9 Enduring Collapse

Households and Local Autonomy at Talambo, Jequetepeque, Peru

Kari A. Zobler

You pile up associations the way you pile up bricks . . . Memory itself is a form of architecture.

Louise Bourgeois (2000, 26)

Archaeologists have made significant advances in modeling societal change, particularly as it relates to political collapse and regeneration (Holling 1973; Holling and Gunderson 2002; Kolata 2006; Tainter 1988; Yoffee and Cowgill 1988). Cross-cultural analyses have revealed a range of interrelated internal tensions (e.g., corruption, economic overextension, and diminishing returns) and external challenges (e.g., environmental degradation, natural disaster, warfare, and disease) that catalyze societal destabilization (Railey and Reycraft 2008; Schwartz and Nichols 2006). A key component of many of these models is that sociopolitical change occurs across multiple intersecting scales—from regional to local and public to private.

Domestic contexts offer an analytically accessible scale at which regional societal variation may be examined (Deetz 1982). Moreover, the diachronic nature of the “house” as social unit, as well as its material ubiquity, makes it ideal for temporal and cross-cultural comparison. Yet despite the frequent application of household data to regional models of sociopolitical collapse, there has been comparatively little focus on long-term community endurance or how the challenges households face rarely disappear with the dismantling of elite power. From a household perspective, “collapse” is characterized less by epochal rupture than by prolonged precarity. Moreover, societal regeneration is not a product of unidirectional elite action but rather the endurance (or exhaustion) of locally created alternate social worlds.

On the North Coast of Peru, ancient households were constitutive social and economic units in community endurance and regional political change. Although the key role exchange networks played in Late Moche cultural continuity is well established in Moche archaeology (particularly for San José de Moro in the Jequetepeque Valley), community endurance strategies exhibited at economically insulated sites and the role water management played in Cajamarca territorial arrogation and local autonomy have not been fully explored.

This chapter presents evidence of household endurance in the Jequetepeque Valley of Peru in the Late Moche (AD 600–800) and Transitional/early Late Intermediate Periods (AD 800–1100) at the site of Talambo (figure 9.1). Talambo’s location (near the intake for the Talambo Canal), water access, and socioeconomic independence enabled households to adopt alternative endurance strategies during a period of political and environmental destabilization surrounding the Moche collapse. Whereas elite centers (and those communities imbricated in their systems of exchange) perpetuated their own ceremonial ideology and the prestige of foreign connection, recent excavations of two contemporary domestic contexts demonstrate how Talambo maintained an alternate social world that operated at the margins of (or entirely outside) these prominent centers.

Give Me Shelter: Households, “Collapse,” and Alternate Social Worlds

The scale of the home defies easy classification—it is at once intimate and universal. For anthropologists, initial bounded conceptions of what constitutes a house have given way to a panoply of domesticities. The “house,” as first conceptualized by Claude Lévi-Strauss (1982, 1987), is a social unit wherein co-residence underlies a network of social, political, religious, and economic ties (Wilk and Rathje 1982). As a constitutive social unit, the house embodies broader societal ideals and their selective application. It is the space where culturally defined social relationships are naturalized—at the intersection of community and individual.

In “Essay: The Love of Old Houses,” poet Mark Doty highlights the intersection between household endurance and accumulated action. “A building,” he reminds us, is “both noun and verb, / where we live and what we do” (Doty 2001, 54) Or, as artist Louise Bourgeois (2000, 26) would have it, “memory itself is a form of architecture.” Although I am sensible that poetic engagements with the home quickly outpace the limitations of household archaeology, they nevertheless provide a useful avenue to critically assess the capacity of quotidian routine to insulate and sustain alternate social worlds. Doty’s description of a two-centuries-old house, for example, shifts between past and present, as the structure’s material continuity—a polished floor, a well-worn stair—elicits memories of previous habitation and an affective attachment to the house’s former residents. It is central to Doty’s narrative that a house encompasses much more than its architectural shell. Rather, the carapace of brick and mortar, wood and stone, is imbued with the past efforts of previous occupants, whose energies transcend even the most profound rupture.

By contrast, archaeological models of rupture, such as those that characterize sociopolitical change, are predominantly rooted in event-based perspectives of the past (Badiou 2005; Deleuze 2007). Borrowing from ecological models, these analyses have primarily focused on identifying the material correlates of emerging complexity, collapse, and (sometimes) regeneration (Faulseit 2016; Holling 1973; Holling and Gunderson 2002; Redman 2005; Schwartz and Nichols 2006). Such studies often rely on variations in elite material culture, which magnifies the visibility and importance of epochal change.

