PARKER, N. 2007. Chavín de Huántar PDF

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Nathaniel Parker VanValkenburgh (parkervan@gmail.com)
Edited Version (2007) of Stanford University Undergraduate Honors Thesis (2003)
The monumental center of Chavín de Huántar has long held the ability to
captivate. Standing imposingly alongside the confluence of the Mosna and Huachecsa
Rivers in a narrow valley of the Peruvian Andes, the site’s size and architectural
complexity are remarkable for a location so far removed from the numerous
monumental centers of the Peruvian coast. Its broad plazas and cut-stone buildings are
covered with the remains of stone artwork rendered in an astonishingly fierce style:
claws, fangs, talons, and snakes pieced together in complex representations of the
earthly and the supernatural. Underneath its surface, Chavín is riddled with galleries –
carefully crafted passageways whose purpose remains mysterious.
The first Europeans who studied Chavín were drawn to the site itself – its
monumentality, its importance to local peoples (Vázquez de Espinosa 1969 [1630]).
When archaeologists began to study the site in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, they had lost little of that early enthusiasm for the actual physical form of the
place, but they quickly became even more fascinated with the fact that many themes
found in Chavín’s stone artwork seemed to appear in bodies of iconography from other
early archaeological sites across the Peruvian Andes. In the 1940’s, archaeologist Julio
C. Tello argued that the presence of what he thought were Chavinoid (Chavín-like)
elements in iconography from a large number of early Peruvian sites implied that
Chavín was more than just an impressive site in the Mosna valley. It was the “mother
civilization” of Peru, a political entity ruled from the buildings of Chavín de Huántar,
which had forcibly expanded its influence across the central Andes and the Peruvian
Coast (Tello 1943, 1960). In Chavín (the “culture,” not the site) Tello saw a host of
precedents for the latter states that would dominate the Northern and Central Peruvian
Andes – the Moche, the Wari, the Chimu and the Inka.
Years of study and excavation have largely disproved Tello’s original theses
about Chavín. Radiocarbon dating proved that many coastal sites that Tello had
considered contemporary with Chavín1 actually predated constructions at the
monumental center. According to John Rowe’s studies of Chavín art in the 1960’s and
excavations conducted by Luis Lumbreras and Richard Burger in the 1970’s, artifacts
that display definitive Chavín influence are first found outside the center in deposits that
date to 500 BCE (Rowe 1962, 1967; Lumbreras 1989, 1993; Burger 1981, 1995).
Lumbreras and Burger have disagreed about the date at which construction actually
began at the site (Lumbreras suggests 1200 BCE, Burger 800 BCE), but both argue
that Chavín reached peak construction around 500 BCE, at the same time that Chavín
artwork became widespread (Kembel 2001; Burger 1988).
In this now orthodox model, the “Chavín Horizon” (the archaeologically-visible
spread of the Chavín style across the Northern Central Andes) represents a
fundamentally religious phenomenon – the expansion of a cult system whose center of
control was the monumental center of Chavín de Huántar. According to Burger (1988),
the Chavín cult became popular as natural factors, such as crop failure during El Niño
years, caused coastal centers to lose influence among local populations. The resulting
widespread erosion of local ideologies left in its wake politico-religious vacuums that
1
For instance, Cerro Sechín and Moxeke (in the Casma valley) and the Caballo Muerto
complex (in the Moche drainage) yielded dates ranging from 2000 to 1500 BCE,
whereas the earliest human occupation at Chavín dated to 1100 BCE (Kembel 2001).
could be filled by foreign systems of explanation, such as Chavín religion, that had both
maintained their integrity through times of environmental variation and were available
near at hand. Burger also claimed that peak construction at Chavín logically
corresponded to the expansion of the Chavín style. The outflow of religious ideology
from Chavín made the site a center of regional power, allowing Chavín’s elite to acquire
goods from outside the region and reinforce their ability to recruit labor within it. In this
way, Chavín built even larger public architecture and manufactured more attractive craft
goods, reinforcing its regional influence through a system of positive economic and
ideological feedback.
Recently, excavations by John Rick and an influential dissertation by Silvia
Kembel have shown that the construction sequence at Chavín was considerably more
complex than Burger and others have assumed (Rick et al 1998; Kembel 2001). Kembel
shows that construction of the monumental site occurred in at least fifteen episodes
(five stages), beginning before 1100 BCE and ending before 500 BCE. Her study thus
suggests a lack of temporal contiguity between the construction of the Chavín
monuments and the apparent spread of the Chavín style through much of the region.
