The Cemetery of Paracas

While the spectacular colors and complex imagery of the Paracas Necropolis embroideries have long brought fame to the site, the character of this mortuary complex and cemetery population has remained shrouded in mystery. The survival of fragile organic materials in the tombs of the Necropolis of Wari Kayán at the Paracas site has resulted in an extraordinary artifact assemblage, unevenly preserved. The contextual information can be extraordinary, but is often ambiguous where deterioration has led to the loss or displacement of parts of the human body and parts of the associated artifacts. Beautifully preserved wrapping cloths and elaborately embroidered mantles are often layered next to other textiles that have largely rotted away, one of many indications of the complex history of creation and display of these ancestral bundles. Conditions of excavation and transport in 19271928 and almost ninety years of museum storage, as well as display, have also left their mark. Nonetheless, the Paracas Necropolis remains an unparalleled source of information on ancient Andean society.

THE CEMETERY OF PARACAS NECROPOLIS: MORTUARY PRACTICE AND SOCIAL NETWORK

Ann Hudson Peters

Due to the huge amounts of data and the complexity of recovery, conservation and interpretation, the site was never fully analyzed by Julio C. Tello and the original excavation team and National Museum staff, though they produced voluminous documentation between 1925 and 1979. Their partial publication of field and laboratory notes incorporates tentative analytic proposals, which have become the basis for a substantial subsequent literature on the site, largely speculative in nature. Access to the Tello and Mejía Xesspe archives since 2000 has provided a new opportunity and challenge for reanalysis of the site. Results of our ongoing work in archives and collections indicate evidence for a complex map of social and biological identities and relationships, more diverse and nuanced than any model previously proposed.

MORTUARY COMPLEX, CHRONOLOGY  AND CULTURAL AFFILIATIONS

The term “Paracas Necropolis” has been used to refer to several interrelated concepts. As a cemetery, it refers to two clusters of massed burials on the steep north-facing slope of Cerro Colorado, a rocky hill that spans the neck of the Paracas Peninsula on the south coast of Peru (fig. 1). Sector A is much larger, with two distinct sections each about the size of Sector B, and there are similar burials scattered in the near vicinity. It appears that both these sectors and some scattered burials nearby constitute a single cemetery, in which masses of burials have been placed among the walls of previously existing habitation terraces and semi-subterranean chambers. When it was discovered in 1927, Julio C. Tello named this cemetery “la Necrópolis de Wari Kayán”-the latter a Quechua term meaning something like “Host of the Ancestors,” used in Huarochirí to refer to mortuary caves (F. Salomon, pers. com. 2012). Radiocarbon dates, including recent AMS dates, for objects from the burials cluster between about 150 BCE and 200 CE (Paul 1991b; León 2007).

The cemetery observed in 1927 reflects the final phase of mortuary ritual and burial for each bundle. The vast majority of bundles faced north over the steep hillside, towards the Bay of Paracas. Cloth bundles of baskets, ceramics and foodstuffs had been placed at their feet, a “signal” staff or cane tipped with bright feathers or balls of cotton rising above the peak of the bundle, and for some men, a bundle of weapons at their side. The burial pit had been carefully filled with clean sand from the adjacent desert, or with sand mixed with midden from the surrounding habitation deposits.

Although some burials are packed within the walls of abandoned Paracas Tradition buildings and others are clustered just outside, the graves are set so close together that groups cannot be distinguished based on spatial data alone. This pattern contrasts with the collective “Cavernas” shaft tombs and pit tombs set into hollows atop the adjacent ridge of Cerro Colorado as well as the small clusters of burials among buildings elsewhere at the site (Yacovleff and Muelle 1932; Tello and Mejía 1979; Tello et al. 2009, 2012). Most of the Cerro Colorado tombs hold Paracas Tradition burials, some of which appear to be contemporary with a Paracas tradition occupation that had built on and occupied the North Slope. Tello’s field supervisors Antonio Hurtado and Toribio Mejía Xesspe noted that the Necropolis intruded into that earlier occupation and that its distinctive ceramics, later defined as part of the Topará tradition (Lanning 1960; Wallace 1972, 1986), also were found in occupation fill in the Arena Blanca sector.

While Tello proposed a temporal sequence based on this stratigraphy, estimating that the site dated to approximately 2000 BP, further evidence demonstrates that the occupations associated with these distinct mortuary complexes and artifact production traditions were contemporary during the Paracas-Nasca transition from about 150 BC to AD 1, both at this site and throughout the region. Paracas tradition textiles, tools and musical instruments are present in some of the early Wari Kayán tombs, although no Paracas ceramics were placed there. In contemporary tombs in the Ocucaje basin, ceramics of the Paracas and Topara traditions were often found in the same tomb (Rubini and Dawson 19571960; Menzel et al. 1964).

The Necropolis ceramic complex corresponds to the Topará tradition as defined by Lanning (1960) and Wallace (1986), which also forms part of the Paracas 10 and Nasca 1 phases in the Ocucaje gravelots. The serving and ritual vessels incorporate extremely fine clays and delicate modeling techniques, used to create forms imitating gourds and squashes, as well as some more complex animal and plant motifs. Globular double-spout and bridge bottles are fired to red-orange in the early phases, and often painted with a thick white slip. Later bottles are fired to red, brown or black, and slipped in clays similar to the body paste. Early fine orange ware bowls include some with the interior fired to black, often with designs inscribed with a graphite stylus. Later bowls often have basal angles and are carefully fired in either an oxidizing or reduced atmosphere. The bowls are designed to fit within wicker baskets that typically appear with them in the tomb, tied up in a simple cotton cloth.

These diagnostic ceramics are fundamentally different in aesthetic and production techniques from those of earlier occupations at the Paracas site, which Tello called Paracas Cavernas. Today considered part of the Paracas Tradition, these are decorated with lines and dots by stamping and incision before firing, or by in a clay-resist technique involving two firings. They may also be painted with resinbased pigments, in a wide range of bright colors (Tello 1959; Menzel et al.1964). Despite their radically different decorative processes and effects, the Paracas and Topará traditions have an overlapping range of vessel forms that suggest an analogous range of ceramic functions among contemporary late Early Horizon societies on the south central Andean coast.

Ceramics found together in tombs defined as Nasca phases 1 and 2 in Ocucaje include innovative forms based on Topará tradition processes and aesthetics, innovative forms based on Paracas tradition processes and aesthetics and innovative forms imitating an entire tomb offering, including basket, foodstuffs and wrapping cloth. These graves are found adjacent to those of EH10 and are best understood as the outcome of the cross-cultural interactions and mutual influences evident during that phase. Throughout the south coast and at the Paracas Necropolis the Paracas-Topará-early Nasca transition can be best understood as a historically and socially continuous process.

However, the Necropolis ceramic assemblage does not incorporate most of the early Nasca innovations, instead retaining conservative forms and monochrome surfaces. Chongos phase vessels contemporary with Nasca 1 are reduced in scale, while miniature vessels accompany later gravelots contemporary with Nasca 2 (Tello 1959; Peters 1997; Aponte 2009). Instead, the broad interactions and innovations of this period are expressed in the Necropolis textile assemblage. Some of the burial clusters in the Arena Blanca sector include burials later than any in the Necropolis, including several excavated clandestinely prior to 1925, one of which was the source of the famous headcloth known as the “Paracas textile” (Levillier 1928; D’Harcourt 1934; Tello 1959). Occupation refuse and some burials in that sector were associated with ceramics from the Carmen phase of the Topará Tradition, contemporary with Nasca 3 (Engel 1964). However, the mass of Necropolis burials is larger in scale than earlier, later and contemporary burial clusters from other parts of the Paracas site, and no other cemetery of this scale and density has been recorded elsewhere in the region.

As a mortuary complex, Paracas Necropolis refers to a sequence of post-mortem treatments and funerary practices that resulted in a cadaver bound into a tight squatting position: holding a gourd bowl beneath the chin, with a set of characteristic objects placed on and around the body and layers of textile wrappings that form a conical bundle. Throughout the formation of the cemetery, the larger bundles were reinforced by layers of large cotton wrapping cloths and “dressed” in some levels as a symbolic person, including gender-specific clothing, headdress elements and other artifacts (Tello 1929, 1959; Yacovleff and Muelle 1934; Tello and Mejía 1979; Paul 1990a, 1991c; Peters 2000; Peters and Tomasto-Cagigao 2016). While the number of layers varies, an analogous sequence created most burials in the Necropolis of Wari Kayán and some similar burials in the Arena Blanca sector. Just beneath the outermost wrapping cloth, many of the largest mortuary bundles preserve a final “display layer” apparently intact. In male burials this layer is topped by a headdress and often ‘wears’ a type of open-sided tunic that Tello termed a ‘cassock’ (fig. 2). A feathered fan and short staff often have been placed on the sloping sides of the bundle, and large mantles have been draped as if worn.

