Doctoral Dissertation Improvement: Moche Sociopolitical Organization from a Mid-Sized Center in the Chicama Valley, Peru

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Under the supervision of Dr. Jeffrey Quilter, Ms. Michele Koons will examine the sociopolitical nature of the Moche archaeological culture (C.E. 100-800) of Peru from a previously unstudied perspective of the Moche settlement hierarchy: a mid-sized center. Once considered a unified state, Moche is now understood as consisting of diverse settlements in at least two major regions of development: the north and south. However, scholars are only at the brink of understanding how the society functioned and how the diverse settlements were regionally integrated to form what is materially recognized as Moche. Up until now, the majority of the data on the Moche has been derived from the largest sites, settlement pattern surveys, and unprovenienced fine ware ceramics. The role of smaller ceremonial centers has received little attention. Koons will examine the mid-sized site of Licapa II. This will be the first study to address the sociopolitical nature, economic base, and ideological strategies of the Moche from this crucial, yet understudied perspective. Koons will compare similarities and differences in architecture and ceramics from Licapa II to data from the large sites of El Brujo and Huacas de Moche, and other Moche centers for which such data exist. An evaluation of these two datasets will help determine if Licapa II was dependent on the large centers, was an independent center, or was part of a larger, more fluid network of sites.This study engages with a fundamental question in Anthropology: the origins of complex societies. It will do this by evaluating the nature of geopolitical landscapes by examining the dynamics between Moche centers. Reconstructing cultures, such as the Moche, based on information obtained from only the wealthiest and largest sites greatly biases the way in which they are perceived. In order to obtain a more holistic picture of how Moche society operated more attention needs to be focused on intermediate and small sites. The excavation and analysis of the mid-sized site of Licapa II will provide a basis to contextualize the wealth of information available on large Moche centers and evaluate whether or not Moche should be considered a state, a series of independent interacting polities, or if it was organized in some other manner. This project will train students from Harvard University and the Universidad Naciónal de Trujillo. Members of the communities of Chocope, Magdalena de Cao, and San Jose de Moro, Peru will be hired to work in the field and help with the cleaning of the artifacts. In an effort for community out reach, Koons has given presentations to local school children and has made arrangements with the cultural center in Huanchaco, Peru to give public presentations on the outcome of the work. She also plans to organize a symposium at PUCP with other young Peruvian scholars to disseminate the information to the scholarly community and the public. The results of the fieldwork and analysis of information collected for this dissertation will be published in scholarly journals. Papers will also be given at conferences in the US, such as the SAAs and Northeast Andean meeting. Finally, it should be noted that Koons plans to continue work at Licapa II after the termination of the dissertation project to further contextualize the role of this important Moche center.