Domestic contexts provide an important counterpoint to elite-derived models of sociopolitical transformation. Households tend to function on a different temporal scale than prestige arenas. Unlike the moments of transformative rupture that often accompany macropolitical change, the opportunities and challenges faced by households in their daily maintenance are generally below the level of the catastrophic. Rather, societal collapse is more often a political disruption than a demographic loss (Dillehay 2001; Railey and Reycraft 2008). Moreover, the material culture of domesticity is more stylistically conservative than the prestige goods on which relative chronologies are usually based. Consequently, households often resist the cause-and-effect characterizations that are the hallmark of archaeological narratives of collapse and regeneration.

Given the extended temporality of domestic life, how do we reconcile the inherent stability of the household as a constitutive social unit with a macropolitical view of epochal change? Although most archaeological models of collapse and regeneration utilize the cyclical terminology of systemic resilience (Redman 2005), a growing body of anthropological research (within the context of Late Liberalism) problematizes the inevitability of these cycles by examining the processes by which state abandonment is repackaged as community failure (Berlant 2011; Nixon 2011; Povinelli 2011). Anthropologist Elizabeth A. Povinelli (2011, 2012) framed community potentiality in human terms—endurance or exhaustion, with exhaustion having mortal consequences. Moreover, Povinelli’s (2011) “exhaustion” and Rob Nixon’s (2011) “slow violence” underscore the oblique wounds that are endemic to prolonged precarity in communities.

By applying Povinelli’s dichotomy between community endurance and its antonym to the household, I ascribe intentionality to even the most recursive domestic social production. “If we must persist in potentiality,” Povinelli (2011, 128) wrote, “we must endure it as a space, a materiality, and a temporality. As we all know, materiality-as-potentiality is never itself outside given organizations of power.” Seen thus, household continuity under strain is an act of endurance that carries material, mental, and emotional costs. If organizations of power endure, then community costs are amplified at a rate commensurate with their sociopolitical distance from the ideological center.

At the same time, by enduring the prolonged precarity of collapse, communities may develop alternate social worlds that diverge from the normative strategies of elite centers or, indeed, their own rural neighbors. These “otherwises,” to borrow Povinelli’s (2011, 2012, 2014) term, have the potential to be actualized and resonate more broadly, although this is never a certainty. It is at this regional scale that alternate social worlds most often gain archaeological recognition. Their origins, however, are always intensely local—living or dying by the energies of individuals and the resources to which they have access. Seen thus, moments of “transition” between collapse and regeneration are characterized less by unidirectional development than by uneven impasse. Transformative societal change occurs not in moments of elite conflagration but in the quiet potentiality of the domestic, where what was and what could be together hang fire.

Late Moche and Transitional Periods in the Jequetepeque Valley

In the Late Moche Period, intermittent political and environmental instability on the north coast of Peru resulted in political decentralization along canal networks and a proliferation of inland settlement (Castillo Butters 2000a, 2003, 2007, 2009, 2010; Dillehay et al. 2004, 2009; Hecker and Hecker 1995; Swenson 2004, 2007). Elite centers that were strategically located at valley necks and canal nodes thrived as many of the prominent Middle Moche complexes in the lower valleys declined. In the southern Moche heartland, for example, elite settlement shifted from the Huacas de Moche1 to the site of Galindo near the lower valley neck (Bawden 1977, 2001; Lockard 2005, 2008; Moseley 1978; Moseley and Deeds 1982). A similar move occurred in the northern Moche sphere, at Pampa Grande in the Lambayeque Valley (Johnson 2010; Shimada 1994). Meanwhile, hinterland communities proliferated—oscillating between autonomous and cooperative strategies that alternately paralleled or diverged from those of elite centers.

In the Jequetepeque Valley, Late Moche communities negotiated an amalgam of centralizing and divergent forces. First, expanded canal irrigation networks physically connected dispersed settlements while communities continued to manage their own subsistence economies. Second, prominent centers in the Jequetepeque Valley did not develop the same urbanism that characterized elite settlement in neighboring valleys. Rather, elite centers hosted ceremonies and cultivated ritual exchange networks that propagated elite symbols of power while hinterland “huaca communities” intermittently utilized or eschewed these icons. Finally, as the power of local elites waned and highland influence grew toward the end of the Late Moche Period, rural communities either mirrored the strategies of prominent centers or developed their own means of endurance.

Canal Irrigation in the Jequetepeque Valley

The lower Jequetepeque Valley was irrigated in three phases, the last of which watered the northern sector between the Jequetepeque and Chamán Rivers. Although earlier efforts were more structurally unified, this final phase of canal construction was accomplished through building four separate canals (Chafán, Guadalupe, Chepén, and Talambo), each with an independent intake (figure 9.2). Thus each subsector of the northern valley could have been irrigated independently. The redundancy of this system has been linked to successive chronological episodes of construction, strategies of risk management, and increasing political factionalism (Castillo Butters 2010; Eling 1987).

