Prehistoric Andean States
Chavín Wall
Wilson Ch.-9 (Part 1)
The Chavín & The Moche
The Chavín
Research by Richard Burger (1992)
• Physical Environment and Subsistence
• Settlement Pattern, Demography, & Social Organization
– Urabarriu phase (~1000-500BC)
– Chakinani phase (~500-400BC)
– Janabarriu phase (~400-200BC)
• Social stratificiation- elite priests, economic, political and religious
power over other sites
• Chiefdom, not state society
• Architecture: began during Urabarriu phase
– U-Shaped temple
– Anthropomorphic and zoomorphic stone heads
– Subterranean galleries and rooms, & a labyrinthine maze
The Chavín
• Political Economy
– Gallery of the Offerings
• Burial of a woman and 40 infant teeth
• 9 doorways to rectangular rooms
• Foreign pottery indicate trade (Spondylus shells- Ecuador)
– Interpretations
• Offerings, stored objects for ritual or redistribution?
• Air ducts, storage functionality
• Center for ritual and worship
• Evidence of trade
– Shellfish from the Pacific coast, obsidian from Quispisisa in
the south, pottery vessels from the Casma Valley.
• Social Stratification- evident in material culture
The Chavín Art Style
• Artisans or craftspeople
– Social stratification
– Figure 9.12
• Zoomorphized man with a
stalk of San Pedro
• The Raimondi stela- depicting
the Staff God
• Principal deity of Old Temple:
the Lanzón
The Chavín
• Ritual and Leadership
– Fusion of coastal and tropical forest elements
– Cosmopolitan ideology
– Hallucinogenic drugs to transform into mythic
creatures
• Figures depict dripping mucous from the nostrils
– Similar to the Yanomamo
– Priestly class and pilgrims
The Chavín
• The Rise and Collapse of the Chavín
Cult
– Environmentally caused economic
decline
– Ideological coping mechanism
– Deities appear in the art of the Moche &
Wari cultures
• Migration?
• See Figure 9.13
– Staff Deity (Bolivia)
– Tusked Deity- Lord of Sipán
– Chavinoid staff goddess with vagina dentata
The Moche
• 1950s emergence of the name for the
“Mochica” (Moche Valley)
• “…best candidate for pristine multiv-alley
state formation ..of South America”
• Early Intermediate culture- AD 100-750
– Moche I- shorter spout w/pronounced lip (-AD
400)
– Moche II-similar spout, smaller lip (up to AD
400)
– Moche III- flaring spout w/o lip (AD 600-750)
– Moche IV- taller, straight-sided no lip.
Figure 9.14
The Moche
• Physical Environment
– North Valley- 30,000 hectares of irrigable
land
– South Valley- 15,000 hectares of irrigable
land
– Semitropical environment
– Fauna: parrots, toucans, pumas, iguanas,
& boas.
• Represented in the iconography of pottery
vessels
The Moche
• Mode of production
– Agriculture- Andean crops began by 1800B.C.
– Coast crops: maize, roots, and tubers, legumes, fruits,
cucurbits and chili peppers and cotton. (Plus seafood)
• Settlement Pattern
– Cerro Blanco- primary center’s site (Moche capital
• Huaca del Sol
• Huaca de la Luna
• personalized columns or walls per each community who
built it
• “Fictive reciprocity”
• Functions of the Huacas
The Moche
• Mode of Reproduction
– 5,000-20,000 people earliest periods
– Estimated population= 650,000 people
• Domestic Economy & Social Organization
– Wattle-and-daub quincha structures
– Two main rooms
– Evidence of an artisans class
• Specialized craft production found among
states.
• Figure 9.17 b
The Moche
Political Economy
• Military segmentation for resistance
• Moche military expansion & conquest
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Huaca Tembladera
Centralized power
Similar personalized marks as in Huasca del Sol
Ruled by Moche administratos and elite
Moche state imposed style of pottery making,
pyramid construction and administrative policies
• Iconography depicts collection of tribute and P.O.W.s
• Warfare, conquest and coercive control
The Moche
• Ritual, Leadership, and State Ideology
• Created a powerful ideology, which permeated
• P.O.W. were sacrificed and their blood was handed
to priests as offerings.
• Religion as means of social control
Lord of Sipán
• Tomb I- largest burial offering of prehispanic
vessels ever found
• Copper bells and backflaps- Decapitator deity
• Burial included:
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Hundreds of pottery vessels
2 sacrificed llamas
A small child
5 coffins, one warrior missing a his feet
Women, all secondary burials from elsewhere not
sacrificed there
A Model of Moche State Policy
• Superstructure
– Ideology
– Ritual/leadership
• Structure
– Social organization
– Political economy
• Infrastructure
– Mode of production
– Settlement pattern