Go Matsumoto

【日本語要旨】
パレテアダ土器とは、おもに調理や貯蔵などの用途で使われる壺や甕である。文様が刻まれたパドルによって成形される過程で外壁面に文様が刻印されることから、その名がついた。これまでの研究では、おもにその生産現場での調査をもとに、非エリートによってドメスティックな領域で生産され、流通した社会的地位の低い粗製土器であるとみなされてきた。本稿ではパレテアダ土器がもっとも多く出土するランバイェケ文化に焦点をあて、中期シカン期最大の祭祀センターであるシカン遺跡の中心部・大広場での調査の結果にもとづいて、パレテアダ土器の存在を捉え直す。埋葬複合によって囲まれた大広場では、エリートが祖先を追悼するために大規模な饗宴を開いた。彼らはパレテアダ土器に自らのイデオロギーに直結する文様を刻印させ、社会的ステータスの異なる人々が集まる饗宴でこれを使用した。パレテアダ土器はエリートによるアイデンティティ表出の媒体であった。

【English Abstract】
Paleteada is a pottery style that originated in the Piura region of the far north coast of Peru and is used primarily for cooking and storage. The name came from the fact that some design patterns are stamped on the exterior wall of the pottery in the process of being formed by a paddle on which those patterns are engraved. To date, the studies on the Lambayeque paleteada pottery have focused mainly on the production site, and from the aspects of production environment and labor organization revealed by archaeological and ethnoarchaeological research, considered paleteada as coarse earthenware with the lowest social status that was produced in the domestic sphere and distributed and used among non-elites. At the same time, however, it is known that the stamped designs involve the motifs directly related to the elites’ ideology and that some of them have been found only at ceremonial centers so far. Cleland and Shimada [1998: 131-132], who conducted pioneering research on this pottery type, describes this situation as “an intriguing collocation of what is regarded as the most ideologically charged of Sicán (Lambayeque) images with the humblest class of pottery” (added by authors in the parentheses), but there has been no discussion in detail about its theoretical implications.
In our recent excavations at the Great Plaza located in the center of the Sicán Archaeological Complex, which was the largest ceremonial center during the Middle Sicán period (AD 900-1100), we recovered a large number of paleteada sherds from the large-scale feasting contexts. Our detailed analyses of the excavated materials suggest that the feasts were held by the Lambayeque elites to commemorate their ancestors enshrined in their mortuary complexes that surrounded the Great Plaza [Matsumoto 2014a, 2014b, 2017]. The shift of our research focuses from the production site of paleteada pottery to the places where it was used and discarded has now urged us to update our conventional view on paleteada as “non-elite pottery” and to acknowledge the elites’ intervention at least in its distribution and use.
Furthermore, our reconstruction of the stamped designs led us to suggest that paleteada pottery was not distributed and used only among the non-elites, but many of them were rather produced and prepared for the elites. We suspect that the pots made by the non-elites were dedicated every time a feast was held by the elites. The stamped images on those pots were contemporary design elements, all of which could constitute a single artistic expression, and the pots themselves were used primarily by the elites as a medium for identity expression.

【日本語要旨】
近年、モチェ崩壊後に登場したシカンの支配下においても、モチェ人たちが継続してそのエスニシティを保持し、一定の自治を認められていた可能性が指摘されるようになり、シカン社会の多民族性や多元性に注目が集まり始めている。また、これまでの埋葬研究などから、シカンには四つの異なる民族（シカン/ランバイェケ、モチェ、ビルー/ガジナソ、タヤン）が共存していたという主張もある。当時の中心センターであった、ラ・レチェ川中流域にあるシカン遺跡はその周囲を平民用居住区によって囲まれ、中心部に暮らしていた支配者層（おもにシカン貴族）以外の人々は、そういった周縁部の居住区やさらにその周囲に広がる住居遺跡に暮らしていたと考えられている。とはいえ、具体的にどこにどの民族が暮らしていたのか、被支配者の彼らがシカン遺跡中心部での支配者主導の政治・宗教活動とどう関係し、それらをどう捉えていたかについての詳しい論考は存在しない。本論文では、シカン遺跡北側周縁部に位置するワカ・アレーナで見つかったモチェ人に焦点をあてるとともに、シカン貴族とその支配下のモチェ人たちの関係性についてボトムアップの視点から論じる。

