Book Reviews

Archaeology

The Moche.Garth Bawden. Cambridge,MA: Blackwell Pub- Inchapters 4 and5, Bawdendiscusses the symbols of power, lishers,1996. 375 pp. representedby the iconographyon pottery,metal objects, and architecture,that the Moche elite used and manipulated during reenactmentsof sacredmyths to legitimizetheir elevated posi- THOMASPOZORSKI tionsin Mochesociety in contrastto themajority of Mochepeo- University of Texas-Pan American ple. Onecurious feature of chapter4 is thediscussion of major platformsites that, according to Bawden,were rather sparsely GarthBawden has writtenthe firstgeneral overview of the populatedceremonial centers until Moche V times.With the re- Mocheculture to appearin over20 years.As partof "ThePeo- centexcavations at CerroBlanco revealing a verydense urban plesof America"series currently being published by Blackwell settlement,this claim about empty ceremonial centers may be Publishers,this book is a verywelcome synthesis of theMoche overstated.Ironically, this idea may stem from the lack of large- culturethat is basedon iconographicanalysis of potteryand scaleinvestigations at mostmajor Moche sites, a biasthat has otherMoche artifacts; recent spectacular finds at Sipan,San distortedsettlement patterns similar to thebias Bawden notes in Josede Moro,,and Huaca ;and less theoveremphasized studies of theMoche core area. well knownsettlement and artifact studies. There is littlein this Chapter6 containsa summaryof north-coastarchaeological volumethat is trulynew, at leastto scholarsfamiliar with the culturesback to late preceramictimes. Cultural continuity is Mocheculture. The real strength of thebook lies in itscohesive, emphasized,i.e., massiveInitial Period mounds presaging later and at timesprovocative, overview garnered from published Mochepyramids. One point of contentionthat I haveconcerns sourcesand ideas that have been presented at various meetings statementsmade about large-mound construction, beginning in overthe past 15 years. this chapterwith Gallinazomounds (p. 188) andrepeated in Inchapter 1, Bawdenpresents the sources of information(ar- laterchapters (pp. 229, 294)for Moche mounds. For the Galli- chaeological,ethnohistoric, and ethnographic) that prehistori- nazoand Moche, large mounds represent the capability of mobi- ans use to reconstructand understand . Bawden lizing largeregional labor forces, implying centralized rule. feels, withcertain justification, that past studies have overem- However,such capability is deniedthe InitialPeriod people, phasizedthe Moche "core area" centered around the Moche and even thoughtheir constructions were often much larger than ChicamaValleys, clouding the complexityof Mocheculture thoseof laterpeoples. I suspectthat Bawden downplays the pos- thatis onlyrecently beginning to beunderstood. One notable er- sibilityof centralizedrule during the Initial Period because (1) roris themap on page9 thatshows both Galindo and the Huaca noelaborate burials have yet been found to suggestclass stratifi- El BrujoComplex on the wrongside of theirrespective river cationand (2) strongcentralized rule at 1500B.C. does not cor- valleys. respondto theoriesdictating slow evolutionary development of In chapter2, Bawdenincludes a ratherthorough environ- complex< socletles. . . mentaldescription of the areasthat were directly or indirectly In chapter7, Bawdennotes the problems investigators have exploitedby the Moche.The mainflaw in this chapteris the hadwith Larco's five-phase sequence, particularly in the val- overemphasison environmentalchange and disasters (tectonic leys northof Jequetepeque.He envisionsthe Moche culture as movements,tsunamis, and El Ninorains) that have supposedly arisingout of multiplesources along the north coast, not the re- plaguedthe Peruvian coast for centuries, periodically disrupting sult of a single sourceexpansion out of the Moche-Chicama or destroyingvarious civilizations. This environmental deter- area. minismpoint of view becamepopular in the 1980samong cer- Chapter8 concernsthe florescence of Mocheculture, corre- tainAndeanists but was never really supported by solidarchae- spondingto MocheIII-IV, and the differences between the indi- ologicalor geological evidence. Earthquakes and heavy rains do vidualisticcentralized rule of theMoche-Chicama area versus occur,but peopleand cultures survive and are more resilient themyth-role-enactment type of rulein valleysto thenorth. In thansome scholars think. Bawden'sview, the lattertype of rulewas more tied to thecom- Mochesettlements are discussed in chapter3. Mostare be- munity,and as a result,during Moche V andlater times, the lievedto be smallrural centers, often housing groups of special- northernvalleys suffered far less dramaticchange than did the ists (farmers,fishermen, potters). Some archaeologicalevi- valleysfrom Chicama on south. dence supportsthis, but muchof the specializedcenter idea In chapters9 and 10, Bawdenrecounts the collapseand re- comes from later ethnohistoricdocuments, the information constitutionof Mochesociety during Moche V andlater in the fromwhich is projectedbackward several hundred years and ap- MiddleHorizon. Causes for the changesin Mochesociety in- pliedto theMoche. cludeoutside pressure (though not conquest) by theWari, envi-

AmericanAnthropologist101(2):437-470. Copyright(C)1999, AmericanAnthropological Association