Kembel’s findings compel archaeologists to re-examine the relationship between the
rise of local influence at Chavín and the spread of its artistic tradition to distant
societies. A study by Isabel Druc (2001) also questions the nature of the expansion of
Chavín material culture after 500 BCE. Druc’s trace element analysis of Chavinoid
pottery from Ancon (on the Peruvian shoreline, north of the Chillón valley), Garagay
(Rimac valley), Huaricoto (Callejón de Huaylas, Santa valley), Pallka (Casma), Chavín
de Huántar and a number of small sites in the Nepeña valley shows that these vessels
were produced with clays that were locally available to people living at each site. Druc
decides, contrary to scholarly expectations about Chavinoid artifacts found outside the
monumental center, that it is implausible that the pottery she examined was crafted by
specialists living at Chavín de Huántar. At the same time, she notes that pottery from
the regions where the sites in her study are located – the central coast, north coast and
elsewhere in the northern highlands – all appear in deposits at Chavín.
In the summer of 2001, John Rick’s excavations in the Caracolas gallery at
Chavín de Huántar’s monumental center uncovered a cache of twenty Strombus
galeatus trumpets2 and a host of associated artifacts, including worked shell fragments
and finely made Chavín pottery. The trumpets appeared to have been deposited in the
gallery in a single event, most likely dating to pre-Janabarriu Chavín times (1100 BCE –
500 BCE). Immediately, it also became apparent that artwork engraved on the faces of
the trumpets was particularly diverse – that in fact, much of it was not Chavinoid at all.
Furthermore, the excavators also knew that the trumpet shells had to have been carried
to Chavín from at least as far away as the warm waters off the coast of southern
Ecuador, the nearest area within the natural range of S. galeatus (Keen 1973).
With these facts in mind, I traveled to Peru in summer 2002 to examine the
trumpets and the artifacts unearthed along with them. I believed that artistic analysis of
their engravings could tell us where at least some of the diverse styles had come from
and, consequently, something of the specific contacts that the site maintained during
the time of its florescence. Herein, I will present the resulting analysis, showing that a
wide variety of regional styles of iconography and Strombus craftsmanship appear in
2
Profile photos of all twenty trumpets are included in Appendix C below.
the artwork of the Chavín trumpets but that the iconography can be identified most
readily with Initial Period and Early Horizon3 sites from the north coast and the northern
highlands of Peru – Cupisnique, Pacopampa and Kuntur Wasi. I will also present a
basic assessment of the diversity of iconographic and crafted features among the
trumpets, using these factors to create a more detailed picture of how widely separated
sites in the Andes with conspicuous commonalities in their material cultures might have
related to each other.
After looking at the data, it will become apparent that Chavín de Huántar was one
of many places in the Northern Andes where Strombus trumpets were highly important
elements of ritual life – artifacts whose appearance and use were structured both by
regionalized conventions and by local idiosyncrasies. By looking at the Chavín trumpets
and other examples of Strombus trumpets from the period, we can gather that
geographically distinct peoples developed and maintained their own preferences for the
craft and decoration of such instruments during the late Late Initial Period and early
Early Horizon. On an interregional scale, the trumpets outline a world that was not
dominated by a cult focused on Chavín de Huántar, but a social landscape that was a
good bit more decentralized – a world in which various centers used a common set of
exotic materials and religious themes to appeal to their devotees, while at the same
time emphasizing their individuality to maintain local influence in an increasingly
competitive regional environment.
The form and meaning of the Chavín Horizon, as well as general theories of the
development of social complexity and the place of interregional interaction within that
3
A list and description of chronological labels used to subdivide Andean prehistory can
be found in Appendix B.
development, remain important tools for conceptualizing early interregionalism in the
Andes. Here, I will remain generally unconcerned with speaking to these high level
issues – not because they are not important or interesting topics to consider, but
because I believe the trumpets are only a small part of a large body of evidence that
must be taken into account if we are to produce a clear vision of the Andean social
landscape during the Initial Period and Early Horizon. Only such a robust image can
adequately speak to general theories of social complexity that are developed though
detailed comparisons of the conditions under which complex societies have arisen in
different parts of the world.
Unfortunately, the time and space I am allotted for this project does not permit
such a comprehensive survey. Insofar as this paper is a discussion that seeks to move
beyond a simple description of the twenty specific artifacts discussed here, it is an
attempt to describe the dimensions, direction and operation of a particular prestige good
network in late Initial Period and early Early Horizon Peru. Confined to a discussion of
Strombus trumpets, we should be careful not to assume that a partial account of
regional exchange in these artifacts can substitute for a description of all of the
interregional relationships that existed between northern Peruvian sites during the late
Initial Period and early Early Horizon. Perhaps, though, a careful assessment of one set
of interregional relationships that existed during that window of time can be a starting
point to revising and enriching our vision of early Peruvian interregionalism, outlining the
social field in which the Chavín Horizon would make its appearance soon after.
