Recent excavations at the initial period site of taukachi-konkÁn, casma valley, Peru

Pozorski T.; Pozorski S.; Jave R.M. · Nawpa Pacha (2021) · DOI: 10.1080/00776297.2020.1804687

Resumen

Taukachi-Konkán is a large planned settlement that formed part of the Sechín Alto Polity which governed the Casma Valley during the Initial Period. Fieldwork there during five seasons focused on four aligned platform mound complexes, three of which are oriented toward a road that enters Taukachi-Konkán from the north while the fourth complex forms a corner where the road enters the site center. Excavation and survey data revealed the mounds functioned in different ways relative to each other, the nearby road, and Taukachi-Konkan as a whole. Proposed mound functions range from the relatively secular role of the corner mound in overseeing road traffic to the clearly religious role of the second mound with friezes that suggest a cosmological model. A focus on architectural details allowed us to detect evidence of privileged groups, enabled us to better define the Sechin Alto Polity, and provided comparative material for use by other scholars.