continuity and variability of the mortuary customs pattern in the central area between the middle...

Continuity and Variability of the Mortuary Customs Pattern in Central Andean…

I- PREAMBULE

The starting point of this study is the acknowledgment that several large graveyards and numerous burials ( more than six hundred) dating back to the Preceramic Period have been found in Central Andean Area, when only few (in tens) dating from the Early Horizon have been found in spite of a tremendous population increase. For instance, there is not any burial in the famous and reference site of Chavín de Huantar, considered by many archaeologists as the ' cradle of Perúvian civilization' . One can wonder that in such a famous shrine, where thousands of pilgrims have stayed, where a large permanent group of priests and clerks used to live for nearly eight centuries to secure the service of the shrine and the subsistence of the pilgrims, not one evidence of burial have been found in spite of almost one century of excavations!

Climatic upheavals or caused by man and taphonomy are not sufficient to explain why almost all burials of that period

Climatic upheavels or caused by man and taphonomy are not sufficient to explain why almost all burials of that period would have disappeared, when those of the anterior and posterior periods remain. This study is then first aimed to examine variations of the 'buried population' in relation to the 'burying population' (total population), in Central Andean Area between the Middle Preceramic and Final Formative or Early Horizon Periods (roughly 8000 BC-200 BC). Such a variation can be sourced only in deep shifts of the collective mentalities of the successive populations and the corresponding changing behaviours toward their deceased. We call these behaviours 'deceased body handling pattern' which means ' all the different ways the human being manipulate the body of his fellow human being when deceased', or in a more concise way ' mortuary gesture' whatever it is.

In order to study these 'mortuary gestures' and their changes through the time, we rely basically on mortuary structures In

CONTINUITY AND VARIABILITY OF THE MORTUARY CUSTOMS

PATTERN IN CENTRAL ANDEAN AREA BETWEEN THE MIDDLE C ERAMIC AND THE FINAL FORMATIVE PERIODS.*

Vincent CHAMUSSY

"En esto [manera de enterrar sus mortos] ay una gran diferencia: porque en una parte las hazian Hondas, y en otra

altas, u en otra llanas y cada nacion buscaua nueuo genero para haze sepulchros de sus difuntos"(Cieza de Leon, Cronicá del Perú)** " We cannot discuss the social functions of the tombs without also discussing what they meant"(Ian Hodder, 1986:34) Résumé :

Dans toutes les sociétés, le mode d'inhumation est chargé d'un sens symbolique très fort, si bien que son changement peut être interprété soit comme un remplacement de population dans une région donnée, soit comme une évolution ou une rupture des conditions socio-politiques d'une société donnée.

La proportion de la population inhumée/inhumante, la position des corps et le mobilier funéraire changent radicalement entre les sociétés égalitaires de chasseurs-collecteurs du Pérou, et les sociétés du Formatif, au moment où on voit apparaître une élite de prêtres-chefs. On n'enterre plus les morts ordinaires, les inhumations sont réservées à l'élite et apparaissent les premiers caveaux en pierre ou en adobe, avec un riche mobilier.

Enfin, d'autres formes de traitement des corps, encore plus lourdes de signification, ont évolué au cours de ces périodes: sacrifices humains (d'enfants notamment), utilisation propitiatoire de parties du corps, peut-être anthropophagie rituelle.

A partir de la Période Intermédiaire Ancienne, les coutumes funéraires changent de nouveau et on retrouve de très nombreuses inhumations en grands cimetières.

Resumen :

En todas las sociedades, el modo de inhumación está cargado de un sentido simbólico muy fuerte, por lo tanto su cambio puede ser interpretado como un reemplazo de población en una región dada, o como una evolución o una ruptura de las condiciones socio-políticas de una sociedad determinada.

La proporción de la población inhumada/”inhumante”, la posición de los cuerpos y el ajuar funerario cambia radicalmente entre las sociedades igualitarias de cazadores-recolectores del Perú, y las sociedades del Formativo, cuando aparece una elite de sacerdotes-guerreros. Ya no se entierran los muertos ordinarios, las inhumaciónes están reservadas a la élite y aparecen las primeras cámaras de piedra o adobe, con un rico ajuar funerario.

En fin, otras formas de tratamiento de los cuerpos, con una significación más fuerte, han evolucionado durante estos períodos: sacrificios humanos (de niños particularmente), utilización propiciatoria de partes del cuerpo, tal vez “antropofagía ritual.”

A partir del Período Intermedio Temprano, las costumbres funerarias cambian nuevamente y se encuentran numerosas inhumaciónes dentro de grandes cementerios.

* This article is based on the "Mémoire de DEA" ( Chamussy 2002) but has been actualised in July 2004, according to the more recent researches. ** CIEZA de LEON P. 1553, Cronicá del Perú, primera parte: capitulo lxii, folio 8ç, Pontifica Universidad Catolica del Perú (ed)[1984]: 194: " there are great differences [in the way of burying their deceased], because in some places, they buried them into the ground, at other times they put them on heights, sometimes they leave them on the surface of the ground, and every nation look for a new way to build on the burial to bury their deceases"


In order to study these ‘mortuary gestures’ and their changes through time, we basically rely on morturary structures (content and container or grave) and the bone remains scattered all over the archaeological sites. Thus we intend, in a first stage, to work out the diachronic and spatial variability or the 'mortuary gesture'. Then, in a second stage, we will look for the reasons of such collective mentality shifts and their meaning in terms of socio-political evolution. This variability can be divided in variant defined as “the various forms coexisting in a same group" or variation defined as the expression of a change in

the relationship between members of a given society (Leroi-Gourhan 1945[1973]). To achieve this task, taking into account the specificity of the studied area, we have set up a specific typology adapted from Crubézy (2000), and have built up a data base with criteria selected from various anthropological theories related to mortuary practices (Binford 19711, Bartel 1982, Duday et Sellier 1990, Ucko 1969) . We found the expression of such a ' mortuary gesture' in 90 of the 175 studied sites2, according to the breakdown of table 1.

périod Tot. Middle Preceramic (PC)

Cotton Preceramic (PCC)

Initial Period not Cupisnique (PI nonC.)

Initial Period Cupisnique (PI C)

Early Horizon (HA)

Formative Ecuador F (Eq)

DR (Eq)

Total nb. of sites 175 22 30 51 29 32 10 1 Number of mortuary sites. *

90 17 18 22 17 12 3 1

Nb of sites with burials **

86 17 16 21 17 11 3 1

Nb. of sites with burials nb. known ***

78 16 14 19 16 10 2 1

Number of burials 1301 662 223 149 158 51 116 30 116 Table 1- breakdown of the burials * Sites where a 'mortuary gesture' is found whatever it is, even without the number of burials’ clear indication. ** Sites with graves even without the number of burials’ clear indication. *** Sites with graves with the number of burials clear indication (taken into account for the calculation of the

number of burials by site).

1- GEOGRAPHICAL FRAME AND CHRONOLOGY

The studied region is divided in three distinct areas (see map in annex):

• The Guyaquil Basin and Santa Elena peninsula in Ecuador, under the influence of the warm equatorial stream. This region has been the cradle of the civilizations of Las Vegas ( Preceramic 8000-3000 BC), Valdivia, Machallila and Chorrera ( Formative Period: 3000-300 BC);

• The coast of Perú (from río Piura to Paracas Peninsula), with a width of 20 to 50 kilometers, under the influence of the cold Humbolt Pacific stream, almost totally desert , but cut off by about fifty coastal permanent or semi-permanent rivers;

• The Andes mountain, divided according to the altitude in four areas:

-Sierra, between 4500m and 7000m high, uninhabited and without farming and breeding; -Puna, between 3.500 and 4500 m high, where camelids are bred and several tuber plants ( potatoes, ullucu, oca, etc..) are grown, cradle of the first human occupations of the central Andean area soon after the withdrawal of Pleistocene glaciers (10,000-8000 BC);

-Inter-mountains valleys, where most of the highland population is located and where are grown staples such as maize and aji;

- In Ecuador, north of Piura, the Sierra gently slopes down and the parano (Ecuador puna) is cut off by large river basins. The climatic conditions and sea level of the Perúvian coast stabilized around 5500-5000 BP, as the maritime transgression caused by the Pleistocene glaciers melting ended. Between 12.000 and 5000 BP, the sea level raised approximately a hundred meters, over flooding a strip of land of 10 to 50 kilometres and all preceramic sites located in that strip3. An important climatic factor which influenced human settlement on the coast is the alternation of humid periods in the sierra and the coast. Whereas during austral summer (October-May), it rains in the sierra, feeding coastal rivers and allowing farming on the alluvial terraces, during winter (May-October), the flow of the rivers is small or non-existent, but permanent humidity caused by condensation of maritime air prevails and allows cultivation, particularly in the fog-oasis called lomas.

This alternate pattern of agriculture has been one great factor of development of the Perúvian coast since the Preceramic Period and through the Formative Period. In addition, halieutic resources, the richest of the world, caused by the cold Humbolt stream, have allowed the settlement of


sedentary villages all along the coast since the Middle Preceramic Period.

