Rafael Segura Llanos 35th AMCAAAE

Peruvian Central Coast Cajamarquilla

Old Problems and New Issues and Evidence for the Archaeology of the Central Coast The Case of Cajamarquilla Site

Rafael Segura LLanos

Paper presented at The 35th Annual Midwest Conference on Andean and Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory

Southern Illinois University, Carbondale February 10 and 11, 2007

Rafael Segura Llanos 35th AMCAAAE

Peruvian Central Coast Cajamarquilla

Abstract In the light of an increasing interest in the Peruvian Central Coast, a brief review of the local archaeology is done, by stressing those points that allow to outline some potentialities and limitations for future investigations. Far from being exhaustive, a minimum balance is necessary to understand recent archaeological finds, since Central Coast does not have updated overviews. From this perspective, some archaeological results from excavations carried out at Cajamarquilla site (Rmac valley) will be discussed. Evidence collected between 2000 and 2001 demonstrates that (a) certain traditional assumptions, as for example a strong Wari occupation at the site, need to be re-evaluated; and (b) new investigation clues, such as use land and irrigation technology, should be undertaken in order to obtain a better historical insight of this Andean region.

Introduction This paper discusses some basic aspects of the archaeology of the Peruvian Central Coast. Based on a brief assessment of the current state of the regional archaeology, I will delineate some potential and challenges for future investigations. I will also discuss some salient results from excavations at Cajamarquilla in 2000-2001 which demonstrate that certain traditional assumptions regarding the Middle Horizon period need to be re-evaluated. Lastly, I will outline a new regional research on the water, land and labor management that will go a long way in correcting our limited understanding of the regional cultural dynamics during the Middle Horizon.

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A Brief View of the Archaeology of the Peruvian Central Coast Between the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first sixty years of the twentieth century, an important number of fieldworks were carried out by national and foreign archaeologists at Central Coast sites that together covered a wide territory and a long period of prehistoric developments (Kroeber 1954; Strong and Corbett 1943; Tello 1999; Uhle 1903). During the sixties, archaeological attention focused on Archaic occupations at AncnVentanilla area (Lanning 1963; Moseley 1968), chronology and definition of Lima culture (Patterson 1966), and interrelationships with other Andean regions, such as South Coast or Central-South Highland (Menzel 1964). At the same time, a new generation of post-Tello Peruvian scholars (Bonava 1959, 1965; Matos Mendieta 1968; Ravines and Isbell 1976), started to develop investigations, basically, but not only, to clarify the regional chronology and cultural characteristics during the Early Horizon. During the seventies through eighties, the number of archaeological projects in this region started to decrease and focused in the Chilln valley (Dillehay 1976), Lurn valley (Earle 1972; Feltham 1983), and the Chilca area farther south (Engel 1988). Among other factors, this decrease was due to the fact that many sites were being destroyed by the uncontrollable urban growth and the increasing interest in other Andean sub-areas with prominent prehistoric development, such as the North Coast. Given the rapid and dense urbanization of the Central Coast core area, salvage projects, started to increase beginning in the eighties. Yet, while these projects have generated much new data they are frequently limited in scope and quantity, and preliminary in nature as their methods, scale and duration are often dictated by non-archaeological factors. Likewise, most of them remain unpublished.

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During nineties, unlike the rest of the Central Coast core, Pachacamac and the surrounding lower Lurn valley began receiving much attention. Antecedents can be found in the intermittent fieldwork developed by the Pachacamac site museum directors (Bueno 1982, 1983; Jimnez Borja 1985) and by the fieldwork sponsored by the Wiese Foundation during late eighties (Franco and Paredes 2000). In 1992 the archaeology program at the Catholic University in Lima under the direction of Krzysztof Makowski started a program of investigations at Tablada de Lurn and neighboring sites (Makowski 2002; Makowski et al. 2005). A year later, the Ychsma Project, directed by Peter Eeckhout, began its research in the valley with the aim of elucidating the regional Ychsma culture of the Late Intermediate Period and its relationship with the famed ceremonial center of Pachacamac (Eeckhout 1999, 2000). Since 2003, the Pachacamac Archaeological Project directed by I. Shimada initiated its longterm investigation into the social foundations and environmental contexts of Pachacamac (Shimada 2007; Shimada et al. 2004).

