The Chinchorro Culture, sometimes called Chinchorro Complex or Chinchorro Tradition (and meaning something like "fishing boat"), is the name of the archaeological remains of the preceramic and pre-metallurgical fishing societies that inhabited the arid coastal region of southern Peru and northern Chile between 7000-1500 BC, including the Atacama desert. However, the Chinchorro are best known for their burial practices, in which the dead were mummified naturally and artificially, and stretched out on reed mats with a camelid (llama or alpaca) skin shroud.
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Mummy Chronology
- 7020-5000 BC, Founder (first Natural mummies)
- 5000-4800 BC, Initial
- 4980-2700 BC, Classic (Black)
- 2700-1900 BC, Transitional (Mud, Red)
- 1880-1500 BC, Late (Natural)
- 1500-1100 BC Quiani (completely new tradition, semi-flexed, naturally mummified)
Mortuary Practices
Mortuary practices used by the Chinchorro were based on skills they attained as subsistence hunters: killing, butchering, skinning, dismembering and preserving the desired parts of fish and animals. Approximately 208 Chinchorro mummies have been recovered from ten archaeological sites, most of which are small, densely populated cemeteries. The mummies were placed in graves about 50 centimeters (~1.5 foot) deep.
The mummies were of all ages, from fetuses to elderly persons, and both male and female. Vivien Standen (1997) has pointed out that the highest frequency of artificial mummification was applied to fetuses, neonates, lactating women, and children, beginning about 7,000 BP. Beginning about 5500 BP, the mummification was applied to all individuals.
Three classes of mummies were identified and published by archaeologist Max Uhle in 1919: these types were simple, complicated and mud-covered. In the mid-1990s, Bernardo Arriaza proposed three "complicated" sub-types: red, black, and bandaged. His hypothesis was that mummification techniques represent cultural transformations over time that show an increased in mummy-making complexity, followed by its decline and eventually discontinuation.
Type 1: Simple
Simple mummies as defined by Uhle appear to have been naturally mummified: they have no evidence of internal modifications, although some of them have been painted with red ochre. Generally these mummies are in extended, supine position (flat on his/her back): occasionally the lower extremities are slightly flexed.
Burial furniture with simple mummies includes branches of plants, pelican wings and/or the leather and wool of a camelid. These burials date between 3790-4200 radiocarbon years before the present (RCYBP).
Type 2: Complicated
Complicated mummies have a great variation of techniques, but in all of the mummies, an internal and external treatment of the body cavity is in evidence. The body cavities of Type 2 mummies were emptied and dried with fire or hot ashes, and then filled and shaped with clay, wool, plant matter and ash. The bodies were reinforced with sticks placed between the bone and skin. Finally, a llama or alpaca skin was placed over the mummy.
After the bodies had been prepared in this manner, the outer surfaces were modeled in clay. Each of the mummies, male and female, have model genitalia; the mummy's faces are typically modeled in white clay enhanced with black magnesium; most of the mummies are capped with a wig. The eyes, nose and mouth are represented by slight incisions or bumps.
These mummies were placed in an extended, supine position onto of mats made of plant fiber. Sometimes the bodies were painted with black manganese or red ochre, and sometimes they are wrapped in bandages made of alpaca or llama skin: these are the characteristics that Arriaza used to create his typology. These mummies date between 4350 and 7810 RCYBP.
Type 3: Mud-coated
Mud-coated mummies are also supine, extended burials, some dried by fire or heated coals, but also covered with a thin layer of sand and plant material or mud, which fixes them to the grave floor. These mummies dated between 3670 and 4570 RCYBP.
Grave Goods
Burial goods placed in the graves of the Chinchorros included clothing made from camelid fiber cords, harpoons, shell and cactus fishhooks, composite fishhooks, fishhook weights, stone knives, lanceolate points, and atlatls and atlatl darts. Small anthropomorphic wooden statuettes and minature clay figurines resembling the mummies are also found in some of the burials. Reed fibers and basketry were used by the Chinchorros, although woven textiles, pottery and metal artifacts were not.
There is no evidence for social stratification among these hunter-gatherer-fishers of the Atacama coast. However, analysis of grave goods from the site of Morro 1 in Chile indicated that hunting tools are primarily associated with male burials, while fishing tools are found most frequently with female burials. This division is reckoned by Standen (2003) to be representative of a sexual division of labor, and not necessarily a status differentiation.
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to the Chinchorro Culture, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Allison MJ, Focacci G, Arriaza B, Standen VG, Rivera M, and Lowenstein JM. 1984. Chinchorro, momias de preparación complicada: Métodos de momificación. Chungara: Revista de Antropología Chilena 13:155-173.
Arriaza BT. 1994. Tipología de las momias Chinchorro y evolución de las prácticas de momificación. Chungara: Revista de Antropología Chilena 26(1):11-47.
Arriaza BT. 1995. Chinchorro Bioarchaeology: Chronology and Mummy Seriation. Latin American Antiquity 6(1):35-55.
Standen VG. 1997. Temprana Complejidad Funeraria de la Cultura Chinchorro (Norte de Chile). Latin American Antiquity 8(2):134-156.
Standen VG, and Santoro CM. 2004. Patrón funerario arcaico temprano del sitio Acha-3 y su relación con Chinchorro: Cazadores, pescadores y recolectores de la costa norte de Chile. Latin American Antiquity 15(1):89-109.
