeological context, 4, 13, 18, 27, 100, Batán Grande, 168, 169
102, 103, 137 Bautista, Hardman de, 9
Archaeological discipline, 14, 117 Beach, 71
Archaeological discourse, 117, 338 Beans, 81
Archaeological evidence, 29, 117, 122, 124, Beings, 1, 2, 3, 12, 19, 20, 21, 23, 27, 31, 50, 60,
142, 340 61, 64, 65, 69, 70, 71, 72, 74, 82, 83, 86, 87,
Archaeological explanation, 23, 24 89, 91, 92, 120, 123, 135, 139, 141, 143, 152,
Archaeological interpretation, 26, 27, 28, 153, 156, 157, 183, 189, 190, 192, 196, 197,
151, 152, 174, 272 199, 205, 214, 217, 218, 219, 221, 223, 224,
Archaeological investigation, 81 233, 244, 249, 256, 279, 281, 287, 293, 304,
Archaeological materials, 107, 220 305, 306, 313, 323, 324, 333, 339, 341
Archaeological method, 151 Belief systems, 143
Archaeological narratives, 26 Benson, Elizabeth, 185
Archaeological perspective, 16, 28, 305 Bertonio, Ludovico, 9, 19, 21, 22, 24, 31
Archaeological record, 50, 75, 79, 109, 175, Betanzos, Juan de, 6
189, 202, 221, 272, 336, 338 Bioarchaeological data, 126, 142
Archaeological remains, 6, 154 Bioarchaeological evidence, 131
Archaeological sequence, 54 Bioarchaeological record, 338
Archaeological studies, 14, 22 Bioarchaeologist, 103
Archaeological theory, 119, 120 Bioarchaeology, 25
Archaeology, 28, 116 Biography, 158
Archaeology of death, 118 Bird, 22, 54, 86, 171, 187, 192, 251, 279, 280,
Architectural design, 54, 55, 73 281, 282
Architectural evidence, 92 Birth, 57, 103, 158, 174, 277
Architecture, 15, 25, 52, 74, 81, 150, 292 Body (human), 14, 18, 21, 57, 99, 100, 101,
Argentina, 4, 213, 214, 225, 227, 231, 234, 338 102, 103, 104, 108, 111, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121,
Arnold, Denise, 101 125, 129, 131, 132, 134, 135, 137, 139, 140, 141,
Art history, 2 142, 143, 197, 202, 203, 213, 216, 214, 218,
Arthritis, 110 335, 337, 338, 339, 341
Artifacts, 11, 14, 53, 54, 60, 67, 70, 72, 105, Body (modifications), 25
157, 219, 249 Body parts, 134, 342
Aru (language), 17 Bolin, Inge, 11, 30
Astronomical cycles, 103 Bolivia, 17, 102, 108, 186, 202, 248, 271, 272
352 Index
Bolivian altiplano, 258, 271, 272, 277, 291, Cchamani, 19
292 Ccotototuyoc (archaeological site), 200
Bolivian archaeology, 337 Cemetery, 59, 106, 116, 117, 121, 123, 134, 143
Bones (human), 103, 129, 130, 139, 140, 205, Central America, 192
288, 291 Central Andes, 80, 117, 138, 220, 248, 301
Bororo, 90 Ceques, 255
Botanical evidence, 92 Ceramics, 11, 123, 124, 227, 283, 284, 292
Bray, Tamara, 19, 326 Ceramic vessels, 124, 159, 191, 219, 228, 287
Brick, 151 Cereceda, Verónica, 274
Brünning, Heinrich, 9 Ceremonial architecture, 52, 90, 158, 164,
Burial (human), 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 174, 291, 340, 341
63, 64, 65, 67, 71, 73, 74, 75, 92, 103, 105, Ceremonial center, 81, 122, 124, 203
106, 109, 122, 128, 130, 131, 132, 134, 164, Ceremonial complex, 52, 53, 61, 69, 70, 73
170, 172, 189, 287, 292, 334 Ceremonial house, 67, 219
Burial bundles (fardos), 190, 197 Ceremonial structures, 61
Burial towers, 284, 287, 290, 291, 292 Ceremonies, 56, 274
Bushnell, G., 70 Cerro Cañoncillo (Jequetepeque), 158, 165,
Butler, Judith, 119, 152 170, 172
Cerrón-Palomino, Rodolfo, 9
Cabeza Larga (archaeological site), 201 Chachapuma, 281
Cabo San Lorenzo (Ecuador), 54 Ch’alladores, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284
Cadena, Marisol de la, 11, 217, 339 Ch’amak pacha, 276
Cajamarca, 195 Chaupi, 18
Calchaquí valley, 228, 230 Chavín (archaeological culture), 9, 13, 56,
Callpa, 19 81, 89, 91, 185, 188, 213, 220, 342
Camac, 19, 20, 336, 337 Chavin art, 85, 89, 192, 195, 196
Camaquen, 20 Chavín de Huántar, 15, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85,
Camaquenc, 19, 30 89, 92, 93, 192, 341
Camasca, 20, 31 Chavín Horizon, 80, 82
Camay, 5, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 218 Chicha beer, 122, 124, 135, 138, 244
Camaynin, 19, 30 Children, 105, 106, 128
Camelids, 81, 92 Chile, 4, 110, 307
Cannibalism, 84 Chimeras, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 342, 343
Capitalism, 155 Chimú (archaeological culture), 185, 199
Carangas, 278, 287, 288, 289 China, 87
Cardal (archaeological site), 82 Chinchero (Cuzco), 15, 31
Carnaval, 245 Chipaya (ethnic group), 10
Cartesian model, 18 Chiribaya (archaeological culture), 106, 110
Cartesian notions, 215, 217 Chiribaya Alta (archaeological site), 104
