Social Reconstitution in the Late Moche Period

 

Threatened Moche elites of the various local polities instituted various responses to the late 6th century AD disruption along the north coast.  The location-specific manifestations of these responses constitute the archaeological record of the latest Moche phase.

 

 

                                               Southern Moche Polity (Moche Valley)

 

In the Moche Valley the impact of the climatic disruptions of the late 6th century AD was greatest, as were the economic and political consequences of the abandonment of the southern two-thirds of the polity.  Changes in response to this impact were correspondingly great.  These included the following:

 

Demography

1.  The Huaca del Sol - greatest monument of Middle Moche political and ideological dominance was abandoned.  However, the Huaca de la Luna continued in use at a site that had lost some of its earlier significance.

 

2.  Galindo was established in the valley neck.  This urban center concentrated much of the valley population in a new settlement, a move that was accompanied by parallel major decrease in the rural population.

 

Social Organization

1.   A dense “barrio” of lowest rank housing was located on hill slopes at a distance from water and separated from the rest of the site by a large stone and adobe wall several openings for access.  This suggests that lower status occupants of the town were placed in areas of easy social control by the government.

 

2.  All other residential housing was also segregated with elite residence secluded within walled compounds.  This again suggests a concern with social separation and exclusivity of the uppermost stratum of society.

 

Political Structure

1.  New monumental forms of elite “governmental” architecture including large terraced enclosures (cercaduras) and a large “palace” with attached burial platform.

 

2.  The traditional platform was much reduced in size and replaced in the center of the site by the ceracaduras.

 

3.  Together this innovation and shift in traditional pattern suggest that a new political form had been imposed to replace older discredited and rejected forms.

 

4.  Recent work at the Huaca de la Luna indicates that this continued occupation may have been associated with a new role as the capital of a second polity in the Moche Valley with more continuity with the past than Galindo and more traditional symbols of authority and political systems.

 

 

Ideology

1.  Portrait vessels disappear abruptly from the ceramic artistic record together with most narrative pottery decoration.

 

2.  Most decoration is now in the form of abstract symbolism very different from earlier southern Moche custom.

 

3.  New foreign-inspired techniques and innovative ceramic forms appear in elite contexts.

 

4.  Burial in room benches of lower status residence both contrasts with chamber burials of the elite and indicates a new belief system related to this category of society.

 

5.  At the Huaca de la Luna an increase in human sacrifice at the onset of the disruptions suggest extreme use of this previously limited practice in an attempt to retain the potency of older ideological practices abandoned at Galindo.

 

Economy

A large area of “protected” corporate storage indicates an unprecedented degree of concern with control of the distribution of economic resources and a new degree of centralization of at least a large part of economic production.

 

All of this points to major collapse in the Moche Valley with subsequent reconstitution on very different bases.  It appears that a rump state may have continued at the Huaca de la Luna in the context of abandonment of its largest monuments and breakdown of its ideology to some extent.  Inland a new mini-polity centered at Galindo totally rejected earlier Moche ideology and based its authority on stratification, coercion and a very different political/ideological system

 

 

                                                           Jequetepeque Valley.

 

1.  To the north the Jequetepeque Valley demonstrates less disruption and changes occur in the context of a great deal of continuity with the past.  It is possible that environmental impact was less severe here and certainly there was no shrinkage in political territory as in the Moche Valley situation.  Nevertheless ideological/political innovation occurred within the continuing tradition of Moche social order as dictated by the very different circumstances of the valley.

 

2.  The most obvious innovation is the adoption of a new central ritual of political ideology.  The so-called Burial Theme appears only on elite iconography from this valley.  However, this theme is depicted in pure Moche traditional fine-line painting suggesting innovation within continuity rather than the abrupt transformation that occurred further south.  

 

3.  The elaborate Priestess burials at the site of San José de Moro indicate that at least in this valley the traditional Sacrifice Ceremony continued as central appurtenance of political ritual.

 

4.  Elite burials show an increasing mix of Moche and foreign elements inspired from both highland and central coastal sources.  There appears to be a gradual adoption of potent foreign traits and ideas from the areas of Wari domination to boost what was probably the declining strength of traditional forms.

 

 

                                                            Lambayeque Valley

 

1.  Lambayeque Valley rulers utilized a third strategy of response to disruption.   Here a mix of tradition and innovation brought a powerful surge in political power of the Late Moche polity centered on the new town of Pampa Grande.

 

2.  Here threat instigated the Moche to maintain their power by military action.  They invaded and conquered the last Gallinazo societies of the area and concentrated their subjected populations in the upper Lambeyeque Valley where they were used to build the great monuments of traditional Moche form (but new construction technique) that dominated the new town of Pampa Grande.

 

3.  The Huaca Fortaleza at Pampa Grande is one of the largest platforms ever built and shows that Late Moche rulers used the traditional prestige and awe of this form as the center of their power.  However, they placed it in a new urban center - the counterpart of Galindo - in a new context of military and social coercion.

 

4.  As elsewhere, the symbolism of northern Moche authority borrowed from outside of the area to complement and support progressively weakening traditional ideological symbols.

 

 

These new innovations in the Late Moche period sustained the transformed social order for a few generations.  However, in the mid 8th century AD both the towns of Galindo and Pampa Grande were abandoned in the context of violence, and the Moche symbolic inventory ceased to exist as an integrated set, betokening the end of Moche political system.  In the Jequetepeque Valley more gradual transition to later cultural forms occurred but the Moche order as such also ceased to exist.