Some Achievements, Potentials, and Limitations If we conduct an exhaustive review of the archaeological works on the Central Coast, we would soon find out that most of them have had chronology building as the main concern or result. This is not to say, however, that regional chronology has been adequately established. For example, we do not know the timing or duration of some crucial developments and events, such as the formation of large urban centers including Maranga, Cajamarquilla, and Pachacamac.

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In reality we have a skewed knowledge of the historical sequence of the Central Coast, since both the early and final portions have received a disproportionate attention. Not surprisingly, most of radiocarbon measurements accumulated during the last 50 years displays a clear focus on the early end, basically from Preceramic to Early Horizon periods. On the contrary, chronology of Early and Late Intermediate Period, and Middle Horizon basically rests on stylistic and limited stratigraphic analyses. At the same time, early occupations have been the subject of much more diversified approaches. Michael Moseley and others carried out studies of Preceramic resource procurement in Ancn during sixties (Moseley 1975), while more recently Richard Burger focused on the functional articulation and ideological meaning of the ceremonial architecture in Lurn valley during the Initial Period and Early Horizon (Burger 1997; Burger and SalazarBurger 1998) and Jorge Silva (1996) conducted an extensive survey and study of settlement patterns in the Chilln valley for the same periods, to mention just three examples. In the case of the Late Intermediate and Late Horizon, our knowledge owes largely to the advances in the regional ethnohistory, particularly by Mara Rostworowski (1978, 1999). As a consequence, a popular methodology has been to take certain ethnohistorical data as baselines and assess them by getting back through time as much as archaeological procedures allow. Preservation of late monumental architecture and other remains has also facilitated these choices. From the above, we notice a long and rather obscure time span between both ends of the regional chronology. This contrast is even more evident as both ends have seen not only new data but also new interpretive models and hypotheses. For example, on the basis of ethnohistorical source, it has been hypothesized that late pre-Hispanic, regional political units

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(seoros) based their economic power on the control of irrigation canals and agricultural land (Agurto Calvo 1984; Cornejo Guerrero 2004). However, we do not know the timing and process by which these hydraulic facilities were established. Most of them, however, appear to have been built during the Early Intermediate Period or Middle Horizon. There are three important consequences of the above situation. Firstly, this major knowledge gap prevents us from gaining a long-term, processual view of the Central Coast. Since changes and continuities cannot be properly perceived, the study of dynamic process, one of the goals of the modern archaeology, has not been implemented. Second, our limited knowledge of local events during these periods has led to a practice of uncritically imposing or generalizing certain processes that were documented elsewhere on the Central Coast. For example, empirically speaking, we do not know what truly occurred in this region during the Middle Horizon; the existing cultural reconstructions of this period have resulted from extrapolations of varied models of Wari imperial expansion. Finally, in spatial terms, in spite of notable advances in the archaeology of the Early Intermediate Period and Middle Horizon on the North and South Coast, the blackhole in the Central Coast archaeology has prevented us from gaining a broader picture of the cultural dynamics on the coast. Possibilities of successful data integration and comparisons are reduced, and hence the understanding of cultural singularities and interdependences along the Peruvian coast. To redress the above inadequacies, I suggest that we pay attention to issues such as studies of regional demography (in bioanthropological terms), trade networks, craft technology, land use and settlement patterns, and environmental phenomena and their societal impacts. While in many cases pertinent evidence has not been found, it is also true that it has not been systematically and appropriately searched.

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My advocacy for new research aims and directions does not neglect the fact that, on the basis of funerary customs, pre-Hispanic societies on the Central Coast did not seem to have been so hierarchically differentiated as those of the North Coast; it does, however, take into account other indicators of complexity. For example, it should be remembered that the capital of the Peruvian Viceroyalty was founded here precisely because the setting offered three critical elements coherently integrated long before the Inca domination of the region: a large native population, extensive agriculture lands, and extensive irrigation systems.

Excavations at Cajamarquilla Site Some problems and potentials that I defined above became clear to me when I carried out archeological works at Cajamarquilla site between 2000 and 2001. Cajamarquilla is a large pre-Hispanic urban center located on the Middle Rmac valley 21 kilometers from the center of Lima. Specifically, the site lies on the north bank of a dried stream (quebrada) called Huaycoloro or Jiccamarca. Occasionally, when El Nio phenomenon occurs, the Huaycoloro carries muddy water from the western Andean slopes to Rmac river flooding and causing serious damage in and around the site. Relative chronology indicates that Cajamarquilla was built by AD 500-600, and since then intermittently occupied, probably until the establishment of the Inca administration on the Central Coast. With its almost 120 Ha of area built with tapia, Cajamarquilla contains a number of major mounds surrounded by numerous streets, plazas, houses, storerooms, etc. Various features of the site such as tapia technique, orthogonal organization that implies planning, and vessels stylistically influenced by Wari in the nearby cemeteries of Nievera, have led many