Thus this paper, while primarily an argument structured around a portion of the
materials excavated nearly two years ago in the Caracolas gallery at Chavín de
Huántar, also seeks to serve as a preliminary guide to the artifacts it examines,
presenting as much primary information about them as possible. It presents a
description of those artifacts, interprets them within the context of Late Initial Period and
early Early Horizon Peru, and suggests further research, particularly archaeometrical,
that may be fruitful to pursue with them. It is also the beginning of an attempt to
describe Strombus use in the Andes more broadly, providing some description of
Strombus trumpets from the Initial Period and Early Horizon beyond the Chavín
examples.
II. BACKGROUND
In this chapter, information about Strombus galeatus and the prehistory of the
Central and Northern Andean area is presented to provide a context for the analysis
that follows. Basic biological information about S. galeatus is reviewed, the use of the
animal’s shell as a ritual object is described and general information about the
prehistory of the Central and Northern Andes (with particular emphasis on the role of
marine mollusks and interregionalism) is presented, with an eye for engaging previously
published literature on Strombus trumpets and Andean prehistory with the materials
presented below. None of these sections should be taken as comprehensive,
particularly that covering the prehistory of mollusk movement and interregionalism in the
Andes during the Initial Period and Early Horizon. The full story would require a
discussion of materials from all Formative period archaeological sites in Peru, Ecuador
and Bolivia. What is presented here is merely the introduction I believe is necessary to
understand the trumpets in historical context.
A Biological Introduction to Strombus Galeatus
Strombus galeatus is a warm-water mollusk that makes its home along the
Pacific coast of Middle and South America, from the Gulf of California to the Southwest
coast of Ecuador (Image F5)4. The animal lives in sandy-rocky areas offshore at
variable depths (Image F1), from sea level down to 30m – although it is most commonly
found above 15m. As the animal matures, its thick shell loses its bumps and spines,
slowly growing into a bulky mass that may reach 80% of its total body weight (Image
F3). By the end of its life, an individual S. galeatus may have reached 180 mm in length
and 2 kg in weight – a fine piece of food that continues, even today, to be harvested for
its nutritional value. S. galeatus is reported to form groups when mating and, therefore,
to be more visible (and more vulnerable to predation) as it does so. (Arroyo Mora 2001)
El Pututu: Strombus Becomes “The Voice of God”
Sometime before 3000 BCE, people living in Ecuador began to fashion the bulky
shells of S. galeatus into trumpets (Paulsen 1974; Marcos 2002). Today, trumpets that
are virtually identical to the earliest archaeological examples are still made. Little
modification to the natural material of the shell is necessary to craft such an instrument:
4
Image numbers with the prefix “F” can be found in Appendix F.
the spiral at each shell’s crest is simply removed and the rough edge that results is
rounded into a mouthpiece.
The player then presses their lips against the aperture, tenses them, and
blows – letting their lips vibrate, channeling sound into the cavity of the shell. The
resulting noise, a raw and jarring note, might travel kilometers under the right acoustic
conditions.
Just how such trumpets were first incorporated into local social practice during
the Andean Formative Period remains a matter of speculation. However, two sources of
information can supply us with insight into prehispanic shell trumpet use: 1) ethno-
historical accounts written in the early years of the Spanish occupation of Peru; and 2)
the archaeological record of the prehispanic Andes. As described in Spanish chronicles,
Strombus trumpets (both S. galeatus and other species, such as S. Peruvianus) were
principally used as instruments in musical ensembles (Cobo 1653: 224) and as tools for
authorities to call attention or announce their presence (Guaman Poma de Ayala 1615:
352). Known to the Inka by their Quechua name, huayllaquepa, conch shell trumpets
were considered exceptionally valuable. Chaskis, royal couriers, are said to have used
shell trumpets to announce their presence as they ran messages between tambos,
resting houses along the Inka road system (Guaman Poma de Ayala 1990 [1615]: 352)
(Image F5).
Clearly, however, it is problematic to assume that the ways in which the Inka
used and understood shell trumpets were congruent with the role of Strombus in early
Andean sites such as Chavín de Huántar. From the archaeological record, it appears
that social organization, religion and economic systems changed a great deal from
Chavín times to the rise of the Inka empire in the 15th or `16th century CE. To acquire
some sense of the function and meaning of shell trumpets in the Andes during Chavín
times, we must therefore turn to the archaeological record of Chavín and pre-Chavín
times.
Archaeologists working in Peru and Ecuador have long recognized the
importance of Strombus to Andean peoples, from very early in the archaeological
record, through contemporary times. However, few researchers have taken specific
interest in the shells themselves. Frequently in the archaeological literature, Strombus
has only been mentioned along with Spondylus princeps, the so-called “thorny oyster,”
another mollusk native to warm Pacific waters off the coast of Ecuador, as well as
further north (Paulsen 1974; Cordy-Collins 1983; Marcos 1998; Marcos 2002; etc.). In
these discussions, Strombus has clearly taken the backseat to Spondylus. Paulsen
1974, perhaps the most cited paper on the subject, even fails to designate the most
popular species of Strombus for trumpet making as galeatus, instead labeling it gigas,
an Atlantic conch that bears large spindles and could hardly be mistaken for galeatus.
