Books by George Lau
Paisaje, Identidad y Memoria. La sociedad Recuay (100-800 dC) y los Andes Norcentrales de Perú, 2022
Uncorrected proofs of edited volume's cover and table of contents; frontmatter. Indice y carátul... more Uncorrected proofs of edited volume's cover and table of contents; frontmatter. Indice y carátula. 570pp.
(Chapter 1 - Introduction)
New synthesis of a long-known, but little-understood ancient culture (Recuay) of Peru's north cen... more New synthesis of a long-known, but little-understood ancient culture (Recuay) of Peru's north central highlands. Examines the art and archaeology of this culture, and assesses their role and significance in Andean prehistory.
Archaeological investigations at a small village community of the Recuay culture, in the first mi... more Archaeological investigations at a small village community of the Recuay culture, in the first millennium AD.
Journal articles by George Lau
Journal of Field Archaeology, 2022
This article examines the rise of native, segmentary lordships in the highlands of north-central ... more This article examines the rise of native, segmentary lordships in the highlands of north-central Peru. It reports on new excavations and mapping at the seat of a prehispanic polity, Pashash (Recuay culture), a large hilltop center that developed after the collapse of Chavín civilization. Fieldwork revealed monumental constructions and two special activity contexts radiocarbon-dated to ca. a.d. 200–400: an offering area in a large palatial compound and a room-complex with chambers closed off and sealed with feasting refuse. Multiple lines of evidence help reconstruct a regional picture for the establishment of wealthy local elites. Cultural innovations explicitly link new leaders to roles in defense and warfare, economic production, and early burial cult within a high-status compound. The current data underscore a major break from earlier systems of authority and elite material culture, comprising an organizational pattern that was a precursor to the ethnic polities that predominated in later Andean prehistory.
Archaeometry, 2022
This article examines the production and exchange of kaolin fine ware ceramics among Recuay commu... more This article examines the production and exchange of kaolin fine ware ceramics among Recuay communities in highland Ancash, Peru (ca. 100 – 700 CE). We draw upon geochemical (LA-ICP-MS) and petrographic data to investigate raw material use, provenance, and intraregional trade. We present data on 115 decorated and plain ceramics sampled from nine archaeological sites, which we compare with data on raw kaolin clays. The results indicate a complex network of production and exchange, which included: 1) local production near almost all sites; 2) the limited exchange of ceramic vessels; and 3) the possible distribution of kaolin clay from at least two sources.
Religions, 2021
Historical and archaeological records help shed light on the production, ritual practices, and pe... more Historical and archaeological records help shed light on the production, ritual practices, and personhood of cult objects characterizing the central Peruvian highlands after ca. AD 200. Colonial accounts indicate that descendant groups made and venerated stone images of esteemed forebears as part of small-scale local funerary cults. Prayers and supplications help illuminate how different artifact forms were seen as honored family members (forebears, elders, parents, siblings). Archaeology, meanwhile, shows the close associations between carved monoliths, tomb repositories, and restricted cult spaces. The converging lines of evidence are consistent with the hypothesis that production of stone images was the purview of family/lineage groups. As the cynosures of cult activity and devotion, the physical forms of ancestor effigies enabled continued physical engagements, which vitalized both the idol and descendant group.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2019
While Marcel Mauss's landmark essay on The Gift has been vital in social anthropology, inspiring ... more While Marcel Mauss's landmark essay on The Gift has been vital in social anthropology, inspiring a vast and influential secondary literature, the gift has been much less prominent in archaeological interpretation. This study considers evidence for an ancient Andean gift economy, a system of reciprocal exchanges focused on making people and ensuring group social relations, rather than accumulating wealth/capital. Excavations at Yayno (north highlands, Ancash, Peru) revealed two features dating to the time of the Inkas: 1) a slab-lined cist burial; and 2) an offering deposit containing abundant long-distance trade and sumptuary items. Besides its mountaintop location, the burial's intrusive character and foreign items indicate that the offerings were made to propitiate the place, ruins and their divine aspect. This essay studies the reciprocal acts that led to the offerings, comparing them to gifting patterns in Inka human sacrifices known as capac hucha. The key actors in the exchange were children, divinities, Inka bureaucrats, local leaders and state subjects.
