[OANNES Foro] Unique burials show how ancient Peruvians celebrated dangerous deep-sea expeditions

Jue Mar 26 10:54:24 PDT 2020

Unique burials show how ancient Peruvians celebrated dangerous deep-sea
expeditions

Remembering the Shark Hunters 

By ERIC A. POWELL

March/April 2020 

https://www.archaeology.org/issues/371-2003/features/8422-remembering-the-sh
ark-hunters

One of nine shark burials that have been unearthed at the ancient Peruvian
site of Pampa la Cruz. (Courtesy Gabriel Prieto)

Exploring the beliefs of complex cultures that flourished before the advent
of writing challenges archaeologists to imagine how the buildings and
artifacts those people left behind express long-vanished belief systems. On
the Moche River, six miles inland from the arid northern coast of Peru, loom
structures that were central to a people who left behind abundant evidence
of their worldview. These buildings, the 15-story adobe-brick Pyramids of
the Sun and the Moon, are among the largest built by the Moche, who thrived
in northern Peru from about A.D. 200 to 800. Moche artisans produced a rich
array of murals, pottery, and other artifacts depicting humans engaged in
ceremonies and interacting with mythic creatures. Thanks to these vivid
depictions and the lavish burials of priests and nobles, archaeologists can
reconstruct how the Moche may have conducted rituals at major sites such as
the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon. But what of the people who lived in
smaller settlements far from the major Moche centers? What religious
traditions did they follow and what beliefs did they rely on to make sense
of the world around them?

In an effort to answer these questions, University of Florida archaeologist
Gabriel Prieto has spent years excavating ancient fishing villages north of
where the Moche River flows into the Pacific Ocean. In the summer of 2019,
he and his team excavated a stone-and-mudbrick platform on a bluff
overlooking the Pacific coast at a site known as Pampa la Cruz. Such
platforms, which served as temples, were often built by ancient Peruvians,
including the Moche, to be used by priests and other important members of
the community as stages on which to perform religious rites. Prieto soon
discovered that this particular platform, rising a modest six feet high, was
decorated with a typical Moche painting that depicts three warriors leading
two naked captives. It also concealed evidence of a unique ritual event.
Beneath the platform, Prieto unearthed the burials of more than a dozen
deep-sea creatures, including nine sharks. The skeletons of two sunfish and
two yellowfin tuna, uncommon species on the Peruvian coast, were also
identified, as well as two Kogia whales, which are some of the rarest
toothed whales in the world. All the animals seemed to have been purposely
buried by the people of Pampa la Cruz, who constructed the platform sometime
between A.D. 500 and 750. "We were very surprised," says Prieto. "Perhaps
there were offerings of sea animals elsewhere in South America, but we
haven't found them yet."

(Ken Feisel)

The only comparable discovery in the New World was made more than 2,000
miles north, in Mexico City, where the Mexicas, or Aztecs, buried marine
species as well as land animals in and around the ritual site of Templo
Mayor. "The Aztecs were later than the Moche," says Harvard University
archaeologist Jeffrey Quilter, who visited Pampa la Cruz when the burials
were being unearthed. "But both examples reflect the widely shared
appreciation by indigenous Americans of animals as important, powerful
creatures." He notes that different animals were sometimes believed to be
masters of different planes of reality, including the underworld, which was
often imagined as an aquatic realm. "The Pampa la Cruz case is interesting
because the animals are oceanic," says Quilter. "So it seems that the temple
had a special role as an intercessor or expression of the forces of the
deep."

A complete skeleton of a 6-foot-long shark was unearthed at Pampa la Cruz.
(Courtesy Gabriel Prieto)

Prieto believes that the burials beneath the platform are also an expression
of a ceremonial tradition that flourished in the small fishing settlements
of the northern Peruvian coast for thousands of years. There, the extremely
cold waters of the Humboldt Current create the conditions for a rich,
diverse fishery that, even today, is one of the world's most bountiful.
Evidence unearthed by Prieto at Pampa la Cruz and elsewhere shows that
rituals based on deep-sea fishing were vital to the people who plied the
waters off this stretch of coastline. They were so crucial, Prieto thinks,
that they were eventually incorporated into the belief system of the greater
Moche world, and help explain how this religious and political system spread
throughout northern Peru.

A 4-inch-long model of a reed boat was among the burial offerings 

discovered in the village of Gramalote, a mile and a half 

from Pampa la Cruz. (Courtesy Gabriel Prieto)

Prieto grew up close to Pampa la Cruz, in the modern-day community of
Huanchaco, a coastal resort town about six miles north of Trujillo, Peru's
third-largest city. Huanchaco is home to the last fishing community in South
America that relies on traditional techniques that hark back to
pre-Columbian times. These fishermen still use watercraft made of reeds that
differ little from those used hundreds, even thousands, of years ago. "I
grew up knowing these fishermen," says Prieto, who was drawn to study the
lives of the ancient residents of small seaside villages. "I was interested
in looking at history from the bottom up. I wanted to explore how common
people lived."