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scholars to think that Cajamarquilla was a provincial Wari center with an large population, probably governed by intrusive Wari elites (Agurto Calvo 1984; Bueno 1974-1975). In accordance with the chronological concern described above and taking into account some local stylistic sequences that suggest a gradual transition from the EIP to the onset of the MH, we focused our excavations on the Pedro Villar Crdova Compound, a sector of nearly 13 Ha. on the northwestern end of the site, in order to (1) obtain a fairly complete occupational history, and (2) establish the chronological relationships between the site and a prehistoric hydraulic system for agriculture. We excavated a total of 24 test pits to sample many of the subdivisions that made up the compound. The evidence indicates that this area of Cajamarquilla had two main construction and occupational phases. The first phase occurred during the Lima occupation (Late Early Intermediate Period and probably Early Middle Horizon, A.D. 600-700). During this phase the dominant mound of the compound that measures 18 m. in height, 212 m in length, 110 m in maximum width was erected by means of tapia platforms and thick fills of mud blocks extracted from the alluvial deposits. A big lateral platform that measures 4 m in height, 100 m. in length, 52 m in width is located on the Northeast side and is believed to have been used as funerary area. At the bottom of the mound, and surrounding it, large courts and rooms were built by following the orientation of the mound. Floors and their features, such as fire pits, are typically associated with Late Lima ceramic (Maranga and Nievera styles). Our architectural correlations indicate that the mound grew not only vertically, but also horizontally, and that finally it achieved an L shape. Reports from other archaeological projects indicate that the direction of horizontal growth and the L shape are found in other contemporary pyramids in Rmac valley, particularly in Maranga, Huaca Pucllana, and

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probably Mangomarca (Flores 2005; Shady and Narvez 2000). Thus, an emergent new Lima monumental architectural tradition can be hypothesized on the basis of recent fieldworks. Contrary to our expectations, we did not find continuity between Lima occupation and the second phase, which occurred some 500 years later, during the Ychsma period (ca. A.D. 1100-1470.). The Ychsma buildings overlay the earlier Late Lima structures without any intervening constructions. Given that we have documented deposits of sand and silt 8 cm. in thickness over some of the last Lima courtyards, it is reasonable to think that El Nio rains and floods may be one of the explanatory factors of the observed occupational discontinuity. The second phase is defined by the construction of agglutinated rooms. Buildings tend to cover horizontally all the available space but are not voluminous. In many cases, rooms are organized around patios or plazas with terraces oriented to west. Importantly, tapia changes in preparation technique and morphology, being thinner than those of Late Lima, and exhibiting distinctive horizontal grooves. Associated materials are much more diverse than those of Lima period, since we were able to document a wider range of contexts, including domestic areas, offerings, and burials. Significantly, potsherds coming from floors and complete vessels from offerings and burials are stylistically the same. Our collection is primarily made up of Ychsma style, but Chancay ceramic and an unnamed brownish coarse ceramic apparently from highlands are also present. The end of the Ychsma occupation is unclear, but new deposits of mud and sand overlay many structures. The range of activities decreased with only funerary use lasting until the Inka arrival in the fifteenth century. As seen above, we have not found any convincing evidence of a Wari occupation in the way that has been assumed traditionally. A careful review of the materials excavated

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earlier at Cajamarquilla and published and/or stored at the nearby Puruchuco Museum indicates that Wari or Provincial Wari items are limited to a handful of vessels derived from a few burials. What is more, as we have documented at Cajamarquilla, other Late Lima urban sites on the Central Coast do not exhibit a large and intensive occupation during the enigmatic Middle Horizon Epoch 2. The elusive Wari presence and apparent restricted use of these sites during this period should be kept in mind in considering our second objective. Second goal of our excavations at Cajamarquilla was to test the chronological and, if possible, functional relationships between the Villar Crdova compound and an adjacent partially reutilized irrigation canal and agriculture fields system. In Cajamarquilla, the principal water source is supplied by a canal still in use called Nievera. I surveyed some 12.5 Km of this canal, from its current intake at Rmac river, and found it be consistently associated with Lima and Ychsma sites. In passing by Cajamarquilla, Nievera canal branches off into a number of smaller canals that pass through the urban zone of the site. One of them ends in a very big depression that appears to have been a sort of reservoir or cocha. Another, one with a meandering course, is associated with what appears to be abandoned raised fields of 4 m. in width and 20 m. in long. To what extent this raised fields are pre-Hispanic in date is still unclear. A small test pit excavated beside one of the inferred raised fields showed a thin layer (10 cm. in thickness) of clay lumps underlying a thick accumulation (60 cm.) of brownish soil. Although these fields have been reused in modern times, they are apparently unique in the entire agricultural area of Rmac valley, and were undoubtedly irrigated by an abandoned branch of the Nievera channel. We also documented 5 Ychsma burials that were all located on the edges of one of the canal branches, never cut by them. Thus, I am inclined to think that raised fields were