Indeed, it seems for the most part that when Strombus-like mollusk remains (thick,
pearly white shell) have been found in Peru, they have been labeled Strombus, without
any professional attempts to verify this assessment.
Marcos (1998, 2002, etc.), Lathrap (1966, 1973) and others (e.g. West 1961)
have written extensively on the role of Ecuadorian merchants in harvesting Spondylus,
manufacturing Spondylus artifacts and ferrying their wares by boat between
Mesoamerica and Peru. No researcher has dealt with Strombus in so detailed a
manner. Yet, given the general dearth of intact and readily identifiable Strombus in
Andean archaeological contexts, it is hardly surprising that prehistoric Strombus use in
the Andes has not been thoroughly discussed. Indeed, Strombus does not seem to
have been as important, so far away from its home range as Spondylus, which we find
in a variety of contexts throughout the Andes and Mesoamerica. To explain this
discrepancy, Rick has noted that the Strombus shell is generally more costly to
transport than Spondylus, both because of its larger size and because it cannot easily
be broken down into artifacts that can still be easily recognized as Strombus (2003,
personal communication). In contrast, the bright reddish spines of the Spondylus shell
appear ready-made for producing brilliant and attractive beads.
An account of early Strombus use in the Andes must therefore be compiled from
a variety of sources. Below, I will attempt to bring together a short version of that
history, paying particular attention to the movement of materials between distinct
regions of the Andes.
Interregionalism and Strombus, from the Preceramic Period to the Early Horizon
Shell fragments in coastal Ecuadorian sites attest to human harvesting of
Strombus galeatus as early as 4000 BCE (Meggers, Evans and Estrada 1965; Marcos
2002). Several centuries later, we find the earliest identifiable remains of Strombus
trumpets in a funerary context at Real Alto, a coastal Ecuadorian site of the Valdivia5
culture (Marcos 2002: 15; Lavallée 1994: 224). Here, Strombus is found in association
with abundant remains of Spondylus princeps. Historical accounts from the early
colonial period describe Spondylus as a talisman that was often incorporated into native
5
Maps of Initial Period and Early Horizon sites in Ecuador and Peru can be found in
Appendix A: Map 2 and Map 3.
rituals along with Strombus – its bright pinkish-red shell displayed as an offering to
spiritual forces that controlled the rain cycle (Rowe 1946: 249, via Paulsen 1974: 603).
This ritual association of Strombus, through Spondylus, to water flow and the heavens
has led some scholars to suggest that pututus (as conch shell trumpets are commonly
known in modern Peru) were artifacts that were understood to call out human desires to
the powers behind the weather cycle (von Hagen and Morris 1991). The degree to
which Strombus use in the early Andes fits this model is debatable and will be
discussed in more detail below.
Early transport and exchange of Strombus may also be attested in the
archaeological record of the Preceramic Period. A small fragment of shell found in the
southern Peruvian highland cave of Telarmachay, reported to be Strombus, was
associated with carbon dates ranging from 4500 to 3200 BCE (Lavallée et. al. 1995:
224), suggesting that Strombus shell was transported over considerable distances
almost as early as people began to harvest the animal in Ecuador. However, the
singular precocity of the Telarmachay find, coupled with what appears to have been its
casual identification (The find was apparently well-worn and nondescript.), should serve
to caution an interpretation of the shell fragment as solid evidence for early exchange of
Strombus.
Long-distance exchange becomes generally more visible in the Peruvian
archaeological record later in the Preceramic Period and into the Initial Period. As
monumental architecture rose on the Peruvian coast during this time, so too did exotic
artifacts begin to appear at monumental sites. Feathers from Amazonian birds are found
in preceramic refuse at coastal and highland monuments – Aspero (Supe river valley),
Rio Seco (near the Chancay valley), El Paraíso (Chillón), and La Galgada (in the middle
elevations of the Santa watershed, Tablachaca valley). Spondylus shell from off the
coasts of Ecuador (or even farther North) is found at Aspero and El Paraíso. Slightly
later (around 2200 BCE), Spondylus and palm fruit (from the Amazon) appear at La
Galgada (Grieder et. al. 1988: 69, 93, via Burger 1992: 53-54), and what is reported to
be a piranha jaw appears in refuse at Kotosh, in the central highlands (Burger 1992:
53). The flow of goods across the Andes from the Amazon, and south from Ecuador
along some undetermined path, is thus attestable for the first time during this period.
