G&A archaeologists co-author chapter on ruins-as-cemeteries in ancient Peru

David Chicoine (W. G. Haag Professor of Archaeology) and Matt Helmer (G&A Affiliate Faculty and Heritage Program Manager, Kisatchie National Forest) recently co-authored a chapter exploring the mortuary reuse of abandoned spaces in coastal Peru. The chapter, entitled "Real, Imagined, Vibrant: Ruins-as-Cemeteries in Ancient Coastal Peru," was included in the volume Space and Communal Agency in Pre-Modern Societies edited by Juan Caros Moreno García and published by Oxbow Books (Multidisciplinary Approaches to Ancient Societies Volume 5).

The essay moves beyond two persistent binaries in archaeological thinking: (1) one that revolves around the distinction between what we consider as animate and what we consider to be inert, and (2) the other between space as real and space as ideal. The case study focuses on the mortuary reuse of the ruins of Caylán, north-central coast of Peru, during the Late Intermediate Period (1000-1470 CE). Chicoine and Helmer suggest that ruins-as-cemeteries can be considered heterotopias that provided “counter-spaces,” potentially for different social segments, kin groups, and other formations who incorporated ancestral things into their mortuary life, thus contributing to the creation of alternative political messages.