While mortuary bundles built around seated individuals are also characteristic of contemporary burials in the Cavernas and Ocucaje tombs, the specific practices differ in each mortuary tradition, as do the styles of most of the associated artifacts. One diagnostic feature of each mortuary tradition is the form of the “false head” that tops each display layer. In the Paracas Necropolis mortuary pattern, a large wrapping cloth was passed under the bundle, drawn up the sides and stitched with cotton cords into a large bag-like form. One end extended to form a flap that was folded and bound with the same or similar cords used in the stitching to form a cylindrical “head,” and large zigzag stitches secured the folds around the sides of the bundle. In some cases, more cloth was added to create additional bulk at the peak of the bundle. Many “false head” layers were found adorned with headdress elements, and other garments and regalia had been placed and large mantles draped around the bundle below.

Bundles contemporary with late Paracas typically include large stylus-decorated sheet gold ornaments, placed in the first phase of ritual, as well as a distinctive group of headdress and garment styles. Tattooed and painted designs are commonly observed on both men and women in areas of the body where the skin is well preserved (Tomasto-Cagigao et al. 2013, Maita and Minaya 2014). Artifacts like netted scoops, bird-bone flutes and panpipes are found in both Cavernas and the early Necropolis gravelots. Most decorated textiles have Linear mode imagery. Bundles contemporary with early Nasca introduce the use of a large coiled basket to support the previously wrapped individual when new layers were added in subsequent phases of post-mortem ritual. Sheet gold ornaments are smaller and simpler. Male bundles are often crowned with a fox skin. New types of men’s headbands and garment forms appear, and proliferation of the Block Color embroidery style is accompanied by Nasca-related imagery.

The Necropolis textile assemblage is spectacular and diverse, suggesting incorporation of objects from many different workshop groups and some from other contemporary production traditions. Very large wrapping cloths exceed those of Paracas tradition contexts in both width and length, suggesting differences in both loom structure and the social organization of textile production. The fine weaves are fundamentally distinct. First, they are produced using either cotton or camelid hair, finely spun and woven as a balanced or slightly warp-dominant 1:1 plain weave. All yarns are 2-ply, S (2z), except for some tightly spun singles used in fine headcloths. Several different colors of natural cotton have been used to create different cloths included in a single mortuary bundle, and cotton color appears to co-vary with embroidery production style and imagery (Peters 2014).

Garments are designed on the loom, composed of fourselvage cloths woven to size. A garment may be constructed with one panel, or composed by two matching panels seamed together. Men’s wrap-around skirts are constructed of a single woven panel, and fastened with two diagonally interlaced ties. Large mantles may have embroidered borders stitched on narrow panels, woven to exactly match the length of the two panels that compose the central ground. Men’s tunics in the early Necropolis gravelots have two narrow warp-patterned bands appliquéd adjacent to the neck opening and two bands bordering the garment margins. Supplementary warps are substituted into a plain weave structure (Rowe 1977) to create images that are echoed in an adjacent embroidered “subborder,” as well as a matching mantle. Fringes are created with plied yarns or narrow woven strips.

A detailed contrast with the Paracas Tradition textile complex is beyond the scope of this essay, but it is important to note the nature of the distinctions. Paracas tradition textile design and decorative techniques are based upon a wide range of weave structures, such as warp-crossed gauze, sprang interlocking, looping, doublecloth, triplecloth and warp-patterning (King 1965; Frame 1986, 1995). The garments must have been produced by expert weavers on relatively narrow (probably backstrap) looms or other types of frames. The plain weaves are warp-dominant natural cotton, more densely woven and less flexible than the Necropolis plain weaves. Paracas tradition embroidery is stitched to create a structure like that of a warp or weft patterned band, with yarns running parallel to those of the underlying fabric and inserted at intervals determined by its thread count. In all these techniques, most elements of design and imagery of Paracas tradition textiles were structurally determined in the weaving process, while a large component of the design and most of imagery of Necropolis textiles is a post-structural creation in the hands of the embroiderers.

Dwyer (1971, 1979) and Paul (1990a) have defined a chronological sequence for the most elaborate burials documented by Tello and his team, based on the textile assemblage in each bundle. The Necropolis embroideries include several different styles, each with a history and evolution in its techniques and aesthetics that can be traced from gravelot to gravelot, or even within the textile assemblage of a single elaborate burial. The Linear mode typically employs running-stitch and whip-stitch, and is related in structure and iconography to contemporary Paracas Tradition embroidery, as well as other Paracas Tradition textile imagery (Rowe 2015). Men’s close-knotted headbands are closely related in design and techniques to those known from Cavernas and Ocucaje burials (Medina 2009). However, even in the early Necropolis gravelots the Linear embroideries and men’s headbands differ from those of the Paracas tradition in their yarn quality, range of colors, proportions and other specifics of technique and design. Several different production styles and image styles can be distinguished within a single gravelot (Peters 2012).

In later Necropolis burials, Linear mode embroideries are more standardized, and largely restricted to headcloths, women’s small mantles, and large mantles draped over the outer layer of elaborate male and female bundles. Except for some innovative styles in gravelots dated to Early Intermediate Period phase 1, Linear embroideries are designed around a 4-color contrast of dark blue, dark green, a strong yellow and strong reds. This same set of colors is used to weave the warppatterned bands that border women’s wrap-around dresses, large mantle-like garments that first appear in gravelots spanning the Paracas-Nasca transition (Peters 2016). Yarns and sets of colors like those used in the embroideries are used to create men’s headbands, wither in complex diagonal interlace (Frame 1991) or tubular looping (Peters 2016).

Block Color mode embroidery, based on a stem stitch, first appears in these “transitional” gravelots in Early Horizon 10B and Early Intermediate Period 1 and is related in iconography to both contemporary Paracas Tradition and early Nasca ceramics. Even more diverse in style, its variability within and among gravelots suggests that many different workshop traditions were linked by relationships of influence and exchange, with high value placed on innovation in the depiction of recurrent icons and complexity in overall textile design. Among examples from earlier gravelots, there is a range of strongly delineated, simple figures with 3-color or 4-color repetitions in the same colors used for the Linear Style (Peters 2016). Among these, Paul (1982) distinguished a Broad Line style with a particularly close relationship to contemporary Paracas Tradition textile iconography and design.

More complex figures appear on some embroideries in the Early intermediate Period burials, associated with a more diverse set of colors, different stitching patterns, and imagery more closely related to contemporary Nasca painted ceramics, decorated gourds and painted or embroidered textiles. New male garment types appear: the short open-sided tunic (esclavina, ponchito or inkuña) and the loincloth. As among the earlier burials, distinctions in both iconography and technical features suggest that diverse production groups have contributed analogous garments placed in the same mortuary bundle. Most of the embroideries probably were produced by the social groups represented in this cemetery population. Others incorporate features diagnostic of early Nasca ceramics, such as use of black, white and sometimes other colors to imitate color patterns in nature, and were probably produced by social groups more directly linked to the early Nasca tradition (fig. 3).

In later Necropolis gravelots, both cotton and camelid hair plain weaves are usually dyed, and the complex Block Color style predominates even on smaller and narrow-bordered garments. However, the most elaborate imagery appears on the large mantles, where color repeats and figure directionality across the central panel create another level of design complexity analogous to the yarn directions in diagonal interlace and interlinked textiles (Carrion 1931; Stafford 1941; Frame 1986, 1991). In the very late gravelots, all the large mantles carry complex polychrome Block Color images that bring together several of the iconic figures depicted on different garments in the earlier bundles. In some cases, different figures are linked together in elaborate images or juxtaposed on the borders and central panel of a large mantle. The numbers and diversity in garment types dwindle in the very late burials, and plain wrapping cloths and large embroidered mantles predominate in the textile assemblage. These complex Block Color figures have a strong relationship to the early Nasca style, in both iconography and style. The body of related imagery occurs on both early Nasca slip painted ceramics and on early Nasca embroidered or painted textiles. Painted textiles also have been found in at least two Necropolis burials. However, the specifics of color range, stitching, iconography and textile design separate the relatively small sample of early Nasca embroideries known to be from the Nasca valley from the majority of those in the late Necropolis burials (Sawyer 1996). It is difficult to judge the social significance of the diversity of styles at the Necropolis without comparable samples of known provenience. At this point, we can say that a few embroidered garments found in later burials are closely related to examples with Nasca Valley provenience.