Yet no strong correlations in architectural and/or iconographic styles exist between
regions at this time. Pyroengraved gourds from the northern coastal site of Huaca
Prieta, once thought to show both clear affinity with the style of Valdivia pottery and
contemporeneity with Valdivia sites (Bird et. al. 1985), may date as late as 1400 BCE
(Bischof 2000: 47) and therefore have been engraved independent of Valdivia influence.
Thus the basic movement of materials outside of any apparent exchange of cultural
traits suggests a kind of interaction that was most likely broken into a large number of
geographically distinct events – a variety of exchange that archaeologist Colin Renfrew
has called “down the line trade” 6(Renfrew 1975).
Archaeologists believe that societies centered around such sites as Ancon, El
Paraíso and Aspero developed ways to mobilize collective labor during the late
preceramic period, in contrast to the relatively egalitarian societies that they posit
existed in Peru up to that time. Blessed with an abundance of marine resources and
6
Renfrew describes “down-the-line trade” as a process through which a certain item or
group of items is passed through many sets of hands in geographically distinct
settlements before it reaches its “destination.”
equipped with technology such as cotton fishing nets and net floats made of dried
gourds (Mosely 1975), late preceramic societies practiced varieties of subsistence that
may have supplied them with additional idle time, allowing entrepreneurial and
exploratory activity – including, perhaps, travel and regularized intercultural exchange,
attested by the presence of the above-mentioned exotic artifacts. Many archaeologists,
social theorists and historians have also emphasized the role of social agency in the
early appearance of collective labor projects and have suggested that elites often arise
in association with such types of organization and encourage the importation of exotic
products in efforts to legitimize their material superiority over local populations.
However, the general archaeological consensus regards the monumental architecture
of the late Preceramic Period to have been built by groups that were still predominantly
non-stratified. Aside from limited differences among house types at Caral (Shady 1997),
domestic architecture and domestic refuse remain relatively undifferentiated across
prehistoric households found around the centers. Thus even if the personal motivations
of elites eventually became engines for the acquisition of exotic artifacts, they cannot
fully explain the initial increase in exotic materials in Preceramic sites.
The Initial Period saw numerous other monumental centers arise in the Peruvian
Andes, both on the coast and in the highlands. The period also brings us the first solid
examples of Strombus in the Peruvian archaeological record. Agriculture begins to
show increasing importance in local diets. At roughly the same time, pottery appears in
Andean Peru for the first time – in deposits at a variety of sites along the coast and in
the eastern Sierra. Initial examples of this new craft bear little resemblance to Valdivia
ceramic forms introduced around a thousand years earlier in Ecuador (Burger 1992:
58). At the coastal sites of Erizo (Ica valley), La Florida (Rimac), Huaca Negra (Virú)
and Ancon, the earliest ceramics seem to have been created with the same relatively
crude technology and may have been the products of an budding independent ceramic
tradition (ibid.). At the ceremonial centers of Kotosh and Shillacoto, early pottery in the
Wayra-hirca style appears well-developed and influenced by earlier Amazonian
traditions, such as Early and Late Tutishcainyo (Burger 1992: 59-60). In the north
highlands, ceramics from the site of Pandanche seem to have some antecedents in
coastal Ecuadorian styles (Kaulicke 1975, via Burger 1992: 60). Thus the late
appearance of ceramics on the coast and their dissimilarity with early Ecuadorian forms
seems to indicate a continued paucity in the amount of cultural information that was
traveling between coastal Ecuador and coastal Peru during the Initial Period, even as
goods made their way between the two zones. At the same time, cultural information
appears to have been transferred between the Amazon and the eastern highlands, as
well as between Ecuador and the northern highlands.
Indeed, Spondylus shell remains figure prominently among the artifacts in
Peruvian Initial Period monumental sites such as Garagay (Rimac), Cardal (Lurin),
Punkurí (upper Nepeña), and Cerro Blanco (a name given to a number of prehistoric
sites in Peru, in this case, one located in the coastal region of the Nepeña valley). Here,
the shell may be found whole, ground into powder (a form in which it is still used in
modern Peruvian indigenous ritual) or fashioned into sartorial articles, such as beads
and pectoral plates. Many of these remains are found in ritual and high-status grave
contexts and images of the shell are frequently reproduced in Cupisnique ceramics,
from the northern valleys of Cupisnique, Chicama, Chao, Jequetepeque, Santa and Virú
(Larco Hoyle 1941; Alva 1986). Other trade items such as wood, monkey remains and
feathers from the Amazonian lowlands and hematite mirrors, obsidian, cinnabar, lapis
lazuli, and turquoise from various parts of the highlands become visible alongside
Spondylus in some of these deposits.
