Huamachuco

Cerro Sazon

The architecture at Cerro Sazon is less well preserved than that at either Marca Huamachuco or Viracochapampa, due to looting of building materials for modern Huamachuco, cultivation of eucalyptus trees, clearing of agricultural fields, and some Pre-Columbian destruction. Surface survey and very limited test excavations permit only a preliminary discussion of the site, since most of the buildings are little more than long mounds of rubble.

Galleries appear to be the principal building type. There were some curvilinear galleries, but rectangular galleries arranged around two or more sides of a patio appear to be more common. McCown (1945: fig. 4) has published a plan of the best-preserved example. It is not clear whether this building was multistoried. A well-preserved section of the building has corbels on both walls, but there is also one possible roof drain preserved just above the corbels. The structure was burnt, and two dates from the burned level, which may represent construction materials, are consistent with the early dating implied by the roof drain (A.D. 420 ± 110 and A.D. 450 ± 85). One other well-preserved rectangular gallery also had roof drains.

Test excavations were conducted in another large rectangular gallery that was very poorly preserved. This building may also have been constructed at an early date, but was certainly occupied during the Middle Horizon. It had also been burned, leading to the carbonization of an enormous quantity of maize. The maize had been shelled and only one cob was recovered. Much of the maize seemed to have been stored in large ceramic vessels, and the maize and ceramics were mixed with burned canes, poles, earth, and plaster in a deposit about 1.5 m thick. The quantity of burned earth and plaster suggest a second story and an earth roof. We found no corbels, however. Some pieces of plaster were painted white on one side and had molds of canes on the other, and probably formed the ceiling; other pieces of plaster had the molds of larger poles, which might have been joists or beams. This excavation produced pieces of a bottle painted in Huari style as well as ceramics that were probably used in chicha production. They include huge rectangular basins made of slab ware and toasters set on pedestal bases. Originally these were probably located on the ground floor. There are two dates from this structure (A.D. 430 ± 200 and A.D. 720 ± 65); the earlier date came from within the burned deposit and may represent construction material, while the later date is from a pole found on the floor and relates to the occupation just prior to the fire.

A third excavated gallery had also been burnt, and yielded a date of A.D. 505 ± 120. This gallery was curvilinear in form and had two occupation levels. The earlier occupation, to which the date applies, was associated with a large amount of deer and camelid bone. These bones may represent joints of meat hung under the ceiling of the ground floor or stored on the second story. After the fire the building was reoccupied, leaving fragments of at least two bottles with Huari designs in red, white, and black.

In addition to the galleries, there are also some small. rectangular buildings at Cerro Sazon. The only well preserved examples are near the large gallery illustrated by McCown. They are arranged in groups of two or three around patios. There seems also to be a straight street or corridor running through these to the large gallery.

Niched halls probably also occur at Cerro Sazon, but we have located only two possible examples. These are located on a single large terrace on the northwestern side of the site where they overlook Viracochapampa. Only one wall of. each niched hall is well preserved, and McCown (1945: pl. 14c) illustrates one of these. In both examples, the hall is located on the second story, but there is an extra, third story above the hall. Each hall faces onto an enclosure, but it is not clear whether there are any other buildings surrounding the enclosure. There are no indications of tombs in the enclosure. These niched halls do not fit easily into the sequence from Marca Huamachuco, but I (1986) have tentatively correlated them with the very end of the Transitional group or the beginning of the Classic group in the seriated sequence. Although this was the time when Huari attributes appeared in Marca Huamachuco niched halls, have not found these attributes at Cerro Sazon. One possible "niched hall" may not have niches at all, which would favor a Late dating. The Cerro Sazon niched halls are probably constructed over the ruins of earlier buildings and, if so, are certainly dated relatively late in the site's history.

Cerro Sazon appears to date primarily to the late Early Intermediate Period, but it had a Middle Horizon occupation of uncertain duration that left a few Huari pots. There is evidence for the storage of maize (probably used for producing chicha) and also for probable meat storage There is more emphasis on galleries and less emphasis on niched halls than at Marca Huamachuco, and the galleries are usually rectangular. The niched halls are not as elaborate as those of Marca Huamachuco and may postdate the Huari occupation. The location of the site makes it an ideal staging point for the construction of both Viracochapampa and La Cuchilla. The Huari ceramics at Cerro Sazon, especially those associated with the chicha-making area, fit well with this hypothesis. Still, there are relatively few Huari ceramics at Cerro Sazon, and construction of the site predates Huari influence.

The location of the site would also make it an ideal stopping point along the road, and I suspect that it was built by Marca Huamachuco for that purpose during the Early Intermediate Period. The only real evidence for this assertion is the greater rectangularity of the galleries and the fact that they do not have smaller buildings within their patios. These attributes suggest to me a much more imposed and artificial plan for Cerro Sazon. In this sense, Cerro Sazon is similar to, though a less emphatic statement than, Viracochapampa. Some buildings, in particular the possible niched halls, may postdate Huari influence, but in general the site seems to decline in importance sometime after Huari contact and the abandonment of construction attempts at Viracochapampa.

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