In 2010, Prieto began digging at Gramalote, a prehistoric fishing village
with an ancient population of some 300 people that dates to between 1500 and
1200 B.C. Gramalote is just a mile and a half south of Pampa la Cruz, and
was occupied at the same time as Menocucho and Caballo Muerto, two larger
sites in the nearby Moche River Valley, where hundreds of people lived amid
monumental pyramids decorated with murals and adorned with columns.
Ceremonial events that drew people from the entire Moche Valley were held at
these sites. Previously, archaeologists had proposed that Gramalote was a
peripheral community where people focused on providing food, mainly
shellfish, to the inhabitants of Menocucho and Caballo Muerto. 

A member of the traditional fishing community of the Peruvian village of
Huanchaco 

paddles a type of reed boat whose form has remained essentially the same 

for some 3,000 years. (Courtesy Gabriel Prieto)

Prieto's excavations soon showed there was much more to life in Gramalote
than gathering shellfish. He and his team discovered that the villagers
practiced a range of crafts, including basketry and bone carving, and
processed large amounts of red pigment. Prieto also collected more than
21,000 fish and 12,000 sea mammal bones, suggesting that deep-sea fishing
was just as important as collecting shellfish. Most surprisingly, 16,000 of
the fish bones Prieto unearthed were shark vertebras. Then, as now, sharks
are not easy prey for humans, but hunting these predators appeared to be one
of the main occupations of the people of Gramalote and one of their major
sources of meat. These dangerous animals were also symbolically important.
Some of the shark vertebras had been polished and drilled as if for use in
necklaces, and whole sharks had been placed as offerings under some of the
Gramalote dwellings. In a number of burials, Prieto discovered caches of
shark teeth, which may have accompanied particularly skilled shark hunters
to the afterlife. In once such burial, Prieto also found a reed model of a
boat not substantially different from the ones used by the fishermen of
Huanchaco today.

A cache of shark teeth was one of several found at the site of Gramalote.
(Courtesy Gabriel Prieto)

The people of Gramalote also seemed perfectly capable of worshipping on
their own, without having to make the journey to Menocucho or Caballo
Muerto. Prieto unearthed the remains of a small temple complex in Gramalote
that bore no resemblance to the grander ritual compounds in the nearby
valley. The villagers probably did supply their inland neighbors with food,
but they also lived in a self-sufficient community with its own traditions.
Prieto notes that when the Spaniards reached the area in the sixteenth
century, they found that people in fishing communities spoke a different
language from those living just a few miles inland. Perhaps such
independence had its roots in an ancient sense of community, centered in
part around feats of deep-sea fishing.

Gramalote was abandoned around 1200 B.C., after which archaeologists have an
almost 1,000-year gap in their knowledge of the area. Prieto thinks the
settlement was moved to a site where Huanchaco's colonial-era church now
stands, making excavation impossible. By 400 B.C., however, a community of
some 1,000 people is thought to have been living at Pampa la Cruz. Prieto's
excavations there have revealed that these people did not eat nearly as much
shark meat as their ancestors in Gramalote had, but that fishing for sharks
still seemed to be symbolically important.

The grave of a high status man buried at the site of Pampa la Cruz contained
six metal fishhooks. (Courtesy Gabriel Prieto)

This copper fishhook, measuring almost 5 inches long,

is one of six metal fishhooks discovered in the grave

of a high status man at the site of Pampa la Cruz

(Courtesy Gabriel Prieto)

Prieto found that the burial of one high-status man at Pampa la Cruz
contained six metal fishhooks, including the largest example ever unearthed
in Peru. These hooks are so big that they would only have been used to hunt
large fish such as sharks. The grave also contained two cobblestones once
wrapped in cotton strings that were likely fishing lines, as well as two
flat bone tools that resemble implements still used today by fishermen in
Huanchaco to repair nets. This high-status man, whom Prieto dubbed the
"fisher chief," was buried with all the equipment necessary to hunt sharks.
But Prieto unearthed almost no shark remains at Pampa la Cruz, where people
seem to have consumed mainly small to medium-size fish and shellfish. He
concluded that the fisher chief probably had a ceremonial right or ritual
responsibility to catch sharks, rather than an obligation to provide shark
meat to the community. As an analogy, Prieto points to some indigenous
groups in the Amazon whose chiefs must still hunt jaguars, that ecosystem's
top predator, in order to show they are fit to rule. Perhaps, reasons
Prieto, the fishing community of Pampa la Cruz retained a memory that their
ancestors in Gramalote had been brave shark hunters, and sought leaders who
could hunt and kill the ocean's most dangerous predator.