In Ecuador, the coastal climate has always allowed simultaneously gathering of molluscs and shells and farming, which explains why Santa Helena peninsula has been the cradle of one of the first sedentary population of the continent. Last but not least, catastrophic raining and flooding due to the climatic phenomena called El Niño, caused by the occasional descent of the warm equatorial stream all along the northern coast of Perú devastates this coast at least once a decade. The disruptions caused by El Niño are possibly the cause of

several population moves between coast and sierra and of socio-political upheavals caused by these population moves. Finally, recent studies based on variation of isotope O 18 and micro-elements studies in the ice-cores of Huascaran and Quilcayas volcanoes prove a very important and long life climatic disruption (possibly a Niño followed by a drought of several decades) around 600-500 BC, corresponding to the period of destruction of the large ceremonial centres of the central and north-central coast, the disappearing of Cupisnique culture and the development of large centres in the sierra.4. The chronological chart adopted here is indicated here below:

Ecuador5 Péru6 Las Vegas 8000-5000 BC Middle Preceramic 6000-2500 BC Valdivia 3600-1500 BC Final Preceramic ( orCotton V ou VI) 2500-1800/1500 BC Machallila 1750-950 BC Initial Period (Early and Middle Formative) 1850/1500-450 BC Chorrera 950-300 BC Early Horizon 450-200 BC Table 2, chronological chart

3- BURIAL PATTERN REGIONAL STUDY Middle Preceramic (PC): 6000-2500 BC An important number of burials has been discovered, under or close to the dwellings, in villages scattered along the whole area, except in the northern and north-central coast where they have been over flooded by the post Pleistocene maritime transgression. In these sites, burials are very simple, bodies flexed and lying on one's side are wrapped in a reed mat, sometimes secured by vegetal fibre ropes and lay in oval pit dug in open ground, together with few domestic artefacts such as gourd, scrapper for hide working, sometimes very simple adorning elements (shell or stone collar, etc…). Most of the burials are of primary type with few multiple and secondary burials. Some specific rites can be highlighted such as post-burying partial cremation of the body through hot stones set down on the body or hot ashes poured over the body already covered with earth by means of a kind of funnel (Quilter 1989). An other custom specific to that period is to "stick” the body to the ground by means of one or several posts embedded through the body or large stones set down upon the body (Engel 1984 for Chilca, Wendt 1964 for Rio Seco). Ochre is often associated with the burials either directly on the body or as small nuts lying besides the body.

Late Preceramic-Cotton (PCC): 2500-1800/1500 BC Sea level is now stabilised and the number of fishing villages increased all along the coast (Huaca Prieta, Guanape, Culebras, Rio Seco, Ancón, Asia, etc…) when the first ceremonial constructions are built on the coast (Aspero, Alto Salaverry, etc) and in the mountain (Kotosh, La Galgada, etc…). Burying patterns are not different from the previous ones, but multiple and secondary burials are very seldom. Bodies are still wrapped in one or several reeds mats frequently dressed in clothes or with bundle of fabric folded along the corpse. The burying under dwellings custom persists, but with the rise of the first ceremonial structures, some individuals are now buried inside these structures ( Aspero on the north-central cost, La Galgada in the mountain, etc…). It seems that these latter burials are subject to more care, but the offerings

they contain indicate higher status rather than richness (pearls of diatomite, spondylus, small statues in terra-cotta, etc…) At the end of that Period, the quantity of burials decreased and numerous sites, although more populated than in the previous Period, are almost completely deprived of burials (Las Haldas, Caral, Paraiso, etc…).

Initial Period (PI): 1800/1500-450 BC The number and size of the sites dramatically increased: from 30 Cotton Preceramic sites we jump to 80 excavated Initial Period sites; in addition, many of the sites have disappeared for being located under subsequent farming area (beginning of culture irrigation) or because of modern urban expansion. Their size may reach more than 100 ha, and they are sometimes very close to one another.7 They are ceremonial centres formed of several adobe or stone pyramids usually with U shape lay outs and huge gathering courts for collective rituals, stairs leading to walled "atria" of progressively smaller size in order to secure a restricted access only for the elite. They were probably inhabited only by the elite, and commoners lived in surrounding villages, but few of these villages have been excavated with the exception of Monte Grande in Middle Jequetepeque (Tellenbach 1986) and Cardal in the Lurín Valley (Burger R.L. and L. 1991; Burger R. L. 1993). Here we must characterize two areas which differ by various mortuary customs: on one hand, what we call the "Cupisnique area" (PIC) including northern central valleys from Virú to Lambayeque (Burger 1992:91) and on the other hand the remaining central Andean area (PI non C) including central and south-central valleys, and central and north sierra. In PIC area, there are numerous graveyards almost all looted in the 1960s, mostly in the Jequetepeque, Zaña and Chicama valleys. The small number of archaeologically excavated burials, taken into account in the present study, allows us to figure out mortuary customs, but does not account for actual ratio buried/ burying population. In the PI non C. area, on the contrary, in spite of the number and size of the sites, one can hardly find one graveyard, but only few isolated graves dedicated to elite members, although population has much increased during that Period, thanks to the beginning of


culture irrigation. Thus, in the non-C. Area, there is a dramatic shift in relation to the previous Period: the commoner burials are less and less frequent. This burying pattern develops in the final part of that Period, since 900 BC, and the only discovered burials belong to the elite (Shillacoto and Kuntur Wasi in the mountain, Cardal on the coast…); numerous sites are totally deprived of burials. In such a famous site as Chavín de Huantar, there are few human remains dedicated to particular rituals, but not one burial. In compensation, the mortuary goods now includes some luxury goods, particularly with the first appearance of gold and copper (Grossman 1972) in both areas. Thus there is diachronic variation between Late Preceramic and Initial Period (PI non C) and spatial variation between PIC. and PI non C. areas. Early Horizon ( HA): 400-200 BC. At Chavín de Huantar, whose cultural expansion now spreads over almost the whole studied area, not one burial has

been found. In other places, there are very few8. It is true that the new richness of mortuary goods has attracted the looters more and more, but at least we should find remains of the structures if they once existed. The few burials contain rich goods (mortuary ceremonial ceramics, high status artefacts, richly adorned textiles, golden and copper artefacts…).

Formative (Ecuador) The Situation is different in Ecuador, which has not followed the same socio-political evolution toward complex societies as in Perú. Many graveyards and isolated burials are still found in the various coastal sites. There are strong similarities between Cupisnique and Ecuadorian Formative pattern, although the intermediate area (High and Low Piura valley, Sechura sites) sticks to same mortuary customs as the Perúvian non C. area with very few burials and sophisticated sacrificial rituals (Cerro Nañañique: Guffroy 1994).

. 4- DETAILED STUDY OF MORTUARY CUSTOMS

Evolution of the number of burials per period

total number of burials

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

PC PCC PI Cupisnique PI nonCupisnique

HA F(EQ) DR(EQ)

périod

nb o

f bur

ials

Fig 1 number of burials per period

We present hereafter the diachronic and synchronic evolution of the various selected criteria, under the form of commented histograms. The total burial number drops from 662 over the Middle Preceramic to 223 over the Cotton Preceramic, 158 over the Initial Period non Cupisnique and 51 over the Early

Horizon ( for reasons already explained, the number ofburials PIC is not representative of the actual situation and should be much higher). But this criterion is not entirely satisfactory because Periods do not have the same duration and the number of sites per period is different..An


interesting criterion is the ratio by period: number of sites with burials on total number of sites, as showed in fig 2.

PC

PCC

PIC

PI non C

HA F Eq

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

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60%

70%

80%

%

PC PCC PI Cup. PI non Cup. HA F

Périod

% sites w ith graves on total number of sites

fig 2. Number of sites with graves The percentage of sites with burials, which was over 70% in the Middle Preceramic, drops to 50% in the PCC and then to 38% in the PI non C. and to 28% in the Early Horizon. These criteria are interesting for the general trend they highlight, but they are not entirely satisfactory for they do not bring insights on the variation of the ratio buried/ burying population per site. This diachronic (inside each site) and

synchronic (between the various sites of a same period) variation is unfortunately impossible to build up because, if we know reasonably well the average time of existence of the sites, there is no reliable assessment of the per site population, besides the fact that it is increasing during these Periods.

burials average number by site

0

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20

30

40

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70

PC PCC PI Cupisnique PI non Cupisnique HA F(EQ) DR(EQ)

périod

buria

ls n

umbe

r

fig 3 , average number of burials per site and per periodNevertheless it is possible to calculate the average number of burials per site for each period, ratio of the total number of burials per period divided by the total number of sites per

period. This ratio evolves like the ratio of the buried/ burying population and then gives us valuable insights on the variation and trend of the latter (fig.3).


There is an average of 42 burials per site over the Middle Preceramic, 16 over the PCC., 9.8 in the PI C. , 7.8 in the PI non C. and 5.1 over the Early Horizon9. In Ecuador the number of burials per site (30) remains important.

Even if we don't know the population per site, some clues allow us to argue that village populations were low and did not exceed some tens in the Middle Preceramic, some hundreds in the Final Preceramic, and could be of some thousands or more when population gathered around ceremonial centres of the Initial Period and Early Horizon. Then the trend of a drop of burials would be even more striking than indicated by the previous figure. Furthermore, by carefully scrutinizing the context of the excavations, we contend that this trend towards a drop of buried population is strengthened even more than by appraising population by village for the following reasons:

-Middle Preceramic : all the maritime villages of the northern and north-central coast have been over flooded with the maritime transgression and then hundreds, if not thousands of burials, have disappeared.

-Cotton Preceramic : we have taken into account only 14 sites out of a total of 30 excavated sites, because the excavation reports do not account for accurate burial numbers but some sentences like " many burials" , or "much burials". Fore instance Wendt (1964) thought that at Rio Seco there were 2500 to 3000 burials, and Engel (1963) contends that at Asia, construction of a new road destroyed 200 observed but not yet excavated burials at the end of the first excavation

campaign. There are many similar examples which indicate that our calculation is very conservative.

-Initial Period Cupisnique. Reports account for numerous large graveyards in every valley of Cupisnique area. 95% of them have been looted and their state after looting does not allow for more detailed investigation. The more striking example is the Jequetepeque valley: Alva (1986) has identified and reported on the map annexed to his publication 51 "extensos cementerios saqueados que iniciandose de manera definida a partir de las proximidades del pueblo de Llanan, se proyectan ininterrumpidamente hacia la parte baja" 10 i.e more than 50 kilometres. Their size is comprised between 100 and 400 m² and each contains between 10 and 40 burials. A conservative calculation then gives a 'minimum' figure of 1000 burials, when we have only taken into account 15 burials (Cerro Talambo : 3; Chungal : 4; La Bomba : 4; and 2 at Monte Grande).

-Initial Period non Cupisnique: despite of the excavations, no evidence of burial has been found in most of the huge and numerous ceremonial centres of the north-central and central coast, clearly because there were none. For instance in the Casma valley, which includes 8 large ceremonial centres, the only discovered burials are the four burials of Pampa de las Llamas Moxeque (Pozorski S. et T. 1992: 858). The same pattern prevails for ceremonial centres of the other valleys of Santa, Nepeña, Supe, Huauara, Chancay, Chillon and Rimac).

-Early Horizon: burials are few, 20 in 9 sites and 12 burials in one single site ( La Granja El Rolo, north-west of Cajamarca), and all are elite tombs11.