Cartesian philosophies, 119 Christian concepts, 19
Cartesian view, 14 Christianization, 111, 293
Casati, Roberto, 151, 175 Christie, Jessica Joyce, 15
Castillo, Luis Jaime, 122, 123, 124, 337, 338, Chronology, 105, 106, 272
342 Chronotope, 164
Castro Titu Cusi Yupanqui, Diego de, 29 Chullpares, 278, 287, 288, 289
Catholic Church, 21, 24 Chullpas (ancestor bodies), 25, 275, 276, 293
Catholicism, 19, 205 Chullperíos, 289, 290
Cavalcanti-Schiel, Ricardo, 10 Chuño, 138
Cave, 101 Chuquisaca valleys, 281
Cayman, 187, 192, 193, 342 Cieza de León, Pedro, 6
Cchama, 19 Cinnabar, 81
Index 353
Classen, Constance, 100, 102, 105, 108, 202, Diet, 25
203 Disability, 107
Clay, 72, 136, 137 Diseases, 25, 102, 104, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111,
Clubs (weapon), 156 337, 338
Cobo, Bernabé, 6 Dividuality, 218
Coca, 183 Divinity, 87
Colombia, 4, 150 DNA (studies), 107
Colonial period, 25, 111 Donnan, Christopher, 188
Complementariety, 18, 101 Duality, 18, 67, 100, 322
Complementary opposition, 54, 57, 59, 100, Dwelling perspective, 215, 216
161, 274, 322 Dwyer, Jane, 190
Conchopata (archaeological site), 200 Dynastic Egypt, 125
Condoramaya, 278, 284, 286, 287, 292
Connerton, Paul, 274 Early Formative (period), 282, 283
Contextual archaeology, 13 Early Horizon, 80, 187, 189, 192
Cooperation, 24 Early Intermediate Period, 155, 187, 188, 189,
Copper, 130, 168 190
Coricancha (temple of), 7 Early Regional Development (period), 73
Corporality, 135, 140, 141 Ear ornaments, 138
Corporeal ontology, 120, 138, 141, 142, 143 Earth, 21, 22, 31, 59, 75, 140
Corpses, 127, 130, 131, 132, 134, 139, 140, 141 Ecology, 153
Cosmic order, 73 Ecuador, 4, 49, 75, 198
Cosmology, 11, 117, 141, 153, 157, 218, 220, Egocentric (frame of reference), 252, 253,
246, 292 255, 259, 336
Cosmos, 20, 84, 156, 157 Elite, 4, 123, 124, 126, 132, 134, 142, 157, 200
Cosmovision, 11 Embodiment, 120, 126, 132, 142, 216, 217,
Crisoles, 137 221, 342
Cultural-historic approach, 14 Emic perspective, 99, 121, 335
Culture, 30, 93, 119, 120, 154, 215, 219, 223, Emic view, 103, 143
231, 240, 242, 252 Empires, 84
Cupisnique (archaeological culture), 185 Energy, 19, 61, 75, 140, 141
Curandero, 108, 111 English (language), 19, 30, 241, 243, 244,
Cusi, 30 249, 257, 335
Cuzco, 4, 7, 10, 11, 139, 200, 202, 203, 255 Engoroy (archaeological culture), 52, 54, 55,
Cyclical time, 21 56, 57, 61, 63, 72, 73, 74, 75
Enq’a, 11
Dead, 103, 138, 140, 141, 183, 189, 197, 198, Enqa, 30
205, 259, 273, 276, 287, 291, 292, 293, 338 Enqas, 20
Dean, Carolyn, 15 Enqaychu, 30, 337
Death (human), 25, 106, 110, 112, 121, 134, Entanglement theory, 2
139, 140, 141, 143, 157, 189, 277 Epistemology, 3, 15, 49, 155, 175
Death rituals, 125 Estermann, Josef
Decapitation, 185 Estete, Miguel de, 6
Decolonial archaeology, 2 Estuquiña (archaeological culture), 110
Deleuze, Gilles, 216 Ethnoarchaeological approach, 12
Descola, Philippe, 11, 28, 30, 79, 82, 83, 84, Ethnoarchaeology, 12
87, 89, 156, 257, 341, 343 Ethnographical accounts, 138
Descolian ontological animism, 83 Ethnographical sources, 13, 18, 21, 111, 336,
Devil, 22 337
Diaguita (archaeological culture), 318, 322, Ethnographic analogy, 10, 234
323, 324 Ethnographic approaches, 11
354 Index
Ethnographic perspective, 20, 102 Formative period (central Andes), 79, 91,
Ethnographic record, 91, 203, 303 93, 281
Ethnographic research, 28, 107 Foucault, Michel, 125
Ethnographic study, 12, 14, 20, 24, 99, 105, Fowler, Chris, 134
202 Fractal, 116, 134, 139
Ethnography, 2, 5, 10, 15, 23, 83, 334, 337, 338 Fractality, 117, 134, 218, 275, 340
Ethnohistorical accounts, 6, 17, 100, 102, Funerary area, 122
121, 198 Funerary chambers, 124, 127, 130, 132, 135,
Ethnohistorical documents, 8 142
Ethnohistorical research, 107, 202 Funerary platform, 74
Ethnohistorical sources, 13, 18, 21, 25, 111, Funerary processions, 126, 141
336 Funerary rituals, 110, 138
Ethnohistorical studies, 14, 20, 22, 24, 99, Funerary structure, 128, 130, 131, 135
100, 202 Furst, Peter, 188
Ethnohistoric perspective, 6
Ethnohistory, 6, 22, 23, 25, 28, 275, 291, 334 Garagay (archaeological site), 82
Ethno-metaphysics, 82, 83 García, Pablo, 31
Etiology, 102, 338 Garcilaso de la Vega, Inca, 22, 112
Eurocentric perspective, 1, 2 Genealogy (Foucauldian), 301, 302, 306,
European conquest, 102 325, 326
European cultures, 16 Gender (studies), 25, 116, 118
European societies, 6 Geographic space, 18
Evans-Pritchard, E., 333 Gero, Joan, 25
