The archaeological site of Chavín de Huántar, Peru, and its eponymous cultural expression has captured the imagination of Andean cognoscenti and researchers since the Discalced Carmelite friar Antonio Vásquez de Espinoza visited the site in the early seventeenth century AD. In the latter part of the twentieth century, Chavín and its period was the focus of intense research.
Many of the contending theories that motivated such animated discussion on Chavín are still relevant today; in this book, Richard Burger and Jason Nesbitt (Chapter 1) tackle this head on bringing us up to date with the latest research on this subject. A critical uniting thread to this volume is the treatment of that nebulous catch-all that ‘Chavín’ has represented through the ages including: a culture, a religion, an artistic iconography and an architectural style. Eschewing the denominational over-reach of terms such as ‘horizon’, ‘civilisation’ or even ‘empire’, the authors of this volume coalesce around the label ‘Chavín phenomenon’ to describe the inherently complex variety of local engagements during the late Initial Period (1100–800 BC) and Early Horizon (800–400 BC). I agree.
Furthermore, the central concept of the volume is a very good one, adopting a laissez-faire approach to the case studies presented and how these inform on the Chavín phenomenon without any pre-conceived central interpretation of what ‘Chavín’ must have been. This is refreshing, even if it sometimes comes across more as presenting, while never quite resolving. Then again, given the intricacy of the Chavín phenomenon in all its complexity, this is perhaps unsurprising. Added to this, the single greatest gamechanger concerning the Chavín phenomenon and our understanding of it over the past few decades has been the increase in readily available radiocarbon dates. Nearly every chapter in this volume presents new dates that further anchor this phenomenon. With an ever-increasing number of dates, it has been possible to posit new interpretations to some of the most contentious issues within Chavín studies, especially the knotted question of the origin of Chavín.
Bringing together the great and good, young and old, of present-day Chavín and Chavín-adjacent research, this edited volume is the latest word on the site, heartland and its wider influence on Andean cultural development. This last point is important because 10 of the 14 chapters analyse the Chavín phenomenon beyond the centre. What is immediately apparent is the sheer scale of new research into this phenomenon throughout the Central Andes, even if the exigency of fieldwork still means that studies along the more accessible coastal area outnumber those from the highlands. Two early chapters address the centre, fleshing out the Chavín heartland, with John Rick (Chapter 2) analysing Chavín’s ubiquitous galleries, comprising underground sometimes interconnected chambers, in detail and concluding that many had specific ritual functions and were part of a ‘genre’ within the cult underpinning Chavín. Matthew Sayre and Silvana Rosenfeld (Chapter 3) concentrate on the La Banda residential sector to tease out the social and economic organisation of Chavín society and how the manufacture of prestige goods was embedded at the site and fitted within a wider network. Furthermore, the authors touch on whether the experience of ritual at Chavín was exclusive or inclusive in nature, while arguing that both forms were employed at the site, part of this period’s wider pattern of rising inequality.
The next chapters focus on the near highlands (Jason Nesbitt in Chapter 3; Rebecca Bria in Chapter 4), with the former analysing development in the Conchucos region around the Chavín core itself. This research reveals the complex nature of Early and Middle Formative Period (1800–800 BC) developments in the region and how smaller sites, such as Canchas Uckro, could have informed later developments at Chavín itself. Bria tackles the development of the Chavín phenomenon in the Callejón de Huaylas, the next intermontane valley to the west of Chavín. A longue durée perspective on the ‘Chavín’ Perolcoto temple at Huacayán reveals that the Chavín phase was just that; a time-specific framework of beliefs and rituals that was mediated locally before it was abandoned during the later Huarás period (400–200 BC). A critical point well made by Bria (and Nesbitt) is how these localisms informed and potentially reshaped the emergence of the Chavín. At the same time, they were producers as well as consumers of this cult.
