Pampa Grande
Pampa Grande is an archaeological site located in the Lambayeque Valley, in northern Peru, situated on the south shore of the Chancay River.
[2] Another famous Moche site, Sipán, is located only about 10 km west from Pampa Grande along the Chancay River valley.
[3] During the time of the Moche occupation at Pampa Grande the Lambayeque Valley generally had a moderate climate year round.
[1] In the winter months from June to September the El Nino current picks up and brings torrential rains and wind changes to coastal areas.
[1] The site was excavated with a large team of students and professionals for the Royal Ontario Museum Project starting in 1973, and continuing through 1975.
In addition, Terry D'Altroy, Christine Krueger, Ciro Hurtado, and Christopher B. Donnan were also involved in the interpretations at Pampa Grande.
Starting around 600 AD, new constructions were laid out and built in a short period of time, including an enormous ceremonial complex.
Elaborate irrigation systems leading to the valley floors that stemmed from nearby rivers supported the rural farmers and led to intensification in agricultural production.
[6] Macrobotanical remains show us that the non-urban farmers cultivated domestic plants such as beans, maize, squash, sweet potatoes, peanuts, chili pepper, gourd, algorrobo and cotton.
[6] The paleobotanical collection also has several wild species that could have been used for "fuel, building materials, animal fodder, medicine, and herbs".
[6] In the Late Moche Period households lost autonomy and became reliant on elites and specialists, and integrated into the complex urban economy.
"As agriculture intensifies and populations become concentrated in cities, the transmission of valuable goods and land increases in importance as resources become more limited".
Specialized items such as ceramics, figurines, beads, ornaments and spindle whirls were traded among urbanites at Pampa Grande.
[6] Exotic foods such as "white-tailed deer, sea lion, coca leaves, aji peppers, and many types of fruits" are found rarely in domestic contexts, but appear in elite households, which suggests the powerful had greater trading capability.
The high-class compounds were built with higher quality materials and craftsmanship and commonly have high privacy walls that distinguish them.
This architectural style is common at Moche sites and consists of rubble interior surrounded by nicely-shaped stones that form an external veneer".
[6] For elite housing, large pieces of rock would have been carried from a nearby source on the backs of camelids (alpaca, llamas) and cut to size as construction took place.
At the time of the Late Moche Period, larger urban areas developed around the "necks of some valleys in order to control access to water".
[1] Because of Pampa Grande's geographical location, at the neck of the river in the valley, centralization of power was important to maintain control over the water source in order to protect against drought.
[6] As agricultural intensification led to drought, Pampa Grande inhabitants needed new forms of work that a new bureaucratic government helped establish and oversee.
[6] Identical motifs of "bird-with-bowl, ritual runners, and deities fighting" can be found at Pampa Grande and Galindo, which is 160 km away.
Figures resembling an anthropomorphized iguana and an elderly individual, described as wrinkle face, were significant characters towards the beginning of Phase V in the Moche period.
[6] The realistic animal and human imagery, commonly found on utilitarian ceramic ware, was replaced with geometrical patterns.
[4] (Haas, 1985: 400) There is also evidence of concentrated luxury goods and foods in the lofty, spacious rooms in the Huaca that suggest it was the residence for the ruling elite.
Shamanistic traditions were performed using figurines in order to cure illness, help with pregnancy and fertility, and to recognize rights of passage.
This suggests kinship ties among the complex, and also contributes to the theory that Pampa Grande residents practiced ancestor worship, because the burial was in a ritualistic plaza.
However, Shimada explains that these theories have issues because the "available data pertaining to this problematic time period are largely ambiguous because of their fragmentary nature…".
External invasion by the Huari Empire is another theory, however weak; Shimada explains it could have led to the abandonment of Pampa Grande.
[1] With such a model, if a large environmental problem occurred, accompanied by increasingly complex population, tributes would only be plausible up to a certain point.
The violent ending is interpreted with the data of widespread intensive burning of domestic and other structures, as mentioned above in the Huari invasion theory.