Exotic goods, 81 Glowacki, Mary, 335
Extirpation of idolatries, 8, 21, 293 God, 22, 157
Gold, 22, 244
Face, 90, 101, 109, 135, 137, 138, 227, 319 Golte, Jurgen, 13
Face-neck jars, 135, 136 González Holguín, Diego, 9, 19
Facial painting, 135 Gosden, Chris, 273
Farmers, 63 Grave, 67, 165
Farming, 81 Grave goods, 58, 103, 105, 106, 128, 137, 287
Feast, 58, 124, 286 Grinding stones, 63
Feasting, 122, 123, 124, 137, 142, 158, 159, 160, Guaca. See Huaca
279, 284, 286, 288, 290 Guangala (archaeological culture), 52, 54,
Fecundity, 100, 245 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74
Feline, 70, 187, 192, 193, 279, 281, 282, 323, Guaraní (ethnic group), 90
324, 342 Guayas Basin, 64
Female, 56, 58, 63, 100, 109, 111, 118, 123, 128, Guinea pig (cuy), 165
130, 168, 286
Feminist archaeologies, 116 Haber, Alejandro, 277
Fertility, 30, 139, 160, 172, 174, 188 Hair (human), 69, 85, 183, 184, 185, 186, 188,
Fetal position, 106 189, 196, 198, 202, 204
Figurines, 59, 61, 64, 66, 68, 69, 70, 73, 125, Hallowell, Irving, 242
135, 200, 219 Hallucinogens, 194, 195
Fineline stirrup vessels, 157 Hanan Pacha, 139, 204
Fire, 136, 137 Haque, 24
Fish, 72 Hardening, 122, 137, 141
Flesh (human), 139, 140 Hastorf, Christine, 101
Folk medicine, 25 Headdresses, 135, 138, 196, 197, 198, 313, 317,
Food production, 81 318, 319
Force (vital), 20 Head modification, 201
Index 355
Healing, 51, 102, 187 Hunter-gatherer societies, 186, 302, 307,
Health, 24, 25, 107, 108, 139, 201, 204 308, 309, 310, 324, 335
Hegemony, 1 Hunting, 89, 92, 220
Heidegger, Martin, 15, 216 Husserl, Edmund, 15
Helmets, 156 Hybridization, 16
Hermeneutics, 5 Hypothesis, 27, 29, 105, 143, 332
Heuristics, 3, 12, 16, 19, 27, 28, 155, 183, 336
Hill, Erica, 134, 142 Iconographic approach, 13
Hills, 67 Iconography, 5, 13, 54, 74, 79, 82, 85, 89, 91,
Hinduism, 184 92, 93, 102, 220, 279, 280, 281, 285, 291,
History (discipline), 5 292, 324, 332, 334, 335, 341
Hodder, Ian, 13 Identity, 118, 138, 185, 220
Holbraad, Martin, 333, 334 Ideology, 4, 102, 140, 151, 157, 175, 187, 203,
House, 56 204, 205
Huaca, 5, 9, 16, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 31, 49, Idol, 22
50, 74, 160, 161, 166, 168, 169, 173, 175, 213, Idolatry, 25
218, 235, 304, 336, 341 Illas, 20
Huaca Colorada (Jequetepeque), 125, 150, Illness, 24, 107, 108, 111, 185, 201
152, 153, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 164, 165, Inca (archaeological culture/society), 4, 5,
168, 169, 173, 174, 175, 340, 341, 343 7, 8, 21, 22, 49, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106,
Huaca de la Luna, 158 185, 197, 199, 201, 202, 240, 243, 245, 246,
Huaca Lercanlech, 168 248, 254, 255, 257, 258, 259, 335, 338, 340
Huaca Loro, 168 Inca architecture, 15
Huacha, 108 Inca elites, 25
Hualfin valle, 232 Inca period, 15, 16, 24, 104, 278, 291, 301
Huaraz, 253 Inca religión, 49
Huaro (Cuzco), 200 Indigenous archaeology, 2
Huarochirí Manuscript, 7, 8, 19, 23, 25, 30, indigenous cosmopraxis, 29
31, 156 Indigenous groups, 26
Huayno, 249, 250, 251 Indigenous peoples, 104, 202
Hucha, 140 Indigenous perspectives, 3
Human beings, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 135, 139, Indigenous societies, 3
333, 336 Indigenous views, 28, 111
Human blood, 138, 249, 337 Indigenous world, 100
Human body, 25, 100, 102, 112, 127, 141, 152, Indigenous worldviews, 24, 29, 99
153, 154, 215 Individuality, 130, 131
Human head, 57, 101, 102, 137, 138, 165, 183, Infant burial, 67
184, 185, 186, 187, 189, 192, 194, 198, 200, Ingold, Tim, 158, 174, 215, 216, 258, 305
202, 204, 281, 291, 292, 317, 318 Initial Period (Central Andes), 198
Humanistic sciences, 14 Inka. See Inca
Humanity, 83, 87, 214, 218, 220 Interiority, 30, 83, 84, 86
Humanization, 30 Intersubjectivity, 30, 138
Human life, 18, 23, 106 Iridescent paint, 61, 64, 66
Human remains, 61, 99, 338 Isbell, William, 25
Humans, 30, 64, 83, 84, 85, 91, 111, 120, 121, Island, 51, 54
139, 143, 157, 158, 173, 218, 220, 223, 227, Israel, 186
233, 277, 284, 301, 306, 312, 317, 326, 339,
341, 342 Jaguar, 83, 86, 187, 188, 219
Human sacrifices, 154, 157, 160, 163, 166, Jama Coaque pottery, 70
174, 185 Janabarriu ceramic style, 82
Human skull, 133, 139, 186, 198, 199, 200, 201 Japan, 185
356 Index
Jequetepeque-Chamán drainage, 122 Late Intermediate Period (Central Andes),
Jequetepeque valley, 117, 122, 124, 125, 142, 104, 105, 247, 248, 254, 272, 278, 284, 287,