The northern canal expansion dates to either the Middle Moche (AD 400–600) or Late Moche Period (AD 600–800). Luis Jaime Castillo Butters (2010) assigned construction to the Middle Moche Period, based on relative dating of the ceramic assemblage at San José de Moro and nearby settlements. Although the site of San José de Moro was not directly associated with a canal in the Moche era (the Moro subsidiary canal is a Late Intermediate Period expansion), Castillo argued against the likelihood of any significant settlement in the arid northern sector of the valley without canal irrigation.

Tom D. Dillehay (2001) and Edward R. Swenson (2004) have each argued for a Late Moche date of canal construction, based on radiocarbon dates and relative ceramic chronologies at hinterland sites. The association of sectional canal management with particular social groups is well established in the Andes (Netherly 1984) and is a common feature of many irrigation systems cross-culturally (Adams 1960; Fernea 1970). Given that the Late Moche Period was also characterized by increased fortification, they argue that these individual canals and their separate intakes were originally conceived as (or eventually became) the resources of politically autonomous communities.

Beyond chronological exactitude, the underlying question in this debate is whether irrigation of the northern Jequetepeque Valley emerged from political unity or fragmentation. In this chapter, I address this chronological question. My primary interest in Jequetepeque canal networks, however, has less to do with the original impetus for canal construction than with what role canal networks played in community endurance during and immediately after the Moche collapse.

Late Moche Ritual and Exchange

During the Late Moche Period, individuals intermittently gravitated toward the ritual mass of elite centers while remaining tethered to their increasingly autonomous source communities (Castillo Butters 2010; Dillehay 2001; Johnson 2011; Swenson 2004, 2006, 2007; Swenson and Warner 2012). A priestess cult flourished at the site of San José de Moro, which elevated this once marginal iconographic figure to the focus of funerary ritual and communal feasting (Castillo Butters 2001, 2006). Meanwhile, small “huaca communities” proliferated throughout the Jequetepeque Valley (Dillehay 2001; Duke, this volume), indicating that Late Moche ceremonial life was locally as well as regionally situated (Swenson 2006, 2008). Recurrent dedicatory and termination offerings at these complexes reinforced a materially vital and mutually sacrificial mode of being while elites simultaneously perpetuated the contradiction of an increasingly class-divided society (Morrow, this volume; Swenson 2015).

Newly established ritual exchange networks, emanating from San José de Moro, fostered greater cultural continuity among participating hinterland settlements (Castillo Butters 2010). Intricately painted fineline vessels associated with veneration of the Moro priestess have been found at sites throughout the valley (Johnson 2008, 2011; Swenson 2008, 2015; Swenson and Warner 2012). These wares are recovered most often in ceremonial or mortuary contexts, including within some huaca communities, along with mold-impressed face-neck jars that depict more generalized Moche religious imagery (Swenson 2006, 2008). Thus hinterland settlements engaged with regional symbols of power while simultaneously developing and reaffirming their own ancestral community narratives.

Castillo Butters (2010) has argued that the regional impact of San José de Moro’s ceremonial ideology extended beyond cultural continuity to facilitate sociopolitical integration among settlement groups. These “opportunistic states,” as he termed them, would have utilized the same ritual exchange networks that disseminated San José de Moro (SJM) fineline wares to manage regional defense and canal irrigation (Castillo Butters 2010, 106). Seen thus, ritual exchange at San José de Moro and the northern canal expansion were not only concurrent processes but also represented contingent parts of a semiunified political effort on the part of Moche elites.

If San José de Moro elites used existing ceremonial networks to organize irrigation management (during either the Middle Moche or the Late Moche Period), we might expect that all settlements located along these canal networks would have access to SJM fineline wares. Moreover, if elites occasionally mobilized communities under their influence to address shared opportunities and challenges (such as an influx of highland settlers or climatological instability), we might expect corresponding similarities between elite and hinterland material culture during periods of intensified interaction.

Before addressing these issues at the site of Talambo, it is helpful to briefly outline the shared opportunities and challenges faced by all Late Moche communities in the Jequetepeque Valley, as well as elite strategies of endurance.

Shared Challenges and New Neighbors: Ritual Networks Transformed

The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon, an ever-present variable on the North Coast, presented one such shared challenge to Late Moche (and contemporary highland) societies (Shimada et al. 1991; Swenson 2004; Thompson et al. 1985). El Niño disrupts the agricultural and maritime cycle and, in severe years, the warmer waters and shifting atmospheric currents can produce rains that flood canals and wash out agricultural fields. Given significant regional variation in the severity of El Niño effects (Billman and Huckleberry 2008; Dillehay 2001, 269; Sandweiss and Quilter 2012), some communities likely fared better than others. Thus in addition to their political significance, dispersed settlement patterns in the Jequetepeque Valley during the Late Moche Period may have reduced general subsistence risk.