【English Abstract】
　The archaeological studies of the Sicán/Lambayeque Culture has traditionally focused on its more prominent aspects such as the extravagant mortuary rituals practiced by the ruling elites at the ceremonial core of the paramount center, Huacas de Sicán (conventionally known as Batán Grande Archaeological Complex), in the middle La Leche Valley during the most prosperous Middle Sicán period (AD 950-1100), but have not necessarily given due consideration to the social realities of the non-elite, less prominent people. Over the last two decades of research, however, it has become increasingly evident that the Middle Sicán society was highly stratified and multiethnic, consisting of four rigid social classes (higher and lower elites, commoners, and subalterns), as well as four different ethnicities (Sicán/Lambayeque, Mochica, Virú/Gallinazo, and Tallán). It is now inferred that the society was governed by a federation of the groups of the Sicán/Lambayeque elites, whereas the non-elite groups of other cultural identities coexisted with each other, given a substantial degree of autonomy under the Sicán/Lambayeque dominance. In order to achieve a more holistic understanding of the social dynamics of this society, therefore, it is essential to integrate the perspectives of the ruling and the ruled and emphasize both inter- and intra-group variability.
　The elite vs non-elite distinction seems to have reflected in the spatial organization of Huacas de Sicán. Some test excavations on the northern periphery of the site, the area known as Huaca Arena, by Shimada in 1990 discovered simple residential architecture of wattle-and-daub (or quincha) walls, associated with plain domestic vessels. Most of the non-elite populations are thus inferred to have resided on the peripheries of the site and in other surrounding sites in the region, except for the higher elites who resided in the center of Huacas de Sicán. Nonetheless, there still remain many unanswered questions. How were those non-elite general masses spatially organized within their residential areas on the peripheries and in the surrounding sites? In other words, where did each of the different ethnic groups live? How were the subordinate groups related to the political and religious activities led by the Sicán/Lambayeque higher elites at the center of Huacas de Sicán? This article addresses these questions, referring to the results of (1) the two field seasons of the Proyecto de Investigación Arqueológica Complejo Lambayeque (PIACL), which was implemented at Huaca Arena in 2016 and 2017, and (2) the analyses of the ceramics used during large-scale feasts at the Great Plaza of Huacas de Sicán for commemorating Sicán/Lambayeque ancestors.
　The results of surface survey at Huaca Arena support Shimada’s view of it as a residential area and suggest that it was occupied intermittently since the Middle Formative period and throughout the Middle and Late Sicán periods (AD 950-1375). During test excavations was found a female body interred in a supine, extended position, accompanied by a stone mace, in a loose sand stratum that contained fragments of the Middle Sicán blackware bottle. This find strongly suggests the existence of the Mochicas on the periphery of Huacas de Sicán under the Sicán/Lambayeque rule. The ceramic analyses, on the other hand, revealed a series of deformations and morphological irregularities on the lip, rim wall, and base of serving vessels and illuminated that the hand-forming processes by the potters were fairly crude and careless. Based on the compositional analyses of the same ceramic assemblage, a majority of the studied vessels were probably produced at the multi-craft production site of Huaca Sialupe, which lead to suggest that the potters were subordinate people of non-Sicán/Lambayeque cultural identity, most probably the Mochicas. Although it is still an open question whether if the potters had their allegiance to and/or were sympathetic to the Sicán/Lambayeque religious principles as elite dogmas, the evidence of crude and careless work observed on the serving vessels may indicate their indifferent and brusque attitude against the elite religion.

【日本語要旨】
アンデス地方の民族学研究において、生や死、祖先についての概念は、これまで生態学的補完や終末論的文化史観、双分制、山岳信仰と擬人化などとともに“lo andino（アンデス的なるもの）”のひとつとして数えられてきた。民族歴史学資料や民族誌から抽出されたアンデスにおける「祖先の典型的なイメージ」は、すでに考古学事例によっても検証されている。しかし、このイメージの土台となった文字資料はおもに南部高地で記録されたものであり、偏りがある。本稿は、これまで注目を得ることのなかったアンデス世界の北半分に焦点を当て、ペルー北海岸シカン遺跡での発掘調査および詳細な遺物分析から得られた考古学データをもとに、上記の祖先イメージについて再検討することを目的としている。比較検討の結果、従来の祖先イメージと北海岸の考古学事例との間には、いくつかの重要な差異が見られた。また、祖先崇拝儀礼の通時的変化を追うことによって、祖先の概念に変化が生じた可能性があることも明らかになった。地域や時代の特殊性や歴史的な偶発性を十分に考慮し、研究対象を長期的なスパンで見渡すことによって、我々考古学者が“アンデス的なるもの”についてのこれまでの議論をさらに発展させることができる可能性が見えてきた。