The complex relationship between Paracas, Topará and early Nasca presents a fascinating problem in archaeological analysis. However, here I will focus on the social implications of the burial patterns at the Necropolis of Wari Kayán.

BURIAL COMPLEXITY AND SOCIAL STATUS

After a logistically challenging excavation of 429 graves in 1927 and 1928, the Paracas Necropolis became famous for the huge mortuary bundles carefully unwrapped by Tello and his National Museum research team at public events attended by members of the Lima intelligentsia, foreign scholars, the national press and members of the international diplomatic corps. Several intact bundles and an array of artifacts were sent to the Ibero-American Exposition in Seville in 1929, where they formed the core of the Peru exhibit. The Paracas site, along with Chavín, was showcased in Antiguo Perú, a popular book that Tello wrote for the 1929 Congress of Tourism (Tello 1929). Meanwhile, exquisite textiles looted from other sectors at the Paracas site prior to Tello’s excavations were on exhibit in museums in Europe and the United States, causing admiration and inspiring scholarly analysis (Means 1932; D’Harcourt 1934; Stafford 1941). Based on the large quantities of fine embroidered textiles wrapped around some elderly males, the regalia of the “Lords of Paracas” inspired comparison to the fine fragile materials preserved in the tomb of the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen.

Julio C. Tello died relatively young in 1947 before completing his great work on Paracas. The 1959 publication of a collection of his essays together with lithographs of textile images and selected artifacts was followed by a 1979 publication of Paracas site field and laboratory notes compiled by his principal field assistant, Toribio Mejía Xesspe. However, most notes on the Paracas Necropolis burials were never published, and the nature of the cemetery population remained a mystery. After the 2000 inventory of the Tello Archive at the Cultural Center of the National University of San Marcos, conducted by a team led by Pedro Novoa under the direction of Ruth Shady, and the 2005 inventory of the Mejía Archive at the Instituto Riva Agüero of the Catholic University of Peru, under the direction of archivist Ada Arrietta, we now have the data to reconstruct a picture of the Necropolis of Wari Kayán.

This is not a cemetery of Lords and their sacrificed retainers, nor is there evidence that it was an exclusive elite precinct like those identified for the later Moche on the north coast of Peru. Tello (1929, 1959) initially proposed that the Paracas site occupation areas constituted a ritual center dedicated to a regional mortuary cult. Paul (1990a), based on data from Engel (1966) proposed that it was a permanent fishing community and could have been the source of the cemetery population. However, the demographic profile and artifacts from the Necropolis of Wari Kayán are not consistent with the local cemetery of a wealthy fishing village on the Bay of Paracas. Based on the restudy of a sample of 10% of gravelots with previously opened mortuary bundles, comparisons with artifacts from that larger group and study of archival data, we have identified consistent patterns across the cemetery that allow us to develop new models of social organization, practices, statuses, and roles played in life and after death.

Archaeologists now concur in proposing that the Paracas Necropolis cemetery represents an “ancestral cult”-the product of practices shared by other contemporary societies and related to those documented for later Andean polities (Makowski 2000; Silverman 2000; DeLeonardis and Lau 2004; Peters 2007). By this, we mean that the formation of the mortuary bundles unearthed and analyzed by Tello and his research team can best be explained by a series of ritual practices honoring certain individuals after their death. Monuments, images and the physical preservation of ancestors is often important in societies where the social and political prominence of the living, including their claim to key lands and resources, are justified by their link to the deceased. However, there is no evidence to suggest that the Paracas Necropolis was associated with a state-type society or distinct social classes.

Based on a careful examination of the evidence recorded by Tello and the other researchers, as well as our ongoing study of artifacts and human remains from the Paracas Necropolis burials, I propose that social rank and power in the communities that contributed to the Paracas Necropolis cemetery was largely based on lifetime achievement within a network of sociopolitical relationships built by the previous generation. The cemetery was founded by a generation that established regional political hegemony associated with the Topará tradition in the Chincha and Pisco valleys, but did not create a highly centralized political structure. Conquest and intermarriage with Paracas tradition communities led to processes of social and technical innovation that were expressed differently in regional kinship-based polities. In the Ica and Nasca valley systems, a more even balance of power between social leaders associated with the Paracas and Topara traditions led to a different process of interaction, the development of the early Nasca tradition, and the emergence of a more centralized regional polity at Cahuachi.

Regional ceremonial centers each provided a physical context for integration of the social management of irrigated horticulture, herding and fishing. Both these activities and the production of textiles, ceramics, basketry, gourds, tools, weapons and musical instruments were organized by gender, age and ritual authority, and integrated into the equally gendered organization of social reproduction and warfare. Social leaders managed far-flung networks of alliance and exchange that facilitated travel and access to resources of practical and ritual importance, such as obsidian, metallic ores, other minerals, dyestuffs, Spondylus shell, other marine shell and bone, and the feathers of emblematic birds, as well as more constant circulation between the south coast and adjacent highland regions.

In this model, the Paracas site was the center of periodic ritual events for the purpose of interring and attending to deceased social leaders of the Paracas tradition. The reliable groundwater sources and rich maritime resources of the Bay of Paracas could sustain relatively large social gatherings. When Topará-associated populations established political dominance in the adjacent Pisco valley, they built their adobe-walled building complexes adjacent to the Paracas habitation and mortuary sectors, and established ritual hegemony by burying their dead in those sacred precincts. For several hundred years, the Paracas site was a center for funerary rites and attention to ancestors who continued to represent the power and history of the Topará tradition, but at the same time reflect interactions among socially and politically diverse communities across a wide geographic space. According to this model, we would expect both the cemetery and habitation areas to provide physical evidence of a long history of periodic ritual gathering, and the cemetery population to reflect social and cultural diversity in each generation as well as multi-centered processes of innovation and increasing Nasca hegemony. We would also expect an over-representation of high-ranking individuals in the cemetery population.

In the crowded Necropolis of Wari Kayán, larger and smaller bundles constructed around male and female individuals are found in close proximity. Most of the smallest bundles were not as well preserved and have not been the object of further study, but in the excavation process infant, juvenile and adult burials were registered. The archival data does not match the expected age curve for a prehistoric cemetery: adults and elders are over-represented (Peters and Tomasto-Cagigao 2016), indicating a cemetery used for special-purpose burials as well as for a more general population. When excavated, some small bundles retained a layer of hardened sand beneath, evidence that these represent a single phase of funerary ritual without subsequent manipulation of the bundle in other postmortem events. These gravelots often include offerings outside the bundle, including many full-sized EH 10 phase vessels, and are usually deeply interred.

Other small bundles were clustered above much larger mortuary bundles, as noted by Tello and Mejía in later publications. Some, like the restudied bundle WK 23, are Nasca-related gravelots late in the Necropolis sequence, placed after the deeper bundles below. However, others are associated with textiles from an earlier period than those that compose a large mortuary bundle interred beneath, and were set in mixed fill without any adjacent grave goods. These bundles may have been displaced during the excavation and placement of the later burial or may have been relocated from another area. Some bundles include more than one individual. Some, like the small bundle WK 138 (located in the fill above the large bundle WK155), are clearly secondary burials composed of fragmentary wrappings and incomplete human remains, product of the rewrapping of previously disturbed contexts. Clearly, spatial relations recorded in the cemetery on excavation in 1927-1928 are the product of a complex history of previous interventions.

For complex burials studied between 1927 and 1945 and those in our restudy sample, we have data on the full artifact assemblage recorded and registered in museum collections (see www.arqueología-paracas.net) and can evaluate whether spatially contiguous gravelots demonstrate a larger proportion of artifacts closely related in style and iconography. These may include aspects of artifact form and production practices with demonstrated temporal correlations (Peters 2016) as well as aspects of image style and iconography that may indicate closer social relationships. We have identified several contiguous pairs of gravelots that are contemporary and include groups of textiles and other artifacts extremely similar in style. The relationships are diverse. For instance, EH 10 contexts WK 113 and 114 are a woman and a man who both died in middle age and received similar treatment at the time of death, but the man’s bundle demonstrates a longer history of later additions and modifications (Peters 2011, 2014). EIP 1A contexts WK 24 and WK 26 are a complex bundle built around an elder man, next to a simpler bundle built around a relatively young man. EIP 1B contexts WK 188 and WK 190 (opened as 290: see Aponte 2006) are both middle-aged men, one of whom received far greater post-mortem honors.