Variable rains in the highlands (associated with ENSO) and the expansion of the highland Wari State brought new people, ideologies, and economies into the coastal sphere (Bawden 2001; Castillo Butters 2001; Castillo Butters et al. 2012). Highland and coastal populations coexisted in Jequetepeque in a variety of hierarchical and heterarchical arrangements. Biodistance results indicate that ethnically highland settlers from Cajamarca migrated into the middle and lower valleys (particularly Zaña and Jequetepeque) during the Late Moche Period (Zobler and Sutter 2016). Their interactions ranged from intrusive at Cerro Chepén (Cusicanqui and Caramanica 2011; Rosas 2007, 2010) to co-optive at San José de Moro (Castillo Butters 2001, 2010; Castillo Butters and Uceda Castillo 2008; Castillo Butters et al. 2012) to cohabitation at Las Varas (Tsai 2020).

In the lower Jequetepeque Valley, Cajamarquinos grafted on to the existing resources and ceremonial life of Late Moche communities. Cajamarca settlers established a new settlement at Cerro Chepén Alto, which surmounted the locally populated area of Cerro Chepén. Cerro Chepén Alto was an ideal location for a colony, as the Serrano Canal supplied ample water. Moreover, the ethnically Moche community of Cerro Chepén Bajo provided a ready source of agricultural labor (Rosas 2007, 2010).

In addition to Cerro Chepén Alto’s favorable resources, the site’s geographic proximity to San José de Moro facilitated highland participation in Late Moche ceremonial life. Cajamarca Floral Cursive wares2 joined local SJM finelines in the elite mortuary assemblage of San José de Moro (Castillo Butters 2000b; 2001). Frequent co-occurrence of these wares evinces a level of (asymmetrical) cooperation between highland and local elites that likely benefited both groups throughout an era of environmental instability. These interactions facilitated and locally legitimized Cajamarca priorities related to subsistence and exchange while simultaneously transplanting the prestige of foreign authority to buttress local elite power in uncertain political times.

Some rural communities mirrored elite interactions by embracing highland wares. At the Late Moche site of Huaca Colorada, for example, Cajamarca vessels were found in elite ritual contexts alongside SJM fineline wares and face-neck jars (Swenson and Warner 2012). Meanwhile, at the more modest residential site of Portachuelo de Charcape, located approximately 50 km west of San José de Moro, SJM finelines were found together with Wari-related ceramic styles (Johnson 2008, 272). Despite evident differences in site size and location, both sites are located adjacent to irrigation canals (albeit different networks). Moreover, these settlements share a history of participation in San José de Moro ritual and exchange networks before highland influence entered the valley.

Although some hinterland settlements employed the same ceremonial assemblages as prominent centers, rural communities in the Jequetepeque Valley did not universally adopt the new highland wares. Recent surveys indicate that some hinterland settlements did not utilize Cajamarca wares (Cusicanqui and Barrazueta 2010; Dillehay et al. 2009; Ruiz 2004; Swenson 2004). Other sites, such as the remote settlement of San Ildefonso, continued to use SJM fineline wares but in an entirely different use pattern than elite centers (Swenson 2008). Moreover, San Ildefonso’s geographic remoteness (without easy access to irrigation) complicates the presumed relationship between SJM fineline wares and canal infrastructure.

Thus, despite facing shared challenges, some communities in the Jequetepeque Valley developed alternate strategies of endurance to negotiate the uncertainties of Moche collapse. While elite centers and some hinterland sites cultivated foreign connection, other settlements lacked access to (or chose to avoid) these relationships. What role did rural households play in creating and maintaining such alternate social worlds? Did these strategies ultimately contribute to the endurance or exhaustion of their respective communities?

Talambo Households during the Late Moche and Transitional Periods

The site of Talambo, located on the north bank of the Jequetepeque River at the neck of the lower valley, is well situated to address the role of canal irrigation, elite exchange networks, and foreign influence during the Late Moche and Transitional Periods. Although primarily known for its Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000–1476) role in the Chimú imperial scheme (Keatinge and Conrad 1983), Talambo began as a Moche era settlement. The site’s initial function, by virtue of its location, appears to have been control and management of the nearby canal intakes and adjacent agricultural fields.

Results from my excavations revealed that Late Moche and Transitional households at Talambo engaged in small-scale subsistence and craft production activities, as well as local ceremonial practices, similar to other settlements in the valley. Unlike many of its contemporaries located along canal networks, however, Talambo was not imbricated in San José de Moro (and eventually highland) networks of ritual and exchange.