Structure of the graves (container) Type of structure

0%

10%

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50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

%

PC PCC PI C PI non C HA

périod

type of structure/ nb of sites with sepultures

open groundunderground roomcoffinunknown

fig. 4 Type of tombs

o Middle Ceramic : all burials are in open ground. o Cotton Preceramic : open ground burials still

persists but coffins or stone vaults appear at Asia

and Aspero, and underground rooms at Huaca Prieta and La Galgada. However at Huaca Prieta open ground burials and underground rooms occur


simultaneously and one can wonder whether underground rooms were dwellings used as tombs or mortuary rooms built on purpose (Grieder 1997). There is no geographical preferential breakdown for the coffin and underground burials: three sites are located on the coast and one in the mountain ( La Galgada). In two of these sites (Aspero and La Galgada) burials are located inside a ceremonial centre and one can suppose there might be an ideological reason for this ( elite status and/or subject to a particular ritual).

o Initial Period: the proportion of underground and coffin burials increases; open ground burials are mostly located on the coast and underground and coffin burials in the mountain. One can suppose that the cause of such a striking contrast is the different nature of the ground, but it can also come from the custom to bury the elite inside the ceremonial

centres, often into the architectonic structures such as pyramids or platforms.

o Early Horizon: open ground burials are mainly located in Cupisnique area and underground rooms and coffins in mountain sites. The reasons could be the same as for Initial Period.

o One specific burial pattern is the circular mortuary structure or "mausoleum-tower"12 whose prototype is found at Salinas de Chao ( Alva 2986: 68) dated at the end of the Cotton Preceramic, and then at Monte Grande [Tellenbach and Beck 1986] and Chungal [Ravines 1982], both located in the Middle Jequetepeque and dated Initial Period. Two different interpretations are possible : either as prototype of the mortuary towers (chullpas) or as site of propitiatory sacrifice, but two of them did not include human bones but ceramics (one of Chungal and that of Monte Grande).

Individual, collective or multiple burials: __________________________________________________________________________

0

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%


périod

type of burial, individual, collective or multiple

individual

collective

multiple

unknown

fig 4, individual, collective or multiple burial

There is a clear preference for individual burial, all along the time span. Once more La Granja el Rollo is atypical with 10 burials in 2 multiple graves . ___________ location There are many excavated graveyards over the Middle Preceramic (44% of the sites) and over the PI Cupisnique (45% of the sites, but as we have seen earlier, they are actually much more numerous), their number drops during

the Cotton Preceramic ( 25% of the sites) and they disappear during the IP non C. and the Early Horizon ( but see note x, Ancón cemetery). We will examine, in the conclusions, if this diachronic variability between the Middle Preceramic, the Cotton Preceramic and the IP non C and this synchronic (or regional) variability between Cupisnique and non Cupisnique areas are variant or variation. In the Middle Ceramic, individual graves are all located under or close to dwellings, and graveyards are located close to villages. During the Cotton Preceramic, burials are spread between dwellings (8sites),ceremonial centres (8 sites) and graveyards


( 4 sites). At Alto Salaverry ( Pozorski S. et T. 1977), there is one burial under the house, one burial on the ceremonial terrace, and one graveyard outside. During the Initial Period, all excavated graves in the non Cupisnique area are located inside or close to the ceremonial centre, as well as the individual burials of Cupisnique area, but the numerous graveyards of Cupisnique area are located

at a certain distance from the ceremonial centres (Middle Jequetepeque). In Ecuador, a gathering of hundred Formative Period burials was found at Real Alto (Marcos 1988) inside the " Casa de los Osuaros", considered as the prototype of ceremonial centre. During the Early Horizon, burials are all located inside ceremonial centres.

graveyard burials

PC

PCC

PI Aire cupisnique

PI Aire non cupisnique

HA

PC PI cupisnique

PCC

PI non cupisnique

fig 6, graveyards Burial ( grave content) primary/ secondary

During the Middle Preceramic, primary burial is the rule, except in Paracas 104 where 22 skeletons and 40 skulls found in a common grave are considered by Engel (1960; 1981: 31-32) as secondary burials, but are more likely the result of a "cleaning of graves"(G. Pereira, 2002, personal communication), or mass burial subsequent to a massacre (Quilter 1980). Secondary burials seem to exist only in Ecuador (Las Vegas). During the Cotton Preceramic, primary burial is the rule, except in Asia where 7 burials are considered by Engel ( 1963) as secondary, but his explanations are not always clear enough to take a stand.

During the Initial Period, secondary burial remains an exception13, at least if we do not take into account separated heads or skulls and bones deposits for ritual and/or propitiatory purposes. During the Early Horizon, the few secondary burials are the result of complex ritual manipulations (Chavín, La Granja el Rollo). To summarize : primary burial is the normal pattern in the central Andean area, when secondary burials appear during the Initial Period, likely linked to the development of ritual body manipulation (propitiatory rites for the beginning or the end of construction of a sacred building). Burying of heads or skulls is likely to be a variant of these rites.

Orientation and position of the bodies

% PC PCC PI HA F(EQ) DR Decubitus latéral 22 64 43 8 57 10

0 Decubitus dorsal 8 6 10 0 0 0 Decubitus ventral 4 1 6 0 0 0 unknown 66 29 41 92 43 0 flexed 29 67 46 15 57 extended 5 5 5 0 0 seated 0 2 4 8 0 unknown 66 26 35 77 43

Tableau 3: position of the body

The orientation of the bodies looks totally random in the studied corpus, and we could not afford any regularities either by site, region or Period. Position (table 3) is unknown in many cases, but the sample with known position is sufficiently representative except for

the Early Horizon (92% unknown). During the time span covered by the study, flexed position in lateral decubitus is largely predominant. We account for only small variants, which do no seem to follow specific rules. The possible issue is that position and orientation have no symbolic importance


at this stage, at least up to the Early Horizon. What is likely considered is to minimize the work invested in digging pit according to the nature of the ground, which implies almost always lateral flexed position. For the Early Horizon, the sample is not representative. We could not take into account Morro de Eten site ( Elera 1993), near Chiclayo, dated from the end of the Early Horizon because the burial number is not given in the publication but, according to the author, it seems that the bodies were all laid down on the back and the graves were deeper 14. Thus it would be a local variant, for at the following Period (Salinar Early Intermediate Period), bodies are extended but in lateral decubitus at the site of Puemape ( Elera 1992). In the Virú valley, both burials 8 and 9 of V-66 graveyard are dated by their ceramics from the Late Guanape Period ( HA) (Strong and Evans 1952). One of them is in a lateral flexed position, when the other is laid down in lateral extended position as those of the following Puerto Moorin Phase (Salinar, initial Early Intermediate Period) in the same V-66 graveyard, or those of the Barbacoa and Palenque Salinar burials in the neighbouring Chicama valley (Larco Hoyle 1941; 1945). Shroud -Middle Preceramic: the presence of a shroud is attested in 446 burials and 10 sites out of the 662 burials and 17 excavated sites. For the remaining sites, the authors do not mention shrouds, probably because the evidence disappeared, for it seems that it is a largely followed custom. However, K. Stothert (1985) argues that at Las Vegas, the deceased were buried without shroud or clothes15. As in the Formative site of Valdivia, in the same Santa Elena peninsula of Ecuador, it seems that shroud or clothes were also absent from the burials, so one could suppose that it accounts once more for a regional specificity, a regional variation. Elsewhere in Perú, the body, with or without clothes, was wrapped in an animal hide16 or more frequently in a reed braided mat. The only noted evolution is the progressive replacement of hide by reed at Paloma between levels 200 and 400/500 ( Quilter 1989) as well as in Paracas where hide was probably made of vicuna, according to Engel (1960). In some of these period burials, there were several mats superimposed; at Chilca for instance, some burials are wrapped into 6 mats ( Engel 1988). The shrouds were secured around the body by vegetal fibre braided ropes and sometimes handles were set out for transport of the "fardo" to the grave. -Cotton Preceramic: Reed braided shroud kept in use in most of the cases, but some mats are made with reed warp and weft cotton ( Huaca Prieta, Piedras Negras), and others completely in cotton ( Asia, Aspero). A variant is found in La Galgada where some shrouds are made of reed and bark. -Initial Period: strangely, we have only few evidences of shrouds (7 sites out of 41); when they exist, they are almost always braided with reed (La Galgada, Puemape, Ancón, Curayucu, Barbacoa, Palenque and Cardal). When bodies are buried in coffins (Chungal, Huacaloma, Jargam Pata, Kotosh, La Pampa, Tablada de Lurín), there are never shroud or clothes, either because vegetal material are less easily preserved in open air than in the ground, or for a cultural reason, coffin playing the protecting role of the shroud. Underground rooms of La Galgada where textiles are exceptionally well preserved are the exception. To the contrary, when there is evidence of shroud, bodies are always buried in open ground ( Barbacoa, Palenque) but the opposite

is not true; for instance at Guanape or Huacaloma, the absence of shroud has been noted by the excavators. But the custom may be different in some areas: in the Virú valley, where the burials of the Cerro Prieto Period (Preceramic) did not have shroud or clothes, Strong and Evans (1952) explicitly underline that the 6 Guanape Period burials are deprived of shroud or clothes, and moreover only the two Guanape burials 8 and 9 of V-66 Salinar graveyard are deprived of shroud and clothes (besides a lack of mortuary goods as well). In the course of a recent excavation at Huaca el Gallo/ La Galina ( Zoubeck 2001), in the same valley, the three burials, dated from Guanape Period were also deprived of shroud and clothes as well as of mortuary goods. If the sample is considered as sufficient ( 11 burials in 3 sites), it is thus likely a local variant which lasts till the Salinar population introduced new customs. -For the Early Horizon, we have no evidence of shroud, perhaps for the same reason than at the Initial Period ( burials in underground rooms), but the main reason is more likely the small sample.17 -To sum up, we don't notice any variation of this custom through the studied time span, but only some local variants. clothes -Middle Preceramic: At Las Vegas (Ecuador), the deceased do not wear any clothes. In the case of evidence of clothes, the evolution is similar than for shroud. At the beginning it is hide clothes (Tres Ventanas, Paracas 104, Chilca level 200), then intertwined vegetal fibre (Paloma, Chilca), and cotton makes its first appearance at the very end of the period ( Paracas 514). -Cotton Preceramic: twined cotton is systematically used for bags, hats (chuko), dresses (wara), loincloths and waistbands. Feather is used for ornament (La Galgada, Asia). At Rio Seco, it seems that the deceased are buried naked in the shroud, with a bundle of cotton fabric besides them. For the Initial Period and Early Horizon, we have the same lack of data than for shroud, for the same reasons, but, in the few attested cases, it seems that wool is more frequent 18 (La Galgada) even if cotton is still present ( Ancón, Cardal).

