Huaca Prieta is a large and complex stone and earth platform mound located on the southern point of a Pleistocene terrace on the northern coastal desert of what is today Peru, approximately 500 kilometers (310 miles) northwest of Lima. The mound, located on the coast within the Chicama River floodplain, measures 138x62 meters (453x203 feet) and is 32 m (105 ft) in height, and it was constructed over a period of some 3,500 years.
Huaca Prieta ("dark earth temple") is named for the large, organically rich dark earth midden which characterizes the site, and includes quantities of black soot and ash. Despite this, very few domestic artifacts or food preparation evidence has been identified at the mound site itself, leading researchers to believe the site was primarily ritual in purpose, rather than residential. The latest excavations at the site lead scholars to believe the soot is the result of thousands of individual burning episodes which occurred throughout the long mound construction.
Huaca Prieta Chronology
- Phase 4. Ceramic cultures use the mound for rituals and as a cemetery, between 3500-600 cal BP
- Phase 3. Mound building phases, 7,555-4,510 cal BP
- V, 4107-3455 cal B, cobblestone burial chambers built along upper rim of sunken pit and on the top of the mound, ramp expanded and covered.
- IV, 5308-4107 cal BP: 40x35 m ramp added, cobble stone berm layers and intervening floors, mound expanded to current size
- III, 6538-5308 cal BP: mound expanded to 25x80 m, and 8-10 meters in height, with stone-faced terrace rooms on the eastern and western slopes, circular sunken plaza excavated
- II, 7572-6538 cal BP: first mound built, 25x25-35 meters by 5 meters high, cobblestone and soil layers: chili peppers and gourds (Lagenaria siceraria), cotton, corn after 6500 cal BP
- I, 9000-7500 cal BP: maritime foragers and incipient gardeners occupying the edge of a lagoon; fish, shellfish, birds, seaweeds and sea lions; squash, lima bean and avocado.
- Phase 2. pre-mound occupational phase, 8,979-7,500 cal BP
- Phase 1. initial occupation, 13,720-12,260 cal BP
Living at Huaca Prieta
Early excavations at the site conducted by Junius Bird in the 1940s indicated that the site's owners were sedentary people living in pit-houses, who cultivated crops as a supplement to marine fishing. Bird noted that the Huaca Prieta people had built small stone structures within the mound itself, and they used a broad range of technology, including stone, bone and wood tools, bottle gourds, basketry and textiles. Cotton weaving and netting were used; some textiles involved iconographic styles with intricate designs.
Nearly 40 small domestic residential sites associated with Huaca Prieta have been found since Bird's excavations ,within a radius of ~20 km (~12 mi) of the mound, occupied during the mound construction period, about 4,000-6,000 calendar years before the present (cal BP).
East of the domestic sites were discovered several raised agricultural platforms, which were built in the wetlands about 4,800 years ago. Microscopic-sized plant residues called opal phytoliths of beans, squash and chili pepper were recovered from these fields.
Bottle Gourds at Huaca Prieta
During the pre-ceramic periods of occupation at Huaca Prieta, including all of the mound building periods, an extensive use of bottle gourds for vessels is in evidence. Bird's excavations identified over 10,000 fragments of cut and carved bottle gourds (mostly Lagenaria siceraria, but also Cucurbita ficifolia and C. moschata), the majority of which were bowls with incurving rims. Other forms included jars with constricted mouths, bowls with flaring or vertical rims, small spherical containers, dippers and ladles. One spherical gourd was used as a whistle. Some were evidently used as fish net floats; some perforated discs of bottle gourd were used to balance the net lines. Some of the bottle gourd jars and bowls were decorated with incisions and engravings, including geometric cross-hatching and stylized faces. Repair of the gourds was completed using cotton cord laced across the cracks.
Over 200,000 floral and faunal remains were recovered by the most recent excavations. Animals represented in the extensive middens including sea urchins, 19 species of fish, 34 species of shellfish, sea lion and porpoise, 11 species of birds, llamas, dogs, and deer. Plants included chili peppers, squash, lima bean, jack bean, cotton, canna, cattail, agave and cotton, all of which were cultivars. Starch grain, phytolith and pollen analyses indicate the presence of pre-ceramic maize, coca, peanut, chirimoya, sweet potato, common bean (Phaseolus), quinoa, avocado, manioc, and pacae.
Architecture of Huaca Prieta
A circular pit interpreted as a looter's hole by Bird was reinvestigated and identified as a sunken plaza by Dillehay's team. The opening measures about 25 m (82 ft) in diameter, and it is defined by a series of stone-faced stepped platforms and small masonry rooms. The sunken plaza dates to Mound Building Phase III (6538-5308 cal BP).
During Mound Building period IV, 5308-4107 cal BP, a long ramp, approximately 40x35 m (130x115 ft), was constructed leading up to the summit of the mound from the northeast slope. The summit is currently 23 m (75 ft) above present-day ground surface; the most recent excavations have established that nine meters (30 ft) of mound building exists below the present-day surface.
Human burials were recovered from all mound-building phases, and small low-ceilinged circular stone rooms (ca 1 meter high and between 2-3 meters in diameter) on top of the mound were used as burial chambers, containing articulated human remains, between Mound Building Phases III-V.
Archaeology at Huaca Prieta
Huaca Prieta was excavated by Junius Bird in the 1940s; between 2006-2011, international excavations led by Tom Dillehay focused on establishing the environmental and chronological features.
Huaca Prieta's excavations have had multiple impacts on the history of archaeology, within and beyond South America. When Huaca Prieta was first excavated in the 1940s by pioneer archaeologist Junius Bird, it was the first pre-ceramic site identified in Peru. Human coprolites (preserved feces) discovered by Bird within the midden were sent to Eric O. Callan, who founded the discipline based on his research from Huaca Prieta. And recent chronological data reported in Antiquity in 2012 suggests that the complexity of the mound construction is singular, with no direct antecedents.Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to Andean Preceramic Period, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Beavins Tracy RA. 2011. Holocene Environmental Change Reocrded in Lagoonal Sediment Proxies at Huaca Prieta, North Coastal Peru. Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University.
Bird JB, and Hyslop J. 1985. The preceramic excavations at the Huaca Prieta Chicama Valley, Peru. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 62(1):1-294. American Museum of Natural History, New York.
Dillehay TD, Bonavia D, Goodbred S, Pino M, Vasquez V, Rosales Tham T, Conklin W, Splitstoser J, Piperno DR, Iriarte J et al. 2012. Chronology, mound-building and environment at Huaca Prieta, coastal Peru, from 13,700 to 4000 years ago. Antiquity 85(331):48-70.
Stephens SG. 1975. A Reexamination of the Cotton Remains from Huaca Prieta, North Coastal Peru. American Antiquity 40(4):406-419.
Whitaker TW, and Bird JB. 1949. Indentification and significance of the cucurbit materials from Huaca Prieta, Peru. American Museum Novitates. New York, New York: American Museum of Natural History. p 1-15.
