The widespread looting of archaeological sites and cemeteries represents one of the most pressing threats to the preservation of cultural heritage worldwide, and Peru stands as a striking example of being at risk of this phenomenon. On the country’s arid coast, where the hyper-arid environment has enabled the remarkable preservation of archaeological finds, pre-Hispanic funerary contexts have become especially vulnerable. Elaborate mummy bundles, with finely woven textiles, objects made of gold and silver, ceramic vessels and offerings made of organic materials, which are exceptionally well-preserved and thus of high value on the black market, are frequent targets of looters. This often results in the destruction of burial contexts, with human remains left discarded and scattered across the ground. Faced with this reality, and the false perception that looted sites have lost most of their scientific value, many researchers have historically avoided such contexts, choosing instead to dedicate their limited resources to undisturbed sites. Yet, as Joyce Marcus argues in The burials of Cerro Azul, this decision comes at a cost. She echoes Christopher Donnan’s (Reference Donnan2022: 138) warning that: “The looting of antiquities always results in a tragic loss of information about the past, but turning away when looted material can be recorded only compounds the loss” (p.340).
The burials of Cerro Azul is the latest volume dedicated to the renowned Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000–1470) site of Cerro Azul, located in the Cañete Valley on Peru’s Central Coast. Building upon a long history of research at the site, led primarily by Marcus, alongside contributions from numerous scholars, this volume turns its focus to the Late Intermediate Period burials that were salvaged by Marcus and her team following extensive looting. It offers a rich and detailed account of these burials, and the vast array of funerary material recovered, thus providing valuable insights into mortuary practices during this period.
The volume is organised into 17 chapters, divided into five main parts. Part I (Chapters 1–2) is the foundation, providing essential background for readers. Chapter 1 offers a concise yet comprehensive overview of key themes in mortuary archaeology, with a primary focus on the Andean context, while also drawing on examples from other regions and time periods. This chapter introduces the reader to the broad range of topics involved in the study of burials and mortuary practices, including the role of burials within their environmental and social landscapes, patterns of tomb use, reuse and re-entry, spatial and bodily arrangement of the deceased and more. It also briefly addresses more theoretical aspects, such as the social construction of value, the interpretive challenges and potential of using grave goods to infer social status, and the active role of mourners in the funerary process. While each theme is discussed briefly at a general level, the chapter is especially valuable for readers less familiar with mortuary archaeology or the pre-Hispanic Andes, thus providing the conceptual grounding needed to contextualise the detailed burial descriptions and analyses presented in the rest of the volume.
Chapter 2 provides a brief overview of the archaeological site of Cerro Azul and introduces Part II (Chapter 3) which focuses on the initial 1925 excavations by Alfred Kroeber. During his work at the site, Kroeber uncovered seven un-looted tombs and, based on the relatively modest grave goods associated with these burials, he concluded that Cerro Azul had been a community of ‘poor’ fisherfolk. However, the recent investigations by Marcus challenged this early interpretation, offering new insights into the complexity of Cerro Azul’s social organisation and economic status during the Late Intermediate Period.
Part III (Chapters 4–15) and Part IV (Chapter 16), which constitute the core of the volume, present an exceptionally rich and intrinsic account of the structures and burials excavated by Marcus and her team at Cerro Azul. Every artefact recovered is documented with remarkable detail, categorised by material type and function, and accompanied by high-resolution photographs and drawings as well as technical specifics such as measurements, Munsell colour codes, textile thread counts and spin directions, ceramic typologies, identifications of botanical and faunal remains species, and more. This approach makes the volume an invaluable reference for researchers working in coastal Andean contexts and beyond, and an important archive for the future, particularly in light of the growing threat and lasting consequences of looting.
Despite the extensive looting that affected the burial contexts at Cerro Azul, Marcus and her team were able to recover a remarkably diverse and well-preserved assemblage of artefacts. The material remains span an impressive range of categories, including fishing gear, weaving implements, ceramic vessels, metal objects, organic remains and personal adornments, thus demonstrating not only the richness of the original funerary offerings, but also the wealth of material and thus information that can still be recovered from highly looted contexts.
As explored in the final section of the volume (Part V, Chapter 17), the salvaged burials from Cerro Azul provide invaluable insights into life and mortuary practice at the site during the Late Intermediate Period, and into broader societal patterns such as sex- and gender-based division of labour, the construction of individual and collective identity and the shifting roles of women, particularly in textile production, in the wake of the Inca conquest. The chapter attempts to move beyond traditional mortuary interpretations to instead foreground the agency of both the deceased and the mourners who carefully curated the burials. One especially compelling discussion centres on women’s personal style and creative freedom in textile production during the Late Intermediate Period. At Cerro Azul, this freedom is reflected through the diversity of materials, motifs and colours used in the produced textiles, as well as in personalised details such as ‘barcoded’ spindles indicating personal ownership or the presence of an unfinished textile still attached to a loom buried with the mummy bundle of a woman, alongside a workbasket filled with dyed yarn balls and threads that match the unfinished piece.
While the volume provides a remarkably rich account of the material culture recovered from the burials, future research and publications on the Cerro Azul burials would also greatly benefit from a more detailed and systematic bioarchaeological analysis of the human remains recovered. Recent advances in the bioarchaeological study of looted contexts have demonstrated that meaningful data can still be obtained from highly commingled skeletal assemblages, including health and disease patterns, dietary reconstruction and further insights into post-mortem treatment or funerary practices (e.g. Weinberg et al. Reference Weinberg, Nigra, Lozada, Stanish, Tantaleán, Bongers and Jones2016; Toyne et al. Reference Toyne, Church, Coronado Tello and Morales Gamarra2017; Velasco Reference Velasco2018). Such work would complement and enrich the interpretations already presented in this volume.
Marcus concludes The burials of Cerro Azul with the following message: “Salvage excavations are more important than ever today, since cemeteries are being destroyed at an alarming and accelerated pace. By presenting the material we salvaged at Cerro Azul, we hope to inspire others to turn looted cemeteries into sources of useful information” (p.340). That goal is fulfilled in this rigorous volume, which also sets out a useful model for future, and urgently needed, excavations of looted funerary contexts.