143, 152 288, 338
Jívaro (ethnic group), 198, 200 Late Moche (period), 116, 117, 122, 123, 124,
Joyce, Rosemary, 117, 119 126, 127, 129, 130, 132, 135, 137, 140, 143,
150, 158, 340
Kaata (community), 202 La Tolita pottery, 70
Kaata (mountain), 108 Lau, George, 137, 138, 220, 221
Kalasasaya (pottery), 281 Leishmaniasis, 110
Kallawaya (ethnic group), 10, 102 Leone, Mark, 273
K’amacha, 278, 288, 289 Levi-Strauss, Claude, 203, 248
Kay Pacha, 139, 204, 276, 277 Lexicón, 19, 30
Kenning, 85, 195, 196 Life cycles, 104, 105, 107, 157, 313
Keros, 199 Life force, 30, 134, 165, 189, 205
Khipu/Quipu, 6, 255, 340 Life stages, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 111
Khonkho Wankane (archaeological site), Lightning, 141
291 Lima (city), 8, 108
Khuyay, 139 Lima, Tânia, 218
Knapp, Bernard, 273 Limarí valley, 307, 310
Knowledge, 2 Liminal, 101, 130, 274
Kogi, 90 Linguist, 242, 245
Kohn, Eduardo, 11, 217, 222, 224 Linguistics, 5, 9, 28, 99, 102, 246, 334
Kukuchis, 140 Lípez region, 287, 288
Kuntur Wasi (archaeological site), 185 Lithic sculpture, 281
Kusillavi, 278, 288, 289 Llacta, 25, 26
Llamas, 1, 201, 204, 244, 252
La Barre, Weston, 10 Lloyd, Georey, 82
La Candelaria (archaeological culture), 214, Lo Andino (discourse), 4, 155
225, 227, 228, 229, 232, 234, 338, 339 Lokono (arawakan language), 253
Laguens, Andrés, 334, 338, 339 Lowe Art Museum, 197
Lake Titicaca, 102, 278, 284 Lozada, María Cecilia, 202, 332, 335, 337,
La Libertad (Ecuador), 54, 67, 70, 74 338
La Mattina, Nicco, 341, 342, 343 Lucas, Gavin, 272
Lambayeque valley, 168 Lunnis, Richard, 341
Land, 54, 63, 75, 142
Landmarks, 26 Machukuni, 140
Landscape, 3, 14, 15, 24, 25, 26, 100, 103, Machula aulanchis, 117, 140
108, 134, 139, 155, 157, 202, 213, 214, 217, Machulas, 139
218, 221, 222, 223, 225, 226, 227, 232, 234, Machu Picchu, 250
235, 252, 253, 255, 275, 277, 288, 290, 301, Maimonides, 184
302, 305, 308, 313, 320, 323, 324, 334, 337, Maize, 63, 81, 124
338, 339 Maki, 249
Lanzón sculpture (Chavín), 82, 192 Malakulan (Australasia), 201
La Plata Island (Ecuador), 52 Male, 56, 63, 100, 109, 129, 130, 286
La Ramada (archaeological culture), 110, 111 Mallquis, 25
Larco Hoyle, Rafael, 195 Mana, 184, 205
Late Archaic (period), 282, 283 Manabí (Ecuador), 54
Late Formative (period), 291 Mancca pacha, 21
Late Holocene, 307, 309 Manioc, 198
Late Horizon/Inka Horizon, 185, 198, 254, Mannheim, Bruce, 9, 161, 304, 333, 335, 340,
284 342, 343
Index 357
Manta (Ecuador), 54, 69 Moche art, 141, 198
Manteño (archaeological culture), 52 Moche iconography, 13, 156, 161
Mapuche, 90 Moche religion, 156, 157
Marañon River, 80 Modernist perspective, 14
Markham, Clements, 30 Moeity, 58, 84
Martínez, Gabriel, 10 Molina, Cristóbal de (El Cusqueño), 6, 7, 8
Marxist perspectives (in archaeology), 14 Monument, 91
Material culture, 12, 13, 14, 15, 105, 213, 214, Monumental center, 81, 279
218, 219, 220, 221, 225, 226, 232, 233, 240, Monumentality, 23
253, 274, 305, 336, 339 Moon, 275
Materiality, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 24, 86, 121, 132, Moore, Jerry, 90, 91, 306, 326
168, 175, 218, 220, 221, 246, 278, 284, 307 Moquegua, 106, 109
Materiality study, 5, 13, 14, 99 Mortuary analysis, 106
Material record, 79, 92, 306 Mortuary assemblages, 104
Material remains, 13 Mortuary practices, 247, 249, 253, 336
Matter, 18, 20, 137, 143, 153, 158, 174, 277, 306, Mortuary ritual, 106, 136, 141
332, 336 Mortuary traditions, 111
Mausoleum, 122, 124, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, Mortuary treatment, 109, 111, 128
137 Mosna river, 81
Maya, 186, 187 Mountains, 20, 23, 50, 101, 102, 108, 202,
Mayu, 250 218, 233, 244, 249, 254, 256, 337, 338
Meaning, 17, 18, 61, 72, 82, 118, 134, 175, 196, Muchik (language), 9
203, 204, 215, 217, 246, 335 Multiculturalism, 83
Mehi, 90 Multinaturalism, 83, 219
Mejía Huamán, Mario, 29 Multinatural perspectivism, 83
Melanesian ethnography, 116, 119, 132 Mummification, 132
Memory, 120, 158, 306 Mummy, 21, 140, 291, 293
Mereology, 150, 151, 174, 340, 343 Munay, 250
Mereotopology, 151 Mundurucú (ethnic group), 198
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 15, 85, 119 Muro, Luis, 32, 257, 337, 338, 342
Mesa (Shamanic), 188 Murra, John, 225
Meshworks, 304, 305, 306, 308, 313, 318, Murúa, Martín de, 6, 7
324, 326 Muyuy, 31
Meskell, Lynn, 119 Mythical time, 21
Mesoamerica, 119, 246, 252 Mythology, 5, 188
Metal, 123, 130, 200