Strombus shell remains also begin to appear in Peruvian sites during the Initial
Period. An elaborate burial from Initial Period La Galgada contained three shell discs –
one of which may be made of Strombus and is engraved in an elaborate style that has
been compared (to my mind somewhat speciously) with later Chavinoid designs – and a
rabbit or viscacha (native Andean mammal) figurine carved out of Strombus (Feldman
1984). At the high valley site of Punkurí, Julio Tello excavated an exceptional burial that
included a whole Strombus trumpet that was reportedly adorned with fine engravings
but has since been lost (Burger 1992: 89). Perhaps the most famous example of a
Strombus instrument thought to date to the late Initial Period is the so-called “Pickman”
Strombus, an elaborately engraved trumpet found in a drainage ditch in the
Jequetepeque valley, outside of its archaeological context (Tello 1945) (Images F6, F7).
Thus the reverential treatment of Strombus and Spondylus in the Initial Period, indicated
by the shells’ inclusion in atypical grave contexts and their incorporation into articles of
fine craftsmanship may be said to represent the first pronounced regional congruency in
the value of a distinct set of ritual artifacts in the Peruvian Andes. To argue, however,
that the wide distribution of Strombus and Spondylus during the period immediately
corresponds to wide acceptance of certain practices surrounding these artifacts, a
portable “ceremonial complex,” is to ignore the diversity of religious architecture and
iconography that existed at the same time and over-anticipate and/or overemphasize
the strong ritualization of Spondylus and Strombus alongside each other in the
Cupisnique and Chavín areas.
Yet other cultural traits do appear to show interregional commonalities during the
Initial Period. The tradition of U-shaped temples in the central Peruvian coastal valleys
of Rimac, Lurín, Chillón, Chancay and Huara and the tradition of ceremonial centers
with sunken circular courts in more northern coastal valleys (and particularly in the Supe
valley) (Burger 1992: 60-75) indicate that ideas about how space should be structured
and, likely, how rituals should be carried out were being shared over relatively extensive
geographic areas. Later in the Initial Period, broad iconographic similarities and
common characteristics in the ritual aspects of material culture appear ostentatiously at
a number of sites in the northern highlands and along the northern and central coast. At
Huaca de los Reyes, Punkurí, Garagay and a number of smaller sites in the Zaña and
Jequetepeque valleys, artistic elements drawn from a menagerie of fierce animals –
snakes, spiders and particularly, felines – begin to appear in public artwork. A regular
assemblage of bone rings, shell with turquoise inlay, shell bead skirts, bone ear
pendants, roller and stamp seals and anthracite mirrors are also seen in monumental
contexts across these sites (Burger 1992: 91). Such striking similarities can only
indicate that similar beliefs, whether holistically congruent or merely partaking in a few
elements, were shared in these sites during the late Initial Period. Note, however, that
the diversity of iconographic styles demonstrated across the sites still suggests that they
were not subsumed under a corporate religious organization that was operating on a
regional level. Individual pieces of pottery worked in distinctly regional cultural styles
appear exchanged between these societies and more distant Peruvian centers during
the late Initial Period. Included among well-endowed graves, they might have been
understood as objects valuable for their very exoticism – a conceptual system of
valuation that would underscore the cultural divisions that existed at the time, leading us
to believe that prehistoric Peruvians of the period understood those divisions and
probably assigned them both economic and cultural meaning. Thus the mere presence
of Spondylus and Strombus in the archaeological record at a particular site, where not
accompanied by other representations of the shells (in stone artwork, textiles, pottery or
other ritual context) cannot be taken as easy evidence that the site was part of a macro-
regional system of religious and economic value centered around the two mollusks.
After the Initial Period, we see trends towards an increased volume of
interregional transfer in economic goods and religious information at Chavín de
Huántar. Obsidian flakes sourced to the Quispisisa outcrop (some 470km south of
Chavín, in the Peruvian department of Huancavelica) and three flakes from the Alca
source (above the Cotahuasi canyon, Ocoña drainage, southern Peru) are found in
abundance in Janabarriu period residential deposits under the modern town of Chavín
de Huántar (Burger, Mohr Chávez, and Chávez 2000: 308). These finds suggest that
the center was a stop along the vast routes through which obsidian was circulated in the
Formative Andes. Cortex appears on many of these flakes, indicating that at least some
of the obsidian found at Chavín made it there as bulk material and was only modified
once it had arrived (Burger 1984). Pottery found in the Ofrendas gallery (Lumbreras
1993) includes a number of pieces that appear to be derivative of ceramic traditions
from distinct parts of Peru – some resembling ceramics from the Chicama valley
cemetery of Barbacoa on the North Coast, others the Cupisnique Transitorio style from
the same area and still others resembling the Northern highland styles of Kuntur Wasi
and Huacaloma. Ceramics from the central coastal valleys of Chancay, Huarmey, and
Patavilca also make their appearance among the Ofrendas assemblage, and the
remains of coastal mollusks, including beads manufactured from Spondylus appear
alongside them.
