| The Norte Chico region of Peru contains thirty Late Archaic sites dating from 2800 BC to 1500 BC with monumental architecture, sunken circular plazas and stone housing complexes over its four river valleys. As the region's first emerging political and religious centers and complex socio-economic systems, these sites have been the focus of investigation for several decades, but the exchange system in the region is still little understood. It has been hypothesized that groups traveled to these large sites from the coast, stayed for a short time, exchanged cotton for marine resources, provided labor for the monumental architecture, and possibly feasted.;In order to test this hypothesis, data was collected and analyzed from two test excavations, Operation IV and Operation XI, 100 meters apart, and conducted in the open area located 400 meters in front of the architecture at one of these Late Archaic sites, Caballete. It was determined from the data that both operations were excavations of areas with temporary occupations. A comparative analysis of the data from both operations suggests that Op. IV appears to have been occupied by people who were fishing, and Op. XI appears to have been an area of feasting.;The data shows that people were staying at Caballete on a temporary basis only, possibly coming from the coast, and that they feasted. This has implications for the socio-economic system and the nature of the exchange system in Late Archaic Norte Chico. It implies that the site may have been socially stratified, as the occupations contain no architecture, unlike the nearby areas with stone housing complexes. It also supports the above hypothesis and implies that Caballete and other sites in the region like it served as centers for exchange and were part of a sphere of influence that extended from the coast into the foothills of the Andes. |
