Ti tle Page BIG TRANSITIONS IN A SMALL FISHING VILLAGE: Late Preceramic Life in Huaca Negra, Virú Valley, Peru by Peiyu Chen BA, Department of Anthropology, National Taiwan University, 2003 MA, Department of Anthropology, National Taiwan University, 2007 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2019 Committee Membership Page UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Peiyu Chen It was defended on October 30, 2018 and approved by Dr. James Richardson III, Emeritus Curator, Carnegie Museum of Natural History Dr. Marc Bermann, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh Dr. Loukas Barton, Assisstant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh Dissertation Director Dr. Elizabeth Arkush, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh ii Copyright © by Peiyu Chen 2019 iii I dedicate this dissertation to Mila†, the cat who spent half of his life waiting for me back home iv Abstract BIG TRANSITIONS IN A SMALL FISHING VILLAGE: Late Preceramic Life in Huaca Negra, Virú Valley, Peru Peiyu Chen, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2019 Focusing on the data unearthed from the 2015 excavation in Huaca Negra, this dissertation aims to illustrate early human occupation in the Virú Valley to answer three research questions. (1) How can we add to our knowledge of the Late Preceramic Period and its transition to the Initial Period in the north coast of Peru, mainly in the Virú Valley and neighboring valleys? (2) Are there diachronic changes in economic activities? How do they shed light on possible social change? (3) How does an analytical perspective at the scope of the community help to address overlaps between public and domestic aspects of social life, and to enable a better understanding of early Andean societies? The fruitful results from the work at Huaca Negra provide new evidence for answering the abovementioned questions. First of all, the dating confirms that this site was continuously occupied between 5,000 to 3,200 CalBP, forming a rare case of uninterrupted cultural deposits from the Late Preceramic to Initial Period. Absolute dates and a detailed study of stratigraphy enable the reconstruction of four occupation phases, the foundation for diachronic comparison. Secondly, three interconvertible forms of “capital,” economic, cultural, and social capital, constitute the framework for analyzing unearthed materials and for assessing the nature of activities in Huaca Negra. Current data suggests that economic capital, in the form of subsistence, witnesses the most dramatic change: the importance of fishing activity declines while shellfish collecting becomes more significant over time. Subtle changes can also be discerned in the other two categories. Both the importance of cultural capital, in the form of craft production, and social capital, in the form of exotic goods, increase slightly, and there are more exotic goods being incorporated into people’s daily life in the later context. Through the examination of material remains and archaeological contexts, I suggest that two traditionally dichotomized social spheres, the public and the domestic, are juxtaposed in the same spatial contexts at Huaca Negra. This dissertation thus takes a “community” scope that v encompasses both spheres in order to reveal the overall lifeways in this long-term occupied fishing village. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................... xxvii 1.0 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 RESEARCH THEMES ....................................................................................................... 3 1.1.1 Digging down to Early Complexity: A Long-Term Developmental Trajectory ....... 3 1.1.2 Resources and the Manipulation of Resources: Understanding Early Societies ....... 6 1.1.2.1 The Three Forms of Capital and their Manipulation ..................................... 6 1.1.2.2 Subsistence Activities as Fuel of Societal Development ............................... 9 1.1.2.3 Craft Production and its Products ................................................................ 10 1.1.2.4 Exotic Goods as Social Capital .................................................................... 12 1.1.2.5 Labor: The Source of Capitals in Small-scale Society ................................ 13 1.1.3 Monument, Household, and Community Perspectives ............................................ 15 1.2 STRUCTURE OF THE DISSERTATION ....................................................................... 18 2.0 MOUND, HOUSEHOLD, COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES IN THE LATE PRECERAMIC AND INITIAL PERIOD OF PERU ............................................................. 21 2.1 SETTING THE STAGE: DOMESTIC AND PUBLIC SPHERES IN THE EARLY ANDES ............................................................................................................................. 21 2.1.1 The Interpretation of Early Andean Monuments ..................................................... 22 2.1.2 The Household as Basic Social Unit ........................................................................ 27 2.2 RESOURCES AS FOUNDATION OF SOCIAL CHANGE AND COMPLEXITY ...... 31 2.2.1 Marine Resources as the Fuel for Early Coastal Peru .............................................. 32 vii 2.2.1.1 The Maritime Hypothesis and Responses to it ............................................ 33 2.2.1.2 Examples of Diverse Subsistence Strategies from the North Coast ............ 35 2.2.2 Craft Production and Exchange ............................................................................... 37 2.2.2.1 A Glance at Early Craft Production ............................................................. 38 2.2.2.2 Discourse on Exchange and Inter-regional Interaction ................................ 39 2.3 BRINGING VIRÚ VALLEY AND HUACA NEGRA INTO PLAY.............................. 40 3.0 THE ENVIRONMENTAL SETTING AND THE EXCAVATION OF HUACA NEGRA .. 43 3.1 THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT: VIRÚ VALLEY AND COASTAL AREA .......... 43 3.1.1 The Virú Valley in General: Landscape and Climate .............................................. 43 3.1.2 The Coastal Plain and Pampa de las Salinas ............................................................ 45 3.1.3 The natural setting of Huaca Negra ......................................................................... 48 3.2 PREVIOUS RESEARCH AT HUACA NEGRA ............................................................. 49 3.2.1 Strong and Evans’ Work on the Preceramic Occupation at Huaca Negra ............... 50 3.2.2 Strong and Evans’ Work on the Initial Period Occupation ...................................... 53 3.2.3 Strong and Evans’ View of Diachronic Changes in Huaca Negra .......................... 54 3.3 ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT REVEALED BY 2015 EXCAVATION ................. 57 3.3.1 Strategy for Data Collection .................................................................................... 57 3.3.1.1 The Excavation Strategy .............................................................................. 57 3.3.1.2 Material Collection ...................................................................................... 58 3.3.2 Location of Excavation Units .................................................................................. 59 3.3.3 Excavation Summaries by Unit ............................................................................... 62 3.3.3.1 Summary of Unit 1 Excavation.................................................................... 63 3.3.3.2 Summary of Unit 2 Excavation.................................................................... 72 viii 3.3.3.3 Summary of Unit 3 Excavation.................................................................... 73 3.3.3.4 Summary of Unit 5 Excavation.................................................................... 80 3.3.3.5 Summary Unit 6 Excavation ........................................................................ 87 3.3.3.6 Summary of Unit 7 Excavation.................................................................... 95 3.4 STRATIGRAPHY AND OCCUPATIONAL PHASES IN HUACA NEGRA ............. 106 3.4.1 Relative Dating Results: Natural Strata ................................................................. 107 3.4.2 Absolute Dating Results ........................................................................................ 109 3.4.1 Correlation of Stratigraphy .................................................................................... 112 4.0 DIACHRONIC CHANGE IN THE SUBSISTENCE SYSTEM AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ............................................................................................................................................... 115 4.1 METHODOLOGY FOR COMPARISON ..................................................................... 116 4.1.1 The Application of NISP for Comparison ............................................................. 116 4.1.2 Index of Abundance, Proportion, and Diversity .................................................... 119 4.1.3 Diachronic and Synchronic Comparison ............................................................... 121 4.2 FISH CONSUMPTION IN HUACA NEGRA ..............................................................