Mortuary goods During the Middle Preceramic domestic goods are of three types: tools for daily work19 ( needles, bodkins, hooks, weights and nets for fishing), containers (gourds) and hunting weapons (spearheads, maces and javelins). During the Cotton Preceramic, their quantity increases and new artefacts appear with the cotton ( spindle whorls, bags and nets in cotton). The advent of ceramic is a landmark: the quantity of artefacts drops and quite often the body is accompanied only by one or two ceramic containers. During the Early Horizon, domestic goods totally disappear. Ornament has always been present. At Telarmachay for instance (D. Lavallée 1995: 63), the child is buried with a 99 discoïd white stone pearls-collar and 18 rectangular polish and drilled bone pendants. During the Preceramic, finery is very present: collars, wrist-bands and pendants made in stone, bones, cut polished and drilled shells and animal teeth. Striking is the appearance of cane panpipe at Chilca20, engraved gourds (Huaca Prieta), terracotta statuettes (Curayucu, Aspero, Kotosh) and twined adorned pieces of cotton ( Huaca Prieta, Chilca, Asia, Paraiso, etc…). During the Initial Period, bone earrings (with a promissory future) and engraved disks make their first appearance, together with needles, pins, turquoise collars, and richly adorned textiles in


particular in the exceptionally rich burials of La Galgada. Jet mirrors, bone spatulas, tablets and containers for powder often come with bowls and bottles dedicated to hallucinogen drinks or powder and are likely to be the hallmark of ‘shaman' burials, mostly in Cupisnique area (Elera 1993). Finally over the Early Horizon, prestige and status goods replace entirely domestic use goods. Rich graves (precious stone pearls, gold crowns, gold earrings and chest pendants, as well as precious engraved and adorned shells (spondylus and strombus) of Kuntur Wasi, Granja el Rollo or Chongoyape, witness that burial become an elite privilege. This diachronic evolution of the mortuary goods presence is particularly well attested at Kuntur Wasi (Onuki 1997; Matsumura 1997; Kato 1993) where graves dated from the Idolo phase (early Initial Period) only have domestic ceramic, graves dated from the Kuntur Wasi phase (late Initial Period)

contain domestic ceramics together with the first golden artefacts and graves dated from the Copa phase (Early Horizon) contain exclusively prestige and status artefacts (golden crowns and chest pendants, precious adorned spondylus and strombus). Dyes Evidences of dye (vegetal or mineral pigments) are found with numerous burials, either on the bones or in small balls near the body. In fig 7, we can see an apparent drop of the use of ochre, mainly present early in the Midlle Preceramic ( Paijan, Telarmachay, Paracas 514) and less used at the end of that period (only 10 burials out of 200 at Paloma), but we cannot make a strong case of that for the sample is too small (7 sites).

.

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

site nb.


period

dyes

red ochre

yellow ochre

Hématite

cinnabar

fig.7. use of the dyes Cinnabar appears at the Initial Period Barbacoa/Palenque, La Bomba, Kuntur Wasi) and seems to be very much used in the Cupisnique area. One does not know whether the use of dyes had a practical meaning ( preservation of human skin, product necessary for

hide working21) or a symbolic meaning : symbol of blood and life (Leroi-Gourhan 1988: 931) or regeneration, and one cannot link its evolution to any important cultural change whatsoever.

Other body treatment practices

By these terms, we mean "every body treatment which does not lead to the burying of the entire body in a grave". First of all we must underline that archaeology does not bring much

evidences on three of what seems to be the more frequent used practices during some periods of the human history:

1. Plain and simple abandonment of the body, for which we have ethnological or prehistoric examples22 .


2. Voluntary scattering of / bones, a practice which is a kind of secondary burial, cannot be archaeologically differentiated from the from the previous pattern.

3. Scattering of the ashes after total incineration. Unfortunately, bone remains scattered through the archaeological sites have not been taken into consideration in the excavations for a very long time and when noticed, they are merely a subject of short notice without quantification or qualification. It is only since Lumbreras study on Chavín (1989), then with Guffroy publication on Cerro Nañañique (1994) that archaeologists have tried to look for their various meanings. It is worth noting that despite of this unfortunate limitation, research and interpretation of these evidences is at the core of our problematic for two reasons:

1. abandonment is no more than a cultural alternative to burial in a grave.

2. abandonment or reuse for ritual purposes correspond to two very different behaviours but it difficult to make the difference on the basis of archaeological evidences.

Bones remains Physical anthropologists who have dealt 23 with the topic underline that there are three distinct cases: 1. Accidental insertion of bones or part of bones in the

architectonic filling up or occupation wastes, which are the result of a disruption of old burials by new incomers.

2. abandonment of the body to open air or under a very thin layer of ground or waste. Carnivores or rodents action then explain their scattering. One can distinguish them from the former case, by the marks of teeth and the breaking on the bones.

3. delibarate incorporation of bodies or part of bodies in architectonical structures for ritual use. It is a sort of ritual amongst other rituals, likely propitiatory, consisting of blending the remains of a dead person to the construction materials of a new architectonic structure in order to secure

success to the activities to be performed in this new structure. But two observations might be made: a. Clues indicating a ritual performance instead of an

unpredictable or taphonomic event are very small and ambivalent.

b. once admitted it is a ritual performance, it may be a human sacrifice whose victim (prisoner or member of the community) has been/is killed for the sake of the specific performance, or an already but non buried dead person, or an already buried person whose grave has been reopened in order to take out all or parts of the body and perform the sacrifice. All these cases are theoretical, but there are many ethno- historical or ethnological occurrences.

We have indicated in the following tables, by period, the various occurrences of bone remains found amongst the 90 mortuary studied sites and have tried to distribute them according to the three theoretical groups here above listed (comments in the tables are the outcome of the authors).

1. Middle Preceramic.

We have not found any scattered bone remains amongst the 17 excavated sites. Clearly people did not leave the bodies of their deceased without burials, nor did they use parts of the bodies as propitiatory rituals. More likely, their beliefs required that the body was preserved from any destruction.

2. cotton Preceramic (fig 3) Four sites (table 3.1) out of the 18 mortuary sites present scattered bone remains; our general observations are as follows: - There are no indication of ritual performance or sacrifice whatsoever on these remains.

� -They are hardly the result of dead abandoned bodies, as we find on the same sites graveyards and isolated burials. - Thus we infer that the cause is disruption of previous burials by the further dwellers and, accordingly, there were much more burials than acknowledged in the documentation.

Site name

Country

Commentary

Chao-Los Morteros PCC

PE the numerous scattered bones come from disrupted burials ( there were, thus, much more burials than those taken into account)

Huaca Prieta

PE Id.

Aspero

PE The scattered bones come from looted burials...

Ancón PCC

PE Scattered bone remains spread over the site

Table 3.1, Cotton Preceramic scattered human remains


3. Initial Period and Ecuador Formative

Table3.2 Initial Period and Ecuador Formative scattered human remain Ten sites (table 3.2), out of 42 mortuary sites, have scattered bone remains. Here are our general observations:

� At Real Alto, Chavín Urabarriu, Tablada de Lurín,

bone remains are clearly the result of a sacrificial performance.

� At Huacaloma, Kuntur Wasi (Idolo), Pacopampa, they seem to be the result or abandonment (despite the argument made by Burger for Pacopampa: see § cannibalism).

� San Pablo and Guanape have been clearly subject to disruption of previous burials by the further dwellers

and consequently there were much more burials than acknowledged

� At Cerro Nañañique, it seems that they are the outcome of ritual performances (bones mixed with ashes in the foundations) .

Thus we contend that two new and very different cultural traits have made their appearance at this stage: on one hand, a certain lack of interest in burying the deceased, since bodies are sometimes merely abandoned with garbage (4 sites); on the other hand, the first appearance of propitiatory rituals performed by the media of parts of human bodies incorporated into architectonic structures.

4. Early Horizon

nom du site pays commentaire Chavín-Janabarriu

PE Part of dismembered skeleton of an infant 12-18 months buried on a layer of ashes under a Janabarriu platform. = ritual propitiatory before construction (Burger 1998: 38 and annex A)

Huacaloma (EL)

PE Reduction of the number (M. Shimada 1985: 283-287)

Huaricoto PE Human bones in a cache in the wall foundations, with ceremonial artefacts (pan pipe, carved bone, in a mixture of ashes.

Table 3.3, Early Horizon, scattered bones remains

Three sites (table 3.3) out of 12 mortuary sites have scattered bone remains. Here are our general observations: � At Chavín, the matter is a ritual, and probably

propitiatory, performance as indicated by the presence or the bones on a layer of ashes and in the foundation wall of a platform.

� At Huacaloma, we are still in the case of abandonment of body as in the previous periods, but the author notes the

reduction of the number of scattered bones. The number of scattered abandoned bones dramatically increases at the Initial Period and seems to drop at the Early Horizon, but it is probably due to the scarcity of the sample.

� A Huaricoto, the likeness with the Chavín case is striking (foundation wall, ashes), although it is an adult and not an infant.

Site name country commentary

San Pablo EQ

Real Alto Tardio EQ The 8 men would have been sacrificed ( dismembered) at the occasion of the burying of the high status woman

Chavín-Urabarriu PE In 0frendas gallery: woman skull surrounded by 40 children teeth + many bones carefully distributed ( IMN=33)+ in various galleries Ofrendas, " Caracoles" and others

Huacaloma EH PE M.Shimada (1982: 385) argues that scattered bones, none in connection, have been abandoned and that bites are dog bites

Huacaloma LH PE Drop of burials at this period go together with increase of scattered bones .M. Shimada argues that they have been abandoned with their flesh and devoured by dogs..

