Evidence of Early Cultures in the Palpa Valleys on the South coast of Perú

Abstract

After the pioneering work of Julio C. Tello, Frédéric Engel and John H. Rowe on the Formative and Preceramic periods, few advances have been made in the investigation of early cultural developments on the south coast of Perú. This is especially true for the Río Grande de Nasca drainage, where there is a lack of data regarding early human occupation. The Nasca-Palpa Archaeological Project aims to reconstruct the human occupation of the Palpa valleys during all Prehispanic periods. In this article we present a summary of the evidence for the Paracas culture by presenting data recovered over the past ten years from several sites inthe Palpa valleys for the Initial Period and the Archaic period. We describe the settlement patterns, architecture, and funerary practices, as well as other cultural manifestations of the early periods, for instance, petroglyphs, geoglyphs, ceramics and other types of artifacts. We also carry out a preliminary reconstruction of the prehispanic settlement history of the Palpa valleys, beginning with the Middle Archaic period (ca. 3800 BC) and ending with the Inka period. More than 150 radiocarbon dates are used to establish a chronology of the different periods of human settlement in the Palpa valleys.