Boletin de Arqueologia PUCP, 2014
Boletin de Arqueologia PUCP
En el presente trabajo se analizan los desarrollos culturales de gran escala en la sierra norcent... more En el presente trabajo se analizan los desarrollos culturales de gran escala en la sierra norcentral del Perú durante el primer milenio d.C., con énfasis en sus implicancias para el uso y dispersión de las lenguas antiguas. La región de Áncash es de un interés especial debido a su larga historia de investigaciones, su ubicación geográfica, la diversidad en las culturas arqueológicas y la presencia de una serie de lenguas, muchas de ellas hoy extintas. En esa etapa, específicamente entre el inicio y el final del Período Intermedio Temprano, la interacción cultural entre los grupos de la sierra norte y sus vecinos fue muy importante. El término del Horizonte Medio también fue testigo de una interacción intensiva y transformaciones culturales. Esta contribución concluye con un ensayo interdisciplinario con el objeto de examinar los rasgos arqueológicos de la lengua culle. Se comparan las distribuciones de artefactos materiales, arquitectura y topónimos de sitios arqueológicos y se ha logrado determinar que hay una correspondencia razonable, si bien imperfecta, entre los datos.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Jan 1, 2010
This article evaluates defensive works at the ancient hilltop centre of Yayno, Pomabamba, north h... more This article evaluates defensive works at the ancient hilltop centre of Yayno, Pomabamba, north highlands, Peru. Survey, mapping and sampling excavations show that its primaryoccupation dates to cal. AD 400–800, by groups of the Recuay tradition. At the centre of a network articulating small nearby farming villages, Yayno features an impressive series of natural and built defensive strategies. These worked in concert to protect the community from outsiders and keep internal groups physically segregated. The fortifications are discussed in relation to local political organization and a martial aesthetic in northern Peru during the period. Recuay elite identity and monumentalism arose out of local corporate traditions of hilltop dwelling and defence. Although such traditions are now largely absent in contemporary patterns of settlement, an archaeology of warfare at Yayno has repercussions for local understandings of the past.
World Art, Jan 1, 2012
This visual essay explores material expressions of otherness, or alterity, in the ancient Andes. ... more This visual essay explores material expressions of otherness, or alterity, in the ancient Andes. It first provides a discussion about key points about alterity, especially different kinds of alterity seen ethnographically. It then turns to different strands of archaeological evidence focused on an alterity centred on ancient conflict and predation. The available record informs at different scales, but manifests a strong concern for the Other. Visual forms of evidence, it is argued, provide key ways to observe how ancient others theorised their others. The record indicates that one of the chief points about alterity is that the ‘outside’ in the Other, whether thing or person, is something desirable and useful; it can also be alienated and captured.
Zeitschrift für Archäeologie Aussereuropäischer …, Jan 1, 2006
Latin American Antiquity, Jan 1, 2002
"[English] The present article considers evidence for ancestor veneration and feasting in the Nor... more "[English] The present article considers evidence for ancestor veneration and feasting in the North Highlands (Department of Ancash), Peru between A. D. 500-900. The study draws upon ethnohistorical, iconographic, and archaeological comparisons to better understand different lines of data from the ancient Recuay community of Chinchawas (3,850 masl), including public and mortuary architecture, ceramics, faunal remains, and stone sculpture. Two major programs of religious activity can be discerned: one situated within local Recuay traditions (Kayán and Chinchawasi phases, A. D. 500-800), followed by a suite of intrusive patterns associated with Wari expansion (Warmi phase, after A. D. 800). The study argues that, by A. D. 500, special public ceremonies combined ancestor worship and feasting as part of community politics at the site. Chinchawasi practices included subterranean tombs, special architectural enclosures with monolithic sculptures, and evidence for large-scale consumption. Warmi practices appear smaller in scale, focusing on aboveground mausolea, different stone sculptural forms and iconography, and increasing evidence for interregional interaction. The diachronic patterns reflect: 1) flexible sociopolitical arrangements at Chinchawas that accommodated group and entrepreneurial interests, and 2) local sociocultural transformations associated with Wari expansion (ca. A. D. 750).