This content downloaded from 129.252.86.83 on Fri, 14 Mar 2014 00:42:54 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 438 AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST * VOL.1017 NO. 2 * JUNE1999 ronmentalproblems, and internalstress. Bawdenhandles these The papers focusing on formal analysis and construction two chaptersquite well, despite the diff1cultyof obtainingcon- techniques include Fuchs's detailed discussion of building creteevidence of internalstress and an overemphasis on the seri- stages at CerroSechin in the CasmaValley, .Long-known ousness of environmentalfactors. Again, in his view, the north- for its bas-reliefs showing ax-bearingwarriors and their muti- ernvalleys faredbetter during this transitionalperiod. lated victims, scantchronological data about Cerro Sechin have In the final chapter,Bawden cites the legacy thatthe Moche been available. Fuchs's detailed constructionsequence span- left on latercultures, including modern-dayPeru. Examples of ning ca. 2500 2300 B.C. to 30S200 B.C. (pp. 157-159) is a this legacy include Chimu blackwarederived from Moche V welcome additionto Andean .Similar in its focus blackwareand reed boats thatare still used along portionsof the on building sequences, Reindel suggests a sequence for North northcoast. The most enduringlegacy, however, is the practice Coast monumental architecturebased on changes in adobe of shamanism,which Bawden sees as directlytied to the Moche bricks and morphologicalchanges in building plans. Although rulers' roles as shamansin maintaininga balancebetween the interesting,it does not producea chronologicalalternative to ce- realworld and the spiritworld. ramicsequencs, which is Reindel's statedgoal (p. 91). In sum, GarthBawden has provideda thoroughand stimulat- Bischof's article on the site of CerroBlanco, in the Nepena ing volume thatoffers much food for thoughtconcerning one of Valley on Peru's coast, is an excellent photographicsurvey of ancientPeru' s most interestingcivilizations. Overall,the book the site. Historic photographsculled from hacienda archives is well done. My majorcomplaint is thatthe half-tonereproduc- show variousstages in the site's excavation and its deteriora- tion. Bischof examines iconographic motifs depicted in now tions are of poor quality, often too darkto discernmuch detail. nearlydestroyed polychrome reliefs andargues that coastal sites Despite this reservation,this book deservesa place on the book- like CerroBlanco contain importantinformation about the re- shelves of all persons, scholars,and laypersonsalike who have ligious and sociopolitical dimensions of the Early Horizon's an interestin ancientPeru. * Chavintradition. Bonnier,in her articleon constructionsequences at the Late Preceramic(ca. 300F1800 B.C.) site of Piruru,shows the com- ArchaeologicaPeruana: PrehispanicArchit and Civili- plex historyof ritualarchitecture at the site andexpands her dis- zation in the . ElisabethBonnier and HenningBischof; cussion ofthe Mito religiousarchitectural style. Bonnier'scom- eds. Mannheim,Germany: Reiss-Museum, 1997. 236 pp. parisonof Piruruand othersites (,La Galgada)suggests the Late PreceramicMito religion unified the north-centralPe- JERRYMOORE ruvianAndes. California State University-DominguezHills Wursterpresents architectural and settlementdata from the little-knownTopara Valley, located on the south coast of Peru. Sometimesthe best thing an archaeologistcan do is to drawa Wurster'sbrief articleonly hints at the rich datahe andhis col- good map, andthis is amplyillustrated in PrehispanicArchitec- leagues have obtained.The majorityof the ToparaValley sites ture and Civilizationin the Andes. The outgrowthof a sympo- date to Late Intermediateperiod (ca. A.D. 90s1470) and Late sium at the 1988 InternationalCongress of Americanists,the Horizon(ca. A.D. 147S1530). The largestsite, HuaquinaEste, volume contains 11 papers in Spanish and English edited by is an architecturalcomplex covering some 500 x 200 meters ElisabethBonnier and Henning Bischof. with dwellings, public plazas, and multiroomcompounds used As Bonnier observes in the introduction(p. 10), the sympo- for both residentialfunctions and funeraryrites. Wurster'ssu- sium unintentionallyexposed two different trends in archae- perbarchitectural plans are an importantcontribution to Andean ological approachesto architecture:';lwhe European archaeolo- archaeology. gists were giving more attention to formal analysis and Cavallarocritiques seriations of the large royal compounds definitionof constructionsequences . . . [whereas]their Ameri- (ci1ldadelas)at ChanChan, the Late Intermediateperiod capital can colleagues . . . would ratherfocus on settlementpatterns and of the PeruvianChimu Empire. Although Cavallaro'sresearch the social and economical aspects of the architecturalstudy." has been publishedelsewhere, this version is particularlyclear. Cavallaroconcludes that at best Five authors(Wurster, Reindel, Fuchs, Bischof, andTellenbach one can separatethe royalcom- pounds into Early,Middle, and Late ciudadelas,not a unilineal [unfortunately,most of Dr. Tellenbach's article was missing sequence. This section of Cavallaro'sarticle is tightly argued, from my review copy]) emphasize formal analysis and con- but thereis no reasonto think as Cavallarodoes thatthe dif- strllction techniques, three authors (Shimada, Cavallaro, and ficulties of seriatingChan Chan's ciudadelasindicate dual po- Greider)discuss social and economical aspects, and Bonnier litical organization.The penultimatesection of the articleoffers contributestwo articles, one from each approach.One article an unconvincinganalysis of dualorganization at the Inkasite of falls outsideof this very loose frameworl;Elera provides an ex- Huanuco Pampa that does nothing to advance Cavallaro's cellent overview of the Peruvian Formative Cupisnique and claims. Salinarcultures, but scarcely mentions architecture. The weakestpaper in the volume is TerenceGrieder' s article7 Before discussing individual articles, I must emphasize the "On Two Types of Andean Tombs," which contrastsabove- high qualityof the publication.Architectural studies depend on ground funerarystructures (chullpas) and subterraneanshaft theirillustrations, and the authorsand the Reiss-Museumare to and chambertombs. In a free-formuse of South Americaneth- be thankedfor the excellent photographs,plans, and sections. nographythat blithely hops acrossmillenia, Grieder argues that Some illustrationsare actually beautiful,and all the artworkis the shaft and chambertombs symbolized wombs and that the competentand useful to archaeologists. chullpas are phalli, and that a supposed shift in funeraryforms

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