Between A.D. 500 and 550, Pampa la Cruz became part of the Moche world. The
main village was demolished and moved 100 yards closer to the ocean. The
people of Pampa la Cruz began to be buried with Moche pottery and other
artifacts, such as textiles, depicting humans rendered in the Moche style.
Prieto found that the storage areas of houses dating to this period were
significantly smaller than those in the dwellings that preceded them.
Perhaps the villagers were now compelled to supply food to people living
some distance away. "It's possible that once they were part of the Moche
world, they had to exchange or barter most of their food at the urban center
around the pyramids," says Prieto. The process of becoming part of the Moche
world was a complex one, and, notes Prieto, probably not entirely peaceful.
Many human burials his team has unearthed at Pampa la Cruz dating to this
period show evidence of violent trauma.

A line drawing of artwork on a Moche ceramic vessel shows a mythical fishing
expedition, with figures seated 

on animate reed boats hooking fantastical fish. (Courtesy Christopher
Donnan)

Prieto was convinced that even as the people of Pampa la Cruz fell under the
influence of the Moche belief system, deep-sea fishing likely retained its
important symbolic role. He was particularly interested in the fact that a
common motif on Moche pottery features extravagantly costumed fishermen
hunting large sea beasts from reed boats. The animals are sometimes
identifiable as sharks or other deep-sea fish, but they are also depicted as
chimeras, fantastic creatures that combine features in improbable and
frequently bizarre combinations, such as beasts with shark jaws and human
limbs. Often the boats themselves seem to be alive, and are portrayed aiding
the fishermen in hunting down marine prey. In these depictions, the reed
boats piloted by the mythic fishermen resemble the ones used in Huanchaco
today.

A textile (top) from Pampa La Cruz depicts a typical Moche

figure and resembles a scene (center) from a mural that decorates

a temple platform at the site.. (Courtesy Gabriel Prieto)

As he studied these images, Prieto concluded that the people responsible for
the spread of the Moche belief system incorporated the symbolism of deep-sea
hunting that was so important to the people of small fishing communities
such as Pampa la Cruz into their own religion. Perhaps, thought Prieto,
these already-ancient beliefs tied to hunting sharks and deep-sea chimeras
were included in the Moche ritual system to bolster the appeal of the new
ideology to the people of the coast. Thus, the shark-hunting traditions of
the Gramalote villagers may have lived on in Moche art, and perhaps even in
Moche rituals themselves. "It was clear for me the Moche took this tradition
and included it as part of their religious discourse," says Prieto. "It was
one way to legitimize incorporating the fishing villages into their
territory."

Prieto's theory received dramatic support when he unearthed the burials of
the sharks and other deep-sea creatures beneath Pampa la Cruz's Moche-era
platform. Whether it was local people or Moche priests who were responsible
for these burials, the people who interred the animals honored ancient rites
associated with deep-sea fishing. The fish and whales were even arranged in
such a way that they all appeared to be swimming east, as if migrating
inland from the waters of the Pacific toward the Moche Valley. Whoever
managed to hunt the animals had to have been highly skilled. Similarly, the
people who placed the fish and whales below the platform also clearly had
intimate knowledge of their behavior. "We don't know for certain who buried
the sea creatures," says Prieto. "But the fact that they were included in
the construction of such an important building is probably the result of a
negotiation among higher-ups such as Moche priests and local leaders who had
their own tradition that went back to the days of Gramalote."

A complete 8-foot-long Kogia whale skeleton unearthed at Pampa la Cruz.
(Courtesy Gabriel Prieto)

The Pampa la Cruz burial ground will contribute to archaeologists'
understanding of the ideology and rituals of the Moche world. "Previous
generations of scholars envisioned the Moche spreading their ideology
through warfare," says Denver Museum of Nature & Science archaeologist
Michele Koons. "There was this vision of the Moche conquering river valley
after river valley and bringing their religion with them. But that's
changing." New excavations in northern Peru are showing that the Moche
world, which was once thought of as unified, was actually much more diverse.
It now seems that Moche traditions were not spread strictly through violent
coercion as had been thought, but also through a complex series of
encounters between the Moche and local people who had their own belief
systems. These beliefs weren't extinguished, but instead found new
expressions within the Moche tradition. "This isn't a story about conquest,"
says Koons. "It's about adaptation."

A skeleton of a sunfish (top) and a yellow tuna (above)

were unearthed at Pampa la Cruz. (Courtesy Gabriel Prieto)

The Moche world came to an end sometime around A.D. 800, after which the
village of Pampa la Cruz was abandoned. People belonging to the later Chimu
culture used the site as a cemetery, where they interred hundreds of
ritually sacrificed children ("
<https://www.archaeology.org/issues/364-2001/features/8244-peru-pampa-la-cru
z-sacrifice> Peruvian Mass Sacrifice"), but it's possible the beliefs
associated with the fisher chiefs didn't die out completely. Today, the
traditional fishermen of Huanchaco avidly follow Prieto's excavations. After
learning about the discovery of a cemetery that included oceanic creatures,
they reminded him that, in their grandparents' time, fishermen would always
offer the biggest fish in their catch to God. They would do this as an act
of thanks for the abundance of the ocean's bounty, perhaps an echo of the
beliefs that led the people of Pampa la Cruz to bury sharks beneath their
temple.

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