General Description of Site Features

The main sector of Talambo (also referred to as Talambo Oeste) consists of a large adobe enclosure, three huaca mounds, and numerous outbuildings (figure 9.3). The main compound was constructed of adobe bricks with a stone-and-daub foundation. It incorporated a huaca along the north perimeter wall, internal partitions and platforms, and an extensive adobe brick and field stone extension that abuts the entire eastern wall. The main compound is accessed through an entrance on the west side. Two additional huacas (including the site’s largest) are located southwest of this complex. The ancient Talambo Canal flows a short distance south of these mounds. The modern canal, which was built as part of the Gallito Ciego Dam Project in the 1980s, bisects these huacas.

A cemetery abuts the larger of these two mounds at its eastern base. Systematic surface collection (50% coverage) of ceramics in this mortuary sector indicates that it (and the adjacent huaca) was utilized during the Moche and Chimú Periods (Zobler n.d.). The ceremonial assemblage at the huaca summit and in the Moche sector of the cemetery (located closest to the huaca base) is typical of rural Moche settlements, consisting of face-neck jars3 and quartz beads, along with a variety of food preparation and serving wares for feasting.

The main compound and huacas are surrounded by numerous smaller rectangular structures, particularly to the north and west of the core. The best preserved of these buildings was excavated by Richard W. Keatinge and Geoffrey W. Conrad (1983) in the late 1970s. They identified it as a Chimú administrative structure with architectural parallels (an audiencia and niched rooms) to contemporary sites such as Farfán and Chan Chan. Subsequent survey and modeling of the site have noted its place in the Chimú settlement hierarchy (Mackey 1987), to the near exclusion of other periods of occupation (with the exception of Eling 1987, 456; Shimada 1994, 121-122; Swenson 2004, 404). My excavation revealed that the majority of extant Late Intermediate Period and Late Horizon architecture in this core sector overlays an earlier history of continuous occupation beginning in the late Middle Moche Period, particularly in the southern portion of the settlement closest to the ancient Talambo Canal.

The Talambo Canal was the last major canal to be constructed in Jequetepeque and flows immediately south of the main sector of the site of Talambo. At its fullest extent, the 80 km-long canal irrigated over 30,000 hectares (Swenson 2004, 237) and linked the Jequetepeque River with the Chamán drainage. It included two main subsidiary canals (the Serrano Canal and Moro Canal) and eventually reached up to the Pampa de Colorado (Eling 1987). Given that there was no settlement on the Pampa de Colorado until the Late Intermediate Period, the Late Moche profile of the Talambo Canal would have been more modest in scope. Although the canal has not yet been directly dated, extensive survey and excavation of associated sites indicate that during the Late Moche Period, the Talambo Canal likely extended only as far as Cerro Chepén Bajo, where the Serrano Canal watered a Late Moche settlement (Rosas 2010). Talambo was thus in a privileged position of water access for itself and control for sites in the lower valley, including Cerro Chepén.4

The core of Talambo is flanked by numerous stone structures (including a small huaca complex) that are terraced into the nearby hillside of Cerro Sullivan (also referred to as Talambo Este). In this, Talambo is similar to other Moche sites such as Galindo (Bawden 1977; Lockard 2005, 2008) and Santa Rosa–Quirihuac (Billman et al. 1999; Gumerman and Briceño 2003), where settlement extended from the coastal pampa to the adjacent hillside. Systematic but not fully comprehensive survey of this hillside yielded a plethora of small and intermediate-sized field stone structures, including enclosures and platforms (Dillehay et al. 2009; Kremkau 2010; Zobler n.d.).

Grab-sampling at these sites revealed that with the exception of a few fine blackware fragments, surface sherds were generally tinajas, jars, and ollas made of coarse, low-fired, grit-tempered wares (sometimes with loosely applied bands of cream slip) used for storage and cooking activities. The variable presence of such diagnostic features as “King of Assyria” face-neck jars (Castillo Butters et al. 2008; Hecker and Hecker 1995, 46, 89-90; Swenson 2004, 407; Ubbelohde-Doering 1967, 24, 63), platform rims (Castillo Butters 2010; Donnan and Cock 1986), paleteada surface decoration (Cleland and Shimada 1998), and appliqué animal heads indicates that these sites conform to a date range spanning the Late Moche to Chimú-Inka Periods.