Metaphor, 117, 195, 203, 218, 287, 337, 338 Nair, Stella, 15
Mexico, 192 Native languages, 16
Middendorf, Ernst, 9 Native societies, 17
Middle Ages, 184 Native worldviews, 112
Middle Formative (period), 291 Naturalism, 82, 83, 84, 257
Middle Horizon Period, 152, 155, 185, 272, Natural landscape, 102
278, 279, 281, 283, 284, 291, 338 Natural world, 101, 108
Miller, Daniel, 14 Nature, 21, 83, 84, 87, 119, 120, 154, 183, 188,
Mind, 83, 153, 216 215, 219, 223
Misminay (Cuzco), 105 Nazca (archaeological culture), 9, 132, 199,
Moche (archaeological culture), 13, 103, 116, 332
117, 122, 125, 132, 134, 136, 137, 139, 140, 141, Nazca lines (geoglyphs), 15
143, 150, 151, 152, 155, 157, 185, 188, 190, Necklaces, 135
199, 336, 341 New Materialism (approach), 14
Moche (period), 124, 127, 129, 130 Nielsen, Axel, 293
358 Index
Nonhumans, 30, 84, 85, 139, 218, 220, 233, Pariti Island, 278, 279, 280, 282, 284, 294
287, 322, 325, 339, 341, 342 Parker, Gary, 9
Nukak, 12 Pastoralism, 81
Pauketat, Tim, 304, 323, 324
Objects, 20, 23, 24, 26, 54, 120, 134, 137, 139, Paul, Anne, 196
141, 215, 218, 219, 221, 255, 277, 305, 334, Peccaries, 219
340, 343 Peirce, Charles Sanders, 13
Obsidian, 58, 59, 72, 81 People, 20, 153, 154, 158, 160, 174
Offerings, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 58, 63, 67, 71, 72, Perception, 5, 14, 15, 102, 107, 119
74, 75, 143, 164, 165, 167, 168, 171, 174, 184, Perception of space, 6
200, 278, 284, 286, 287, 292 Performance, 52, 53, 57, 60, 74, 75, 156, 161,
Ojibwa, 82, 83 173, 284
Old Testament, 184 Performativity, 119
Olmec period, 192 Personhood, 116, 119, 134, 156, 158, 215, 304
Omo (archaeological site), 109, 110, 111 Perspectivism, 85, 117, 120, 218, 220, 221
Ondegardo, Polo, 6, 8 Perspectivist ontology, 117, 121, 135, 141, 142,
Ontological orientations, 334 233
Ontological status, 116, 122, 271, 272, 274, Peru, 4, 6, 14, 17, 79, 99, 100, 104, 106, 110,
293 111, 112, 116, 117, 139, 150, 188, 198, 200,
Ontological turn, 2, 82, 116, 118, 119, 120, 201, 245, 248, 254, 336
154, 240, 242, 301, 303, 332, 334, 335 Petroglyphs, 314, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319, 320,
Ontology, 3, 23, 49, 54, 82, 84, 90, 116, 127, 322, 323
134, 135, 143, 150, 152, 154, 155, 175, 213, Phallcha, 245
214, 215, 216, 232, 242, 245, 246, 249, 283, Phenomenological approaches, 215, 216
292, 324, 334 Phenomenological perspective, 15
Orlando (Florida), 29 Phenomenological philosophy, 118
Oruro (Bolivia), 10 Phenomenology, 5, 15, 119, 216
Osmore drainage, 109, 111 Philosophy, 94, 150, 175
Osteologists, 104 Physical anthropology, 25, 105
Other-than-humans, 120, 224, 240, 301, 302, Physicality, 30, 83, 84, 341
304, 306, 312, 323, 324, 325, 326, 339 Pigments, 309, 310, 312, 313, 318, 324
Pikillacta, 200
Pacajes, 288 Pilgrimage, 125, 158, 341, 342
Pacajes style, 284 Pilgrimage center, 122
Pacha, 5, 16, 18, 21, 24, 213, 235, 271, 272, 274, Pilgrims, 92
275, 277, 283, 293, 336, 337 Pinctada mazatlanica, 67
Pachacamac (god), 26 Place, 20, 50, 51, 53, 61, 74, 153, 154, 157, 158,
Pacific Ocean, 4 174, 225, 271, 291, 304, 306, 310, 322
Pacopampa, 195 Plants, 3, 20, 24, 25, 30, 31, 84, 92, 217, 219,
Paicas, 135 342
Paleoindian period, 186 Platform (architecture), 58, 59, 60, 61, 72,
Paleopathological research, 107 130, 161
Palikur (ethnic group), 224, 225 Platt, Tristan, 274
Palimpsest, 274, 283 Plazas, 92, 122, 135
Pampa, 274 Political interaction, 73
Panofsky, Erwin, 13 Political order, 117
Paracas (archaeological culture), 9, 185, 189, Political relationships, 75
190, 194, 196, 198, 200, 201 Politis, Gustavo, 12
Paracas Necropolis, 190, 200 Portrait vessels, 157, 158
Paradigms, 117, 119 Postmortem, 126, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 133
Paraphernalia, 194, 338 Postmortem manipulation, 134
Index 359
Postprocessual archaeology, 14, 215, 272 Relationality, 17, 340, 342
Potato, 138, 153 Relational ontology, 154, 155
Pottery fragments, 58, 316 Religion, 5, 91, 204, 333
Pottery sherds, 72 Religiosity, 122, 332
Pottery style, 52 Religious calendar, 161
Pottery vessels, 58, 63, 64 Religious center, 92
Power, 119 Religious leader, 57
Predation, 156, 220 Religious practices, 91
Pre-Hispanic Andes, 21 Revolt of the Objects (Theme), 156
Pre-Hispanic social groups, 25 Ricard Lanata, Xavier, 337
Pre-Hispanic societies, 104 Rio Muerto M7OB (Archaeological site),
Presentation theme, 156, 157 106