At the same time, it is important to note that in the crowded cemetery each of these “pairs” is adjacent to many other gravelots, some of which include contemporary artifacts closely related in style and imagery, while others do not demonstrate a close relationship. Gravelots designated as EH 10, EIP 1 and even EIP 2 can be found juxtaposed. Textiles extremely similar in style and iconography are associated with mortuary bundles scattered across Sectors A and B, as well as the few documented bundles from other tomb clusters in the Cerro Colorado and Arena Blanca sectors. Weighing all the evidence now available, the Paracas Necropolis mortuary pattern involves both initial funerary rituals and the multi-phase ritual treatment and ultimate interment of ancestral bundles in scattered locations at the Paracas site throughout the several hundred years that span the ParacasNasca transition. In the Wari Kayán sectors, clusters of temporally and socially related burials can be indentified, but contemporary rituals involving closely related participants led to interment in different areas of the crowded Necropolis. Consanguine kinship relations remain to be defined: initial DNA extraction has been successful on 50% of the individuals in our restudy sample, but further analysis of a larger sample will be necessary to evaluate patterns of biological distance within the cemetery population.

Do the men and women interred in the Paracas Necropolis come from a culturally homogeneous population? Patterns of body modification indicate some diversity, as well as change over time. While Weiss (1961) and Tello and Mejía (1979) describe a characteristic annular form of cranial modification termed “Necrópolis,” both Weiss’ photographs indicate variable forms that appear to be the product of somewhat different head binding practices in infancy. Tattoo patterns for EH 10 individuals are quite different from those for individuals in later, Nasca-related gravelots. Dausse (2015) has integrated comparisons of cranial form in a sample of individuals from Paracas Cavernas and Necropolis with other observations of body treatments including tattooing, body painting, piercing, trepanation, hair arrangement and headdress form, over the lifetime and in the postmortem context.

Among the EH 10 and EIP 1 gravelots in our restudy sample, some individuals have a rather cylindrical elongated cranium, the ‘tabula cilindrica’ form while others have a more flattened forehead and occipital area-the ‘tabula erecta’ form also characteristic of many individuals in the Cavernas tombs. Among later EIP 1B and EIP 2 mortuary bundles in the restudy group, some individuals have a somewhat wider elongated cranium while others have a broad head with flattening at the frontal and occipital areas. These preliminary observations indicate that the individuals interred in the Necropolis of Wari Kayán did not all begin their lives in communities associated with the same cranial modification practices. I have proposed that the evidence to date is consistent with assimilation after infancy into a society defined by distinct cultural practices, whether through adoption, intermarriage or some other process that modified their social group affiliation prior to their death (Peters 2009). Study of a larger groups of individuals would provide better information on the full range of forms associated with men and women from each period, as well as associations with the diverse textile styles associated with each gravelot. In order to discuss cranial modification practices as an indicator of social diversity, more exact models based on three-dimensional tomography will be helpful, particularly in order to acquire comparable information for individuals who conserve hair arrangements and headdress elements.

Tello described the elaborate burials at the Necropolis as elders, with senile characteristics such as gray hair, closure of cranial sutures and alteration of the facial structure accompanying alveolar resorption after the loss of many teeth. This focus on cranial characteristics is typical of early 20th century physical anthropology, and reflects Tello’s interest in treatments of the head such as trepanation and cranial modification, both present at Paracas. As tooth loss often occurred in young adulthood in the Paracas populations and cranial modification affects suture closure, these practices do not form a reliable measure of calendar age at the time of death. In the restudy sample, those categorized as elderly by Tello, Mejía or Weiss (1961) died in their 40s or early 50s, based on current bioanthropological methods of age assessment (Tomasto-Cagigao et al. 2013; Peters and Tomasto-Cagigao 2016). Very few individuals lived longer. While the most elaborate mortuary bundles are associated with individuals who are old enough to have exercised important roles of social leadership and to have adult descendents, not all persons who died after the age of fifty received elaborate treatment after death, indicating that other achievements also were required for a high postmortem status.

Tello characterized all of the most elaborate burials as male, based on a consistent pattern observed in a series of large mortuary bundles unwrapped between 1927 and 1939. These complex bundles also were wholly or partially created in the Early Intermediate Period, and their size is due in part to the large coiled baskets that support their base. Only one prominent female gravelot of this period (WK 28) incorporates a funerary basket, and the most complex women’s bundles studied include relatively few layers reflecting different ritual events. The total number of artifacts in the largest female mortuary bundles averages about 25% of the quantity found in the largest contemporary male bundles. This indicates that postmortem ritual was more elaborate for male ancestors, which echoes the emphasis on masculine dress and artifacts in the Necropolis iconography. Most female burials do not include objects of the warrior-ritual complex (Peters 2000), such as slings, staffs, spear throwers and large feathered fans. Nor, however, do they include implements of textile production, such as the spindle whorls found in Cavernas and Ocucaje gravelots.

Gender marking in the Necropolis bundles is clear enough that in the 1930s Tello was able to select a series of female bundles for study based on their external features. Unfortunately, these studies were not published. Among the EH 10 gravelots, the outer display layer is ornamented with woven bands and embroidered mantles, as well as sets of triangular feathered skin ornaments. Certain tattooing patterns have only been observed on women, and in the first phase of funerary ritual certain women were adorned with a set of sheet gold face ornaments. Women’s bundles include dresses with warp-patterned borders and distinctive headcloths (Peters and Tomasto-Cagigao 2016). In the later EIP 1 and 2 gravelots, feathered hairpieces crown relatively elaborate mortuary bundles associated with both men and women. There is ample evidence that some women played an important ritual role in death. As in the case of men, this likely bears a relationship to their social and ritual leadership in life (fig. 4).

Male burials are associated with a series of weapons and other physical evidence of a social role as warrior. Objects such as a bundle of cane spears (buried without their obsidian points in this cemetery), one or more polished wooden lances and spear-throwers, a stone-headed club, and a tendon-bound stave are typical of adult male burials. Elder male burials also contain these objects. In some cases the objects are in excellent condition, but in other cases they are quite deteriorated and were probably buried many years after they were originally made and used. Some young adult men and elder men exhibit depressed fractures of the face and fractures of the cranial vault, a pattern likely to indicate participation in violent encounters. The Paracas Cavernas population is famous for surgical trepanation-perforation of the skull performed here by lifting a flap of skin and carefully scraping the bone, probably with an obsidian blade. Four cases have been noted to date in the Necropolis cemetery, all individuals identified as male. Relatively young men buried with weapons may also demonstrate special treatment at the time of death, such as an elaborate headdress arranged postmortem.

A fairly standard set of feathered regalia appears in the elaborate male burials, concentrated on the outermost decorative, or display layer. This includes feathered pins or penachos, feathered fans with a reed handle, a foxskin decorated with feathers at the ears and feet, and an open-sided tunic, termed ‘cassock’ by Tello (see Peters and Tomasto-Cagigao 2016). A stone-headed club or spear thrower may be present. Short tendon-bound staffs in some cases incorporate rings of feathers and human hair. These objects are frequently depicted being worn and carried by figures in the embroidered images.

The elaborate Block Color embroideries depict a dazzling array of figures wearing and carrying fans and staffs, tabbed tunics and feathered headdresses, ranging from those which appear human to those incorporating attributes of plants or of major animal predators of land, sea and sky (Peters 1991). Body position is important also, combining with clusters of attributes in recurrent figure types, which have been categorized as warriors, shamans (Paul and Turpin 1986) and supernaturals, or considered as a series of transformations from life to death and ancestral status (Frame 2001). The embroidered images certainly depict artifacts present among the ancestral bundles, although the particular forms of garments, headdresses, sheet gold ornaments and weapons depicted often resemble those physically present at an earlier period.