Tablada de Lurín PE Bone remains burnt, blended with animal bones and offering of ceramic and sodalite pearls

Kuntur Wasi (Idolo)

PE Matsamuri et al 1997; not many details

Pacopampa -Pacopampa

PE El Mirador, scattered human bones " often cut , burnt and gnawed" come in number just after cervids: , "the existence at Pacopampa of some sort of ritual cannibalism must be considered a serious possibility", Burger 1992

Cerro Nañanique PE Numerous bones remains are associated to foundation sediments and retaining walls. The 2nd buried individual is probably a propitiatory deposit

Guanape PE Strong & Evans : 41 "los huesos de mamiferos son raros salvo unos huesos humanos que aparecen dispersos en los niveles 4,25-4,50 y los otros huesos humanos son probablemente de intervenciones casuales o disturbios...canibalismo no es descarable..no hay prueba definitiva"


Isolated heads and skulls

Site name period Isolated heads or skull propitiatory burials Commentary

Paracas site 104

PC 40 (56)skulls Outcome of a "cleaning" – P Cruz 2002 personnal com.

Chilca PC 1 fixed to the ground with a style

Asia PCC 7 severed heads (4 children, 3 adults) in a bag

+2 headless bodies (severed according to Engel). Heads with mandibles + upper vertebras

Piedras Neras

PCC Numerous children skulls in stone structures

Special children burying pattern (see also Paloma specific foetus and recently born burying section (Quilter 1989)

Rio Seco PCC 2 adult skulls Wrapped with children bones and big stones ( Quilter 1991: 414)

Jargam Pata PI 1 skull Severed head or skull? (Ochatoma Paravicino 1998) propitiatory offering for 'deserting' of building

Cardal PI Child skull parts in atrium EL Burger 1993 c : 90,

Shillacoto -Kotosh

PI 1upside down skull in a cane basket

The skull was located in 2nd burial ( Izumi and al.1972)

Chavín-Urabarriu

PI 4 skulls under plateform + 1 woman skull in Ofrendas gallery

Heads and not skulls (presence mandible) votive offering for end of construction of a platform. Ofrendas gallery:

Tablada de Lurín

PI 1 child skull sacrifice Together with children teeth

Cerro Nañañique

PI 3 skull against a slope 2 additional skulls at Panecillo site

Wichqana-Chupas

HA 5 severed heads Propitiatory sacrifice escalated in the time, in circular pit facing inside wall in a semi subterranean structure. death rictus on the faces (Lumbreras 1975)

Tableau 4, isolated heads and skulls

The custom of burying skulls may be an application of the principle of " the part for the whole" (Paracas 104 and Piedras Negras) or reflects a mortuary behaviour to honour the ancestors (Verano 1991), but since the Initial Period it appears clearly in all the above cases as a propitiatory offering (human sacrifice or not) when erecting a new structure or "deserting" an old one. In most of the sites ( Jargam Pata, Cardal, Shillacoto, Chavín, Tablada de Lurín, Cerro Nañañique), we don’t know if the head has been taken from a living or a dead, and only in the case of Wichquana do we have indication that it was perhaps the outcome of a human sacrifice, for the author argues that the heads kept on their face a rictus of pain (Lumbreras 1975). Burying of heads or skulls is then a recurrent custom in the central Andean area, for the frequency is constant during the various periods:

� Midle Preceramic 2 cases out of 16= 13% of the

mortuary sites � Cotton Preceramic 3 cases out of 16= 19% � Initial Period 5 cases out of 37 = 14% � Early Horizon 2cases out of 11 = 18%

Human sacrifices The two previous chapters logically lead us to wonder whether remains or parts of the bodies incorporated in architectonic structures are not the outcome of human sacrifices. In tables 3 and 4, several cases may suggest human sacrifices. It could be the case in other examples not included theses tables. We have mentioned in the following table 5 all these occurrences:

Table 5, human sacrifices

Chilca PCC Head separated from body (T42) and fixed to the ground with a stylet Engel 1988 Asia PCC 2 bodies without heads and 7 severed heads Engel 1957; 1963b Salinas de Chao PCC Adult without head in a circular excavation Cardenas Martin 1995 Real Alto(Tardio) F Eq 8 dismembred men for the burial of a woman of hight status Marcos 1986 Kotosh (Chavín) PI 1 " knifed" child buried under a wall Onuki 2001 Chavín Urabarriu ( PI 5 skull (or heads) buried under a terrace Burger 1992 Shillacoto (Kotosh) PI 1 upside down skull Izumi et al 1972 Jargam Pata PI 1 skull or severed head Ochatoma Paravicino 1998 Tablada de Lurín PI 1 child skull together with children teeth Morford and Jones 1970:50-56 Cerro Nañañique PI 3 skulls in a slope skeleton 57 with severed head Guffroy 1994 Huaricoto (Capila) HA Human remains as offering below a wall Burger RL and L 1980: 31 Puemape white on red period (400-200 BC)

HA 2 bodies without heads, A with phalanxes and feet cut Elera y Pinilla 1992

Punkuri HA Sacrified woman, severed head buried under a stair Tello; Proulx 1985; Dagget 1987a

Waiwaka HA Traces of violent death Grossman 1985 Wichquana (Chupas) HA 5 severed heads Lumbreras 1975


Specially striking are the 5 heads of Wichquana, for which Lumbreras says that they are human sacrifices, skeleton n° 57 of Cerro Nañañique where the atlas was still sticking to the head, which is a proof of a severed head and Huaricoto where Burger writes that it is not clear whether it was the result of a human sacrifice or the reuse of the bones after death (Burger R. et L. 1980: 85) By analogy, the very similar case of the rests of an infant at Chavín ( Burger 1998: 38) should be added to that list.Finally we have to think over on the meaning of multiple burials we find during theses periods (Guilaine et Zammit 1998: 58-60). Some simultaneous burials are probably due to contagious disease or accidents (Huaca Prieta, Paloma, etc…) but in other cases, one can

legitimately wonder if some people have not been sacrificed to come with one high status member in the death (La Galgada: Grieder et Mendoza 1988, particularly burials 1,5 and 14). Burials of infants and children with special care We have gathered in table 6 all the cases where children (foetus, infants, children) have been buried in special places and/or have been subject to special and more important treatment than those of the adults in the same sites (location, grave, shroud or clothes, adornment and goods).

Site name period Special care infant burials

comments

Telarmachay PC Child buried with a 99- pearl and 18 pendants collar

The 2 women buried with him did not have any adornment when the child " seems to have been subject of special care " D. Lavallée, 1995: 133

Lauricocha PC 3 children Ochre closed to the 3 children. One of them wore a collar of turquoise pearls and ochre

Tres Ventanas PC 3 children They laid on several layers of clothes and wore shell amulets, bone spins and shell pearl- collars.

Paloma PC fœtus and infants House n° 28 was a special graveyard for children. Ritual space?

Chilca* PC 29 fœtus and infants Special cares**

Bandurria PCC Several children Buried in a basket with big stones on it

Las Haldas PCC PCC 1 infant The only burial found in the site, with big stones on the grave.

Alto Salaverry PCC One child 10-12 years old

Burial located out of the graveyard, 2 stones placed on the child.

Aspero PCC One infant in a room and the other on a terrace.

Complex ritual, the infant on the terrace was linked to an adult burial by 2 ropes. The infant in the room of Huaca de los Sacrificios was buried under an upside down stone coffin, with a 500 shell pearls-collar and was wrapped in fabric and accompanied with heap of fabric. (Feldman 1985)

Piedras Negras PCC Numerous children skulls in a stone structure

Cf Paloma

Rio Seco PCC Double children burial Two adult skulls with chidren bones and big stones.

Caral PCC I child The only burial found in the site. Rock crystal, spins and pearls

Ancón** PI Child Under a house wall special cares **

* Chilca (Engel 1988) : a special care is dedicated to the burial of small children including foetus, premature children, and infants. Their mother gave them her more precious objects; ornaments, collars, etc…The mortuary presents are laid down on a small pile of stones or sand surrounded by straw, before covering the pit; most of the time, bodies are buried in a gourd. One of them has been covered with his cradle and laid on a straw bed. ** Ancón ( Burger 1992: 93-94 quoting Patterson 1984). The child buried aside the graveyard has been subject to very specific care: his eyes were replaced by mica sheets, his stomach by a gourd and his heart by a rock crystal.

Table 6, special care children burials

There is a striking evolution in the behaviour toward children: � During the Preceramic Period, children are subject to

special care. This care drops dramatically during the Initial Period (in spite of the case of Ancón which is ambiguous: burial of propitiatory sacrifice?).

� The two children burials of Aspero, in a ceremonial site dated from the Cotton Preceramic, deserve particular interest, for they have often been given as a proof of

ascribed status; but they can also be considered as children with special care or as ritual burials for the edification of a platform, then announcing the following period:

� For it is worthwhile noting that this pattern of special care ends with the Initial Period. Henceforth, as we shall see, there are only propitiatory offerings of children and children sacrifices.


Propitiatory burials

Site name period Propitiatiry burials comments

Alto Salaverry PCC One man Under platform before construction

Ancón PI Child under house wall Dedicatory offering for the buiding of a house

Cardal PI Child skull in atrium of a ceremonial centre Burger 1993 c

Tablada de Lurín PI bones mixed to offerings Bone remains burnt and mixed with animal bones and ceramic offerings and sodalite pearls. Patch of children teeth with an infant. skull

Cerro Nañanique PI 1 man under a slope 1 man under a platform + 3 skulls

Man + 2 precious engraved shells Cranes under a platform

Chavín-Urabarriu PI 4 skulls under platform 1 skull + bones inside Ofrendas gallery

Offrendas :various interprétations Urabarriu platform: propitiatory offering

Kuntur Wasi (KW ) PI Several Children buried under stairs Offering or sacrifice ?( Onuki 2001)

La Pampa PI PI Infant buried under stairs Id Kunter Wasi

Monte Grande PI 2 burials under platform and stairs before construction

propitiatory

Pandanche PI A child under a wall Kaulicke (1975: 30). Rosasy Shady (1970:33) mention burials associated with walls. Sacrificial?

Purulen PI basement of an underground room; part of a human skeketon and skull with cervid haunch

Popitiatory sacrifice for new ceremonial center Alva ( n.d.)