【English Abstract】
　Among the Andean ethnologists, the concepts of life, death, and ancestor have been considered as an example of “lo andino (things culturally Andean),” together with ecological complementarity, apocalyptic visions of Andean cultural history, moiety system, and mountain worship and personification. From an essentialist perspective, archaeologists have extracted an ideal-typical image of ancestors from ethnohistorical and ethnographic resources and applied to archaeological cases.
　Compared to the abundant case studies about the late prehispanic ancestors in the southern highlands, however, the rest of the Andean World, particularly the North Coast, has been underrepresented. What has been treated as the “Andean” concept of ancestors is heavily based on those readily available information. It is dangerous to generalize a cultural trait documented in a certain area during a certain time period under the name of the “Andean.” Seemingly similar traits and practices may have carried different meanings in relation to different societal and environmental contexts. This will result in blindly ruling out the possibility that the ancestor concept may have varied in different areas and changed over time. The approach to implicitly or subconsciously search for pan-Andean characteristics across time and space and homogenize the entire Andean World is known as “Andean uniformitarianism.”
　Uniformitarianism is an assumption initially proposed in geology that the natural laws and processes observed today have always operated in the past, and thus can be applied everywhere in the world. It would be possible in theory to suggest a single “Andean culture area” in terms of what has been known as “lo andino.” Although there is always a merit in generalizing the subject matter (a cultural trait in this case) to some extent and locating it in relation to other phenomena for a more comprehensive understanding of the subject, it should be clearly distinguished from the act of “rounding off factions” or specificities that best characterize the cultural trait in question.
　Focusing on the northern half of the Andean World that has been underrepresented, this article aims to reassess the above uniformitarian image of ancestors, based on archaeological data from the excavations at Huacas de Sicán in the middle La Leche valley on the Peruvian North Coast and subsequent detailed analyses of excavated materials. The comparative study revealed a series of significant differences between the conventional image of ancestors and the archaeological case. Furthermore, a close look at the diachronic changes in rituals raised the possibility that the notion of ancestors might have been changed through time. By giving due consideration in the specificities of the time and region in question and historical contingencies and overlooking the subject matter from an archaeological long-term perspective, we archaeologists may be able to achieve a breakthrough to further develop the conventional arguments about “lo andino.”

In the introductory chapter of the 2001 Chacmool Conference proceedings, Seibert (2006: XIX) alerts that “while GIS does represent an important methodological tool for archaeologists seeking to examine materials in a spatial context, it is important to note that GIS does not represent a theoretical approach in and of itself.” In order for a research tool to secure a solid position as an archaeological method, however, it should be anchored by underlying theoretical debates and summoned by a set of archaeological problems. Thus, it follows that we need not only to acquire the knowledge and skills of GIS technology but also to keep track of the history of spatio-temporal thinking in archaeology and to discuss how GIS came to be integrated into the theoretical and methodological developments of archaeology. It is not until the wheels of theory and method turn around in a balanced manner that an archaeological research can go straight ahead. Aimed at drawing attention to these important issues, in the special symposium at the 24th semi-annual meeting of Japan Society for Archaeological Information, I argued that we should attempt to contribute to the development of archaeology in general through the use of GIS, while explicitly acknowledging that GIS is no more than a set of analytical tools.

