Paracas culture

The Paracas culture of Late Formative Period south coastal Peru (c. 900-100 BC) is renowned for its elaborate and colourful ceramics particularly those decorated using the post-fire painting technique. The materials and the methods used to achieve post-fire painting, however, remain elusive. To investigate the evolution of, and regional variation in, this technology, the authors deploy a range of techniques to analyse a sample of Paracas ceramics curated in museum collections. The results indicate diachronic and regional variations in the paint binders and colourants used by the Paracas potters, which correlate with changes in vessel form and iconography over time.

This volume contains the following articles: "John Hyslop 1945-1993" by John V. Murra; "Recent Excavations at Hacha in the Acari Valley, Peru" by Roger W. Robinson; "Early Cotton Textiles from Hacha, Peru" by Grace Katterman; "The Paracas Mummy Bundles of the Great Necropolis of Wari Kayan: A History" by Richard E. Daggett; "Scientific Notes on Paracas Mummy Bundle No. 294" by Rebeca Carrion Cachot de Girard; "The Life from Death Continuum in Nasca Imagery" by Patrick Carmichael; "Stylitic Variation in Proliferous Nasca Pottery" by Donald A. Proulx; "The Cemetery at Tambo Viejo, Acari Valley, Peru" by Jonathan D. Kent and Makoto Kowta; "A Cache of Inca Textiles from Rodadero, Acari Valley, Peru" by Grace Katterman and Francis A. Riddell; "Toward the Definition of Pre- and Early Chavin Art Styles in Peru" by Henning Bischof; "Valdivia Figurines and Puberty Rituals: An Hypothesis" by Costanza Di Capua; "Early Occupations at Gran Pajaten, Peru" by Warren B. Church.

La Puntilla Project aims to produce sociological research about communities dating 1400 cal BCE to 400 cal CE in the coastal desert regions of the Central Andes. The focus is the Rio Grande of the Nasca Basin, where cultural historicism has placed the “Paracas Culture” and the “Nasca Culture”, benchmarks of periodization of the entire Andean region. Our team has been carrying out fieldwork since 2005 in two sites at El Trigal (La Puntilla, Orcona, Nasca). Excavations have provided evidence about singular buildings for centralised work, communal fortifications, domestic units and burials. These contexts make possible the analysis of production of social life, and if there was a dominant class controlling production or patriarchal relations.

The main purpose of the project is to obtain and analyse archaeological information about social spaces, particularly about architectural units, urban organisation, household characteristics and extradomestic economic or political-ideological places. Research tries to review and update relevant archaeological contexts of social spaces, and define categories in settlements of the region. It is an indispensable starting point to advance the knowledge of social practices, real conditions of production and technological foundations, dynamics of emergence or crisis of the first state in the zone, and in involved networks for women and men at each temporal horizon.

Another objetive is the social use of archaeological sites in La Puntilla, and we are linked with people of the Orcona community. Self-organization and mutual support in management is the basis for designing an itinerary for visitors of the region.

The project is financed by Spanish institutions: IPCE (Exterior Archaeological Projects), MINECO (HAR2009-12625, HAR2013-44276-P) and Fundación PALARQ. Our team is composed of professors, researchers and students from Catalonia, Andalusia, Chile and, evidently, Peru.