Yacovleff (1933) identified feathers from a range of Andean and Amazonian species in the Necropolis regalia. While the species names have changed in some cases, restudy of these feathered objects by Enrique Angulo has generally confirmed Yacovleff’s identifications. However, on correlating his data with our information on textile style and other indicators of temporal sequence, new information emerges. Feathers from the blue-and-yellow macaw (Ara ararauna) are present in EH 10 gravelots such as WK 114, and at Ocucaje (Rowe 2012). In contrast, the Nasca-related mortuary bundles of EIP 1 tend to be adorned with the feathers of raptors such as hawks and condors (Vultur gryphus) or social tropical forest species such as mealy parrots (Amazona sp.) and oropéndula (Psarocolius sp.). Yellow feathers in the later bundles are often from water birds such as egrets or flamingos and have evidently been dyed. While this changing pattern may reflect changes in long-distance travel or exchange, emblematic associations for certain species are suggested by the importance of hawks and condors in early Nasca imagery, including contemporary textiles from the Necropolis gravelots.

The design of textile imagery suggests that ritual authority was closely integrated with the process of creating the garments placed in each mortuary bundle. Icons depicted on the Necropolis textiles can be traced in both Linear and Block Color mode imagery (Paul 1986), and the same icon recurs in many gravelots with different production practices and image styles, as an independent figure or part of a more complex image. While very similar figures may recur in garment sets within one gravelot or in closely related burials, images are not produced in a standard series reflecting a fixed canon. Rather, their variability suggests a process of inspirational redesign, in which the reproduction of a particular icon on a mantle or garment set is based on the observation of previous examples but represents a new interpretation. Periodic gatherings involving the display and re-dressing of mortuary bundles would provide the occasion for the affirmation and renewal of the ritual authority involved in textile design. This may also explain why cloth ‘samplers’ with an array of stitched figures to be copied have been found in Cavernas and early Nasca contexts, but not in the Necropolis assemblage.

A FEW CONCLUSIONS

The Paracas Necropolis can best be analyzed as a mortuary tradition defined by a set of consistent practices that were reproduced over generations and differed in important ways from contemporary mortuary traditions of nearby and related communities, such as the Cavernas and Ocucaje tombs. Despite these continuities and the strict adherence to funerary wares of the Topará tradition-even when these no longer resembled the vessels used by the living-both the types of artifacts included in each burial and the style and techniques of their production changed a great deal during the creation and maintenance of the Necropolis of Wari Kayán. In the early burials, artifacts and even the treatment of the human body demonstrate strong relationships with contemporary Paracas Tradition communities, although the garments that predominate in Necropolis mortuary bundles have features that distinguish them from those of the neighbors. In the later burials, many different artifact styles demonstrate the influence of the emergent and developing Nasca tradition. Certain garments in gravelots from every period have been created in techniques and styles more characteristic of lower Ica and the Nasca valley system.

While the objects associated with a particular burial are highly likely to bear a relationship to the social role of that individual at the time of their death, they have been contributed to the tomb by a persons and groups that came together to mourn and honor that individual. The large quantities of fine artifacts, particularly textiles, contributed to a burial over time are considered to be evidence for the social power of a biological and socially defined descent group associated with that individual. Since elaborate funerary bundles were constructed-in some cases on repeated occasions-for display, the ritual associations of the gravelot assemblage would be related to social roles played by the deceased in the politics of later generations. The most elaborate burials may include the founders and leaders of descent groups, whose elaborate postmortem treatment both honored their achievements in life and reified the authority exercised by living leaders of the subsequent generations.

One of the mysteries of the Paracas Necropolis is the lack of comparable cemetery assemblages in the region where the recurrence of textile styles and other artifact types could be traced. Certainly organic preservation is one factor: the region has many elaborate tombs where few if any evidence of textiles is preserved. The ravages of looters have churned up many other cemeteries, destroying all evidence for context, the bodies, and many fragile artifacts. During this period, elaborate burials were no doubt maintained in other places around the south coast-and in the neighboring highlands. However, as I evaluate the evidence from the archival documents created in the excavation processes, gravelots studied in the 20th century and restudy of the artifacts and human remains, it seems likely that Tello was correct in interpreting the Paracas site as a regional center for mortuary ritual, perhaps the most important center for the Topará tradition.

The social power expressed by material accumulation at the Necropolis de Wari Kayán marks a specific historic process, bracketed by the initial displacement and cooptation of the earlier Paracas tradition occupation and the slow eclipse and transformation of the Topará tradition under the growing influence of the Nasca polity. The outstanding Paracas Necropolis textile assemblage is here considered a product of the powers of social mobilization for production, exchange, and ritual managed by the high ranking persons who produced this cemetery and were interred in it. Neither a local community nor an elite enclave, the social and political power expressed in the complex Necropolis burials is best understood as an antecedent to that of later Andean curacas, leaders of a social network of allied and rival corporate groups defined in kinship terms. Gendered roles in production, exchanges of persons and objects, clashes between warriors, and alliances mediated by ritual practice are all essential to explain the rise and fall of Topará Tradition hegemony, two thousand years ago, in the socially and culturally diverse landscape of the South Central Andes.

Acknowledgements

This essay is based in part on an introduction to Paracas Necropolis developed for the catalogue of the exhibit Mantos para la Eternidad at the Museo de América in Madrid (Peters 2009). It has been extensively revised in order to incorporate information generated by a research project supported by the National Science Foundation (2010-2014), carried out in the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Arqueología e Historia del Perú, the Museo Inka of the Universidad Nacional San Antonio Abad of Cusco, the Museo Regional de Ica “Adolfo Bermundez Jenkins”, the Tello Archive of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, the Mejía Xesspe Archive at the Instituto Riva-Agüero of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, the American Museum of Natural History and the Peabody Museum of Ethnology and Archaeology of Harvard University. This project was directed by the author with bio-archaeologist Elsa Tomato-Cagigao, and analysis was carried out with the collaboration of anthropologists Mellisa Lund and Richard Sutter, textile conservators Carmen Carranza, Luis Alberto Peña and Andrés Shiguekawa, registrar Anita Graciela Murga, archival researcher Luis Alberto Ayarza, veterinarian and archaeo-zoologist Enrique Angulo, and ceramics analyst Vanessa Tinteroff. Our work has also benefited from research and publication by other colleagues during this period: their recent contributions are cited in References.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ESSAYS

 

Aponte, D., 2006. Presentación de los materiales del fardo funerario 290 de Wari Kayán, Paracas Necrópolis. Arqueológicas 27: 9-99. Lima: Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, Instituto Nacional de Cultura.

Arellano Hoffmann, C., 2007. Prólogo. En Hilos del pasado.

El aporte francés al legado Paracas, pp. 15-20. Lima: Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, Fundación FrancoPeruana, Embajada de Francia.

—– 2009. Paracas y Julio C. Tello: Apuntes sobre su descubrimiento e investigaciones. En Mantos para la eternidad: Textiles Paracas del Antiguo Perú, pp. 19-26.

Madrid: Museo de América.

—– 2012. Perú: El Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia como espejo de la historia y sociedad peruana. Revista Museos 30: 25-33, Santiago de Chile.

Astuhuamán Gonzáles, C. & R. E. Daggett, 2006. Julio

César Tello Rojas: Arqueólogo. Una biografía. En Julio C.

Tello, Paracas. Primera parte, pp. 1-48. Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.

Bird, J. & L. Bellinger, 1954. Paracas fabrics and Nazca needlework; 3rd century B.C.-3rd century A.D. Catalogue Raisonné of TheTextile Museum. Washington, D.C.: National Publishing Company.

Bueno Sánchez, G., 2006. Congreso Internacional de Americanistas 1875- en <http://www.filosofia.org/ e/001/ a051.htm> [Consultado: 20/04/2009].

Burger, R. L., 1992. Chavín and the Origins of Andean Civilization. New York: Thames and Hudson.

Carrión Cachot, R., 1931. La indumentaria en la antigua cultura de Paracas. Wira Kocha: Revista Peruana de Estudios Antropológicos 1 (1): 37-86.

Cerrón-Palomino, R., 2013. Las lenguas de los incas: el puquina, el aimara y el quechua. Sprachen, Gesellschaften und Kulturen in Lateinamerika, 13. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

Daggett, R. E., 1991. Paracas. Discovery and Controversy.

En Paracas Art & Architecture: Object and Context in South Coastal Peru, A. Paul, Ed., pp. 35-60. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

Dausse, L., 2015. Étude des déformations crâniennes intentionnelles dans la culture Paracas (800 avant-100 après J.C.) : les contextes funéraires de Cerro Colorado, côte Sud du Pérou. Thèse de doctorat en Archéologie, ethnologie, préhistoire, Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne.