ペルー北海岸には、アンデス最初の国家としてとらえられることが多いモチェと、インカ帝国に先立って広大な版図を支配下におさめたチムーという、王を頂点とする明確な階層化を有した2つの「国家」が展開した。そのため、アンデス文明の展開のなかにあって、きわめて重要な地域であるとされる。しかし、この地域における歴史的過程は、右肩上がりの社会進化論的なものとは大きく異なる様相を呈している。都市国家のような複数の小政体の緩やかな連携としてのモチェから、領域国家としてのチムーへといたるという単純な道程ではないのである。この点を明らかにするためには、モチェとチムーに挟まれた時代に注目する必要があるだろう。アンデスを代表するこれら2つの国家の狭間には、ランバイェケ（あるいはシカン）と呼ばれる、北海岸北部に栄えた地域文化が存在した。本章ではこのランバイェケに焦点をあてることで、アンデス文明の展開においてみられた様々な社会間の関係は、一方的な征服や支配といったあり方ではなく、それぞれのしたたかな戦略のせめぎあいであったことを明らかにしていきたい。

25年以上に及ぶ北海岸ランバイェケ⾕での長期調査1に一区切りを付けた島田泉（南イリノイ大学人類学科）は、2003年より主な野外調査活動を、中央海岸のリマ市近郊にある宗教センター・パチャカマクに移し、ペルー歴史学者マリア・ロストウォロウスキー（María Rostworowski）および考古学者ラファエル・セグラ（Rafael Segura）との共同指揮のもと、パチャカマク考古学プロジェクト（以降、PAP）を発足させた。パチャカマクでの調査は、島田が1970年代にランバイェケ河⾕にあるパンパ・グランデの宗教都市で始め、近くのシカン遺跡で継続した、アンデスの古代宗教センターの長期間の比較研究の最終段階にあたる。

PAPでは、宗教センターとして重要性を長期間保ったパチャカマクの発展および維持を担った人々の社会構造やアイデンティティを明らかにすることを当面の目標の一つとして掲げ、2003年より主に“巡礼者の広場（Pilgrimsʼ Plaza）”と呼ばれるエリアにて発掘調査を行ってきた2。もう一つの研究目的はパチャカマクの発展に何らかの影響を及ぼしたと考えられる、古代環境状態の解明である。松本は地理情報システム／デジタル地図製作担当として2004年の発掘シーズンより参加、翌2005年シーズンにラファエル・セグラとともにセクターI・パチャカマク神殿前の墓地発掘を担当した。本稿ではこの墓地発掘の概要と、その結果明らかになった幾つかの興味深い埋葬風習について現時点でのPAPの見解を概要的に述べる。

As previous major studies have demonstrated, Geographic Information Systems provide archaeological research with powerful analytical capabilities as well as ease of data creation and management, nearly infinite scalability, and compatibility with various external data and modules. However, archaeological researches tend to occur in the regions that have not yet established an efficient (or reliable) geographical data management or related infrastructures and thus do not have enough data sources to achieve the research aims. Archaeologists are almost always required to produce their own maps within budgetary restrictions. Thus, in reality, even digital map making is not an easy task and does not make the desired progress, to say nothing of expected analytical endeavor. Through the digital mapping at the archaeological site of Pachacamac on the Peruvian Central Coast, I highlight a notable gap between theory and practice and urge the need of: (1) selection of the most efficient way to achieve immediate goals on the basis of a clear understanding of given resources and surrounding realities; (2) contribution to data accumulation based on a long-term plan for establishment of more reliable site database; and (3) establishment of collaborative work environment and active data sharing among archaeologists and/or projects.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been intensively developed since their origin in the early 1960s and employed for a variety of purposes both in academic and commercial fields thereafter. Following in the steps of precocious applications in disciplines such as forestry and hydrology, a handful of archaeologists began to employ this useful tool for their analyses of spatial phenomena in the early 1980s. In Andean archaeology, GIS together with related peripheral techniques (e.g., remote sensing and GPS) have become increasingly popular, particularly among younger archaeologists who recognize their ability to cope with a wide range of spatial scales and integrate multiple types of data.

In accordance with the conceptual transitions of “space” and “landscape” and the expansion of study area over time, GIS have been successfully integrated into the archaeological methodology and even theoretical discussions. In the early 1980s when GIS were first introduced into archaeology, there were two contrasting conceptions: the processualistic spatiality (space as non-problematic abstract backdrop and landscape as a palimpsest of material traces) on one hand, and the postprocessualistic backlash against it, on the other. Correspondingly, GIS applications were also split broadly into two separate directions: processualistic regional modeling studies and postprocessualistic phenomenological reconstructions of past landscape. Backed up by theoretical and methodological advancements in both geography and archaeology and active interactions among archaeologists in professional meetings and on the web, each school of thought is anticipated to go a long way in meeting their respective aims.

