SEMANA VII

Interacciones regionales

Cajamarca

Recuay
Northern Exposures:
Recuay-Cajamarca Boundaries
and Interaction
George F. Lau

Yayno, Pomabamba
 Lau, George F., 2001, The
Ancient Community of
Chinchawas: Economy and
Ceremony in the North
Highlands of Peru. Ph.D.
dissertation. Department of
Anthropology, Yale University,
New Haven
2002, Feasting and ancestor
veneration at Chinchawas,
north highlands of Ancash,
Peru. Latin American
Antiquity 13: 279304. ,
20022004, The Recuay
culture of Perus north-central
highlands: a reevaluation of
chronology and its
implications. Journal of Field
Archaeology 29: 177202.
 Data for long distance trade and stylistic contact are used to contend
that Recuays cultural boundaries were fairly impermeable for much
of its history. Both ideas and goods passed through them, but on a
fairly limited level. Recuay groups relied on local traditions, while
being generally unreceptive of contemporary, neighboring cultures.
Although limited stylistic interaction can be dis- cerned throughout,
the exchange of goods with external groups became more
prominent later in Recuay prehistory. Middle Horizon (AD 7001000)
developments, associated with the expansion of the Wari state,
appear to have marked the dissolution of formerly rigid boundaries,
when Recuay groups showed a greater receptivity toward outside
stylistic inuences as well as new forms of imported commodities. It
is argued that while boundaries are shaped by internal and external
factors, local groups opt for certain types of materials to express
cultural emphases.
 Boundaries are social constructs.
They may describe physical or
spatial features, for instance, of
the environment (e.g., a river or a
mountain range), or an
anthropogenic divide (such as a
fence).
But they are also highly contested
social phenomena. Boundaries
are good to think, heuristically,
because they are made imposed
and negotiated (Baud and van
Schendel 1997; Kearney 1991;
Lightfoot and Martinez 1995).
They characterize certain
dimensions of multi-scalar
interaction between cultures,
groups and nations. They are also
fundamental elements of social
complexity (e.g., Brumel and Fox
1994) (p1).
 Yet the question of
boundaries challenges
archaeologists because
we do not yet have
methodologies to
examine them
systematically (p2).
 The rst concerns the spatial dimension of
boundary, such as landmarks and borders
(e.g., Isaac 1988; Kristof 1959; Waldron
1990). These are physical delimitations of
territory, such as for reckoning political units,
or geographical and anthropogenic features.
Boundaries may coincide with natural
environmental zones
Another usage of boundaries concerns the
margins or edges of large social groups and
nations.
The third use of boundary centers on the
cultural limits of a grouping, as reected in
shared culture. This is commonly expressed
in the form of similar cultural elements, such
as pottery attributes used to construct
culture areas and culture histories.
The fourth approximation resembles the
previous, but focuses on the boundaries of
social and ethnic identities (e.g., Emberling
1997; Hodder 1982). Ethnicity has been a
subject of scholarship at least since Weber
(Hutchinson and Smith 1996), but
archaeologists have been less than sanguine
about its application, in large part because
of the imperfect t with archaeological data
 El caso Recuay - Cajamarca
 No evidence of a Cajamarca or a Recuay pottery workshop has ever been
described in print, and to my knowledge, no ring area, kilns, or wasters
have yet been found (p151).
Recuay and Cajamarca fancy wares shared a number of common motifs,
including: 1) bodiless frontal heads, sometimes with four appendages, 2)
crested animals, perhaps a feline or viscacha, as well as 3) the emphasis on
repetitive linear or geometric designs, such as exterior rim step frets
(Reichert 1977; Smith 1978). The use of painted design panels on pottery
has also been used to suggest stylistic interaction.
Los lmites en
perspectiva
global
 El concepto de Creciente Frtil
fue retomado en 1943 por el
Primer Ministro iraqu, Nuri al-
Said, para intentar formalizar
una unin administrativa
entre cinco pases o territorios
(en realidad todos bajo
rgimen de
protectorado): Transjordania, I
rak, Palestina y Siria (las
cuatro bajo protectorado
britnico)
y Lbano (bajo protectorado
francs hasta 1946).