[Spanish] En la contribución presente se expone la evidencia arqueológica para culto a los ancestros y ceremonias públicas en la zona serrana de Ancash, Peru, entre los años 500-900 cal d. C. El estudio utiliza comparaciones arqueológicas, iconográficas, y etnohistóricas para mejor entender la evidencia del antiguo pueblo de Chinchawas-en particular, la arquitectura pública y funeraria, cerámica, óseos de animales, y monolitos grabados. Se determinaron dos patrones principales: uno identificado con la tradición cultural Recuay (fases Kayán y Chinchawasi, 500-800 d. C), el otro asociado con la presencia intrusiva de los Wari (fase Warmi, 800-900 d. C.). El estudio propone que en unas ceremonias públicas especiales se manifiestan las dimensiones de culto a los ancestros y festín como parte del programa polítia local. Los patrones Chinchawasi incluyeron tumbas subterráneas, recintos con monolitos Recuay, y evidencia de consumo en gran escala. El patrón Warmi se define por prácticas en menor escala, con innovaciones culturales: estructuras del tipo chullpa, monolitos de nuevo estilo, y nuevas conexiones inter-regionales. Los cambios se interpretan como manifestaciones culturales de: 1) patrones de organización socio-política adaptable en los cuales se trataron interéses de individuos y de la comunidad, y 2) influencia externa por el estado Wari (ca. 750 d. C.)."
Journal of Material Culture, Jan 1, 2010
This study is an examination of techniques in the Recuay culture (1—700 AD) of ancient Peru. In a... more This study is an examination of techniques in the Recuay culture (1—700 AD) of ancient Peru. In addition to identifying things that look alike, it reviews different procedures by which they were made to resemble each other. The author examines shared techniques across different media and forms, which helped to shape a general noble aesthetic. Three main points are discussed: first, the techniques share a similar emphasis on enhancing surfaces by conceiving and applying the designs in terms of their negative space or adjacent background. Second, the different technical procedures constructed the exterior worlds of chiefs, their social and physical structures, by saturating special objects and settings with surface elements related to nobility. Finally, it is suggested that the techniques distinguished Recuay value systems from those of neighbouring groups and cultures.
Antiquity, Jan 1, 2005
The author explores a changing core–periphery relationship in first millennium AD Peru, from the ... more The author explores a changing core–periphery relationship in first millennium AD Peru, from the viewpoint of a small North Highlands village.
Journal of Field Archaeology, 29, Jan 1, 2004
Recent archaeological investigations of post-Chavín occupations in the North-Central Highlands of... more Recent archaeological investigations of post-Chavín occupations in the North-Central Highlands of Peru (Department of Ancash) provide new chronological data that help situate the Recuay culture and its transformations in time. Because of the burgeoning interest in northern Peru, and the cultural complexity of the Early Intermediate Period (ca. A.D. 1-700) in general, a reconsideration of Recuay prehistory is needed. This complements the recent advances in the cultural sequences of coeval groups such as Moche, Nasca, and Cajamarca. The discussion reviews ceramic and radiometric evidence to reconstruct six broad cultural periods, of which the first four can be identified as components of a "Recuay Tradition." To evaluate changing cultural relationships and exchange patterns in northern Peru, the new chronology clarifies local North Highland transformations following Chavín's collapse (ca. 100 B.C.), coast-highland interactions between Recuay and Moche/Gallinazo groups (ca. A.D. 200-700), and changing socio-cultural dispositions of Recuay groups during the period of Wari expansion (ca. A.D. 750). Recuay's development and regional interaction by phase furnish new insight into the character of social complexity in the ancient Andes.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Jan 1, 2004
This study examines a painted combat scene on a ceramic vessel of the Moche culture (AD 100–800) ... more This study examines a painted combat scene on a ceramic vessel of the Moche culture (AD 100–800) of the north coast of Peru. The scene portrays a series of distinctly Moche warriors fighting adversaries who feature characteristics (weaponry, ornaments and dress) that are unconventional for Moche visual culture. Correspondences in Recuay pottery and stone sculpture instead support the argument that the enemies were groups from the neighbouring inland valleys and highlands of the Pacific Andean flanks. The analysis of the imagery and its implications illuminate how societies without writing sometimes perceived and configured interaction with other groups — namely, through representations of warfare.
