The two monographs under review here are both published by the University Press of Florida and both feature results of field research at two previously understudied sites on the north and south coasts of Peru. Based on descriptions of excavation contexts and the analysis of material remains, Melissa Vogel and Christina Conlee discuss the implications of El Purgatorio and La Tiza for understanding Casma urbanism and the development of complex societies in Nasca, respectively. Field and laboratory results are used to revisit perennial questions in Andean archaeology, including the origins of urbanism, human-environment interactions and the role of regional phenomena in the unfolding of local cultures. While both authors report on site-based projects, they structure their presentations differently. Conlee takes a more regional approach, synthesising previous research at the national, regional, local and site levels. Vogel takes a more site-centric approach, presenting a summary of the ancient city's organisation and examining its impact on regional developments.
Historically, the north and south coasts of Peru have received different archaeological attention. On the north coast, archaeological research has been more sustained, as well as more systematically directed at large monuments and settlements. Indeed, here the scale and density of ancient sites have fuelled discussions on urbanism and the origins of city life and centralised political systems. Vogel's book, while aligned with this north coast tradition, brings insights into the Casma polity, a poorly understood cultural phenomenon that she claims was centred at the capital city of El Purgatorio. On the south coast, pioneering cultural-historical studies have acted as benchmarks for regional sequence building in the Central Andes. More recently, archaeologists have been paying more attention to the unique environmental conditions south of the Chincha Valley, and palaeoclimatological reconstructions have helped to contextualise human-environment developments more comprehensively in one of the driest regions on the planet. Conlee's book combines both strands as it provides a synthesis of the prehistoric sequence in Nasca that recognises the importance of ancient cultural ecologies, among other things, in structuring complex societies over time.
The development of complex societies at La Tiza, Nasca Valley
In Beyond the Nasca Lines, Conlee documents 5000 years of human occupation at La Tiza, a multi-component site located in Nasca. Fieldwork was carried out intermittently between 2002 and 2009, and included systematic mapping of surface architecture and the excavation of test units and burial contexts. While Conlee takes an overt cultural-historical approach, she also attempts to develop a more systemic model in order to evaluate the respective roles played by different factors in the dynamics of complex societies, including the organisation of kin groups, shifts in subsistence strategies, influxes of immigrants, religious movements, climate change, trade and social networks and external imperial policies.
The book is organised into nine well-written chapters complemented by useful quality black-and-white illustrations. The first three chapters introduce the field project, provide a theoretical framework for studying the dynamics of complex societies, and set the geographic stage for life in the Nasca Desert. La Tiza, located 60km from the coast, sits at 675m asl and belongs to the prized yunga ecological zone. As pointed out by Conlee, the “longevity of La Tiza as a place of habitation, burial, and ritual was due to the powerful combination of both practical and sacred geography” (p. 41). Theoretically, Conlee defines complexity “as both the vertical and horizontal differentiation among individuals and social groups. ‘Vertical complexity’ refers to hierarchy in leadership and power, while ‘horizontal power’ is the segmentation of a society into various groups, roles, and so forth” (p. 14). Methodologically, excavations emphasised test units (most measured 2 × 2m) to sample residential and domestic contexts, while mortuary practices were also documented through the clearing of graves and above-ground tombs.
Chapters 4–8 present archaeological evidence for each period of prehistoric occupation at La Tiza. The chapters consistently provide brief summaries of cultural developments for each period, moving down in scale from Peru, to Nasca and on to La Tiza. Maps showing the location of test units usefully visualise the scale of the settlement and the geographic shifts in human occupation over time. Each chapter concludes with a summary of ‘social complexity’ for each cultural phase. Conlee reviews the archaeological evidence in light of the following rubrics: ‘Settlement and chronology’, ‘Subsistence’, ‘Craft production and trade’, ‘Ritual, religion and mortuary practices’, ‘Social and political organization’ and ‘Developments and complexity’.
La Tiza's earliest occupation was associated with the presence of early foragers and horticulturalists. Conlee identifies two occupations during the Middle (c. 3650–3300 BC) and Late Preceramic (c. 2580–2150 BC). The first large settlement at La Tiza (5ha) dates to the late Early Horizon (350 BC–AD 75), when different factions of farming communities producing Paracas and early Nasca pottery migrated into the Nasca region. Conlee reviews evidence for farming economies, but, as she points out, the lack of systematic botanical analysis cautions interpretations related to plant use. Results of Instrumental Neutron Activation Analyses are used to suggest that most pottery was produced locally during that period. La Tiza reached 8ha in extent during the following Nasca occupation (AD 80–550), when the site's inhabitants participated in the eponymous religio-political phenomenon centred at the larger mound cluster of Cahuachi. Conlee points out that one of the major shifts at La Tiza appear to have been in craft production, in particular pottery; indeed, in Nasca times it seems to have been produced mainly by skilled artisans based at Cahuachi.