Excavation and mapping conducted by the Proyecto Arqueológico de Talambo Oeste (PATO) in the 2012 and 2013 field seasons were confined to the core sector of Talambo, where six individual operations were opened, ranging in size from 2 m² to 5 m² (figure 9.3). More than one vertical meter of continuous settlement was found, in which I recognize four occupational phases composed of perceived building levels or depositional events (Zobler n.d.). The four phases cover the Early Intermediate Period to the Late Horizon, with Phase I attributed to the late Middle Moche/Late Moche Period and Phase II to the Transitional/early Lambayeque era. Phase III represents the main period of occupation under the Chimú, and Phase IV marks an extensive Chimú-Inka occupation. Excavation in the southern sector of the site (Operations 2 and 4) revealed the earliest deposits (and Operation 2 included all four occupational phases). These operations are in relatively close proximity to the huaca complex and cemetery that were first associated with the Moche era. In addition, some domestic debris associated with Phase II was recovered to the northeast of Operation 2 (Operation 3), although no extant architecture and few artifacts remained. All other units were confined to the latter two phases. Phases I and II are discussed below.

Phase I

Phase I, which corresponds to the late Middle Moche/Late Moche Period (AD 500–800), was characterized by domestic settlement throughout the southern sector of the site (closest to the Talambo Canal). The earliest deposits consisted of two partially cleared buildings constructed on sterile soil: a daub-and-cane (quincha) wall oriented east to west in Operation 4 (hereafter referred to as Building A) and a fragmentary quincha structure in Operation 2 (hereafter referred to as Building B). Although the paucity of architectural remains obviates any spatial reconstruction in either of these early contexts, the artifact assemblage is consistent with lower-status Moche households.

In Building A, an east-west wall constructed of quincha formed the sole architectural feature that was excavated (figure 9.4). Recovered ceramics were overwhelmingly utilitarian, including jar (cántaro), olla, and tinaja forms, associated with food preparation and storage. Scattered shell, animal bone, and macrobotanical remains were consistent with small-scale food preparation and consumption (although remains were sparse). The majority of shellfish consumed were Donax obesulus (80%), with Scutalus proteus (20%) forming the rest of the sample. A few camelid bone fragments formed the entirety of the terrestrial remains.

To the northwest of Building A, excavations uncovered an occupational area (Building B) beneath the southwest corner of the primary Late Intermediate Period rectilinear complex at a depth of 1 m. Although no quincha walls were preserved in situ, cane and grass rope as well as a small hearth were found, indicating that quincha walls or a woven roof suspended by posts were constructed in this area. A single AMS radiocarbon date (1550 ± 30 BP, calibrated [2 sigma] in AD 520–635) recovered from a charred seed on the compacted, earthen floor of Building B places occupation within the late Middle Moche/early Late Moche Period.

At Building B, residents engaged in small-scale food preparation activities similar to Building A (figure 9.5). The vast majority of recovered ceramics were jar (52%) and olla (30%) fragments, as well as lesser quantities of graters (11%) and plates (3%). Remnants of a small hearth and cooking refuse evidence a diet that included shellfish, such as Donax obesulus (47%), Polinices uber (26%), and Scutalus proteus (19%), as well as smaller quantities of Tegula atra (5%), Cantharus rehderi (2%), and Thais chocolata (2%). Residents also subsisted on limited terrestrial (camelid, dog, and rat) and marine (fish and crab) species, as well as agricultural and foraged products (such as beans, maize, and guanábana). This modest diet is consistent with similar Moche settlements on the North Coast, such as Santa Rosa–Quirihuac, Santa Rita B, Ciudad de Dios, and Charcape (Johnson 2010).

Finer wares were also part of the ceramic assemblage at Building B, including a stirrup-spout bottle neck, face-neck jar, and figurine fragments (figure 9.6). These wares are of a similar style and quality as ceramics recovered in surface collection of the nearby huaca and cemetery complex and included red-on-white stirrup-spout bottles and jars with press-molded faces in the style of the “King of Assyria.”

In addition, Building B’s residents engaged in specialized craft production of stone beads (particularly quartz) that were identical to those found associated with the nearby huaca and cemetery. Both finished and unfinished beads were recovered, in addition to a copper needle and small bundles of cotton (the seeds of which were preserved), which were likely used for thread (figure 9.7). No spinning or weaving implements (such as spindle whorls or shuttles) were found in this phase, indicating that this cotton was likely part of the bead makers’ toolkit rather than evidence of additional weaving activities.

Despite their otherwise typical Late Moche material assemblage, residents of Talambo avoided importing elite ceremonial wares. No SJM fineline wares were found in Buildings A or B. Moreover, no SJM fineline ceramics were recovered by survey from the nearby huaca and cemetery. Rather, Talambo’s residents favored a ceremonial assemblage consisting of locally produced stone beads and face-neck jars that depicted more generalized Moche iconography. Thus geographic proximity to the Talambo Canal does not appear to have guaranteed community access to (or interest in) the elite ritual and exchange networks emanating from San José de Moro.

