Project Field Methods

It is important that the project methodology be designed to complement the body of theory used by many researchers to answers questions about a site. The field and laboratory methods presented in this section were designed by Billman for the MOP. Although the MOP methodology

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was designed to be flexible, it was mainly focused on household archaeology and the most detailed retrieval of material and information from residential archaeological contexts that is possible. The full coverage and intensive collection and recording strategies described here were designed to allow all specialists to obtain representative samples for current and future studies.

Field methods

The main goal of the Cerro León archaeological excavation was to understand the dynamics of households in the Moche valley before and during the expansion and decline of the Southern Moche polity and to gauge the effects of highland interaction with valley and coastal populations (Billman et al. 2004). The MOP works under a system of Provenience Designation (PD) derived from contract archaeology in the southwestern U.S. (Billman 19to assign a unique number to each context subject to collection and/or recording within a project or site complex, assigned in sequence from one to n. For example, if a patio is excavated in quadrants, the patio is given a single feature number, but each level of each of the patio is given a unique PD number. Within each PD if artifacts or samples of any kind are collected, they are divided for processing and storage by type and assigned a field specimen number in sequence within that PD (e.g. 156.06 equals the 156th PD assigned, Field Specimen 6). All contexts studied with the PD system have a narrative description, a sketched locator map, coded information on context type, methods used for collection, and the condition and formation processes of the context along with reference information on photographs, drawings, and additional paperwork. All forms used in the field are included in Appendix A. The PD system can be

cumbersome but has the benefit of being flexible and context-specific, aiding in data recording and analysis.

In the field, the directors and project supervisors determined appropriate strategies of surface collection and excavation based on specific sets of research questions. All contexts to be excavated were first 100% surface collected, but additional strategies of surface collection were implemented where appropriate to obtain representative samples of artifacts, especially pottery and lithics. At

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Cerro León directors proposed to surface collect a sample of residential compounds in each of the habitation areas of the site. Surface and excavation units were assigned different sets of numbers in the PD system because collection strategies may differ and so that they may be easily distinguished in analysis. The MOP always follows surface architecture when visible for the designation of surface and excavation units. If spaces are large, they are subdivided in an appropriate manner. Usually this entailed halving or quartering large contexts. Larger terraces with no discernible architectural divisions were divided into four or eight equivalent units. The boundaries of all collection units were marked with mason’s twine and 7-inch gutter spikes.

Excavation followed cultural processes of deposition and subtraction wherever possible, not only to record sequences of events, but to interpret contexts and “social strategies of cutting and layering strata” (McAnany and Hodder 2009:2–3). Where cultural levels were not visible, excavations began with a test trench to expose stratigraphy. Contexts were halved or trenched depending on axis, size, and shape. The first portion was excavated and recorded fully as a single PD context. The unexcavated portion was then excavated in cultural levels as separate PDs based on the information gleaned from the other excavated portion. Since we excavated mainly in remnants of stone architecture, first we removed the fallen wall stones from the surface of the context and then began hand excavation with trowel and brush techniques. Architectural fill consisted of wall fall and was usually excavated in a single level down to approximately 10 cm above an associated

occupational surface. The subsequent 10 cm of fill above the floor was removed as a separate level of floor contact artifacts, designated as “floor fill”. If post-occupational features (e.g. hearths or surfaces that had been exposed and collected water lain sediments from past El Niño events) were found while excavating the architectural fill level, these were collected as separate contexts from the architectural fill. Interior subfeatures such as hearths, pits, benches, or bins were given a subfeature number as a suffix of the larger feature number. For example the first hearth found while excavating the Feature 5 room was designated as Feature 5.01. Numbers for subfeatures were given in sequence as the

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Temporary datums or excavation datums were used by each excavation crew to keep vertical controls of all contexts excavated. Elevations from below or above the temporary datum were recorded at the top and base of all contexts excavated. These temporary datums were recorded in a master log and mapped with the total station during the course of excavations. Once a context was excavated to a living surface, often a ‘plaster’ or packed fine sediment floor or a trampled surface, a cross-section was drawn and photographs taken in order to prep the excavation of the remaining portion. If artifacts or features were encountered at floor contact, these were recorded in a detailed hand-drawn planview map, photographed, and either left in place or marked with a small labeled nail until mapped with the total station and plotted on a planview. An appropriate-sized sample (usually at least two cups) of the floor material itself were also systematically removed for pollen, phytolith, or chemical testing.

One of the main goals of the MOP archaeological project is collection of all artifacts and organic remains larger than 1/8 inch within excavated contexts. With the exception of soil or other samples collected whole, all excavated deposits are passed through 1/8-inch metal mesh screen. Excavators also collect a 5-liter soil sample for flotation from every excavated level. If subfeatures were not 5 liters in volume, an appropriate sample, often the entire feature, was taken. Artifacts and samples were bagged by type in the field and recorded on the field form for processing in the laboratory.

Laboratory Methods

Laboratory processing ran concurrent to excavations and continued after field work until all processing was completed. Collections were readied for curation or analysis and were turned over to the INC for storage. Pottery without residues or fragile paints was washed in plain water as were lithics. When dry they were placed in clean plastic bags tied with their original field tags. Other materials, both organic and inorganic, were gently brushed clean with a dry toothbrush or soft bristled paintbrush. Samples of carbon or coprolites were simply cleaned of other debris and placed in clean

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plastic bags. All material types once processed awaited analysis by archaeologists specializing in the different material types. With the aid of Peruvian assistants and other project participants, I processed the pottery collections from all field seasons at Cerro León and performed the analysis on this

material type. Analyses are described in detail in Chapters 6 and 7, but I outline basic collection procedures here.