The Nasca region came under heavy Wari influence during the Middle Horizon (AD 650–1000). While the residential area at La Tiza appears relatively small (3ha), the presence of burial contexts suggest extensive mortuary functions. Conlee explores this ‘imperial entanglement’ and sees close connections between Nasca and the Wari heartland, especially at the stylistic and religious levels. Following a period of drought, the ‘Wari collapse’ and a hiatus in occupation of 200 or 300 years, the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000–1450) saw a resurgence of local cultural developments, especially after AD 1200. At that time, La Tiza—at 18ha—became the largest settlement in the southern Nasca drainage basin. The community thrived amidst a regional climate of geopolitical tensions and intercommunity violence. The book wraps up with a chapter on the ‘Rise and fall of complex societies in Nasca’, which provides a cultural-historical summary for each period. Conlee ends with a brief mention of the colonial and modern funerary use of La Tiza.
The ancient city of El Purgatorio, Casma Valley
El Purgatorio is a large settlement covering more than 5km2 located along the Casma River, 17km from the coast. In The Casma city of El Purgatorio, Vogel focuses on the main occupation at the hypothesised capital of the Casma state. Seventy (n = 70) AMS dates place this occupation between AD 700 and 1400, while 11 others point to earlier and later deposits. Due to the sheer size of the site, Vogel's six seasons of excavations between 2004 and 2011 have only begun to unravel the complexity of the prehistoric occupation at El Purgatorio. As such, the book provides an introduction to the ancient Casma settlement in which Vogel, based mainly on architectural, artefactual and to some extent skeletal data, lays out claims and working hypotheses. The book is organised in nine fluid chapters that introduce the theoretical and cultural-historical frameworks, present the Casma capital and summarise archaeological discoveries as they relate to the ‘Urban environment’, ‘Ritual and religion’, ‘Economy’ and ‘Residents’. The final two chapters provide a discussion of the role of El Purgatorio and the Casma phenomenon in late prehistoric developments in the Central Andes and its place within the ‘north coast tradition’.
Theoretically, Vogel defines a city as “a large, economically and socially heterogeneous residential population; a dense, nucleated pattern of structures with intrasite stratification; and evidence of multiple site functions including areas for religious activity, production, consumption, storage, residence, and administration” (p. 14). Working from the hypothesis that the ‘Andean state’ was transitioning to a more administrative form during the Middle Horizon, the Purgatorio project sampled different types of buildings including elite compounds, workshops, activity areas, commoner dwellings and cemeteries. Based on its scale and complexity, Vogel considers El Purgatorio to be the capital of a state society consisting “of a heterarchical confederation of regional elites united by common cultural practices, whose degree of political autonomy remains unclear” (p. 70).
Through the mapping of surface architecture, the excavations of residential and production contexts, and the sampling of burials, Vogel's team documented three of the four sectors at El Purgatorio. One of those (sector B), located on a hillside and covered with irregular-shaped stone structures, is interpreted as a lower-status area. Sectors A and C, located on the flat fringe between the hills and cultivated fields, consist of larger, and more formal ‘elite compounds’ and ‘intermediate’ architecture, including residential and production compounds. The presence of a ceramic workshop near residential compounds is interpreted by Vogel as evidence for elite supervision of craft production. More broadly, Vogel speculates that Casma society was organised in three distinct social classes: elites, intermediate elites and commoners.
In summary, both of the books under review are accessible and easy to read, and will appeal to a broad archaeological audience interested in ancient complex societies in the Andes and beyond. Both can be navigated through useful indices, and provide empirical insights into previously understudied, yet important, sites. While both site-based projects share many field methodologies, the authors present their results in different manners. Conlee takes a decidedly regional approach and hints at a more systemic framework, emphasising, for instance, the role of human-environmental interactions and long-distance exchange in the development of social complexity. Vogel, by contrast, takes a more Purgatorio-centric approach, emphasising the neo-evolutionary relationships between the ‘city’ and the ‘state’. Beyond deliberate choices in research designs and theoretical inclinations, one could speculate that such differences may be related to the combined effect of variations in archaeological traditions on the north and south coasts of Peru, as well as contrasts in the scale and complexity of the sites in these two desert regions. In any case, both authors are to be congratulated for shedding new empirical light on the fascinating complex societies and cities that developed in ancient coastal Peru.