It is obvious that GIS and related peripheral techniques hold the promise for future archaeological research. However, as the history of archaeological applications of research tools borrowed from other fields foretells, their appropriateness and efficacy need to be carefully assessed as their applications pose major conceptual and practical challenges, not to mention a substantial amount of time, money, and technical expertise. In this context, my case study to create GIS-based digital site maps of Pachacamac, which was a part of the on-going long-term archaeological project on the central coast of Peru (Pachacamac Archaeological Project) was aimed at scrutinizing the potential and limitations of GIS and remote sensing techniques for archaeology and offering guidelines for the most efficient way to use them given resource limitations that commonly confront archaeologists. Although some geographers tend to overdramatize the potentials of GIS, contemplation on the nature of archaeological research and associated limitations exposes the complexity of archaeological applications of GIS and will bring archaeologists back to stark reality. Archaeologists usually have to select most cost-efficient techniques depending on their research objectives and available resources. The first step to apply GIS in archaeology in general needs to be taken considering the gap between the theories and our reality before us. Using the preparation of the GIS-based site map of Pachacamac as a case study, this thesis illustrates how we can bridge the gap between the theoretical potential of GIS on one hand, and constraints of archaeological reality, on the other. It shows how multiple layers of data as well as both analog and digital spatial data can be effectively integrated in the first digital map of Pachacamac to be produced.

Recent excavations within the Great Plaza at the ceremonial core of the Middle Sicán state capital in the mid-La Leche Valley on the Peruvian North Coast revealed a series of material traces of multiple activities that probably took place side by side. These activities include: burying and caring the deceased; metal production at a workshop; chicha pouring into a ritual canal; and large-scale food preparations and consumptions among others. Focusing on the food practices, this paper will argue that within the plaza, surrounded by monumental mounds with associated elite cemetery ground and metal workshop, there took place commensality among the dead and the living and that it brought different people together and served as an integrative means to consolidate the stratified and multiethnic Sicán society under the name of ancestor veneration.

The Great Plaza is seemingly a featureless open space surrounded by major ceremonial mounds. Excavations by the Sicán Archaeological Project, however, have revealed that there took place multiple, simultaneous activities within the plaza. They include: (1) craft production in metal workshops, (2) handling of dead body parts, (3) ritual activity using a small canal, (4) large-scale food preparation and consumption, and (5) storage and management of adobe bricks most probably for building and renovating ceremonial architectures nearby. I argued elsewhere that these all suggest that the plaza was used intensively for elite funerary preparations, celebrations of buried ancestors, and architectural renovations (Matsumoto 2012; Matsumoto and Shimada 2011). Focusing on the ritual activity using canal, this presentation discusses the results and implications of my recent species identification analysis of paleoethnobotanical remains recovered from the excavation by the SAP in 2008.

The preliminary results of our recent stylistic and technological analyses of food vessels excavated from the Great Plaza of the multiethnic Middle Sicán capital revealed that the vessels were significantly different in style (morphology and decorative feature) and production quality. This paper focuses on the stamped design motifs on paleteada vessels and raises the possibility that the motifs functioned as symbols associated with group identity of those who produced the vessels, similar to the markings on adobe bricks used for building public architectures from the Early to the Late Intermediate Periods on the North Coast (Hastings and Moseley 1975; Moseley 1975; Shimada 1994). The documented spatial distribution of the motifs suggests that the ritual space in the plaza may have been segmented and used by various people different in group identity represented by different motifs on their vessels.

The Cupisnique practice of setting intentional fires at the time of interment continued into the later Sicán and post-Sicán periods in the Lambayeque region of the north coast. We documented numerous episodes (1000-1533 CE) of extensive but ephemeral fire setting immediately following the deposition of each new alluvial layer around the Huaca Loro temple mound. Offerings of ceramics, ingots, textiles and even a whole puma were placed where water would have cascaded down the temple mound. We argue that these activities expressed ancestor veneration and interrelated concepts of transformation and regeneration.