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Books by George Lau
Journal articles by George Lau
[Spanish] En la contribución presente se expone la evidencia arqueológica para culto a los ancestros y ceremonias públicas en la zona serrana de Ancash, Peru, entre los años 500-900 cal d. C. El estudio utiliza comparaciones arqueológicas, iconográficas, y etnohistóricas para mejor entender la evidencia del antiguo pueblo de Chinchawas-en particular, la arquitectura pública y funeraria, cerámica, óseos de animales, y monolitos grabados. Se determinaron dos patrones principales: uno identificado con la tradición cultural Recuay (fases Kayán y Chinchawasi, 500-800 d. C), el otro asociado con la presencia intrusiva de los Wari (fase Warmi, 800-900 d. C.). El estudio propone que en unas ceremonias públicas especiales se manifiestan las dimensiones de culto a los ancestros y festín como parte del programa polítia local. Los patrones Chinchawasi incluyeron tumbas subterráneas, recintos con monolitos Recuay, y evidencia de consumo en gran escala. El patrón Warmi se define por prácticas en menor escala, con innovaciones culturales: estructuras del tipo chullpa, monolitos de nuevo estilo, y nuevas conexiones inter-regionales. Los cambios se interpretan como manifestaciones culturales de: 1) patrones de organización socio-política adaptable en los cuales se trataron interéses de individuos y de la comunidad, y 2) influencia externa por el estado Wari (ca. 750 d. C.)."
[Spanish] En la contribución presente se expone la evidencia arqueológica para culto a los ancestros y ceremonias públicas en la zona serrana de Ancash, Peru, entre los años 500-900 cal d. C. El estudio utiliza comparaciones arqueológicas, iconográficas, y etnohistóricas para mejor entender la evidencia del antiguo pueblo de Chinchawas-en particular, la arquitectura pública y funeraria, cerámica, óseos de animales, y monolitos grabados. Se determinaron dos patrones principales: uno identificado con la tradición cultural Recuay (fases Kayán y Chinchawasi, 500-800 d. C), el otro asociado con la presencia intrusiva de los Wari (fase Warmi, 800-900 d. C.). El estudio propone que en unas ceremonias públicas especiales se manifiestan las dimensiones de culto a los ancestros y festín como parte del programa polítia local. Los patrones Chinchawasi incluyeron tumbas subterráneas, recintos con monolitos Recuay, y evidencia de consumo en gran escala. El patrón Warmi se define por prácticas en menor escala, con innovaciones culturales: estructuras del tipo chullpa, monolitos de nuevo estilo, y nuevas conexiones inter-regionales. Los cambios se interpretan como manifestaciones culturales de: 1) patrones de organización socio-política adaptable en los cuales se trataron interéses de individuos y de la comunidad, y 2) influencia externa por el estado Wari (ca. 750 d. C.)."
NB: deadline 3 May 2023
https://issuu.com/worldmaking/docs/zine_making_unremaking
This zine is one of the results of a Wenner Gren funded workshop.