Christina A. Conlee

Decapitation and Rebirth: A Headless Burial from Nasca, Peru

Decapitation was a common type of ritual sacrifice in the ancient Andes. Images of disembodied heads and decapitation were ubiquitous in the art of the Nasca culture, and the large numbers of physical remains of trophy heads found in the archaeological record of the area are unprecedented. However, few headless bodies have been recovered in the region. A burial from the site of La Tiza is the first documented decapitated burial that dates to Middle Nasca, a time of cultural transition. The debate over the role of decapitation and “trophy heads” centers on whether these heads were taken in battle or were members of the community offered up for ritual sacrifice. Regardless of who these individuals were, it is evident that decapitation and keeping of trophy heads were central to rituals of renewal. The La Tiza burial was associated with an earlier cemetery and habitation area, suggesting a relationship between rituals of fertility and regeneration and the role of the ancestors.

An exploration of looted Middle Horizon tombs from Nasca

Abstract In the Middle Horizon new tomb forms and burial practices appeared in the Nasca region that entailed the burial of multiple individuals in above-ground tombs. Such tombs found at the site of La Tiza were associated with elites, contained richer grave goods, and involved a greater investment in construction than previous burial types. The mortuary structures contained the interments of both local people and foreigners providing new evidence of cultural ties with the highlands during the Middle Horizon. Although all of the tombs had been looted, excavations have demonstrated the profitability of exploring looted contexts.Durante el Horizonte Medio aparecieron nuevas formas de tumbas y prácticas funerarias en la región de Nasca que implicaban el entierro de varios individuos en tumbas construidas sobre la superficie. Estas tumbas encontradas en el sitio de La Tiza estuvieron asociadas con los grupos de élite, contenían finos objetos asociados e involucraban una mayor inversión en su construcción que los tipos de enterramientos anteriores. Las estructuras funerarias contenían los entierros de habitantes tanto locales como foráneos, proporcionando así nueva evidencia de interacción cultural con la sierra durante el Horizonte Medio. Aunque todas las tumbas fueron saqueadas, las excavaciones han demostrado los beneficios de la exploración de este tipo de contextos.

Plazas and communal space in Nasca: changing patterns of public ritual through the Formative and Early Intermediate periods (800 B.C.– A.D. 650) on the south coast of Peru

Documented plaza use in the southern Nasca region (SNR) has demonstrated that communal spaces were absent at residential sites during the Early Nasca epoch. Indeed, communal rituals and performance were apparently limited to the pilgrimage center of Cahuachi and associated features of the built environment such as the Nasca geoglyphs. This pattern differs significantly from the pre and post-Cahuachi eras, when plazas, and the communal activities that took place in them, were central to many settlements. In this article, we build on previous work to evaluate the use of communal ritual space in the form of plazas and other aspects of the “built exterior” through time in the Nasca region. We employ data collected from multiple sites, from the SNR to the northern Nasca region (NNR) in Ica. We conclude that cycles of sociopolitical complexity, integration, and patterns of pilgrimage were factors in determining the amount, kind, and arrangement of public ritual space in the Nasca region during the Formative and Early Intermediate periods.