Phase II

Phase II occupation at Talambo corresponds to the Transitional Period/early Lambayeque Period (AD 800–1100). Settlement seems to have discontinued in Building A early in the Transitional Period. By contrast, the inhabitants of Building B thrived.

During Phase II, Building B was rebuilt along more permanent and extensive lines (figure 9.8). Four rooms of this complex were partially excavated. Its walls were built of adobe bricks that were set on a low stone footing. The tamped earthen floors associated with the Phase II rebuild were situated 15 cm above the loose ashy surface of Phase I. Excavation revealed no evidence related to the issue of access between rooms or entry/exit points in the area so far exposed. General parallels exist, however, between the Phase II occupation of Building B and other Moche and Transitional era households. Although they exhibited variation in available resources, at their most essential, Moche households included a living space, a kitchen, and a storeroom (Johnson 2010, 176). More elaborate households added general-purpose rooms, spaces for specialized craft production, patios, and plazas.

Within their more materially permanent edifice, Building B’s occupants continued to engage in small-scale food preparation and craft production activities, albeit with a broader range of goods. The majority of ceramic forms were jars (30%), ollas (29%), and tinajas (24%), as well as lesser quantities of plates (11%) and bottles (6%) (figure 9.5). Diagnostic wares included paddle-stamped decoration (paleteada) and two pendant figurines (figure 9.9). Phase II inhabitants consumed a diet similar to that of their Phase I predecessors, including shellfish (Donax obesulus, 65%), Scutalus proteus (12%), Polinices uber (7%), mollusk (7%), Littorina aspera (4%), Tegula atra (4%), Cantharus rehderi (2%); marine animals (fish and crab); and terrestrial mammals (camelid, dog, and guinea pig). Residents of this house also enjoyed the addition of consumables such as maté, which tend to be associated with more elite households.

Despite their evident increase in social status, residents of Building B remained unengaged with regional centers of power. Although they utilized ceremonial wares (face-neck jars and stirrup-spout bottles), regionally meaningful markers of elite connection—such as SJM fineline wares, Cajamarca ceramics, or Transitional Period hybridized wares—were once again wholly absent. Furthermore, only two Cajamarca sherds were found in the surface collection of the entire site of Talambo (figure 9.10).

Specialized craft production of stone beads continued in two of the rooms, indicating the likely continuity of Building B’s inhabitants (possibly the same kin group) observed in Phase I. Finished stone beads were recovered, as well as bead blanks and raw quartz (figure 9.11). Needles of copper and bone were also found. In addition, many of the recovered shells were perforated, indicating that they may have been intended for personal adornment. Cotton and copper needles were found as part of the bead makers’ toolkit.

Interpreting Endurance at Talambo

In the Jequetepeque Valley, Late Moche and Transitional Period communities navigated political and environmental instability through a variety of convergent and divergent strategies. At Talambo, households played a significant role in enduring the Moche collapse. The community nurtured its own alternate social world—through careful water management and investment in craft production—that diverged from the more socially focused strategies of elite centers.

The earliest occupation at Talambo dates to the late Middle Moche/early Late Moche Period. Given the site’s proximity to the Talambo Canal and its intake, this initial phase of occupation is most likely concurrent with canal construction. Thus canal expansion in the northern Jequetepeque Valley dates to the end of the Middle Moche Period. This date is consistent with the earliest occupation at San José de Moro (Castillo Butters 2010). As one of the settlements associated with canal construction, Talambo was likely occupied slightly earlier than many of the Late Moche rural hinterland settlements (Dillehay 2001; Swenson 2004) located further along the canal network or outside its catchment.

In addition to canal construction and maintenance, Talambo households engaged in small-scale craft production. Building B’s residents fabricated quartz beads that were subsequently utilized in local ceremonial practices at the site’s huaca and cemetery complex. Bead production in Building B continued (despite an architectural rebuild) throughout the Late Moche and Transitional Periods, indicating that household domestic economies at Talambo prospered throughout the Moche collapse. Moreover, the introduction of more permanent building materials, the addition of elite consumables, and a broader diet at Building B underscore increased wealth.

Despite increasing status differentiation, the community of Talambo did not adopt the elite ceremonial assemblage of prominent centers. The elite ideology of San José de Moro spread to hinterland ceremonial spaces through well-established local patterns of exchange. Outside of these networks, Talambo and hinterland sites like it maintained their own alternate social worlds organized at the household level. Talambo’s residents employed locally produced beads and the more generalized Moche iconography present on face-neck jars to illustrate their ritual narratives. Moreover, the absence of SJM fineline wares at Talambo indicates that the social processes responsible for their dissemination were organized independently from irrigation management. Thus, if Late Moche communities did intermittently unify to form “opportunistic states,” it was likely more of a ceremonial union than an administrative one—evincing a path to elite legitimation and community integration not open to or desired by all.