Deleonardis, L. & G. F. Lau, 2004. Life, death and ancestors. En Andean Archaeology, H. Silverman, Ed., pp. 77-115. London: Blackwell.

Desrosiers, S., 2013. El textil como matriz para el desarrollo de las artes plásticas en los Andes. En Tecnología y cultura en los Andes, dossier monográfico, Revista Española de Antropología Americana 43 (2): 477-514. Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

D’Harcourt, R., 1934. Textiles anciens du Pérou, et leurs techniques. Paris: Les Éditions d’Art et d’Histoire.

—– 1962. Textiles of ancient Peru and their techniques. New York: Dover Publications.

Dwyer, J. P., 1971. Chronology and Iconography of late Paracas and early Nasca textile designs. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California Berkeley.

—– 1979. The chronology and iconography of Paracasstyle textiles. En The Junius B. Bird Pre-Columbian Textile Conference, A. P. Rowe, E. B. Benson & A.-L. Schaffer, Eds., pp. 105-128. Washington, D.C.: The Textile Museum & Dumbarton Oaks.

Emery, I., 1980. The primary structures of fabrics.

Washington, D.C.: TheTextile Museum.

Engel, F., 1966. Paracas, cien siglos de cultura peruana. Lima: Mejía Baca.

Fehren-Schmitz, L.; S. Hummel & B. Herrmann, 2009. Who were the Nasca? Population dynamics in pre-Columbian Southern Peru revealed by ancient DNA analysis. En New technologies for Archaeology.

Multidisciplinary investigations in Palpa and Nasca, Peru, M. Reindel & G. Wagner, Eds., pp. 159-172. Berlin/ Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Frame, M., 1986. The visual images of fabric structures in ancient Peruvian art. En The Junius B. Bird Conference on Andean Textiles. April 7th and 8th, 1984, A. P. Rowe, Ed., pp.

47-80. Washington, D.C.: TheTextile Museum.

—– 1991. Structure, image and abstraction: The Paracas

Necropolis Headbands and System Templates. En Paracas

Art & Architecture: Object and Context in South Coastal Peru, A. Paul, Ed., pp. 109-171. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

—– 1995. Ancient Peruvian Mantles. 300 B.C.-A.D. 200. Catálogo de Exposición, Feb. 23-Aug. 13. New York: The Met opolitan Museum of Art.

—– 1996. Late Nasca tassels. En Andean Art at Dumbarton Oaks, Vol. 2, E. Boone, Ed., pp. 365-373. Washington, D.C.:

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.

—– 1999a. Textiles de Estilo Nasca / Nasca Style textiles. En Tejidos milenarios del Perú / Ancient Peruvian Textiles, J.

310. Lavalle & R. de Lavalle, Eds., pp. 261- 310. Lima: Banco de Crédito del Perú.

—– 1999b. Nasca-Huari y otros textiles de la costa sur / Nasca-Huari and other South Coast textiles. En Tejidos milenarios del Perú / Ancient Peruvian Textiles, J. A. Lavalle & R. de Lavalle, Eds., pp. 261-310. Lima: Banco de Crédito del Perú.

—– 2001. Blood, fertility and transformation: Interwoven themes in the Paracas Necropolis embroideries. En Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru. New Discoveries and Interpretations, E. P. Benson & A. G. Cook, Eds., pp. 55-92. Austin: University of Texas Press.

—– 2007. Las prendas bordadas de la necrópolis de Wari Kayán. En Hilos del pasado. El aporte francés al legado

Paracas, pp. 65-73. Lima: Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, Fundación Franco-Peruana, Embajada de Francia. —- 2009. Desenvolviendo las dimensiones de significado de los bordados de Paracas Necrópolis. En Mantos para la eternidad. Textiles Paracas del Antiguo Perú, pp. 45-58. Madrid: Museo de América, Ministerio de Cultura de España, Instituto Nacional de Cultura del Perú.

Fux, P.; M. Sauerbier, T. Kersten, M. Lindstaedt & H.

Eisenweiss, 2009. Perspective and contrasts:

Documentation and interpretation of the Petroglyphs of Chichictara, using terrestrial laser scanning and image based 3-D modeling. En New Technologies for Archaeology. Multidisciplinary investigations in Palpa and Nasca, Peru, M. Reindel & G. Wagner, Eds., pp. 359-377. Berlin/ Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Isla, J., 2009. From hunters to regional lords: Funerary practices in Palpa, Peru. En New Technologies for Archaeology. Multidisciplinary investigations in Palpa and Nasca, Peru, M. Reindel & G. Wagner, Eds., pp. 119-139. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Isla, J. & M. Reindel, 2007. Los Paracas del Sur. Una nueva perspectiva desde los valles de Palpa. En Hilos del pasado. El aporte francés al legado Paracas, pp. 79-91. Lima: Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, Fundación Franco-Peruana, Embajada de Francia.

Jiménez, M. J., 2004. Tejidos y mundo textiles en los

Andes Centrales y Centro-Sur a través de la colección del Museo de América de Madrid: Periodos Prehispánico y Colonial. Tesis Doctoral, Dpto. Historia de América II (Antropología de América). Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

—– 2009. Tradición de Tradiciones. Tejidos prehispánicos y virreinales de los Andes Centrales y Centro-Sur. La colección del

Museo de América. Madrid: Subdirección General de Museos

Estatales, Ministerio de Cultura

—– 2013. Tecnología y cultura en los Andes: Una breve introducción. En Tecnología y cultura en los Andes, dossier monográfico , Revista Española de Antropología Americana 43 (2): 471-475. Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

King, M. E., 1965. Textiles and Basketry of the Paracas

Period, Ica Valley, Peru. PhD Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson. Ann Arbor: Univeristy of Michigan.

Lambers, K. & M. Sauerwein, 2009. Context matters:

GIS-based spatial analysis of the Nasca Geoglyphs of Palpa. En New Technologies for Archaeology. Multidisciplinary investigations in Palpa and Nasca, Peru, M. Reindel & G. Wagner, Eds., pp. 321-338. Berlin/Heidelberg: SpringerVerlag.

Lanning, E. P., 1960. Chronological and cultural relationships of early pottery styles in ancient Peru. PhD. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.Lechtman, H., 1977. Style in technology – Some early thoughts. En Material culture: Styles, organization and dynamics of technology, H. Lechtman & R. Merrill, Eds., pp. 3-20.

Minnesota: West Publishing Co.

—– 1996. Cloth and metal: The culture of technology. En Andean Art at Dumbarton Oaks, E. Boone, Ed., pp. 33-44. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.

León Canales, E., 2007. Cronología de los fardos funerarios de Wari Kayán, Paracas. En Hilos del pasado. El aporte francés al legado Paracas, pp. 33-47. Lima: Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, Fundación Franco-Peruana, Embajada de Francia.

—– 2013. La cultura Paracas. En Paracas, pp. 11-26. Lima: Ministerio de Cultura, Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú.

Levillier, J., 1928. Paracas: A contribution to the study of pre-Incaic textiles in Ancient Peru. Paris: Librería HispanoAmérica.

Lumbreras, L. G., 2008. La présence de Paracas à Chincha. En Paracas, trésors inédits du Pérou ancien, pp. 34-39. Paris: Musée de quai Branly.

Mächtle, B.; B. Eitel, G. Schukraft & K. Ross, 2009. Built on Sand: Climatic oscillation and water harvesting during the Late Intermediate Period. En New Technologies for Archaeology. Multidisciplinary investigations in Palpa and Nasca, Peru, M. Reindel & G. Wagner, Eds., pp. 39-46. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Maita, P. K. & E. Minaya, 2014. El trauma en la piel:

Un análisis paleopatológico de tatuajes Paracas-Necrópolis. Jangwa Pana. Revista de la Facultad de Humanidades 13: 1433. Santa Marta: Universidad de Magdalena.

Makowski, K., 2000. Los seres sobrenaturales en la iconografía Paracas y Nasca. En Los dioses del Antiguo Perú, K. Makowski, Ed., pp. 277-323. Lima: Banco de Crédito.

Makowski, K.; A. Rosenzweig & M. J. Jiménez, 2006.

Weaving for the after Life. Peruvian Textiles from the Maiman Collection. Herzliya Pituach: Maiman Collection.

Mannheim, B. & G. Salas Carreño, 2015. Wak’as: Entifications of the Andean Sacred. En The Archaeology of Wak’as. Explorations of the sacred in the pre-Columbian Andes, T. Bray, Ed., pp. 47-72. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.