Prey animals, 83 Rites, 59, 61, 63, 117, 121, 141
Priests, 91, 92, 93 Rites of passage, 103, 186
Prisoners, 200 Ritual, 51, 59, 72, 73, 105, 106, 108, 124, 125,
Processual approach, 14 126, 158, 173, 175, 185, 186, 196, 200, 249,
Processual archaeology, 14, 215, 216 283, 284, 338
Proulx, Donald, 185 Ritual center, 80
Psychotropic drugs, 188 Ritual events, 81
Public space, 81, 126 Ritual function, 67
Pukara (archaeological culture), 281 Ritual performances, 52, 53, 57, 60, 74, 156,
Puma, 202, 203 161
Puquina (language), 17 Ritual practices, 5, 25
Puruma, 274, 275, 276, 277, 287 Ritual process, 141
Ritual sacrifice, 199
Qaqa, 250 Ritual termination, 174
Qeya (pottery), 281 Ritual warfare, 201
Qollahuayas, 103, 108, 110, 337, 338 River, 61, 71, 101, 218
Q’squ puxyu, 101 Robb, John, 323, 326
Quayqa, 140 Rock art, 186, 283, 301, 302, 306, 307, 308,
Quechua (language), 4, 9, 17, 30, 50, 90, 312, 313, 316, 317, 318, 322, 323
100, 101, 102, 107, 240, 241, 243, 244, 246, Rock paintings, 309, 310, 324
248, 249, 250, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, Rocks, 23, 225, 242, 244, 249, 250, 251, 256,
259, 336, 343 311, 312, 313, 315, 316, 317, 320, 321, 323, 324
Quechua concepts, 16 Roe, Peter, 88
Quechua ontology, 13 Rowe, John, 85, 195
Quechua vocabulary, 21, 22 Ruggles, Clive, 15
Quine, Willard van Ormann, 242, 243, 244, Rumi, 250
258 Runa, 5, 16, 18, 20, 24, 336
Quinoa, 81 Runa Indio Ñiscap Machoncuna (Manu-
script), 107
Radiocarbon dating, 80 Runakuna, 24, 30, 339
Raimodi stela, 192, 193, 195, 196 Runakuna (from Sonqos, Cuzco), 139, 140,
Rank, 108, 138 141, 143
Raptors, 342 Rutuchico, 106
Raw materials, 72
Reciprocity, 24, 102, 183 Sacred beings, 50, 53
Recuay (archaeological culture), 137, 213, 220 Sacred center, 49, 51
Relational, 120, 121, 134, 136, 141, 225, 301, Sacred landscape, 21, 23, 202
306, 308 Sacred place, 51, 73
Relational archaeology, 2 Sacrifice Ceremony (theme), 156
360 Index
Sacrifices, 25, 52, 156, 158, 168, 340 Simi pata, 101
Sacrificial victims, 134, 168, 171, 174 Sipán, 130
Sahlins, Marshall, 89 Skeletal remains, 109, 110
Salaite (archaeological site), 64, 65, 70, 75 Skeleton, 111, 127, 128, 130, 131
Salango, 49, 50, 52, 53, 54, 59, 60, 61, 67, 69, Sky, 11, 13, 20, 21, 218
70, 71, 73, 74, 75, 341, 343 Smiling god, 192, 193, 194, 195
Salas Carreño, Guillermo, 304 Snakes, 70, 85, 108, 188, 192, 291
Salomon, Frank, 6, 8, 19, 21, 23 Sobrevilla, David, 29
Salta, 227 Social order, 117
Sami, 11, 20, 30, 52, 117, 121, 139, 140, 141, 143, Social organization, 93
183, 205, 218, 336, 337 Social practices, 3, 17, 25
Sanctuary, 53, 64, 71, 72 Social sciences, 14, 116, 301
Sand, 67, 71, 72 Social status, 118
San Damián de Chiqa (Lima), 108 Social stratification, 155
San José de Moro, 116, 117, 121, 122, 123, 124, Society for American Archaeology, 29
125, 126, 131, 132, 133, 134, 136, 137, 138, 139, Sociology, 2
140, 141, 142, 143, 338, 342 Solstice, 56
San Pedro cactus, 188 Sonco, 30
Santa Elena Peninsula, 54, 64 Songo, 19, 30
Santa Maria valley, 227, 228, 230 Sonqos province, 139, 143, 336, 337
Santarem (archaeological culture), 220 Soul, 18, 19, 30, 83, 101, 153, 183, 189, 198, 199,
Santo Tomás, Domingo de, 9, 19, 21, 22, 30 201, 202, 205, 214, 219, 277, 293
Sapir, Edward, 242 South America, 91, 187, 188, 192, 218, 248
Saqsayhuaman, 203 Spaniards, 6, 27, 102, 111, 254
Saunders, Nicholas, 15 Spanish (language), 19, 30, 259
Sayhuite stone, 255 Spanish chroniclers, 90, 105
Sayre, Matthew, 79, 341, 342, 343 Spanish conquest, 49, 51, 100, 104
Sea, 22, 54, 63, 67, 71, 75 Spanish Empire, 302
Semiosis, 151, 343 Spence-Morrow, Giles, 334, 340
Semiotic approaches, 13 Spindle whorl, 67
Semiotics, 5, 13, 102 Spirit beings, 52, 61, 64, 66, 69, 72, 74
Serpents, 64, 70, 242, 281, 282, 342 Spirit force, 75
Settlements patterns, 124, 247, 252, 253, 288, Spirits, 53, 59, 74, 185, 219, 275, 276, 277
307, 336 Spondylus princeps, 55, 56, 67, 81, 167, 204
Sex, 105, 109, 119 Staff god, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 281
Shaman, 20, 56, 60, 61, 83, 86, 90, 91, 93, Staller, John, 22
184, 187, 188, 190, 192, 194, 195, 342 Stark, Louisa, 101, 102
Shamanism, 79, 90, 91, 93, 186, 203, 220 Stars, 84, 233
Sharer, Robert, 187 State-level societies, 23, 84, 155
Sharon, Douglas, 188, 189 Statues, 22, 140
Shells, 56, 57, 59, 72, 75, 168, 200, 342 Stein, Gertrude, 343
Shrine, 90 Steward, Julian, 248
