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Culture Documents
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Review Essays
homa Press, 2000. 239 pp., introduction, maps, gures, notes, bibliographies. $55.00 cloth.)
The seven books reviewed here are, to a fair degree, representative of the
research foci and prolic pace of publication in the eld of Andean archaeology. Covering more than ten thousand years of cultural development, this
serendipitous group nevertheless accurately reects the continuing strong
emphasis in Andean archaeology on the study of complex societies; only
Dillehay and Lavalle deal with the early hunting and gathering populations of South America. Among the books there is a work (Aveni) devoted
to Nasca culture of the Early Intermediate Period (ca. 100 b.c.a.d. 700);
an edited volume (Benson and Cook) focusing mostly on Moche ritual
sacrice in the Early Intermediate Period with Nasca and Huari (Middle
Horizon, ca. a.d. 500900) case studies included for more comprehensive coverage; an edited volume (Minelli) on the late prehispanic period
(a.d. 10001534); and two books that specically treat the Inca (Bauer and
Stanish, Urton). In addition to the dominant attention to the rise of civilization and congurations of chiefdom and state-level societies found
in this arbitrarily assembled collection, four of the volumes (Aveni, Benson and Cook, Bauer and Stanish, Urton) pay special attention to ritual
expressions in the Central Andes. This is interesting because in the historical development of Andean archaeology there has long been an emphasis on
temples and tombs and the exquisite portable and monumental iconographies expressing the ideological and cosmological systems underwriting
these. However, the interest in religion and ritual in the case of these four
books and among other archaeologists currently working in the Andes emanates from a contemporary recognition of the role of ritual in integrating
precolumbian societies. As Cook (2001: 138139) indicates, Ritual organization is essential to and precedes the emergence of the state . . . [there]
is a ritual basis to state and imperial governments.
Early Settlers
The presentation and interpretation of the enormous body of data (both
sound and awed) concerning the peopling and early settlement of the
Americas is an enormous challenge, successfully accomplished by Tom
Dillehay, the foremost U.S. scholar of this much-debated period of time,
and Danile Lavalle, a distinguished French archaeologist. The fortuitous
simultaneous publication 1 of their two book-length treatments on this topic
permits a fascinating comparison of approach and perspective between a
leader in the American Andeanist eld and a European who is cognizant of
the dierences between her training and that of her American colleagues.
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style of writing is too chatty (with various insider remarks almost nasty
in their tone, e.g., her comment that Anna Roosevelts research was published in Science . . . but also in all top newspapers of the United States in a
very polemical fashion [104]) and too cute (e.g., a section called A Fishy
Tale for the discussion of shtail points). I found the division of the bibliography into chapter references at the end of the book especially frustrating, nor were there sucient references to substantiate the arguments being
made, and her criticism of some colleagues for not knowing the unpublished or inaccessible work of others is unfair.2 The lack of a comprehensive comparative table of radiocarbon measurements is a hindrance since
so many arguments about the peopling of the Americas hinge on dates, and
there is an occasional confusion of b.p. and the rare b.c. date cited (see,
e.g., page 182). Lavalles book would have been a ne textbook had she
modied it slightly to be such.
Dillehays masterful synthesis and critique of the geographically vast
database on early man is all the more notable because the book is so well
writtenengaging in style and accessible to the educated public for whom
it is intended. It is also ideal for an undergraduate course or a graduate-level
survey in which the settlement of the Americas is part of a larger syllabus,
but into which topic one can delve by following out the copious endnotes.
The compilation of radiocarbon measurements and glossary are especially
useful.
It is important to indicate the position of authority from which
Dillehay writes. He is the excavator of Monte Verde, the site in southern
Chile that has revolutionized archaeological understanding of the peopling
and early settlement of the Western Hemisphere by breaking the Clovis barrier. Monte Verde, dated to 12,500 years ago, incontrovertibly proves that
people migrated through their new world thousands of years before hunting late Pleistocene big game at Clovis, New Mexico, 11,200 years ago,
leaving superb projectile points embedded in their prey. The controversy
provoked by Monte Verde, which is presented quite openly in this volume, as it is in Lavalles, lasted for yearsuntil a blue ribbon panel of
experts visited the site and was nally convinced of the validity of Dillehays
assertions.
