Ritual Violence in the Ancient Andes : : Reconstructing Sacrifice on the North Coast of Peru / / ed. by J. Marla Toyne, Haagen D. Klaus.

• MitwirkendeR: Backo, Heather C.,; Bentley, Sylvia,; Bourget, Steve,; Castillo, Luis Jaime,; Castillo, Samuel,; Chicoine, David,; Fehren-Schmitz, Lars,; Hamilton, Laurel S.,; Klaus, Haagen D.,; Longstaffe, Fred,; Lund, Mellisa,; Millaire, Jean-François,; Millaire, Peru Jean-François,; Phillips, Sara S.,; Saldaña, Fausto,; Shimada, Izumi,; Szpak, Paul,; Tiesler, Vera,; Tomasto-Cagigao, Elsa,; Toyne, J. Marla,; Tung, Tiffiny A.,; Turner, Bethany L.,; Verano, John W.,; Wester, Carlos,; White, Christine,
• HerausgeberIn: Klaus, Haagen D.,; Toyne, J. Marla,
• Place / Publishing House: Austin : : University of Texas Press, , [2021]; ©2016
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

Traditions of sacrifice exist in almost every human culture and often embody a society’s most meaningful religious and symbolic acts. Ritual violence was particularly varied and enduring in the prehistoric South American Andes, where human lives, animals, and material objects were sacrificed in secular rites or as offerings to the divine. Spectacular discoveries of sacrificial sites containing the victims of violent rituals have drawn ever-increasing attention to ritual sacrifice within Andean archaeology. Responding to this interest, this volume provides the first regional overview of ritual killing on the pre-Hispanic north coast of Peru, where distinct forms and diverse trajectories of ritual violence developed during the final 1,800 years of prehistory. Presenting original research that blends empirical approaches, iconographic interpretations, and contextual analyses, the contributors address four linked themes—the historical development and regional variation of north coast sacrifice from the early first millennium AD to the European conquest; a continuum of ritual violence that spans people, animals, and objects; the broader ritual world of sacrifice, including rites both before and after violent offering; and the use of diverse scientific tools, archaeological information, and theoretical interpretations to study sacrifice. This research proposes a wide range of new questions that will shape the research agenda in the coming decades, while fostering a nuanced, scientific, and humanized approach to the archaeology of ritual violence that is applicable to archaeological contexts around the world.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- Preface and acknowledgments -- Chapter one Ritual Violence on the North Coast of Peru: Perspectives and Prospects in the Archaeology of Ancient Andean Sacrifice -- Part one Ancient Ritual Variation and Methodological Advances in Studies of Sacrifice -- Chapter two Ritual Killing, Mutilation, and Dismemberment at Huaca de la Luna: Sharp Force Trauma Among Moche Sacrifice Victims in Plazas 3A and 3C -- Chapter Three The Taphonomy of Ritual Killing on the North Coast of Peru: Perspectives from Huaca de la Luna and Pacatnamú -- chapter four Ritual Strangulation in the Southern Moche World: Mortuary Ligatures as Tools of Liturgical Violation -- Chapter five Bodies and Blood: Middle Sicán Human Sacrifice in the Lambayeque Valley Complex (AD 900–1100) -- Chapter six Precious Gifts: Mortuary Patterns and the Shift from Animal to Human Sacrifice at Santa Rita B in the Middle Chao Valley, Peru -- Chapter seven Human Sacrifice at the Chotuna-Chornancap Archaeological Complex: Traditions and Transformations of Ritual Violence Under Chimú and Inka Rule -- Part two Ancient Identities, Ambiguous Deaths, and Complex Burials -- Chapter eight Life Before Death: A Paleopathological Examination of Human Sacrifice at the Templo de la Piedra Sagrada, Túcume, Peru -- Chapter nine The Killing of Captives on the North Coast of Peru in Pre-Hispanic Times: Iconographic and Bioarchaeological Evidence -- chapter ten 266 Reconsidering Retainers: Identity, Death, and Sacrifice in High-Status Funerary Contexts on the North Coast of Peru -- Chapter eleven Human Sacrifice: A View from San José de Moro -- Part three Continuums of Killing: Sacrifice of Animals and Objects -- Chapter twelve Life Histories of Sacrificed Camelids from Huancaco (Virú Valley) -- Chapter thirteen Posts and Pots: Propitiatory Ritual at Huaca Santa Clara in the Virú Valley, -- Part four Perspectives from Beyond the North Coast of Peru -- Chapter fourteen Practicing and Performing Sacrifice -- Chapter fifteen Mesoamerican Perspectives on the (Bio)archaeology of Andean Ritual Violence -- Reference list -- Index