Ceramic data collection took place in small segments after field work was completed each field season. The largest segment of work took place from January to the end of August 2009 with the aid of an off campus dissertation research grant from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. At first alone, and eventually with the aid of a trained Peruvian assistant, I classified and weighed all pottery from excavated contexts from the six field seasons of excavation at Cerro León. I collected data for every pottery sherd over ½ inch in size. Sherds less than ½ inch were weighed in bulk. Based on a preliminary type-variety classification for Cerro León developed by Brian Billman and myself, I collected and recorded information on the following variables: type, variety, form, part of vessel represented, evidence for use wear, count, and weight. With the permission of the National Institute of Culture (INC) in Trujillo, I removed all collections from storage one or two field seasons at a time. This was as much a condition of limited lab space as a condition of the Institute of Culture. I had to return completed field seasons before I was able to extract the next ones. I also selected samples of diagnostic rim sherds for export to make slides and conduct petrographic analysis. These were also submitted for approval to the INC. The methods associated with thin sectioning and analysis are described fully in Chapter 6. When data collection was complete, I made photo copies of every page of hand-recorded data and gave them to our Peruvian project director Jesús Briceño Rosario, who passed them on to the INC.

In addition to basic variables I focused on pottery vessel form as it relates to primary function with supplemental information gathered on use-alteration where applicable. I numbered and labeled every rim sherd and provided them with unique sequentially assigned vessel numbers (called the vessel identification number or VIN), based on PD and field specimen (FS) numbers. I made profile

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drawings of nearly every rim sherd that had 5% or more of its diameter present13. I also photographed all sherds with decoration, evidence of use wear, vessel parts that may be chronologically sensitive such as cooking pot handles, whole specimens, spindle whorls, beads, worked sherds, or any unique item. Methods for this functional analysis are based on a pilot study conducted on surface collections at the site but will target excavated occupational surfaces and fill above these surfaces (Ringberg 2004). Details of the analysis are presented in Chapter 7.

4.7 Discussion

In this chapter I summarize my approach to Cerro León based on an agency-structure framework. This paradigm is well-suited to studying small-scale scenarios because the cumulative daily activities of individuals are where change occurs. Identities such as gender and ethnicity require that I treat the evidence for these cumulative actions as the products of multiple, varied actors within households (Hendon 2009:172). Houses and households are an ideal venue for this approach because they are simultaneously private and public interfaces between individuals and their broader social world. Material culture, including the residence and all its contents and surrounding features provide the parameters for repeated, shared actions. The activities of EIP households focused on getting and using food. Foodways served as a vehicle for the organization of kinship and political networks as well as the ritual life of non-state complex societies (Welch and Scarry 1995:398).

Based on regional survey (Billman 1996; 2002; Topic and Topic 1982; 1987), we know that highlanders were involved, either directly or indirectly, in the agriculturally productive chaupiyunga zone of the middle Moche valley. However, we need to excavate sites like Cerro León to determine exactly how they were involved. Modeling invasion, exchange, or peaceful colonization scenarios gives us guidelines for developing middle-range theories and methods to make inquiries about and infer from material remains who lived and worked at Cerro León and similar sites in the Moche

13 _{With such a large collection, it became impractical to draw all profiles of 5% orifice diameter. Angled-rim} ollas in particular were all drawn at first, but profile shapes were so redundant that after a while only ollas with larger percentages of rim present or those with unique profiles were drawn.

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valley. Highland invaders would have focused their efforts on their own protection and intensive production of crops and other resources only available in the yunga and chaupiyunga zones. They would have maintained an exclusively highland identity with reciprocal ties only with home territories and groups in the sierra, obtaining material culture from the highlands or producing highland-style material culture with valley materials. If valley natives occupied Cerro León, they would have specialized in agricultural production and likely would have engaged in intensive exchange

relationships with both coastal and highland groups. Stronger identity with coastal populations would have been emphasized, especially in private daily life and probably also in more public, formal settings where they interfaced with highland outsiders. If highland groups had peacefully colonized the middle Moche valley, I might expect to see houses and households with mixed or hybridized material cultures depending on the gender and ethnicity of household members (Lightfoot et al. 1998).

The above models would have also produced distinct patterns in household lifecycles, suites of material culture, and most likely their abandonment processes. The way to study and identify these scenarios is to look at the materials and contexts of residences through household archaeology. The models and objectives presented in Chapter 4 are implemented in Chapters 5, 6, and 7. The temporal, spatial, and functional aspects of Cerro León residential space are the focus of Chapter 5. Cerro León residences are examined as a category of artifact whose use-life was in a close relationship with the life cycle of the household with which it was associated. Within these socially constructed spaces, household members at Cerro León created identities through their daily activity.

Chapters 6 and 7 focus on the pottery assemblage from the three households at Cerro León. In Chapter 6, I present data, analysis, and interpretation of the manufacture and exchange of culinary pottery encountered in the discard assemblages of three of Cerro León’s residential compounds. Chapter 7 offers a look at the functional significance of Cerro León’s sample culinary pottery assemblage as well as the functions and use lives of other ceramic and non-ceramic artifact categories. I demonstrate in these three data-oriented chapters that multiple and varied material

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culture correlates support an interpretation of the social organization and identities of Cerro León’s household members as a complex set of actors that most likely comprised both highland- and possibly valley-based populations.

Chapter 5 RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE AND HOUSEHOLD ORGANIZATION AT