4 Field Colloquium Series: "Prehispanic Pilgrimage on the South Coast of Peru: Testing a Costly Signaling Model in Nasca and Ica, Peru"

"For the past several decades, it has been suggested that the prehispanic Nasca culture (ca. 100 BCE – 600 CE) was home to a pilgrimage center, Cahuachi. What is the evidence for this? In this presentation, I take a human behavioral ecology approach to evaluate pilgrimage, an important component of religious behavior cross culturally. I present a working hypothesis that pilgrimage and its associated pilgrimage center emerged on the south coast of Peru as a result of costly signaling behavior. Evidence is presented from excavations at residential sites, including Marcaya, in the southern Nasca region; geochemical analysis of ceramics; a review of the investigations at Cahuachi; and, recent work in the Upper Ica Valley."