Interregional contacts are also indicated in the content of Chavín iconography.
Stone artwork from the site includes multiple images of lowland forest animals and
cultigens, including caimans, peanuts, manioc, harpy eagles, jaguars, and snakes – all
clearly not native to the highland valleys surrounding Chavín. Contrary to earlier ideas
about the place of these elements within Chavín iconography (Tello 1960, Lathrap
1971), which attributed their arrival to migrations from the Amazon basin, Burger (1992)
suggests that they are symbolic of the long-term exchange of information between the
lowlands, the highlands and the coast, which are attested by the aforementioned
similarities of early highland pottery styles to Amazonian forms that appear to predate
them. Rick and Kembel (2003) note that there is no clear path between Chavín de
Huántar and the Amazon. They believe that the appearance of abundant tropical forest
elements in Chavín iconography is probably due less to frequent contact between the
residents of Chavín and Amazonian peoples than it is due to Chavín’s active
appropriation of novel and exotic lowland themes to accumulate and/or maintain
authority and influence among local populations – an idea that fits well with Helms’s
(1993) theorization of the relationship between interregional interaction and the
development of social authority.

Strombus trumpets and Spondylus shells are centrally displayed in Chavín
iconography alongside lowland flora and fauna. Large stone plaques from the site’s
circular plaza feature a procession of individuals holding various ritual objects, including
a number of apparent pututus (Image F12). A cornice piece from the main building of
the monumental center also shows two individuals in procession – one (apparently
male) holding a Spondylus shell, the other (apparently female) holding a Strombus
trumpet (Rick, unpublished) (Image F13). Numerous other carvings found at the site
display Strombus artifacts independently. The famous Tello Obelisk (Image F10, for
detail) includes representations of both shells in the form of supernatural beings, and a
small engraving depicts an anthropomorphic monkey-like figure with sharp fangs,
holding a pututu in its hand (Image F8). Most prominently, one engraving of the site’s
“principal deity” shows a fanged individual with snake hair grasping a Strombus shell in
one hand and a Spondylus in the other (Image F9).
Representations of Strombus in Chavín stonework demonstrate a number of
consistent and interesting characteristics that differ from the patterns most common
among the Strombus trumpets actually found at the site. Where they are detailed
enough, the images represent the shell with its pointy spire (or apex) intact. (Among the
trumpets, this feature is always removed, to create the mouthpiece.) Moreover, no
“handgrip cuts” – important craft features that are found on all of the Chavín strombii
and are discussed below – appear in representations of Strombus at Chavín. In fact, the
most naturalistic of Strombus images found at the site (Image F55) pictures a shell as it
would have appeared before any handgrip were engraved into it. In other cases, Chavín
stone images of Strombus add supernatural characteristics to the shell – eyes, noses,
and fangs – while never actually picturing an animal living inside it. It would seem that,
for the most part, these conspicuous differences are the result of conscious choices by
Chavín artisans to picture the shells in particular ways. Evidence will be presented
below to suggest that most, if not all of the trumpets were manufactured before they
arrived at Chavín and would therefore have lacked apexes. Yet it seems reasonable to
assume that Chavín artists would have had a general idea what a Strombus apex
looked like, by analogy with shells of local gastropods, which are conspicuously
included in the Caracolas deposit. For whatever reason they chose not to represent the
handgrips and mouthpieces of Strombus trumpets, the artists’ inclusion of supernatural
characteristics in their engravings of what appear to be non-trumpet strombii is a
testament to the power and importance that must have been imbued in the shell’s
appearance and material itself, not just in its sound.
Archaeologists have used the appearance of Strombus and Spondylus alongside
each other in Chavín iconography to fuel the idea that the two shells marked off a
dualistic system of ritual understanding at the site, in which the universe and its driving
forces were imagined to be divided into two strictly separated halves. In this
cosmography, the Strombus represents maleness the earthly realm, the underworld,
plant matter and/or the right half of the body, while the Spondylus represents
femaleness, the heavens, the waters and/or the left half of the body (Burger 1992: 174;
Cordy-Collins 1983: 44-49). However, the cornice piece mentioned above (Image F13)
pictures the artifacts in contrary position, with a figure that is apparently female holding
a Strombus trumpet and a figure that is apparently male holing a Spondylus shell.
Moreover, the opinion that the shells had fixed gender identification at Chavín is
weakened by the fact that it rests partially on an unqualified ethnographic analogy,
which enumerates no mechanisms to explain the postulated connection between the
meaning of shells in the modern example and their meaning at Chavín (Cordy-Collins
1983: 41-42)
The discovery of twenty Strombus trumpets in the Caracolas gallery at Chavín de
Huántar, in a deposit completely devoid of Spondylus material except for one non-
descript fragment (Rick 2003), supports the idea that the two shells were conceptually
segregated from each other in temple practice. Archaeologists are hopeful that a
complementary deposit of Spondylus might be found near the Caracoles gallery as
excavations in the site’s atrium continue (John Rick 2002, pers. comm.). However,
neither this desired find nor those that have already been made will be able to fully
address the topic of what Strombus and Spondylus actually meant to the people of
Chavín and the other prehistoric societies that incorporated them into their practices.
