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Mortuary Preferences: A Wari Culture Case Study from Middle Horizon Peru

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

William H. Isbell
William H. Isbell*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000
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Abstract

Mortuary practices reveal a great deal about the social organization of prehistoric cultures and their landscape of places. However, tombs are favored targets for looters, making it difficult to determine original burial practices. Very little was known about Wari burial during the Middle Horizon (A.D. 500–1000), even though Wari was an imperial, early Bronze Age culture with a spectacular urban capital in highland Peru. Excavations at the secondary Wari city of Conchopata produced remains of more than 200 individuals, from disturbed and undisturbed contexts. These burials as well as information from other sites permit an initial description of ideal patterns of Wari mortuary behavior. The forms abstracted reveal graves ranging from poor and ordinary citizens to royal potentates, supporting inferences of hierarchical political organization. It is also clear that the living accessed graves of important people frequently, implying some form of ancestor worship. However, unlike the later Inkas, Wari ancestors were venerated in their tombs, located deep within residential compounds and palaces.

El estudio de las prácticas funerarias es invalorable para el conocimiento de las culturas prehistóricas y los pueblos antiguos. Desgraciadamente, las tumbas son también el blanco favorito de los saqueadores, por lo que resulta difícil en muchos casos interpretar las prácticas originales. Pese a la importancia de una cultura como Wari, un imperio de la Edad del Bronce que tuvo una espectacular capital urbana en la sierra del Perú, conocemos muy poco respecto a sus prácticas funerarias. Las recientes excavaciones en la ciudad secundaria wari de Conchopata han permitido recuperar restos humanos, en contextos funerarios disturbados y no disturbados, correspondientes a más de 200 individuos. Estos entierros y la información disponible de otros sitios waris (incluyendo al centro urbano de Huari) hacen posible plantear una descripción inicial de patrones ideales de la conducta funeraria wari durante el Horizonte Medio (500–1000 d.C.). Las formas interpretadas revelan tumbas que corresponden tanto a ciudadanos pobres y ordinarios como a gobernantes reales. Además, las tumbas de las personas importantes presentan evidencias de haber sido abiertas con frecuencia luego del entierro, implicando alguna forma de culto a los ancestros.

Type
Articles
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , March 2004 , pp. 3 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 by the Society for American Archaeology.

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References

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