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Huaca de los Reyes Revisited: Clarification of the Archaeological Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Thomas Pozorski
Thomas Pozorski*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Texas-Pan American, Edinburg, TX 78539
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Abstract

Recent publications have seriously misrepresented architectural and archaeological information concerning the important Initial Period (1800-900 B. C.) site of Huaca de los Reyes in the Moche Valley, Peru. Excavation evidence available since the mid-1970s clearly shows that most of the surface architecture at the site belongs to a single, integrated construction phase and is not the cumulative result of eight construction phases as proposed by Conklin (1985). This chronological clarification is especially significant because some Initial Period coastal mound sites are the result of only one or two large construction phases (Pozorski and Pozorski 1986), whereas others apparently contain multiple small construction phases (Burger 1992). Large-scale planning and construction imply more sophisticated levels of sociopolitical organization.

Publicaciones recientes han presentado información arquitectónica y arqueológica incorrecta sobre el importante sitio del Periodo Inicial (1800-900 a. C.) de la Huaca de los Reyes en el valle de Moche, Perú. La evidencia de excavación, disponible desde mediados de los 1970s, muestra claramente que la mayoría de la arquitectura de la superficie del sitio pertenece a una sola fase de construcción integrada, y no es resultado acumulativo de ocho fases de construcción, como propone Conklin (1985). Esta clarificación cronológica es especialmente significativa porque algunos montículos del Período Inicial en la costa contienen solamente una o dos fases grandes de construcción (Pozorski y Pozorski 1986) aunque otros aparentamente contienen múltiples fases pequeñas (Burger 1992). La planificación y construcción a gran escala implican un nivel más alto de organización sociopolítica.

Type
Reports
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , December 1995 , pp. 335 - 339
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1995

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References

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