UCLA

Paracas was an autochthonous sociocultural tradition that emerged on the south coast of Peru during the early first millennium BCE. Beginning as a constellation of independent villages, by the final centuries BCE Paracas peoples had coalesced into two politically complex, non-state peer-polities with evidence for permanent socioeconomic inequality, dedicated craft industries, and leadership that exercised stable control over non-kin labor. Recent research in the Chincha Valley suggests that intensification of large-scale ritualized events was integral to this transition. Indeed, Chincha contains the largest and most labor-intensive buildings on the Formative south coast. These include more than a dozen massive sunken court structures that form at least five discrete settlement clusters. Excavation in one of these structures, Huaca Soto (PV57-26), demonstrates that the site was utilized for ritualized processions between the 8th and 5th centuries BCE. Drawing on an analysis of architecture, fineware ceramics, ceremonial offering deposits and comestibles, this dissertation traces the evolution of Huaca Soto from its initial Early Paracas construction episodes through its abandonment at the onset of the Middle Paracas (Cavernas) period. As Paracas complexity reached a regional apogee during Late Paracas (Necropolis/Topar�) times, Huaca Soto’s sunken courts hosted a series of quotidian domestic occupations. Over the next 1,500 years, the site reemerged as a classic coastal huaca that received ritual offerings from local Middle Horizon communities, Late Intermediate Period visitors, and Inca Period contributors. Data from Huaca Soto offer a new perspective on the evolution of Chincha’s Paracas communities, the emergence of political complexity on the Formative south coast, and the reuse of sacred space in late antiquity.