The Great Plaza at the Middle Sicán capital is surrounded by monumental mounds but empty of any visible architecture and at first glance might appear to have had only occasional ceremonial use. Our excavations have yielded a different picture. Near the Huaca Loro mound we found metal workshops, areas of large-scale food preparation and consumption, and evidence of ritual activities, suggesting that the Plaza were used intensively for elite funerary preparations, celebrations of buried ancestors, and architectural renovations. We discuss implications of these findings in regard to our current notions of the plaza and funerary analysis on the north coast.

A British archaeologist James Whitley (2002) warned that many mortuary archaeologists tend to focus solely on burial locations and give short shrift to potentially much more complicated conceptions and practices but simply lumping them together under the heading of “ancestor cults.”  There has very little attempt to get over this critical problem at least in Andean archaeology during the last decade.  In order to respond to Whitley's argument, in this article, I will demonstrate how we should approach ancestor veneration and what evidence we need to define it in archaeological record, referring to recent excavations at the site of Sicán in the Middle La Leche Valley, northern North Coast of Peru.

過去30年にわたる応用実例の歴史を見れば明らかなように、地理情報システム（GIS）が考古学にとって将来有望な研究ツールの一つであることに疑いの余地はない。しかし1990年代に興ったバイオ考古学のように、考古学の一下位区分としての地位を築くまでには至っていない。筆者は、GIS応用の多くが飽くまで技術レベルに留まっており、考古学理論との統合が不完全であること、換言すれば、その応用が理論上の問題の解決を目標としていないことが主な原因の一つであると考える。

ニュー・アーケオロジーに対する反動として1970～80年代に台頭したポストプロセシュアリストたちは、それまでの“有形オブジェクトの容れ物としての空間”や“物質的痕跡の多重構造としての景観”といった空間概念に疑問を投げかけ、その代わりに、空間とは“人々の社会的行為の中に埋め込まれた現象学的本質”であると定義した。しかし、ポストプロセシュアリストたちが主張する空間とは、客観的実在とは一致しないかもしれない、人それぞれの固有の世界観であり、その正当性・妥当性を科学的に論証する手立ては存在しない。Julian Thomas（2001）が“考古学理論の二枚舌（duplicity）”と称する学派間の二極化現象をどのように扱うべきか。GISの考古学的応用がさらに大きな支持を得るには、こうした問題を検討し、実践に移していかなくてはならない。それによってのみ、“ポスト・ポストプロセス考古学”とも言うべき領域へと足を踏み入れることができ、考古学全体の理論的発展に寄与できるのである。

The inferred purposes of the Inca road system (e.g., relaying messages and transporting goods) indicate that minimum cost for traveling was one of the major concerns when designing the system. As previous studies indicate, however, other sociopolitical, cultural, and religious factors should have operated intertwiningly. The least-cost pathway analysis based on anisotropic cost surface helps to inversely delineate non-economic factors for road construction and route selection. This study will demonstrate the availability of this analytical technique, taking the Inka road system as an example.

Many of the previous archaeological studies on prehistoric religion have tended to view it from a “top-down” perspective of the ruling populations and consider it to be a means for promoting the sociopolitical power and hegemony. In this paper, I would rather attempt to integrate the agency/practice-based “bottom-up” perspective of the ruled. With a primary emphasis on detailed contextual information, the historical developments of individual or group activities, as dialectic interplays between structure and practice, will be explored based on the data gained from the excavations during the 2006 and 2008 field seasons by the Sicán Archaeological Project (SAP) at the Site of Sicán, northern North Coast or Peru.

With various lines of evidence from the long-term interdisciplinary research efforts by Sicán Archaeological Project (SAP) for the past 30 years, there is little doubt that the Middle Sicán society was a theocratic state based on shared religious beliefs and rigid authorities centering on the site of Sicán until the burning and abandonment of the monumental structures around A.D. 1100. Central to the religious beliefs was the kingship-based (as opposed to kinship-based) ancestor veneration and commemoration. One of our primary objectives for the years to come is to explore and elucidate the nature of these practices.

The protracted interactions between the living and the dead, a major theme of the Andean mortuary archaeology since the last decade, have been discussed primarily through the analyses of the deceased body and the depositional site. In this article, with reference to our excavations at the site of Sicán in the past three years, I argue for the necessity of: (1) sampling of vertically and horizontally larger areas; (2) well-balanced adhibition of macro and microcontexts; and (3) data interpretation based on the holistic understandings of the characteristics of the area and the time period in question.