Sicán (archaeological culture), 168 Stone, 22, 57, 71, 140, 151, 200, 218, 245, 251,
Sicán period, 169 255
Sick, 111 Stone, Rebecca, 192
Sickness, 111 Stone sculptures, 56, 79, 194, 220
Signs, 13, 246 Strathern, Marilyn, 132, 218
Siki, 249 Strombus galeatus, 81
Sillar, Bill, 12 Structuralist approaches, 13, 204
Silver, 22 Style, 52, 61, 64, 82, 125, 151, 196, 227
Silverblatt, Irene, 25, 31 Subjectivity, 116, 154, 214, 218, 219, 221
Index 361
Subsistence, 108 Toads, 108, 281, 282, 291
Sun, 22, 57, 276, 277 Tobacco, 188, 198
Sunrises, 276 Tomasto, Elsa, 32, 257, 337, 338, 342
Sunsets, 276 Tombs, 25, 50, 67, 73, 123, 143, 201, 254, 286,
Supernatural being, 60, 70, 191, 199 318
Suprahuman entity, 24 Tomman Island, 201
Swenson, Edward, 173, 174, 334, 340 Topography, 218, 252, 337
Symbol, 13, 59, 108, 111 Topology, 151, 174, 225
Symbolic approach, 216 Torah, 184
Symbolic archaeology, 13 Torero, Alfredo, 9
Symbolic meanings, 56, 67, 246 Totemism, 83, 84, 257
Symbolism, 56, 72, 137, 142, 174 Trade network, 81
Symmetrical archaeology, 2, 14 Transfiguration, 117, 120, 132, 134, 136
Synecdochal ontologies, 153, 154 Transformation, 15, 16, 21, 23, 52, 74, 89, 117,
Synecdoche, 153, 174, 245, 255, 340 121, 125, 126, 132, 134, 136, 139, 140, 141,
142, 143, 157, 187, 188, 189, 190, 193, 194,
Tafi valley, 228, 229, 230 195, 196, 205, 220, 313, 316, 320, 324, 325,
Tama, 185 340
Tantaleán, Henry, 99, 332, 334, 336, 337 Transmutability, 136
Tapir, 219 Trauma, 143, 201
Taraco peninsula, 291 Trephanations, 200, 201
Tattooing, 105 Troncoso, Andrés, 335, 339
Tawantinsuyu, 7 Trophy head, 185, 198, 199, 332
Tayca, 274 Trubetzkoy, N. S., 248
Taylor, Gerald, 18, 25, 30, 31 Tschopik, Harry, 10
Taypi, 18, 276 Tschudi, Johann Jakob von, 9
Tejjsie, 186 Tuberculosis, 110
Teleology, 244 Tucuman, 227
Tello, Julio César, 8, 10, 80, 85, 87 Tukano (ethnic group), 188
Tello Obelisk, 87, 88, 342, 343 Tumi knife, 171
Temple, 22, 50, 79, 90, 134, 192 Tupi-Guarani, 156
Termination event, 169 Tupu, 287
Textiles, 11, 189, 195, 249, 255, 274, 285 Tylor, E. B., 333
Theoretical approach, 13, 119 Tylorian animism, 83
Theoretical framework, 79, 142
Things, 12, 22, 89, 91, 120, 143, 153, 154, 157, Uhle, Max, 9, 80
158, 160, 174, 205, 213, 214, 217, 219, 246, Ukhu Pacha, 139, 204
249, 340 Uku Pacha, 276, 287
Thomas, Julian, 15, 121, 215, 216, 217 Uma, 101, 202, 249
Tilley, Christopher, 15 Underworld, 21, 59, 276
Time, 103 Upper Paleolithic period, 186
Time/space, 271, 276, 277, 283, 293 Uraque, 31
Tinku, 274, 276, 277 Urbano, Henrique, 6
Tinkuy, 18, 29, 31 Urioste, George, 107, 108, 111
Tirakuna, 23, 24, 31 Urn (ceramics), 105, 106, 219, 227
Tiriyó, 253 Urton, Gary, 11, 85, 88, 89, 101, 102, 105
Titicaca Basin, 106, 272, 281, 284, 288, 291 Urubamba river, 250
Tiwanaku (archaeological culture), 9, 109, Uywaña, 274, 277, 293
110, 199, 278, 279, 280, 283, 285, 286
Tiwanaku (site), 291 Valdivia (archaeological culture), 56
Tiyana, 249 Valle El Encanto, 302, 306, 307, 308, 309,
362 Index
310, 312, 313, 316, 317, 318, 319, 320, 321, Wayllani-Kuntur Amaya (archaeological
322, 323, 325, 326 site), 284
Varanasi (India), 136 Weapon, 156, 200
Varzi, Achille, 151, 175 Weismantel, Mary, 12, 15, 85, 86, 90, 161,
Vasum caestus conch, 67 220, 221
Venereal diseases, 107 Western categories, 157
Venezuela, 150 Western epistemologies, 116
Verano, John, 198, 200, 201 Western narrative, 6
Viceroy Toledo, 293 Western ontology, 3
Vilaça, Aparecida, 120, 217, 222 Western philosophy, 15
Vilca (Anadenanthera colubrina), 188 Western thought, 100
Villanueva, Juan, 337 Western view, 2
Violence, 174 Whistling bottles, 64
Vital force, 20, 23, 24 Whorf, Benjamin Lee, 242
Vitor (valley), 110, 111 Willerslev, Rane, 85, 86
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo, 2, 11, 12, 28, 31, Wiracocha (deity), 9, 21
82, 85, 90, 117, 120, 121, 137, 141, 142, 153, “Wiracocha” (Tello publication), 8
156, 218, 220, 221, 222, 234, 341 Witchcraft, 25, 189
Womb, 106
Wachtel, Nathan, 10 Women, 25, 111, 123, 164, 165, 172, 174
Waiwai, 90 Wood, 123, 151
W’aka. See Huaca Wood carvings, 292
Warao, 90 Wool, 202
Warfare, 156, 157, 200, 220 Worldviews, 2, 79
Wari (archaeological culture), 132, 185, 199, Writing system, 6
200, 291
Warriors, 92, 200 Yanantín, 18, 100
Wasa wayq’u, 101 Yanomamo, 90
Water, 64, 74, 124, 140, 142, 242, 245, 249, Yire (Piro) (ethnic group), 233
250, 251, 274, 311, 312, 316, 322, 324, 337
Zoomorphic, 135, 136, 227
Index 363