Means, P. A., 1932. A study of Peruvian textiles, illustrated by representative examples in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts.

Medina, M. Y., 2009. Pervivencia de la función y tecnología en los llautus: De Cavernas hacia Wari Kayán. En Julio C. Tello, Paracas Cavernas. Cuaderno de Investigación del Archivo Tello 7, pp. 11-15. Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.

Menzel, D.; J. H. Rowe & L. E. Dawson, 1964.

The Paracas Pottery of Ica: A Study in Style and Time.

University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, 50. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Museo Chileno deArte Precolombino, 2015.

Mantos funerarios de Paracas: Ofrendas para la vida/ Paracas Funerary mantles: Offerings for life. Catálogo de exhibición. Santiago: Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino.

Paul, A., 1979. Paracas textiles selected from the

Museum’s collections. Göteborg: Göteborgs Etnographiska Museum.

—– 1982. The chronological relationship of the Linear, Block Color and Broad Line styles of Paracas embroidered images. En Pre-Columbian Art History: Selected Readings, A. Cordy-Collins, Ed., pp. 255-277. Palo Alto:

Peek Publications.

—– 1985. Identifying hands at work on a Paracas mantle. TheTextile Museum Journal 18: 5-18. Washington, D.C.: TheTextile Museum.

—– 1986. Continuity in Paracas textile iconography and its implications for the meaning of Linear Style images. En The Junius B. Bird Conference on Andean Textiles. April 7th and 8th, 1984, A. P. Rowe, Ed., pp. 81-99 Washington, D.C.: TheTextile Museum.

—– 1990a. Paracas ritual attire. Symbols of authority in ancient Peru. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

—– 1990b. The use of color in Paracas Necropolis fabrics: What does it reveal about the organization of dyeing, designing and society? National Geographic Research 6 (1): 7-21.

—– 1991a. Paracas: An Ancient Cultural Tradition on the South Coast of Peru. En Paracas Art & Architecture:

Object & Context in South Coastal Peru, A. Paul, Ed., pp.

1-34. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

—– 1991b. Radiocarbon dates for Paracas. En Paracas Art & Architecture: Object & Context in South Coastal Peru, A.

Paul, Ed., pp. 22-53. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. —– 1991c. Paracas Necropolis Burial 89. En Paracas Art & Architecture: Object & Context in South Coastal Peru, A. Paul, Ed., pp. 171-221. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. —– 1992. Paracas Necropolis Textiles: Symbolic visions of coastal Peru. En The ancient Americas. Art from Sacred landscapes, R. Townsend, Ed., pp. 279-290. Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago.

—– 1996. Paracas textiles. En Andean Art at Dumbarton Oaks, pp. 347-363. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Libraries and Collections.

—– 2000. Protective perimeters: The symbolism of borders on Paracas textiles. RES. Anthropology and Aesthetics 38: 144167. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.

—– 2002 Ms. Why embroidery? An answer from the Ancient Andes. Ponencia presentada al 8º Congreso Bianual de la Textile Society of America, Northampton, Massachussets, 26-28 septiembre, 2002.

Paul, A. & S. Turpin, 1986. The ecstatic shaman theme of Paracas textiles. Archaeology 39 (5):20-27.

Peters, A. H., 1991. Ecology and society in embroidered images from the Paracas Necrópolis. En Paracas Art & Architecture: Object & Context in South Coastal Peru, A. Paul, Ed., pp. 240-314. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. —– 1997. Paracas, Topará and Early Nasca: Ethnicity and society on the South Central Andean coast. PhD thesis, Department of Anthropology, Cornell University, Ithaca. —– 2000. Funerary regalia and institutions of leadership in Paracas and Topará. Chungara 32 (2): 245-252. —– 2004. Cabeza y tocado: Significados en Paracas, Topará y Nasca. En Tejiendo sueños en el Cono Sur. Textiles andinos: Pasado, presente y futuro, Actas del simposio ARQ-21, LI Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, 2003, V. Solanilla, Ed., pp. 144-166.

Barcelona: Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. —— 2007. La necrópolis de Wari Kayán. En Hilos del pasado. El aporte francés al legado Paracas, pp. 23-32. Lima: Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, Fundación Franco-Peruana, Embajada de Francia. —– 2009. El cementerio de Paracas Necrópolis: Un mapa social complejo. En Mantos para la eternidad. Textiles Paracas del Antiguo Perú, pp. 27-44. Madrid: Museo de América, Ministerio de Cultura de España, Instituto Nacional de Cultura del Perú.

—– 2010-2014. Paracas Necropolis Research Resources <http://www. arqueologia-paracas.net/> Online platform for a database that synthesizes archival information on the Paracas Necropolis mortuary contexts and a blog describing the research activities and collaborations of the project “Practice in Life, Presence after Death: Style and Substance at the Paracas Necrópolis”.

[Consultada: 17/02/2016].

—– 2011. Diversidad en el componente textil y modelos de las relaciones sociales: Un ejemplo de Paracas Necrópolis. En Actas de las V Jornadas Internacionales sobre Textiles Precolombinos, 29 de noviembre–1 de diciembre, 2010, pp. 231- 256.

Barcelona: Centre D’Estudis Precolombins.

—– 2012. Identity, Innovation and Textile Exchange

Practices at the Paracas Necropolis, 2000 BP. En Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings. Paper 726. <http:// digitalcommons.unl.edu/tsaconf/726> [Consultada:

17/02/2016].

—– 2014. Paracas Necropolis: Communities of textile production, exchange networks and social boundaries in the central Andes, 150 BC to AD 250. En Textiles, Technical Practice and Power in the Andes, D. Arnold & P. Dransart, Eds., pp. 109-139. London: Archetype.

—– 2016 (in press). Emblematic uses of colour in the Paracas Necropolis mortuary tradition. Amerindian Textiles in Colour; Nuevo Mundo mundos nuevos <http:// nuevomundo.revues.org/>

Peters, A. & E. Tomasto-Cagigao, 2016 (in press). Masculinities and femininities: Forms and expressions of power in the Paracas Necropolis. En Dressing the Part: Power, Dress, Gender, and Representation in the Pre-Columbian Americas, S. Scher & B. Follensbee, Eds.

Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

Pozzi-Escot, D. & M. Merino, 2008. La collection Paracas de Julio C. Tello au Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú. En Paracas, trésors inédits du Pérou ancien, pp. 27-33. Paris: Musée du quai Branly.

Rago, D. R. & P. P. Alayza, 2010. La ilustración arqueológica de Pedro Rojas Ponce. Lima: Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano.

Reindel, M., 2009. Life at the edge of the desert. Archaeological reconstruction of the settlement history in the valleys of Palpa, Peru. En New technologies for

Archaeology. Multidisciplinary investigations in Palpa and Nasca, Peru, M. Reindel & G. Wagner, Eds., pp. 439-461. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Reindel, M. & G.Wagner (Eds.), 2009. New technologies for Archaeology. Multidisciplinary investigations in Palpa and Nasca, Peru. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Rowe, A. P., 1972. Interlocking warp and weft in the Nasca 2 Style. TheTextile Museum Journal III (3): 67-78.

Washington, D.C.: TheTextile Museum.

—- 2012. Early Featherwork from Ocucaje. In Peruvian Featherworks, Art of the Precolumbian Era, H. King, Ed., pp.

45-53. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. —– 2015 (in press). The Linear Mode Revisited, Ñawpa Pacha 36.

Rowe, A. P. & J. Bird, 1980-1981. Ancient peruvian gauze looms. The Textile Museum Journal 19-20: 27-34. Washington, D.C.: TheTextile Museum.

Rubini, A. & L. Dawson, 1957-1960 Ms. Notes on burials excavated at Ocucaje and photographs of the Rubini Collection. Lawrence E. Dawson papers, BANC MSS 95/21 c, The Banc oft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Sawyer, A. R., 1997. Early Nasca needlework. London:

Lawrence King.

 Silverman, H., 1994. Paracas in Nazca; New data on the Early Horizon occupation of the Rio Grande de Nazca drainage, Peru. Latin American Antiquity 5 (4): 359-382. Stafford, C. E., 1941. Paracas embroideries: A study of repeated patterns. New York: J. J. Augustin.

Stone-Miller, R. (Ed.), 1994. To weave for the Sun: ancient

Andean textiles in the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston. New York: Thames and Hudson.