I especially appreciate Dillehays sensitivity to the larger political
importance of early man research. In the books nal, two-and-a-halfpage section called Histories without places and people without histories
Dillehay considers the signicance of the earliest for modern nationstates as well as the role the descendants of the rst Americans may play
in scholarly debates and in translating archaeological data within their
own communities.3 Not only is this an important message for the general
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reading public, Dillehays statement sets the eld of peopling and early
settlement fully within the mainstream of contemporary archaeology that
is increasingly interrogating the context and impact of archaeology as a
discursive practice.
Ritual and Religion in Ancient Peru
Since before the turn of the twentieth century, archaeologists of ancient
Peru have been intrigued with the extraordinary material culture of the
region. Iconographically complex pottery, sumptuous textiles, intricately
carved stone, pyroengraved gourds, and wood sculptures depict a seemingly endless array of mythical beings as well as human actors. Some of this
art was found in burials and some in temples, including as integral elements of architecture. It continues to be discovered, whether by scientists
or looters. And almost from the day they arrived in the Andes, the Spanish
conquistadores wrote about the religion, ritual practices, and cosmology
of the Incas with other perspectives being recorded in ethnohistoric documents, including the extirpation of idolatries. All of these varied sources of
information indicate a precolumbian world in which the sacred was everpresent, its forces and representatives needing to be propitiated.
In Between the Lines, a book written for the educated public in an
engaging, highly personal style (overly so for scholars), Anthony Aveni
reiterates his previous publications to present the history of investigations
of one of the great mysteries of the ancient world and his own longtime
encounter with and resolution of that mystery. Aveni and his collaborators
discovered that almost all lines (geoglyphs) on the pampa (desert plain at
Nazca in south coastal Peru) emanated from a center, thereby forming a
radial system of organization on the ground. He argues that the interconnecting pattern of lines were ray centers that functioned as a prototype
for the Inca ceque system.
In an argument with which I fully agree, Aveni says that the lines
served some purpose relating to movement (170). The orderly pattern of
radial lines was ceremonial in nature, with particular stopping places on the
pampa being where oerings were made to the huacas (sacred essences).
Following Michel de Certeau, Aveni conceptualizes walking as a spatial
acting out of place and an appropriation of topography.
The very making of the lines was a social-ritual act. The geoglyphs
were a social space of practice and a venue of pilgrimage. Moreover, the
pampa created two moieties in the river drainage, one to the north and
one to the south of the pampa; in a sense, it coordinated social activity.
Indeed, the pampa was a very complex phenomenom implicating water,
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walking, astronomy, kinship, divisions of labor and ceremonial responsibility, sweeping [ritual maintenance], radiality (209).
The fundamental value of Avenis book lies in its lucid presentation
of nonsimplistic ideas. He eectively demolishes some of the dominant
simplistic ideas held by the public, such as the extraterrestrial origin of
archaeological mysteries, while presenting viable alternatives. I wish the
book had been published by a commercial press, where its benecial impact
would have been greater.
Ritual Sacrice in Ancient Peru contains some of the most stimulating articles I have read in recent years. Although I would have preferred
a more anthropologically engaged and theoretically informed introductory
chapter (and I see this shortcoming in most chapters, which also explains
why so many end abruptly), Elizabeth Benson eectively contextualizes the
contributions that follow.
Moche is now center stage in the study of sacrice. The stunning series
of recent discoveries of real human sacricial victims and their real humanin-supernatural-pose sacricers have revealed the extraordinary ancient
integration of ritual and political life on the north coast of Peru. Alana
Cordy-Collinss identication of kinds of supernatural decapitators and an
actual human decapitator is very important. The complex arguments in her
other chapter, concerning the Moche priestess, Spondylus shell, and sacrice, will be considered provocative by some readers and overly speculative by others, but always the work of Cordy-Collins delights with its
keen insights and directions for new research. Steve Bourgets discussion
of sacricial events at Huaca de la Luna is exciting beyond words. His
excavations were so expert that he was able to distinguish discrete sacricial events interrupted by torrential rains. Like Cordy-Collins, Bourget is
also extraordinarily skilled in iconographic interpretation. John Verano, a
superb biological anthropologist, focuses mostly on the abundant Moche
sacricial human remains. His meticulous studies provide invaluable documentation about the deaths and lives of the victims.