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Andean Ontologies

University Press of Florida

University Press of Florida

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

University Press of Florida

1. Andean Ontologies: An Introduction to Substance 1

9. Ontological Foundations for Inka Archaeology 240

10. A Past as a Place: Examining the Archaeological Implications of the

11. Rock Art, Historical Ontologies, and the Genealogy of Landscape:

12. Final Commentaries: A Matter of Substance, and the Substance

List of Contributors 347

2.1. Distribution of excavated Early Regional Development burials

As Andean archaeologists, our interpretations regarding how pre-Hispanic so-

The Chapters in This Book

This book is made up of research from different geographical and temporal

Chavín de Huántar has been at the heart of archaeological research in Peru

(The Huarochirí Manuscript, circa 1598. In Salomon 1991: 53)

Andean Ontologies: An Introduction to Substance 3

1) Main ontologies found in the Andes and their primary sources

Main Ontologies Found in the Andes and Their Primary Sources

Today, in Andean archaeology, it is possible to talk about multiple lines of

Andean Ontologies: An Introduction to Substance 5

Ontologies Based on Ethnohistory

Andean Ontologies: An Introduction to Substance 7

The testimonies of the [extirpatory campaigns’] victims retain freshness

Ontologies Based on Linguistics

Andean Ontologies: An Introduction to Substance 9

Andean Ontologies Based on Ethnography

Andean Ontologies: An Introduction to Substance 11

An archaeological perspectivism will be materialist and historical. It will

An analogical perspective, in particular when based on forms and decorations

Ontologies Based on Materialities

Andean Ontologies: An Introduction to Substance 13

Lastly, an archaeological perspective based on phenomenology was promoted

Andean Ontologies: An Introduction to Substance 15

Four Fundamental Andean Concepts: Camay, Pacha,

Andean Ontologies: An Introduction to Substance 17

Andean Ontologies: An Introduction to Substance 19

Likewise, from an ethnographic perspective, the existence of the notion of sami,

Andean Ontologies: An Introduction to Substance 21

In the Quechua vocabulary of Santo Tomás (1560: 131), “guaca” is described as

The chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega conveyed the sense of this impor-

Andean Ontologies: An Introduction to Substance 23

Andean Ontologies: An Introduction to Substance 25

Advantages of Using Andean Ontologies in the Explanations

It is a situated view that allows the incorporation of ancestral

It is an alternative view that opens the current field

As it has been stated before, the way in which archaeological interpretations

It is a democratic and open perspective that allows a more fruitful dialogue

It is an important heuristic which allows the construction

Andean Ontologies: An Introduction to Substance 27

It is contrastable and can be compared with objective evidence,

Finally, this volume seeks to contribute to the reconstruction of such ontologies,

As we have seen in this chapter, although proposals as successful as those by

Andean Ontologies: An Introduction to Substance 29

Andean Ontologies: An Introduction to Substance 31

Andean Ontologies: An Introduction to Substance 33