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made sometime during a pre-Ychsma era, perhaps Late Lima, and continued to be used during the Ychsma occupation. This hypothesis agrees well with our survey observations along the Nievera canal but it should be systematically tested at the site. The above observations on canals and agricultural land lead us to a fundamental question about Cajamarquilla: Why did the unprecedented urbanism appear at the precarious location of the mouth of a major quebrada that has been known to flood uncontrollably at times of abnormal precipitations? The site constitutes an ideal setting to study the interplay between environment, agrarian resources and society in the Rmac Valley given that its early Middle Horizon abandonment closely follows the severe three-decade drought (A.D. 562-594) and a mega-El Nio seen in the Quelccaya ice core record (Thompson et al. 1985). This critical interplay could be elucidated by examining a number of independent lines of evidence, such as bioindicators found in sediment cores, middens and cache offerings or represented in the art. In regard to the bioindicators, analyses of diatoms in sediment cores from Urpay Kocha Lagoon of Pachacamac suggest that lagoon experienced a combination of a major drought and a flood, probably a Mega El Nio event, sometime between the 6th and 7th centuries, and became permanently more saline since then. It could be hypothesized that cyclical environmental disruptions and/or unsuccessful social response to them are responsible for the observed occupational history of Cajamarquilla. But, rebirth of the site during the Late Intermediate Period indicates the other factors were in working as well. We need to understand how the large urban population was supported and administered in dynamic and in many ways unpredictable environmental contexts, a research task that may be accomplished by means of studies of regional settlement patterns, land use, water management, and so on.

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References Cited Agurto Calvo, Santiago 1984 Lima prehispnica. Municipalidad de Lima-FINAMPRO, Lima. Bonava, Duccio 1959 Cermica de Puerto Viejo (Chilca). En Actas del II Congreso Nacional de Historia del Per (poca prehispnica), pp. 137-168. Centro de Estudios Histricos y Militares del Per, Lima. 1965 Arqueologa de Lurn. Seis sitios de ocupacin en la parte inferior del valle. Museo Nacional de la Cultura Peruana, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima.

Bueno, Alberto 1974-75 Cajamarquilla y Pachacamac: Dos Ciudades de la Costa Central del Per. Boletn Bibliogrfico de Antropologa Americana 36: 171-201. 1982 1983 El Antiguo valle de Pachacamac: Espacio, tiempo y cultura. Primera parte. Boletn de Lima 24: 10-29. El Antiguo valle de Pachacamac: Espacio, tiempo y cultura. Segunda parte. Boletn de Lima 25: 5-27.

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Eeckhout, Peter 1999 Pirmide con rampa No. III, Pachacamac. Nuevos datos, nuevas perspectivas. Bulletin de l'Institut Franais d'Etudes Andines 28 (2): 169-214. 2000 The Palaces of the Lords of Ychsma. An Archaeological Reappraisal of the Function of Pyramids with Ramps at Pachacamac, Central Coast of Peru. Journal of American Archaeology 17-18-19: 217-254.