My dissertation research focuses on the inferred ancestor veneration cult of the Middle Sicán society (ca. AD 950-1100) on the northern North Coast of Peru. My research question is twofold: “Did ancestor veneration indeed occur in this society?”; and, “If so, what role did it play in the societal development of the time?” In order to answer these questions, I participated in two six-month-long excavations by Sicán Archaeological Project in 2006 and 2008 at the site of Sicán in the mid-La Leche Valley. As opposed to the conventional approaches to prehispanic religion heavily relying on the study of architecture, iconography, and ethnohistory and ethnography, I would rather focus on the material evidence of human activities primarily during ceremonies and rituals, as well as the surrounding contexts (sociocultural, political, and ecological).

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been intensively developed since their origin in the early 1960s and employed for a variety of purposes both in academic and commercial fields thereafter. Following in the steps of precocious applications in disciplines such as forestry and hydrology, a handful of archaeologists began to employ this useful tool for their analyses of spatial phenomena in the early 1980s. In Andean archaeology, GIS together with related peripheral techniques (e.g., remote sensing and GPS) have become increasingly popular, particularly among younger archaeologists who recognize their ability to cope with a wide range of spatial scales and integrate multiple types of data. In accordance with the conceptual transitions of “space” and “landscape” and the expansion of study area over time, GIS have been successfully integrated into the archaeological methodology and even theoretical discussions. In the early 1980s when GIS were first introduced into archaeology, there were two contrasting conceptions: the processualistic spatiality (space as non-problematic abstract backdrop and landscape as a palimpsest of material traces) on one hand, and the postprocessualistic backlash against it, on the other. Correspondingly, GIS applications were also split broadly into two separate directions: processualistic regional modeling studies and postprocessualistic phenomenological reconstructions of past landscape. Backed up by theoretical and methodological advancements in both geography and archaeology and active interactions among archaeologists in professional meetings and on the web, each school of thought is anticipated to go a long way in meeting their respective aims. It is obvious that GIS and related peripheral techniques hold the promise for future archaeological research. However, as the history of archaeological applications of research tools borrowed from other fields foretells, their appropriateness and efficacy need to be carefully assessed as their applications pose major conceptual and practical challenges, not to mention a substantial amount of time, money, and technical expertise. In this context, my case study to create GIS-based digital site maps of Pachacamac, which was a part of the on-going long-term archaeological project on the central coast of Peru (Pachacamac Archaeological Project) was aimed at scrutinizing the potential and limitations of GIS and remote sensing techniques for archaeology and offering guidelines for the most efficient way to use them given resource limitations that commonly confront archaeologists. Although some geographers tend to overdramatize the potentials of GIS, contemplation on the nature of archaeological research and associated limitations exposes the complexity of archaeological applications of GIS and will bring archaeologists back to stark reality. Archaeologists usually have to select most cost-efficient techniques depending on their research objectives and available resources. The first step to apply GIS in archaeology in general needs to be taken considering the gap between the theories and our reality before us. Using the preparation of the GIS-based site map of Pachacamac as a case study, this thesis illustrates how we can bridge the gap between the theoretical potential of GIS on one hand, and constraints of archaeological reality, on the other. It shows how multiple layers of data as well as both analog and digital spatial data can be effectively integrated in the first digital map of Pachacamac to be produced.

This paper presents preliminary results of our 2005 excavations in front of the Pachacamac Temple (a.k.a. Painted Temple) at the famed pre-Hispanic religious center of Pachacamac on the Central Coast of Peru. We recovered over 52 funerary bundles in various states of preservation dating from Middle Lima to Late Horizon. The paper focuses on data and insights into the conception and treatment of the dead as revealed by excavation and examination of 34 bundles that were packed in two levels in a largely undisturbed double-chamber tomb built with wooden posts and beams. Notable features of the tomb include (1) the orderly layout of its bundles around the principal one which had a cinnabar-painted wooden false head, (2) variation in the size, form, construction, contents and preservation of its bundles, (3) its intense use over a number of generations, (4) the builders’ and/or users’ apparent disregard of earlier burials, and (5) its shallow depth, probable surface markers, and easy acc...