Strelow, R., 1996. Gewebe mit unterbrochenen ketten aus dem vorspanischen Peru / Pre-Hispanic Peruvian with discontinuous warp and weft textiles. Berlin: Museum für Völkerkunde, Abteilung Amerikanische Archäologie.

Tantaleán, H.; C. Stanish, M. Zegarra, K. Pérez & B. Nigra, 2013. Paracas en el valle de Chincha: Nuevos datos y explicaciones. Boletín de Arqueología PUCP 17: 31-57, Lima.

Tello, J. C., 1926. Los descubrimientos del Museo de Arqueología Peruana en la Península de Paracas. En Atti del XXII Congresso Internazionale degli Americanisti, tomo I, pp.

679-690, Roma.

—– 1929. Antiguo Perú. Primera época. Lima: Comisión Organizadora del Segundo Congreso Sudamericano de Turismo.

—– 1959. Paracas. Primera parte. Publicación del proyecto 8b del programa 1941-1942 del Institute of Andean Research of New York. Lima: Scheuch. —– 2005. Paracas. Primera parte. Colección Clásicos Sanmarquinos, obras completas, vol. 2. Lima: Universidad Alas Peruanas, Corporación Financiera de Desarrollo, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.

Tello, J. C. & T. Mejía Xesspe, 1979. Paracas,

Segunda parte: Cavernas y Necrópolis. Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos y The Institute of Andean Research of New York.

Tello, J. C. & C. Sotelo Sarmiento, 2009. Paracas Cavernas. Cuaderno del Archivo Tello 7. Lima: Museo de Arqueología y Antropología, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.

—– 2012. Wari Kayán. Cuaderno del Archivo Tello 9. Lima: Museo de Arqueología y Antropología, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. Thays, C., 2007 . La anastilosis en textiles: la restauración de los tejidos Paracas. El aporte francés para su recuperación. En Hilos del pasado. El aporte francés al legado Paracas, pp. 49-63. Lima: Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Museo Nacional de

Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, Fundación Franco-Peruana, Embajada de Francia. —– 2008. La conservation et la restauration des textiles Paracas. En Paracas, trésors inédits du Pérou ancien, pp. 58-63. Paris: Musée de quai Branly. —– 2010. La restauración de los tejidos Paracas del Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú. En Jornadas Internacionales sobre conservación de tejidos procedentes de contextos funerarios., pp. 27-40. Online <http:// www.mecd.gob.es/museodeamerica/dms/museos/ museodeamerica/coleccion/publicaciones/ conservacion-de-tejidos/conservacion%20de% 20tejidos. pdf> [Consultado: 17/02/16] Madrid:

Museo de América, Ministerio de Cultura de España.

Tomasto-Cagigao, E., 2009. Talking bones:

Bioarchaeological analysis of individuals from Palpa. En New technologies for Archaeology. Multidisciplinary investigations in Palpa and Nasca, Peru, M. Reindel y G. Wagner, Eds., pp. 141- 158. Berlin/Heidelberg: SpringerVerlag.

Tomasto-Cagigao, E.; A. Peters, M. Lund & A.

Ayarza, 2013. Body modification at Paracas Necropolis

(South Coast of Peru ca. 2000 BP), En Tattoos and Body

Modifications in Antiquity. Proceedings of the sessions at the

EAA annual meetings in The Hague and Oslo, 2010-2011, P. Della Casa & C. Witt, Eds., pp. 49-58. Zurich: Zurich Studies in Archaeology 9.

Tung, T. & A. G. Cook, 2006. Intermediate Elite Agency in the Wari Empire: The Bioarchaeological and Mortuary Evidence. En Intermediate Elites in Pre-Columbian States and Empires, C. Elson & A. Covey, Eds., pp. 68-93. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Unkel, I. & B. Kromer, 2009. The Clock in the Corn Cob:

On the Development of a Chronology of the Paracas and Nasca Period Based on Radiocarbon Dating. En New

technologies for Archaeology. Multidisciplinary investigations in Palpa and Nasca, Peru, M. Reindel & G. Wagner, Eds., pp. 231-245. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. Velarde, L., 1999. La transición Paracas-Nasca en el valle de Chincha. En L’Amerique du Sud: des chasseurs-cuilleurs à l’Empire Inca. Acte des journées d’étude d’archéologie précolombienne, Genève, 10-11 Octobre 1997, A. Chevalier, L. Velarde & I. Chenal-Velarde, Eds., pp. 66-77. Oxford: BAR International Series 746.

Wallace, D., 1971. Sitios arqueológicos del Perú (segunda entrega): Valles de Chincha y de Pisco. Translation by Luis Watanabe Matsukura.

Arqueológicas 13. Lima: Museo Nacional de

Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, Instituto Nacional de Cultura.

—– 1986. The Topará Tradition: An Overview. En Perspectives on Andean Prehistory and Protohistory. Papers from the third annual Northeast Conference on Andean Archaeology and Ethnohistory, D. H. Sandweiss & P. Kvietok, Eds., pp. 35-62. Ithaca: Latin American Studies Program at Cornell University.

—– 1991. A technical and iconographic analysis of

Carhua painted textiles. En Paracas Art & Architecture:

Object & context in south coast of Peru, A. Paul, Ed., pp. 61-109. Iowa: University of Iowa Press.

Weiss, P., 1961. Osteología cultural. Prácticas cefálicas. Segunda Parte. Anales de la Facultad de Medicina 44: 133 277, Lima.

Yacovleff, E., 1933. Arte plumaria entre los antiguos peruanos. Revista del Museo Nacional 2 (2): 137-158, Lima.

Yacovleff, E. & J. C. Muelle, 1932. Una exploración en Cerro Colorado. Revista del Museo Nacional 1 (2):

31-59, Lima.

—– 1934a. Un fardo funerario de Paracas. Revista del Museo Nacional 3 (1-2): 63-153, Lima.

—– 1934b. Notas al trabajo “Colorantes de Paracas”.

Revista del Museo Nacional 3 (1-2): 154-168, Lima.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Carmen Arellano Hoffmann es miembro de número de la Academia Nacional de la Historia del Perú. Fue directora del Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú. Ha trabajado como asistente de curador en el Linden Museum de Stuttgart (Alemania); fue docente de la Universidad Católica de Eichstätt (Alemania) y curadora para América Latina del National Museum of the American Indian de la Smithsonian Institution. Estudió historia en la Universidad Católica del Perú y obtuvo su maestría y doctorado en antropología cultural de la Universidad de Bonn en 1987. En su carrera profesional se ha abocado a la investigación etnohistórica sobre la sierra central peruana, a los estudios sobre los sistemas de notación andinos y a la cosmovisión indígena. Ha realizado trabajos de campo, tanto arqueológicos como antropológicos, en el Perú, México, Guatemala, Chile y Brasil. Ha consultado importantes archivos históricos y tiene varias publicaciones sobre temas referentes principalmente a la etnohistoria de la sierra central y sistemas de notación andinos.

María Jesús Jiménez Díaz es doctora en antropología de América por la Universidad Complutense e investigadora independiente especializada en tejidos andinos. Ha formado parte de numerosos equipos de investigación nacionales e internacionales como especialista textil, tanto en sitios arqueológicos en el Perú, como en museos y colecciones de distintas partes del mundo. Entre estos destaca el proyecto “Realidad virtual y realidad aumentada en la difusión del patrimonio americano. La colección Chimú de Martínez Compañón en el Museo de América”, en el Museo de América de Madrid, donde ha sido investigadora asociada en los últimos quince años. Como resultado de sus investigaciones ha publicado numerosos trabajos sobre tejidos andinos y ha impartido diversas materias relacionadas con las ciencias sociales, la antropología, la arqueología y el arte precolombino en varias universidades españolas. Sus líneas de investigación actuales se centran en la relación entre los procesos tecnológicos textiles y el pensamiento en los Andes, y a partir de ahí, de las pervivencias precolombinas en la cultura y los tejidos andinos actuales.

Ann Hudson Peters empezó a observar la importancia de la vestimenta como medio de comunicación en Senegal, Ghana y Nigeria en 1973. Estudió bellas artes e historia del arte en Yale University (BA 1978). Allí inició el análisis de los textiles de Paracas, con estudios de posgrado en antropología social y arqueología en Cornell University (MA 1983, PhD 1997). También ha estudiado la vestimenta histórica de la zona Maya y la vestimenta del Formativo Superior de la zona de Tarapacá. En 2004 volvió a investigar los contextos del cementerio de Wari Kayán, sitio de Paracas, proyecto que sigue hasta el presente.

.