Kotosh-Chavín PI 2 infants ( 1 "knifed") 1 under a wall and 1 behind the lateral wall of a stair. sacrifice(Onuki 2001) Chavín-Janabarriu HA 1 infant under a platform Propitiatory ritual before erecting a new platform

San Jacinto HA HA 1 man , before platform abandonment Ritual before giving up of the platform (orient. of the body as the arms of the edifice)

Wichqana-Chupas

HA 5 heads severed ( at different times) in circular pits facing an inside wall of a semi subterranean structure

La Granja El Rollo

HA 5adults + 1 infant t 2 (multiple: 5 indiv.) Propitiatory ritual before construction of new platform.; t3(1infant) prop. For giving up of a temple ( Webster et al 2000)

Huaricoto HA Indiv. under wall offering before construction

Tableau 7, propitiatory burials

We have indicated in table 7, all the burial cases which could be propitiatory gesture. There are of course overlaps with cases already mentioned under other gestures, such as “scattered bones" or "isolated skulls and heads" or “children

burial with special care", as some of them are considered as "propitiatory". Nevertheless, eventual cases of potential cannibalism noted by authors are analysed separately.

Relations between these special care children burials/ human sacrifices/ propitiatory offering

children burials/ human sacrifices/ propiatory offe ring

0

5

10

15

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PC PCC PI C PI non C HApériodes

% n

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tes/

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ions

children special care burials

propitiatory offering burials

human sacrif ices

Fig. 8 relations between special care children burials/human sacrifices/ propitiory offering


Graphic 8 shows that the ratio of children special care burials, which was very important during the Preceramic Period, drops dramatically during the Initial Period and disappears totally during the PI non C and Early Horizon. Inversely covariance between propitiatory burials and human sacrifices is striking. The Ratio of propitiatory burials, null during the PI non P and 42% during the Early Horizon. Once more Cupisnique area marks its difference, with no human sacrifice.. The sample is representative enough to allow us to consider that is a specific strong cultural trait which has to be carefully considered when studying the Cupisnique culture. But what is the more striking is that the drop in the children special care burials goes with the drop of commoners's burials and the increase of human sacrifices and propitiatory offering burials with a notable ratio of children and void over Middle Preceramic, regularly increases, since the Cotton Preceramic ( 6%) till the Early Horizon ( 43%), and the ratio of human sacrifices increases from the Middle Preceramic ( 5%) to 17% over the Cotton Preceramic, 27 %. Cannibalism Ulhe argued that cannibalism was very frequent in Perú. Lumbreras ( 1989: 184-210) also contends that cannibalism exists in Perú since the end of the Preceramic and slows down toward the Early Horizon. He quotes evidences of scattered bones in numerous sites as proofs of cannibalism. But none of the registered cases is convincing: -At Huacaloma, there are 107 bone fragments, never in connection, with some marks of dog teeth. M. Shimada ( 1982; 1985) convincingly infers that bodies were abandoned in open air and that dogs and rodents ate them. -At Aspero, Feldman (1980, 1985) argues that human remains are likely the result of disturbance of old graveyards. -At Gavilanes ( Bonavia 1982, Castro de la Mata 1982: 201), 445 human bone remains are more likely also the result of disturbance of old graveyards. -In Virú 434 site dated of the end of Formative, the bones are classified by Wing in an unpublished table, which makes their checking impossible 24. -At Las Haldas, Rosa Fung would have found scattered human bones dated from the early Formative, listed in the same unpublished Wing publication: table 13. -At Curayucu, Rosa Fung would have found remains dated also from the early Formative, but without proper dating and references ( Wing table 19) . -At Guanape, Strong and Evans (1952 40-41) quote ( Guanape Period) : "land mammals are rare or lacking save for human bones which are scattered in levels between 4. 5 and 2.25m. A bundle burial occurred in level 4.25-4.5 m, and the other human bones are probably from disturbed or casual interment. Although cannibalism is not precluded, there is no definite proof" -At Chavín, Lumbreras argues that the human bones laying in the Ofrendas Gallery are the result of ritual cannibalism because they are disposed in an organised way, when the other occurrences quoted above are culinary cannibalism because they are found in garbage. Baraybar (1993) is more categorical : at Chavín, the bones have been deliberately disarticulated and fragmented with cutting instruments and cut evidences; the more visible effects of contact with fire show that it happened when the flesh were still on the bones, which proves that they have been cut in order to cook or roast the flesh and not to turn bones into ashes.

-At Cerro Nañañique, Baraybar is more prudent, for he observes the lack of dismembering for the bones laying under the slopes and platforms. He suggests that it is a matter of ritual sacrifices, but without consumption of the flesh. -An other more or less attested case of cannibalism is found at Pacopampa (Burger 1992 : 109-110), but it reminds of Huacaloma and it is more likely a taphonomic effect, due to dogs and rodents. -Lastly, at Tablada de Lurín, Morford and Jones (1970 : 50-56) have found numerous scattered bone remains (exclusively phalanx bones and a fragment of occipital) with marks of cremation and mixed with animal bones, together with offerings (globular vases, sodalite pearls) To summarize, it is possible that ritual cannibalism took place at Chavín, during the performance of unknown complex rituals. One can believe that ritual cannibalism also occurred in Nañañique, where complex rituals are attested. It stands to reason that if ritual cannibalism was performed in two places, it is likely a more common cultural trait; besides, it is not surprising, for cannibalism is actually attested in many other prehistoric, historical and ethnological human groups. We cannot definitely turn down than a certain form of culinary cannibalism also existed whose remains would have been released with animal bones, but it is more likely a matter of deliberate abandonment (M. Shimada’s thesis) or posterior disturbance of graveyards and taphonomy (thesis of Verano’s thesis 1999). Cremation Cremation is a very old practice, since, around 6000 BC at Tablada de Lurín, the three bodies are laying on an ashes bed, and the famous Paijan first south American man dated 8600 BC was laying " sur une couche de cendres et de braises suffisamment chaudes pour avoir légèrement rubéfié le sédiment sous-jacent…sur la poitrine on observe une seconde couche de cendres.." (Chauchat 1992: 160)25. At Paloma, besides ashes bed or burning pebbles, laid on some bodies, Quilter (1989) describes an original cremating practice, which consists in setting on a kind of funnel which links the buried body with the outside, and pouring into burning embers. It is true that the number of sites where such practice has been found is small : 5 during the Middle Ceramic, 4 over the Cotton Preceramic, 4 over the Initial Period and 3 over the Early Horizon, but Quilter emphasises that, most likely, these practices should have been frequent, but have not been detected by archaeologists. Therefore it is a practice which continues, under various forms, in the studied time span.. Body "sticking" to the ground There are three examples over the Middle Ceramic, 8 over the Cotton Preceramic, one only over the Initial Period and none over the Early Horizon Most of the time “sticking" is done by putting large stones directly on the thorax or abdomen, or upon the grave. Sometimes, it is a symbolic gesture, with of one or several posts embedded through the body and 'sticking' it to the ground, as in four burials of Chilca. The fact that such burials are always open ground burial induce immediately the hypothesis that it is only a way to prevent deceased bodies to be exhumed by animals, but we shall see other interpretations later.


5 INTERPRETATIONS and CONCLUSIONS

Our first purpose was to check whether, and in which proportion, the drop of ratio buried/ burying population actually occurred during the time span of this study, as we have supposed. Figures 1, 2 and 3 bring a clear positive answer to this question. The three curves drop regularly and in the same way since the Middle Ceramic till the Early Horizon.. The number of archaeologically attested burials falls from 662 over the Middle Preceramic to 51 over the Early Horizon ( fig 1). The proportion of sites with graves on total of the number of sites, comes down from 75% to 28% (fig. 2) while the average number of burials by site drops from 42 to 5.5 (fig 3) and even to 2.2, if we omit the atypical site of Granja el Rollo. We should not give importance to the figures in themselves- 1389 burials for a duration of 6000 years, for instance, could seem very low- but to their comparison per Period and the pattern of covariance, and here the outcome is undisputable: the three curves show a similar trend toward a dramatic drop of buried population as compared to burying population. Actually, variation should have been much more important because the more we go backward in the past, the less we have chance to find evidences of burials (superposition or the sites, alluvium, climatic of anthropogenic upheavals, taphonomy, agricultural works, etc…). Once admitted that, during a specific period ( Formative) and in a specific area (the Central Andean Area, out of Cupisnique and Ecuador) commoners were not buried in tombs, it remains to be seen what was their mortuary treatment. We can only make hypothesis because it is not a very easy task to talk of what has disappeared. The only available evidences are the human remains found out of graves which can be classified in two categories, as we have seen: � Those used for ritual manipulation of the bodies, a

practice which apparently did not exist over the Preceramic and increased since the Initial Period.