As environmental instability on the North Coast contributed to community precarity, many households navigated the uncertainties of the Late Moche and Transitional Periods through arrangements of convenience with Cajamarca. These new social connections functioned through established ritual and exchange networks centered at San José de Moro. Cajamarca settlers (from Cerro Chepén Alto) participated in ritual and mortuary practices at San José de Moro and co-opted local elite relationships with hinterland communities to disseminate highland wares. These highland efforts impacted communities that were already imbricated in San José de Moro networks of ritual and exchange and thus reproduced existing social relationships without expanding influence to new settlements.

Residents at Talambo chose an alternate strategy of endurance (enabled by their ample access to water and investment in local ceremony), which eschewed local elite and foreign connections. Despite the prevalence of Cajamarca wares at other sites, only two Cajamarca sherds were found at Talambo (none from an excavated context). Talambo’s relative isolation from San José de Moro ceremony during the early Late Moche Period may have reduced household susceptibility to subsequent Cajamarca influence in later eras.

It is intriguing that Talambo was directly connected by canal to the epicenter of Cajamarca power in Jequetepeque at Cerro Chepén yet was not imbricated in Cajamarca’s strategy of control.5 Although Cajamarca settlers are hypothesized to have chosen Cerro Chepén as an ideal locus for colonization because of easy access to water (from the Serrano Canal) and labor (from Cerro Chepén Bajo), they appear to have taken little interest in securing the site at its headwaters. Perhaps they favored direct access to certain resources and elite relationships rather than valleywide control. Otherwise, Talambo would have been a priority for incorporation, as it was for the Chimú (Zobler n.d.).

Cajamarca settlement at Cerro Chepén Alto and highland influence proliferated in the Jequetepeque Valley throughout the Moche collapse and subsequent Transitional Period. During the Late Intermediate Period, San José de Moro continued to be a center of regional importance as the site of a Lambayeque palace long after highland influence had receded (Prieto 2010, 2014). Significantly, however, many of the hinterland sites (such as Huaca Colorada and Charcape) that utilized these same networks were abandoned before the LIP (Johnson 2008; Swenson and Warner 2012). Perhaps the increased interaction between coastal and highland communities that characterized the Late Moche and Transitional Periods afforded different social protections to elite centers than did hinterland settlements.

By contrast, the community of Talambo continued to thrive until the Late Horizon.6 Talambo’s detachment from San José de Moro elite networks and Cajamarca connections does not seem to have hindered community growth or hastened exhaustion. Rather, sustained local investment in an alternate social world, along with the resources to sustain it, fostered a rapid transformation toward more permanent settlement and the making of place.

Conclusion

In his topoanalysis of intimate domestic space, Gaston Bachelard (1958, 5) remarked that “an entire past comes to dwell at a new house.” The Late Moche and Transitional Periods at Talambo illustrate that homes are more than microcosmic indicators of regional change, where the dictates of elite centers were writ small. They are a palimpsest of births and deaths, good harvests and El Niño rains, cook-fire gatherings and fortified retreats that together constitute a history of their own. Such “minor histories,” to borrow anthropologist Ann Laura Stoler’s (2009) term, intersect with the regional but constitute their own critical space. In periods of stress, these interconnections are magnified, strained, broken, and re-forged—revealing an intricate social tapestry that is all the more resilient for its patches. Distant politics, economies, and ideologies converge on and are transformed by the local. Seemingly small local events catalyze profound regional transformations. The “house” endures even as states rise and fall.

Notes

1. Some reduced settlement continued at the site of Huacas de Moche through the Late Moche Period (Uceda Castillo et al. 2005).

2. Along with other ceramics accessed through the highlands, such as those from the central coast (such as Nievería) and southern highland Wari traditions (and to a lesser extent wares from Atarco, Pativilca, and Chachapoyas).

3. The style of face-neck jars in this area included Middle Moche motifs (such as owl faces) and Late Moche (“King of Assyria”) designs.

4. Eling (1987, 253) notes the presence of two water reservoirs immediately west of Talambo. Depending on their date of construction, they may have played a part in the site’s water management strategy and resultant autonomy during the Late Moche Period.

5. If there was a Cajamarca presence at Talambo, it is possible that it may have been located on the adjacent hillside (Talambo Este), similar to their occupational strategy at Cerro Chepén. If this was the case, however, one might expect a greater number of Cajamarca wares at Talambo Oeste. Future excavation will address this issue.

6. Although Talambo was no longer autonomous under Chimú and Inka rule (Zobler n.d.).

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