Engel, Frederic A. 1988 Ecologa prehistrica andina. El hombre, su establecimiento y el ambiente de los Andes. La vida en tierras ridas y semiridas. Chilca, Pueblo I. Implementos de hueso. CIZA, Lima. Jane P. Feltham 1983 The Lurin Valley, Peru: AD 1000-1532. Ph.D. dissertation. University of London, London. Flores, Isabel 2005 Pucllana, esplendor de la cultura Lima. Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Lima. Franco, Rgulo, and Ponciano Paredes 2000 El Templo Viejo de Pachacamac: Nuevos aportes al estudio del Horizonte Medio. In Huari y Tiwanaku: Modelos y evidencias. Primera parte, edited by Peter Kaulicke and William H. Isbell, pp. 607-630. Boletn de Arqueologa PUCP No. 4. Fondo Editorial de la Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Per, Lima. Jimnez Borja, Arturo 1985 Pachacamac. Boletn de Lima 38: 40-54. Kroeber, Alfred L. 1954 Proto Lima, A Middle Period Culture of Peru. Fieldiana Anthropology, Vol. 44, No. 1. Chicago National History Museum, Chicago. Lanning, Edward P. 1963 A pre-Agricultural Occupation on the Central Coast of Peru. American Antiquity 28 (3): 360-371. Makowski, Krzysztof 2002 Power and Social Ranking at the End of the Formative Period. The Lower Lurin Valley Cemeteries. In Andean Archaeology I. Variations in Sociopolitical Organization, edited by William H. Isbell and Helaine Silverman, pp. 89-120. Kluwer Academic-Plenum Publishers, New York. Makowski, Krzysztof, Mara Fe Crdova, Patricia Habetler, and Manuel Lizrraga 2005 La plaza y la fiesta: reflexiones acerca de la funcin de los patios en la arquitectura publica prehispnica de los periodos tardos. In Encuentros: Identidad, Poder y

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Manejo de Espacios Pblicos, pp. 297-333. Boletn de Arqueologa PUCP No. 9. Fondo Editorial de la Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Per, Lima. Matos Mendieta, Ramiro 1968 A Formative-Period Painted Pottery Complex at Ancn, Peru. American Antiquity 33 (2): 226-232. Menzel, Dorothy 1964 Style and Time in the Middle Horizon. awpa Pacha 2: 1-105. Moseley, Michael E. 1975 The Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization. Cummings Publishing Company, Menlo Park. Patterson, Thomas C. 1966 Pattern and Process in the Early Intermediate Period Pottery of the Central Coast of Peru. University of California Publications in Anthropology, Vol. 3. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles. Patterson, Thomas C., and Michael E. Moseley 1968 Late Preceramic and Early Ceramic Cultures of the Central Coast of Peru. awpa Pacha 6: 115-133. Ravines, Rogger, and William H. Isbell 1976 Garagay: Sitio temprano en el valle de Lima. Revista del Museo Nacional 41 (1975): 253-272. Rostworowski, Mara 1978 Seoros Indgenas de Lima y Canta. Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, Lima. 1999 El Seoro de Pachacamac: El Informe de Rodrigo Cantos de Andrade de 1573. Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, Lima.

Shady, Ruth, and Joaqun Narvez 2000 Historia Prehispnica de Lima: Arqueologa de la Huaca San Marcos. Museo de Arqueologa y Antropologa de la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima. Shimada, Izumi 2007 Las prospecciones y excavaciones en Urpi Kocha y Urpi Wachaq: Estudio preliminar. Cuadernos de Investigacin del Archivo Tello 5: 13-18. Shimada, Izumi, Rafael Segura Llanos, Mara Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, and Hirokatsu Watanabe 2004 Una Nueva Evaluacin de la Plaza de los Peregrinos de Pachacamac: Aportes de la Primera Campaa 2003 del Proyecto Arqueolgico Pachacamac. En Arqueologa de la Costa Central del Per en los Periodos Tardos, edited by Peter Eeckhout. Boletn del Instituto Francs de Estudios Andinos, 33 (3): 507-538.

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Silva, Jorge 1996 Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Chillon River Valley, Peru. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor. Strong, William D., and John M. Corbett 1943 A Ceramic Sequence at Pachacamac. In Archaeological Studies in Peru, 1941-1942, by William D. Strong, Gordon R. Willey, and John M. Corbett, pp. 27-122. Columbia University Studies in Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 1, No. 2. Columbia University Press, New York. Tello, Julio C. 1999 Lima antes de Pizarro. Cuadernos de Investigacin del Archivo Tello 1: 23-42. Thompson, L. G., E. Mosley-Thompson, J. F. Bolzan, and B. R. Koci 1985 A 1,500-year Record of Tropical Precipitation in Ice Cores from the Quelccaya Ica Cap, Peru. Science 229: 971-973. Uhle, Max 1903 Pachacamac, Report of the William Pepper, M. D. LL. D., Peruvian Expedition of 1896. University of Pennsylvania, Department of Archaeology, Philadelphia.

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