Abstract
Fear and anxiety are emotions that intensify during times of warfare. This paper explores the materiality of these emotions in the context of conflict and community restructuration. During the Late Intermediate Period (ca. AD 1000–1470) in the Huaura Valley of the coast of Perú, people converged to rebuild, and subsequently seek refuge in, the fortification at Acaray. Excavations at Acaray reveal it was used to defend against an attack during a time of upheaval. The people who congregated at Acaray carried out rituals inside the fort that probably ameliorated anxiety and fear. These emotions would have resulted not only from the threat of war, but from the convergence of groups who did not normally interact under such intense circumstances. Using ethnographic analogy, social theory, and detailed studies of offerings, I suggest rituals in times of war enabled people to deal with group tension, defense, security, and illnesses such as susto (soul loss).
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Notes
- 1.
Date for sample ISGS 5974 to 2 sigma, .84 probability
- 2.
Date for sample ISGS 5965 to 2 sigma, 1.0 probability
- 3.
Sample ISGS 5964 to 2 sigma, .91 probability
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Jeffrey Fleisher and Neil Norman for inviting me to contribute to this volume. This paper benefitted greatly from their critical feedback and comments, as well as from a thoughtful reading and review by Tim Pauketat. Fieldwork at Acaray was funded by grants from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Graduate College, Fulbright-Hays, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Additional survey work in the Huaura Valley was funded by a National Science Foundation Minority Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.
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Vega, M.B. (2016). Ritualized Coping During War: Conflict, Congregation, and Emotions at the Late Pre-Hispanic Fortress of Acaray. In: Fleisher, J., Norman, N. (eds) The Archaeology of Anxiety. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3231-3_8
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