� Those found scattered and gnawed at in several sites. The lack of other archaeological evidences compels us to turn ourselves toward ethnology and ethno-history to find models. Our first hypothesis is that the bodies of commoners were simply exposed till total decomposition of the flesh and then, contrary to the practice of secondary burial frequently described by anthropologists, their bones, out of those used for ritual manipulation, were abandoned in open air and disappeared by biodegradation. But we have no idea if such a great quantity of loose bones could have totally disappeared (the fact that some are found inclines to prudence in that respect).And, moreover, we did not found any archaeological or historical example of such a behaviour in America. It did exist in the European Neolithic, particularly in the Cardial ceramic area ; see for instance Crubézy : " les rivages de la Méditerranée ont livré des restes humains épars…" (Crubézy et al 2000: 67) et: "dès le Néolithique Ancien et plus encore dans les siècles qui suivirent, on rencontre souvent des os humains en contexte détritique" (id. : 76)26. The second hypothesis is of total cremation, but as we find merely none half-burned bone remains, we have to suppose

that the bones were reduced to ashes, which requires a very high temperature, far from the technological abilities of Formative populations. Nevertheless, there are many examples of cremation in the ethnological societies of the South American rain forest, and the end of the Bronze age in Europe has been a period where cremation was largely used ( Crubézy et al 2000: 83). The third hypothesis is a variant of the second and is suggested by the Yanomamo and other rain forest tribe’s customs. It consists in incinerating deceased bodies in special purpose hearth or furnace, and then ritually eating the bones reduced to powder beforehand. Redmond ( 1994:79) writes: "As a matter of fact, the absence of burials at some prehistoric sites in lowland South America has been attributed occasionally to the aboriginal practice of cremation. For example Evans and Meggers (1960: 244) attribute the lack of any burial remains at Taruma phase site of the contact period along the upper Essequibo River in Guyana to the ethnographically documented practice of cremation among the Taruma Indians" . But finally it is only a form of endo-cannibalism and one could imagine a pattern of generalised endo-cannibalism for that Period, as suggests the continuation of the previous quotation: "…Similarly, the absence of burial remains at Santarem …has been attributed to the known practice of ritual endo-cannibalism among the Tapajos Indians in this area; according to Willey (1971: 416), the ornately modelled, pedestal ceramic vessels of the Santarem style were probably intended for use in such mourning ceremonies". But we have seen that ritual cannibalism, if it existed, was quite seldom; our two potential cases are the Ofrendas gallery in Chavín de Huantar and Cerro Nañañique, and, in both /cases, bones were not reduced to powder, which excludes, in our opinion, its general use. Besides, as far as we know, one can hardly find mortuary urns in central Andean area in that period. One could also imagine, as in some North American tribes that the deceased bodies were ritually thrown into rivers or the sea, which would secure, after some centuries, the total destruction of the bones by the mechanical effect of rolling and rubbing. It is a conceivable hypothesis, for the theme of the regenerating role of water and its circulation under the Earth is a recurrent theme of the Andean mythology27. In Chavín de Huantar for example, water circulation in the galleries and the two rivers surrounding the ceremonial centre had definitely a great symbolic importance, and most of the sites were located on the seashore or along a river, but some are not, and not all /rivers are permanent; thus, during a period of time, it would have been impossible to throw the bodies into water. Not to forget any hypothesis, one can also imagine that, by chance,all the graveyards and burials of the two specific periods, but those of Cupisnique area, have been destroyed by catastrophic climatic or anthropomorphic hazards, or not found by the huaqueros or archaeologists, but it is a very remote hypothesis.


Our second purpose was to look for the reasons of socio-cultural variability in the various mortuary customs, and to try to interpret them in terms of socio-political variability. In fact according to Binford (1971), funerary customs intra-group variability and diachronic change are the basic criteria allowing to measure the socio-political development degree of a society: “the form and structure which characterise the mortuary practices of any society are conditioned by the form and complexity of the organizational characteristic of the society itself" (Binford 1971: 23). Thus, in order to study the reasons of this variability, we will forget those mortuary customs which have no visible variability during our study time span: choice of individual or collective burials, primary or secondary burials, orientation of the bodies, dyes, cannibalism and cremation. But we will study more carefully, and eventually cross, those various mortuary customs whose variability grants us proofs of this socio-cultural variability: � ratio of buried/ burying population, � type of grave structure, � localisation, � funerary good, � shroud and clothes, � and particularly indication of ritual manipulation of

the deceased bodies , trying, case by case, to work out the socio-cultural meaning of their variability (variant or variation) and to bring them back in the socio-political field.

1. The drop of the buried population suggests an

evolution from an egalitarian society ( same mortuary practice for every member of the band or tribe) to a complex and hierarchical society, where elite members reserve for themselves the right to go to the Other World with their human envelop. We don’t know if it means that the Other World is the exclusivity of the elite, but we suspect that it is more their status of media (necessary to exercise the power on commoners) with the Other World, which is thus turned to sacred. It has to be underlined that this specific pattern is rarely found elsewhere, the social status being more often manifested by the quantity of work dedicated to the grave and the richness of the mortuary goods (Tainter 1975), as is the case in Cupisnique area and in the Salinar polities ( Early Intermediary Period).

2. In the Cupisnique area, actually, the structure and richness of the burials evolve from open ground burials to underground room during the Cotton Ceramic and the Initial Periods, and to vaults during Early Horizon, and from poor domestic goods to prestige goods, this fact being generally considered as an evolution toward complex and hierarchical society (Tainter 1975, Bartel 1982) .

3. In contrast, in the non Cupisnique area, it is not the richness of the burial goods which indicates elite burials; but exclusive right to burial and transfer of grave from house to ceremonial centre seem to be the privileges of the theocratic hierarchical elite. This evolution appears toward the end of the Cotton Preceramic, increases over the Initial Period theocracies, to end up with the total disappearance of the commoner graves at the turning of the Period and over the Early Horizon when the few elite burials are all found in specially built mausoleums.

4. Graveyards. Their disappearance (diachronic variation) can be explained by the same social evolution: the change from an egalitarian society to a hierarchical society where the individual is more important than the collectivity.

To the contrary, graveyards upholding in the Cupisnique area can be explained by a change of population (regional variation), that would confirm the thesis of newcomers (probably coming from Ecuador, since the same mortuary customs are going on there). Elsewhere, there would be local evolution of the former populations.

5. Position of the body does not change significantly during the major part of this time span. The only variant is the seated position in a fardo, found in a few burials in La Galgada, which foreshadows a very common practice for elite burials on the south coast ( Paracas). The actual changes take place at the end of the Early Horizon in the northern area (Morro de Eten) with the extended dorsal decubitus burial which means more work dedicated to the dead and then a higher status. The further change of burial position (extended lateral decubitus), added to many other cultural changes, is likely to account for the arrival of a new population which progressively spreads over the north of Perú coming from the north since the first cultural evidences are found during the end of the Early Horizon at Puerto de Eten well before the following ones in the rio Virú , 200 kms southward.

6. shrouds and clothes. There are only variants, often for technological reasons (cotton replaced hide when cotton processing was invented), sometimes for local cultural reasons, in the Virú valley for example.

7. funerary goods. The generalized custom of burying the deceased with representative of their life in these World artefacts is a worldwide custom and signifies belief in an Other World. But what interests us is its evolution:

� During the Middle Preceramic Period, domestic artefacts and finery are the same for everybody (outside difference of sex and age); there are no rich and poor burials, necessary but insufficient clue of social equality, for during the Cotton Preceramic and non Cupisnique Initial Periods, increasing complex hierarchical societies do not lead to richer mortuary goods in the graves, presumably because elite status did not lead yet to ascribed status.

� During the Initial Period, domestic tools disappear and are replaced by containers; apparently food put in these containers is a sufficient asset for the Other World. Finery is richer in the Cupisnique area than in non Cupisnique area, showing a difference of status between elites which is perhaps an indication of ascribed status for the former and achieved status for the latter.

� During the Early Horizon, this pattern shifts because all the burials are elite burials28 and their content is only made of ritual and prestigious goods, indicating high and presumably ascribed status of the deceased; Kuntur Wasi, Morro de Eten, La Granja el Rollo, Chongoyape, as well as others which have not been taken into account, for their rich funerary goods comes from looted graves without context and are in museum or private collections29 .

8. another point to be underlined is that the lack of funerary goods often goes together with a lack of shroud and clothes:

� during the Cotton Preceramic, it occurs in 2 sites (Bandurria and Cerro Prieto). But Bandurria has been so badly excavated that we can ignore it. At Cerro Prieto, on the contrary, their absence has been carefully mentioned by Strong and Evans ( 1952).

� During the Initial Period, this common lack of shroud and clothes occurs in 8 sites and such a concomitance cannot be casual or economic, for in several cases such burials seem to belong to cult servants, that is to say high status people. It is more likely an indication of regional


cultural variants for they do not go together with partition between Cupisnique and non Cupisnique areas. In the Virú valley for instance, the same cultural trait exists in Cerro Prieto (Preceramic) and Guanape (Formative) Periods and disappears abruptly with the arrival of Salinar populations. It is thus a regional variant.

9. Special care infants and children burying. Their frequency during the Preceramic Period, their regular slowing down since the beginning of the Initial Period and their disappearance during the Early Horizon are particularly striking. This change of behaviour toward children manifests a change of collective mentalities. Now, collective mentalities evolve according to socio-political relationships existing into human societies: there are egalitarian hunter-gatherers and fishers, settling in villages during the Middle Preceramic Period; they devise new religious rites during the Cotton Preceramic and organise themselves into theocratic chiefdoms during the Initial Period. Socio-political evolution ends up with hereditary theocratic chiefdoms or state during the Early Horizon. The more likely interpretation is a natural tenderness towards children underlining perhaps the role played by women, but one can also argue a religious meaning : special care dedicated to infants as soon as the Middle Ceramic would manifest the belief that foetus and infants have an intervening power with the Other World where they have just come from. Later on, with the new burial pattern of burying only certain persons and changing religion beliefs, theocratic elites have retrieved and inverted this intervention power by institutionalising children propitiatory sacrifices. Whatever is the actual cause, it is a fact that the only children burials found at the end of the Initial Period and the Early Horizon witness ascribed status and not tenderness.