As an expert in Paracas and Nasca cultures, I read Mary Frames chapter with an especially critical eye. I am both intrigued by and somewhat
skeptical of her argument that the complex textile imagery of the Paracas
Necropolis bundles represents stages of transformation of the human dead
to the status of mythic ancestors. The greatest obstacle to understanding
the full corpus of Paracas Necropolis materials is the lack of new excavations at the Paracas Necropolis burial ground and its associated habitation
sites and at contemporary sites in neighboring valleys. Similarly, the proximal cause of Nasca trophy head takingvividly represented in Nasca art
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Andean studies. The fact that I was able to review only seven of the total
number of Andean archaeology books published in the United States in a
mere three years 4 indicates how very active and prolic Andeanist researchers are.
Notes
1 Lavalles book was rst published in French in 1995. She states that the text
has been altered slightly with a view to a North American audience . . . and, as
far as possible, to update it (viiviii).
2 For example, on page126, Lavalle says that Rosa Fung had already put forward
this hypothesis three years earlier while admitting that the article remained
unpublished for a long time. In point of fact, the volume in which the article
was nally published had a miniscule printing and a distribution restricted to
purchase in Quito and Guayaquil.
3 It would have been worthwhile for Dillehay to use the case of Kennewick Man
in this concluding section of the book.
4 The books reviewed here were published in 1999, 2000, and 2001. Some of the
other volumes in Andean archaeology published in the United States in the same
years were Niles 1999, Julien 2000, DAltroy and Hastorf 2001, and Pillsbury
2001. These were not received by Ethnohistory and, consequently, not sent to me
for review. All but the last concern the Inca. Pillsbury 2001 is a major edited
volume on the new Moche scholarship.
References
Cook, Anita G.
2001
Huari D-Shaped Structures, Sacricial Oerings, and Divine Rulership.
In Ritual Sacrice in Ancient Peru. Elizabeth P. Benson and Anita G.
Cook, eds. Pp. 13763. Austin: University of Texas Press.
DAltroy, Terence N., and Christine A. Hastorf
2001
Empire and Domestic Economy. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
Isbell, William H., and Helaine Silverman
2002a Theorizing Variations in Andean Sociopolitical Organization. In Andean Archaeology, vol. 1, Variations in Sociopolitical Organization.
William H. Isbell and Helaine Silverman, eds. Pp. 311. New York:
Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
2002b Writing the Andes with a Capital A. In Andean Archaeology,
vol. 1, Variations in Sociopolitical Organization. William H. Isbell and
Helaine Silverman, eds. Pp. 37180. New York: Kluwer Academic/
Plenum.
Julien, Catherine
2000
Reading Inca History. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.
Mayer, Enrique
1992
Peru in Deep Trouble: Mario Vargas Llosas Inquest in the Andes
Reexamined. In Rereading Cultural Anthropology. George E. Marcus,
ed. Pp. 181219. Durham, nc: Duke University Press.
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Niles, Susan A.
1999
The Shape of Inca History: Narrative and Architecture in an Andean
Empire. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.
Pillsbury, Joanne
2001
Moche Art and Archaeology in Ancient Peru. New Haven, ct: Yale University Press.
Starn, Orin
1991
Missing the Revolution: Anthropologists and the War in Peru. Cultural
Anthropology 6: 6391.
Turino, Thomas
1996
From Essentialism to the Essential: Pragmatics and Meaning of Puneo
Sikuri Performace in Lima. In Cosmologa y msica en los Andes.
Max Baumann, ed. Pp. 46982. Vervuert, Spain: Bibliotheca IberoAmericana.
Urton, Gary
1998
From Knots to Narratives: Reconstructing the Art of Historical Record
Keeping in the Andes from Spanish Transcriptions of Inka Khipus.
Ethnohistory 45: 40938.