Research History

The PIARA Project

PIARA is a regionally-focused and collaborative archaeological project that grew out of the research objectives and dissertation work of principal investigator Rebecca Bria (University of Minnesota–Twin Cities; Ph.D. Vanderbilt University). The overarching goal of the research is to understand longterm shifts in social and political organization in highland Ancash, Peru by examining transformations in ritual, economy, and ecology. Since 2009, this work has been carried out in collaboration with Peruvian archaeologists and PIARA co-directors Elizabeth Cruzado, Felipe Livora, and Cora Rivas as well as with several material specialists and student collaborators.

The Study at Hualcayán

Despite exceptional findings at both sites, since 2010 we have focused our investigations at Hualcayán due to the evidence we uncovered for an ongoing, uninterrupted sequence of community activities across nearly all of Peru's major prehistoric periods at the site. In particular, Hualcayán provided an exceptional opportunity to explore the long-term, local processes of community formation in ancient highland Ancash. Though the entire sequence was of interest, attention was given to understanding one of the most transformative but little understood periods in Andean prehistory: Chavín to Recuay transition. This transition involved the disintegration of the widespread Chavín religious and political network (900–500 BC) and the subsequent emergence of more localized Recuay communities and polities across highland Ancash (AD 1–700). We were also interested in understanding the unique way that Hualcayán's ancient inhabitants seemingly integrated agricultural features (i.e. terraces and canals) with ritual spaces (i.e. ceremonial compounds and plazas) as they rebuilt their community during this transition. These observations led to questions concerning how ritual and economic practices interlink to organize societies and shape local ecologies. The PIARA project plans to return to investigate Pariamarca in the future, but it has committed to studying Hualcayán's complex history for a number of years as a way to robustly address these questions of ritual ecology in the ancient world.

Between 2009 and 2013, our excavations uncovered 569 m2 of ancient remains at Hualcayán. Many of these excavations were focused on the ceremonial mounds, plazas, compounds, and terraces in the Perolcoto sector, where we documented changes in building, performance, food production, and ritual consumption across the Mito-Kotosh, Chavín, Huarás, and Recuay cultural phases (2400 BC - AD 700). Architectural, ceramic, botanical, faunal, and lithic remains revealed many complex shifts in community organization in practice through time. Notably, the evidence suggests that as local people developed Recuay cultural practices, such as feasting to venerate ancestors, they also intensified and diversified their food production practices. The data also suggest that they decentralized community ritual and labor activities during this transition by forming corporate groups, likely lineages, that held exclusive feasts, buried their dead, and stored foods in separate areas of the agricultural landscape. The origin of these shifts can be traced to transformational moments during the Huarás phase (400 BC–AD 200) when people gathered on Perolcoto's ceremonial mound to perform elaborate decommissioning rituals in Chavín spaces. In these moments, the people of Hualcayán not only destroyed and rebuilt sacred platforms: during these acts they displayed innovations in materials and food consumption practices by performing libation ceremonies with maize chicha beer and painted ceramics.

A second important focus of the excavations at Hualcayán has been uncovering ancient mortuary practices. Hualcayán has over one hundred tombs scattered across its Perolcoto, Panchucuchu and Ichic Tzacpa sectors. Our excavations in these tombs has revealed a great deal of well-preserved, though commingled, skeletal, textile, ceramic, lithic, and botanical remains, which a team of collaborators are using to reconstruct ancient funerary practices, diet, health, and violent interaction. We have focused particular analyses on the machay tombs built beneath boulders of the mountainside Ichic Tzacpa sector, the above-ground chullpa funerary structures built on the hilltop Panchucuchu sector, and semi-subterranean tombs intrusive into the ceremonial mound of the Perolcoto sector. These tombs were primarily built and used in Recuay times or later (AD 1–1450), though some may have been built earlier based on the occasional presence of Chavín and Huarás style ceramics.

We are only beginning to unravel the complex building history of domestic spaces in the hilltop Panchucuchu sector, where patio group residential units are densely arranged on top of platforms and within walled compounds. Ceramic remains indicate that the still-standing architecture in the sector was built during Recuay times and subsequently remodeled and reused by later inhabitants (AD 1–1450). Fancy, decorated ceramics found in these homes also suggest Recuay and later groups likely held small-scale feasts within their homes. Combined with the feasting evidence from other sectors, these data reveal how, during Recuay times, Hualcayán's social landscape was defined through a complex range of public and private ritual interactions focused on food consumption. Excavations also uncovered a small area of buried architecture with Chavín and Huarás cultural ceramic remains (900 BC–AD 200) indicating that the Recuay domestic complex was built over earlier houses that may date back to the community's founding. Future investigations will continue to explore this complex building history and the practices of domestic life for Hualcayán's inhabitants.

All PIARA artwork, photos, and web and flyer designs are copyright © Rebecca E. Bria