10. Body ritual manipulation. A/ Body "sticking" to the ground. We are tempted to see

the stones or posts sticking the body to the ground as the expression of a strong supernatural fear, which is still existing in some present groups, for instance among the Laymis of Bolivian puna, where it expresses the need to preclude the "alive dead" to stand up and threat the livings. Fear that the dead come back to life is an expression of the fear of a social disruption, resulting in chaos (Quilter 1989). Olivia Harris who studied mortuary customs among the Laymis, writes accordingly: "from the many rituals associated with the period after death, it is clear that the dead are a danger to the living: the spirit must be restrained in its own body (by tying the neck arms and feet after death, the use of thorns prevents its escaping" (Harris 2001: 53). Here we also have an explanation for the several ropes tying bodies inside shrouds: it is not only a mean to carry on the mortuary fardo, but a symbolic custom that actually disappeared during the Initial Period, simultaneously with the custom to "stick" the body to the ground. It was thus a custom linked to religious ideas of the egalitarian societies and not corresponding to the religious ideas of complex societies. In the theocratic and hierarchical societies, belief in an eventual come back of the deceased among the livings is not an usable element for the elite to inspire respect and fear to the commoners. Therefore, it does not present any more interest, even more because the commoners are less and less buried in graves. B/ Ritual manipulation of head and skull is an important cultural custom and means that the head 'is taken as the whole' or that vital regeneration strength lies in the head. It existed since the Preceramic Period and does not increase

significantly during the study time span. But our feeling is that what was a non lethal ritual at the beginning turns to human sacrifice, as attested in Wichquana and Chavín, and by the fact that the so-called ' trophy heads' became very frequent in the Formative iconography, perhaps under the cultural influence of Chavín de Huantar, for the first examples come from that shrine. C/ Cultural practices of leaving the body in open air or under a very thin layer of ground or waste instead of burying in graves, and voluntary incorporation of part of bodies in architectonical structures for propitiatory ritual use, do not exist during the Preceramic Period; start with the Initial Period and become more and more sophisticated during the Early Horizon. They are part of the increasing power of the former shamans manipulating the spontaneous human need to believe in Celestial Power ; it is not casual, if they increase inversely to the number of children burials. D/ increases since the Middle Preceramic till the Early Frequency of human and more strikingly of children sacrifices Horizon (see fig 8). Human sacrifice, a violent gesture, is an aforethought and positive religious actuation, a purification element as opposed to murder, which is always a negative element, an element of disorder. It is no wonder if human sacrifice is less frequent in egalitarian societies than in complex societies as the theocracies of the Initial Periods and mostly of the Early Horizon, when some people have confiscated the religious power and have to stress by some strong actions their communication power media with the Other World. It’s a very important clue for socio cultural evolution; beliefs have changed, influence of the prevailing priest cast becomes more and more important; their intimidation power requires human tortured body as a media between the Living and the Other World. Children are preferred because they are innocent and closer to this Other World. The shamans of the Preceramic Period, whose recognised authority was based on their relations with the Ancestors and Other World, but without civil authority, progressively seized all the powers by modifying social relations, by imposing and sanctifying more and more new complex and cruel bloody rites, particularly human sacrifices. One good example is the evolution of public behaviour with respect to children: while they were subject to very loving care at their death and burial, they came to be tortured and sacrificed to gain the favour of the Heavens on new architectonic structures.

*** To summarize, the evolution of mortuary customs demonstrates the transition from an egalitarian hunter gatherers society to a complex society where inequality took place between a theocratic elite and the commoners. This inequality is manifested in different ways in the funerary customs : a. During the Middle Preceramic, the custom was to bury everybody, in the same way, under the dwelling or in large graveyards, with domestic customary instruments and finery, yet with more care for infants and children. All these customs witness an egalitarian society with natural religious beliefs, not imposed by a some outstanding persons. b. During the Cotton Preceramic, domestic burials still persist, but some people are now buried in the new ceremonial centres; the beginning and the end of construction of theses centres go together with dedicatory ritual offerings, comprising in certain special occasions, parts of human body, particularly skulls or heads. That means that some


outstanding persons, through their religious and supernatural manipulation get sufficient authority to convince commoners to dedicate part of their time to erect these centres. Their role give them power, but does not provide them with more richness. Inequality is not equivalent to different access to goods at this stage. c. During the Initial Period, the ceremonial centres develop dramatically, the number and power of the priests increase seemingly and the number of burials drops as well as the accompanying mortuary goods, complex body manipulation rituals are elaborated, linked to beliefs instituted by a religious hierarchy which develops his power. These rituals all emphasize /fear, and the fact that priests are the exclusive mediators between Gods or Celestial Powers and men in order to get obedience without failure. This supernatural fear is necessary because coercion means do not exist at this stage and will exist only with the advent of actual states. Indeed it is not the only way to inspire fear and obedience: confiscation of funerary space goes on with confiscation of sacred space; in fact, the layout of / huge ceremonial centres is done in order to progressively restrict the access to the more sacred part to a small group of priests, and they are decorated with huge anthropomorphic felines with projecting crossed canines and grimacing human cares dedicated to inspire fear. d. During the Early Horizon, the theocratic power is overriding, with the overall cultural and religious sphere of influence of Chavín de Huntar. In the network of polities linked to Chavín, the leaders take advantage of their new

power to seize an important part of the resources and wealth created by the new middle class of craftsman subdued to them, and found in their vaulted graves. Funerary practices and burials witness that the former egalitarian groups have evolved toward a complex and hierarchical society , whether we call it chiefdom, kingdom, or state,. Cupisnique area and Ecuador are on a different trajectory in this socio political evolution: In Ecuador, the Formative Period (Valdivia) begins more than one millenary earlier than in Perú, but the chiefdom pattern is different. Elite looks more secular than religious and power is more economic than theocratic (Raymond 1987; 1994). Accordingly, the way to subjugate commoners used by the rising elite does not require such a striking use of body manipulation; and when chiefdom evolves toward state in Perú, it remains the socio-political model in Ecuador, at least up to the Conquest. Cupisnique polities are perhaps the heirs of Formative Ecuador, which would explain why they have kept on the pattern of burying everybody, and the gathering of burials in graveyards. They could have been the trigger of /evolution in the central Andean area, but it seems that, once launched, the motion has been different in the mountain and the central and south coast: power has taken different appearances, characterized by an institutional violence toward individuals, to the advantage of a small theocratic elite and culminated with the cult of the feline in Cupisnique as well as in Chavín de Huantar, till the final collapse at the turn of the millennium and the arrival of new populations.


Map 1: Central andean area ( after I. Druc, 1998 : fig1)


Notes 1 "Mortuary Practices"(1971) is entirely dedicated to the study and interpretation of mortuary practices according to New Archaeology Theory. 2 For the detailed choice and study of these criteria, the description of the sites and the data base, see Chamussy (2002) available either in Paris I University or IFEA (Lima) libraries. 3 Width of flooded coast depended on the width of the continental shelf that stretches out along the coast between Santa Elena and Paracas peninsulas. 4 See Korbacher 1999 and more specifically fig 3: 197. See also in the same publication the bibliography concerning relations between El Niño and proxy datas from the volcanoes. 5 We use the "Carta Cronológica del Formativo" (Lathrap et al 1996:16) as well as Marcos chronology 1988:78 , adding to it Las Vegas Preceramic (Stothert 1985: 1988) 6 The most widely used chart for Perú is the one of Rowe (1960) completed by Lanning ( 1960). As for the Early Horizon, we take into account short chronology, following Burger ( 1995, 1992) 7 For instance in the rio Lurín, there are 5 ceremonial enclosures in ten kms radius 8 It has to be noticed, however, that a cemetery with several hundreds burials has been found at Ancón ( Colinas) by Tello in 1946, very succinctly described by Carríon Cachot ( 1948: 69-74); but the only available information does not allow to know the accurate number of burials nor the Period ( Initial or Early Horizon). Unfortunately, these excavations have never been published (see Kaulicke 1997: 15). If this cemetery is dated from Janabarriu, as one can suppose when looking at the only two very sketchy drawings we have ( Carríon Cachot 1951), then we could gather it with those of Paracas Cavernas. Thus we would have a separate area (south-central cost) where mortuary customs are very different from those prevailing in the whole central Andean area. In the present study we have taken into account only the burials excavated by Muelle & Ravines ( 1973). 9 This last figure would drop to 2.2 if we omit the atypical site of La Granja el Rollo (Wester et al 2000) which summarizes 12 out of the 32 Early Horizon burials 10 Huge looted cemeteries stretching without interruption from Llanan village until the low valley. 11 See note 10. 12 Burger (1992: 97) writes: "Cylindrical masonry burial towers were used for collective burial a several of the sites [of the middle portion of the Jequetepeque] 13 The only exception is Chungal (Jequetepeque) (Ravines 1982; 1985), but we have some doubts about that: according to the description and designs, it looks more like bones scattered for votive offering. 14 After this article was finished, we had the chance to read the C. Elera 1986 unpublished "Memoria de Bachiller" and meet with the author on august 1st 2004: position of the body is known for 4 out of 11 burials excavated and it is laid down on the back position, which seems to acknowledge the

change of custom at the end of Early Horizon, (but only one greatly disturbed graveyard has been excavated and there are other/ graveyards which have never been excavated at Morro de Eten ) 15 Delabarde (1997) believes that they were wrapped into an organic perishable envelop. 16 At Telarmachay, one of the Middle Preceramic site of the mountain (Junin area), D. Lavallée (Lavallé et al 1981: 81-100) believes that the bodies were wrapped into a hide bag. 17 At Morro de Eten, see note xii,. the author told us that the bodies were wrapped in organic material, which would confirm the change of mortuary practices. 18 Wool is present since the Preceramic, but only as blade adornments, perhaps for technological reasons, for processing to insure duration and flexibility is trickier. 19 See the "toolkit" found with one woman burial in Telarmachay by D. Lavallée (Lavallée et al 1981; Lavallée 1995) 20 Engel 2988:28. This panpipe, found with adult burial n°110 , had a pyrographed design of a panpipe player. 21 See the "toolkit" with small balls of ochre and tools used to work hide, found near a woman’s body in Telarmachay (D. Lavallée et al 1981) 22 Crubézy (2000) gives several examples since the Neolithic Campaniform period in Europe. See also Neolithic Britannic site of Hambledon Hill ( Dorset) where the bodies were deliberately abandoned to open air, a burial practice known as "corpse exposure" (Archaeology Review 1996-97) 23 Verano 1991; Baraybar (in Guffroy 1994); Shimada M. 1982; 1985 24 Wing (m.s.) quoted by Lumbreras (1989: 208) but not listed in the related bibliography. The known publications of Wing account exclusively for animal bones. 25 " ashes and embers sufficiently hot to have slightly turned red-pink the underlying sediment…on the chest one can notice a second ash layer" 26 " the shores of Mediterranean Sea has shown scattered human remains….as early as Early Neolithic and even more in the following centuries, human remains are often found in the garbage" 27 see for exemple Del Carpio Perla et al, (2001: 113) "desde los trabajos pioneros de Carríon Cachot se ha venido hablando de un culto al agua para el Antiguo Perú y en especial para el Periodo Formativo...[el agua] fue el medio principal para acceder al universo de lo divino, posiblemente constituyo la parte mas importante de la parfernalia ritual para alcanzalo" (underline is of the redactor) 28 see note 10 in respect to EH Ancón cemetery and a different Southern cultural area . 29 See the rich Polli collection in Lima constituted exclusively from looted graves (Bonavia 1994), and Lavalle (ed) 1992, particularly for the site of Corbacho (Jequetepeque) as well as for many other looted graves.

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