For highlands further removed from Chavín itself, we have the three contributions in Chapters 5, 12, 13. Yuji Seki applies a peer-polity model that sees Kuntur Wasi and Pacopampa in the northern Cajamarca highlands as separate centres within an interaction sphere together with Chavín where goods, rituals and ideas circulated around shared expressions of religiosity and practice, which in no way negated the uniqueness and separate cultural development of each one of these other sites. Michelle Young’s research assesses Atalla in the south-central highlands of Huancavelica. Here, she argues that Atalla was locked within local and regional interaction spheres that eventually expanded to network with the Chavín phenomenon. This is observed through the adoption of a universal or ‘international’ Chavín ceramic style and a shared religious tradition. Yuichi Matsumoto and Yuri Cavero Palomino see the site of Campanayuq Rumi as emerging from a localised interaction sphere that eventually becomes a direct part of the Chavín phenomenon in a core-periphery relationship in which this site adopts monumental architecture and acts as a gateway community to mine the obsidian of these southern highlands.
The coastal Chavín phenomenon treatment starts with a contribution by Richard Burger and Lucy Salazar (Chapter 9). They observe long-standing traditions on the central coast linked to the Manchay culture (1800–700 BC), which may have influenced Chavín itself. Nevertheless, the collapse of Manchay seems to have precipitated a retreat from social complexity and, while the area imbibed of the wider Chavín world, there are to date no Chavín-inspired centres. Even so, ceramic styles imitating Chavínoid styles show a certain degree of cultural buy-in. Lisa DeLeonardis (Chapter 10) tackles that traditional expression of coastal Chavín: the Paracas area. Yet her research shows Chavín was not directly imposed on Paracas, instead it was reconfigured locally by groups with their own long-standing traditions that integrated those aspects of Chavín that resonated with them. Likewise, Jahl Dulanto (Chapter 11) studies the fishing communities of Puerto Nuevo analysing how their local and regional commercial networks were slowly co-opted from the eighth century BC onwards into wider inter-regional networks that linked this isolated port with the central and to a lesser degree the northern coast in the spread of Cupisnique and Chavín ceramic that also influence local wares.
Discussions about a coastal or Amazonian origin to Chavín were a central bête noire between the doyens of early-twentieth-century Peruvian archaeology, respectively Rafael Larco Hoyle (1901–1966) and Julio C. Tello (1880–1947). Two chapters obliquely tackle this theme, David Chicoine et al. (Chapter 8) for the coast and Ryan Clasby (Chapter 7) for the Amazon. Both see Chavín as occurring within a complex web of religious, relational and remunerative networks that linked all these different cultural expressions, coalescing around the broader Chavín phenomenon. Chicoine and colleagues explore the influence brought to bear by the coastal Cupisnique and Manchay cultures on Chavín, adopting the term Chavín-Cupisnique Religious Complex as espoused by Hugo Ikehara (Reference Ikehara2015) to describe this relationship. Clasby is more circumspect concerning an Amazonian origin, rightly so given the paucity of archaeological research within the tropical forest. Nevertheless, the degree of interaction (commercial and iconographic) between Chavín and the eastern lowlands is intriguing and surely underpins enduring contacts and influences that future research will uncover.
While the question of origin is ultimately unresolved, a key takeaway from these two chapters, and indeed the whole volume, is that Chavín was not so much an innovator (the old vision of a ‘mother culture’), but rather a supreme integrator, borrowing and moulding deep-time traditions and existing cultural expressions into a whole that was experienced fully formed only at the site itself. Meanwhile, this package was differentially perceived, negotiated and adopted (or not) throughout the wider Chavín phenomenon area in often reciprocal arrangements that used and adapted elements of the cult before ultimately discarding them.
The final chapter is a delight in itself as Christopher Pool closes the volume with a considered take on the role that Chavín played in the development of Andean prehistory. Pool succinctly summarises the volume by re-emphasising the complexity, range and heterogeneity of Chavín. This variety transcends the straitjacket of a ‘horizon’ period opting for a messier but infinitely more satisfying ‘phenomenon’ with local peculiarities and idioms. Future research should borrow from this volume’s central tenet and broaden Chavín’s inherent volubility and what in turn it reveals about Andean cultural development.
