Huamachuco

CONCLUSIONS

The relationship between Huari and Huamachuco was brief but intense. During this relationship there were certainly some Huari people living in Huamachuco, trade reached a peak, and ideas were exchanged in both directions. What mechanisms can account for this relationship?.

A Huari military conquest has been most frequently cited. That interpretation is based, however, on the idea that Viracochapampa was an intrusive administrative, storage, and/or military facility that allowed Huari to exploit northern Peru through its control of Huamachuco. Corollary interpretations held that Marca Huamachuco was either earlier or later in date than Viracochapampa, or at least did not exercise independent power during the Huari domination. This paper shows that Marca Huamachuco exercised power continuously before, during, and after the Huari presence in Huamachuco. Moreover, from the local Huamachuco perspective, Viracochapampa is not a totally intrusive site type; the principal building types and some of the planning concepts derive logically from Marca Huamachuco and Cerro Sazon. At best, Viracochapampa can be considered only a hybrid Huamachuco-Huari site. Finally, whatever its intended function, Viracochapampa was never completed.

In light of this new information, the military conquest interpretation would have to depend on evidence for the cooption of local sites to serve as the administrative, storage, and military facilities during the construction of Viracochapampa. There is little evidence that Marca Huamachuco itself was co-opted, but one could argue that Cerro Sazon and Cerro Amaru were. It is difficult, however, to conceive of a Huari administration of Huamachuco that depended on second-rank, specialized sites, while the primary center was functioning and little affected by the Huari presence.

The current evidence supports a much more balanced relationship between Huari and Huamachuco. It also emphasizes two particular facets of that relationship: trade and religion.

The concentration of Huari fineware ceramics at Cerro Amaru is the best evidence of the role played by religion. Significantly, the Huari ceramics are characterized by a low ideological content and co-occur with other foreign styles. Clearly, Cerro Amaru was an important shrine in its own right that attracted influence, and probably pilgrims, from a wide territory. During the late Early Intermediate Period and Middle Horizon, Cerro Amaru may have been as important as the better-known Huamachuco oracle, Catequil, was during the Late Horizon (Primeros Agustinos 1918). The hypothesized association of the shrine with Urpay Huachac, however, may indicate a borrowing from the central coast or the central highlands (Rostworowski 1973, 1983: 86-89).

Trade is also a main facet of the relationship, although the mechanisms of exchange are unknown. This facet is emphasized not only by the trade goods themselves, but also by the obvious efforts to complete construction of a new facility along the road. Although there is little evidence that trade goods originating in Huamachuco were important to Huari, obsidian, ceramics, and possibly lapis lazuli flowed from the south along the road, while goods from the north included Cajamarca pottery and Spondylus shell from Ecuador. This trade began before the Middle Horizon and continued after the Huari presence in Huamachuco. It is important to realize that maintaining the road and increasing traffic on it was as beneficial to Huamachuco as it was to Huari.

Trade and religion have often been emphasized in interpretations of the initial, Middle Horizon 1A or 1B, Huari interactions with other cultural regions (cf. Lumbreras 1980: 79-8I; Menzel 1964: 2, 66-73). Now that it is clear that Huari interaction with Huamachuco also took place early in the Middle Horizon, it is reasonable to expect that some of the same mechanisms inferred for interactions between Huari and Tiahuanaco or Nasca also applied to the relationship between Huari and Huamachuco.

Coercion can accompany trade and religion and may have been another facet in the Huari-Huamachuco relationship. Evidence of military coercion is often sought in the classic realm of mass burials, burned-out buildings, and rapid abandonment of sites. We have found no evidence of the first, but the other two types of evidence do occur and have been noted. Surprisingly, there is little evidence of Huari coercion. There are two buildings at Cerro Sazon that were burned prior to the Huari occupation, although it cannot be determined that these were burned in response to the Huari intrusion. In contrast to this possible evidence of Huari force, the storerooms and mausoleum at Cerro Amaru were burned during or after the Huari occupation, the chicha-brewing building at Cerro Sazon was burned during the Huari occupation, and one building at Viracochapampa was also burned sometime after it was constructed. Moreover, the abrupt termination of construction at Viracochapampa suggests a rapid and unplanned Huari departure.

Huamachuco military force may, in fact, be more important to the relationship than Huari force, especially in terminating the relationship. Why the relationship was terminated remains unclear.

The role of coercion in the relationship between Huari and Huamachuco will remain unclear until we understand better the economic relationship. I have already pointed out that little coercion was probably needed to provide the labor required for Huari constructions in the area. At present, in fact, we are not even sure whether this construction was sponsored directly by Huari or whether it was supervised by some Huari personnel but underwritten by Marca Huamachuco. The question is which polity was responsible for recruiting, feeding, and housing the labor force. It has always been assumed that Huari sponsored the labor force but, again, that assumption is based on the interpretation that the site was an intrusive, Huari-planned construction. Since the site is not totally intrusive, nor rigidly planned, nor even completely Huari in inspiration, there is no reason to assume that its construction was solely a Huari undertaking.

One approach to resolving this problem is to examine the maize-growing lands on the northwest slope of Marca Huamachuco. At present we have very limited data concerning this possible focus of Huari agricultural exploitation. With further work, however, it will be possible to confirm or reject this aspect of exploitation and to estimate the amount of maize that could be produced in the area, as well as the amount of chicha that could have been brewed from the maize. If the amount is small, as I suspect, it was probably used only to underwrite ceremonies at Cerro Amaru while Marca Huamachuco underwrote the major construction projects. If the amount was large, it would help to provide evidence that Huari, rather than Marca Huamachuco. underwrote the construction of Viracochapampa. In either case, we would have a much clearer picture of the relationship between the two cultures.

While many questions remain about the relationship between Huari and Huamachuco, we now know that the relationship was not one-sided, but rather multifaceted and complex. With this basic understanding, continued research will be able to develop more realistic models of the processes involved in the growth and decline of the relationship.

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