Ancient Chavín: Toward a New Synthesis in the Peruvian Formative Period
Stanford, January 12-13th, 2014
Preliminary Draft: please send comments, corrections, ideas, and some sense of title or theme for your
presentation, if not yet included -- thanks!
Overview
This meeting, sponsored by a grant from The Historical Society with funding from the Templeton
Foundation, and by the Center for Latin American Studies at Stanford, is designed to bring together a
series of Chavín Project members, along with key colleagues working in other Formative Period sites in
the Andes, experts in similar societies, and interdisciplinary colleagues. The grant from The Historical
Society was originally designed to investigate the relationship between religion and innovation, in our
case in ancient Chavín, but the majority of the grants under this program were for historical studies.
This grant, along with support from Global Heritage Fund, and Asociacion Ancash (Antamina) allowed
the excavation and conservation of the largest sample of the monumental center of Chavín in the last 40
years, yielding the most extensive Chavín period data from the site until now. At this juncture, with such
a large data mass, it is reasonable to assess not only the role of innovation in Chavín’s development, but
also the general state of knowledge of the site. Whether by evaluating new or old perspectives, or by
acknowledging the complexity and diversity of Chavín as a time, place, and society, or by recognizing the
significant gaps that still pervade our knowledge of Chavín, we are at a key moment to start to pull
together a new synthetic vision of what Chavín was. The goal of this meeting is precisely this – to bring
together ideas and perspectives, as broad or specific as our interests and knowledge permit, to debate
and discuss, and particularly to share the models that we consciously or unconsciously employ in
thinking about Chavín. One hope is that the output of the meeting be a consensus about the nature of
the ideology, technology and organization of this society, but equally useful would be the identification
of points of difference or uncertainty. Sharing of sources, data, and interpretations is what is most
sought.
The format of the meeting is decidedly informal. With the number of presenters, it will require time
management (generally 30-40 minutes of presentation, plus discussion), but what goes into individual
presentations is highly up to each person involved. A major aim is to spur discussion at any point, as
certainly that will lead to the greatest advance in understanding of what we know, how well we know it,
how we differ in what we think we know, and how we can stimulate each other with fresh ideas, leading
to synthetic viewpoints that are more than the sum of the individual contributions. We encourage all
forms of illustration, not necessarily highly formalized. Synthesis is something I would like everyone to
aim for – take a chunk of Chavín as large as your experience allows, and tell us what it means to you.
This is ideally evidence-based, but revealing why you believe any aspect of Chavín can be described or
explained in any particular way is bound to involve everything from hard data to more free-ranging
epistemology. While this boundlessness could lead to a Babylon of formats and contents, I encourage
all to think of their presentations as roughouts for chapters that could unite in a collected volume
revealing the current thinking on Chavín. Clearly, it is my hope that will come to pass, revealing the
value of the 20 years of effort put into investigating Chavín by the project, both seen from inside and
outside.
The two days are broken into four major sessions, roughly organized as 1) introductory, foundational,
and theme-establishing; 2) data-rich considerations of spaces and topics; 3) derived syntheses that pull
together both hard data and less tangible information; and 4) comparative perspectives. These are not
meant to be exclusive, rigid barriers, but rather a form of progression going from somewhat more databased, to somewhat more interpretive and comparative viewpoints. Presentations will be either in
English or Spanish; we will do our best to aid in comprehension of non-native speakers of either
language. The meetings are open to interested parties from the Stanford community, but I suspect
there will be relatively few in attendance, beyond relevant students and a few archaeologists from the
Bay Area. Lumbreras’ final presentation is aimed at a somewhat broader, albeit Spanish-speaking
audience.
Sessions
Sunday, January 12 Conference Room, Archaeology Center (Building 500, Stanford)
Light Breakfast , 8:30 at Archaeology Center
Morning 9:00 am-12 noon : Introduction and General Observations
1. John Rick -- Implications of 20 Years of Work at Chavín: Some Patterns and Themes
2. Dan Contreras -- Chavín Chronology: Do Bayesian Goggles Bring a Chavin
Horizon into Focus?
3. John Wolf -- Innovation, Social Dynamism, and the Underlying Cognitive Structures of NonFalsifiable Belief
Lunch, noon-1 pm at Archaeology Center
Afternoon 1:00 – 5:00 pm: The Record: Spaces and Topics of Chavín
1. Matt Sayre (La Banda and/or ethnobotanical record of Chavín?)
2. Luis G. Lumbreras -- La Iconografia de la Galeria de Ofrendas y su Implicacion para el Culto de
Chavin
3. Silvana Rosenfeld (faunal or bone-technological studies?)
4. Suzanne Villeneuve -- The Details are in the Dirt: preliminary micromorphology and
microstratigraphy insights into ritual at Chavín
5. Short presentations from Laura Marsh and Nick Brown, Stanford Undergrads doing Honors
research on Chavín.
Dinner at Archaeology Center 5:30-?
Monday, January 13 Conference Room, Latin American Studies (Bolivar House ) 582 Alvarado Row,
Stanford
Light Breakfast, Bolivar House, 8:30
Morning: 9 am- noon: Interpreting the Patterns
1. Miriam Kolar -- Auditory Dynamics of Space/Place: Tools in Transformative Experience at Chavín
2. Bob Harris -- System serving aspects of Chavin religion: a view from psychology and
iconography
3. Peter Kaulicke -- Approaches to Religion at Chavín de Huántar
Lunch, Bolivar House
Afternoon: Comparative Perspectives
1. Yuji Seki -- Social Change from the Middle to the Late Formative Period at the Archaeological
Site of Pacopampa
2. Peter Fuchs (the perspective from Casma/Sechin Bajo?)
3. Brian Hayden -- Some Initial Thoughts on Ritual Organization at Chavin
Early Evening, Presentation 5:15-6:30 Bolivar House
Luis G. Lumbreras -- El Lugar de Chavín en el Formativo Centroandino
Dinner, Casa Rick, 8 Cleland Pl., Menlo Park tel 650-326-4316: 7 pm-?
Logistics
Transportation will be provided from the Saturday evening reception at the Institute of Andean
Studies meeting to the Stanford Guesthouse for those not staying in other lodging locally.
(http://www.stanford.edu/dept/rde/cgi-bin/drupal/hospitality/guesthouse/index.htm, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo
Park, CA 94025 (Front Desk:(650) 926-2800, Fax: (650) 926-5388, email: guesthouse@stanford.edu)
We will provide transportation on Sunday from the Guesthouse to the Archaeology Center and
back; on Monday it should be possible to use the Marguerite shuttle to near Bolivar House;
overall distance is about 2.5 miles, but walking routes are poor. We will advise on this.
Meals will be catered and mostly taken at the venue of the meeting. If you have any special
dietary requirements, please let us know. Monday will be a normal class day at Stanford, and
Bolivar House will have academic activity going on; they have been generous in loaning their
conference room to us.
Airport transportation will be arranged for the day of your departure.