Life across the river: Agricultural, ritual, and production practices at Chavin de Huantar, Peru

In this dissertation I examine domestic life in an early Andean highland community. While these peoples’ homes and material remains may evoke images of tranquil peasants living in quiet harmony with nature, I will challenge the assumptions inherent in that image. The community of La Banda was located directly across the river from a major ritual center. New data obtained by me and presented here reveal a community engaged in complex relationships with the temple of Chavín, the surrounding fields and communities, and the broader Andean world through the practices of trade, production, pilgrimage, and ceremony.;There are four major themes presented in this dissertation: ritual, domestic life, trade and importation, and production and exchange practices. These themes are discussed in relation to activities that occurred in the monumental center, in the domestic La Banda sector, and when assessing the relations that the community of La Banda had with communities and peoples from outside the Central Andean region.;Finally, the nature of local Chavín domestic life has been a long-standing concern of Andean archaeology. This question frames my research project conducted in La Banda, across the river from the temple of Chavín de Huántar. This project is the first to document significant horizontal excavations of domestic space. Previous work that analyzed daily life did not have access to contiguous domestic structures and was unable to compare domestic structures to others that bordered it. My La Banda project contributes to debates about ritual life and daily practice in early farming communities, the nature of plant and animal food production, and the place of exchange and production in a ceremonial center.