A Detailed Account of Other Strombus Trumpets Found in the Andes
Although archaeologists have referred to the importance of Strombus galeatus
artifacts, particularly Strombus shell trumpets, during the early pre-history of the Andes,
relatively few examples of the trumpets have been found outside of the twenty
examined in this paper. In addition to the Pickman Strombus and the trumpet found by
Julio Tello at Punkurí (both mentioned above), another Strombus trumpet, apparently
also from the Nepeña valley, was discovered after a bibliographic search (Gambini
1984: 84) (Image F15).

At the Northern Highland Ceremonial site of Kuntur Wasi in 1989, archaeologists
working under the direction of a University of Tokyo project uncovered a set of elaborate
burials underneath the main platform mound of the site (Onuki 1995). Included in one of
these burials, which dated to 850 BCE, was a set of three Strombus shell trumpets
(Image F16), one of which was elaborately engraved (Images F17, F18, F48). The
Kuntur Wasi trumpets represent the best source of outside information on Strombus
instruments in the early Andes and will be referenced along with the Pickman Strombus
in the Results section below in efforts to describe the artwork and craftsmanship of the
Chavín trumpets.
Among Cupisnique pottery, we find frequent representations of Strombus, often
in immediate juxtaposition with Spondylus (Alva 1996; Larco Hoyle 1941) (Images F22,
F23, F24). Much like representations of the shell in Chavín stonework, these ceramic
examples tend to be fairly naturalistic, largely unmodified shells, still bearing the apexes
that would have been removed to make trumpets of them (Image F22). Among
Formative period sites, including those at which Strombus has been found, only Chavín
and the Cupisnique sites have produced artistic representations of the shell, suggesting
that Strombus was particularly important to those peoples. However, given that most
Cupisnique representations of Strombus come from pottery looted from north coast
cemeteries, and therefore lack contextual information, it is difficult to make use of them
to imply any specific relationships between the Cupisnique area and Chavín de Huántar
Summary
By the end of the Initial Period, Strombus artifacts are found in a wide variety of
archaeological contexts in the northern and central Andes. Early on during this time
span, they appear whole only in sites in Ecuador near the areas where they were likely
harvested. In distant sites in Peru, they appear as small, modified craft pieces, typically
associated with elaborate burials. Whole Strombus trumpets first appear in the Peruvian
record during the Initial Period and become associated with the Spondylus shell only
near the latter part of that era, either in side-by-side representation in the artwork of
Chavín de Huántar and the Cupisnique area, or treated reverentially on their own, as
when they were placed in elaborate burials at Kuntur Wasi and Punkurí.
It seems logical to suggest, then, that the uses – and of course, the various
cultural importances – of the Strombus trumpet in Andean prehistory were never so
much predetermined by the physical form of the shell, or its earliest uses, as they were
adapted to particular situations of the societies that adopted them. The Inka, managing
the New World’s largest empire through a complex system of economic, political and
religious administration, found numerous uses for the huayllaquepa – some ritualistic,
some primarily practical. It is therefore critical that we do not interpret the mere
appearance of Strombus across the prehispanic Andes as evidence of the regional
coming-together of belief systems. At the very least, the basic presence of Strombus
and other exotic artifacts in the archaeological record attests social interaction that
spanned the distance between the coast of Ecuador and the Peruvian Andes and
across the spine of that mountain chain down into the ceja de selva zone of the
Amazonian fringe to its East. However, only by seeking to understand the more
revealing cultural information imbued in and around such exotic artifacts – their
craftsmanship, their archaeological context – can we begin to actually describe the
kinds of contacts that were mediated over long distances in the Andes of the Initial
Period and Early Horizon. Below, by assigning the varieties of craftsmanship in the
Chavín trumpets to the regional styles to which they belong and by understanding how
the trumpets may have been re-used and adapted in various local contexts, I will
attempt to forge that kind of description. Where possible, I will use these conclusions
describe specific interregional relationships that existed during the late Late Initial
Period and the early Early Horizon.
III. METHODOLOGY
Excavation of the Caracolas Gallery, Summer 2001
The Caracolas gallery is a rectangular room, stretching roughly from east to west
and measuring roughly 1.8-2.0 meters high, 1.2 meters wide, and 6.0 meters long, not
counting the small staircase that apparently served as the gallery’s original entrance,
which was capped closed by stones and mud when it was found. In the summer of
2001, the gallery was excavated in five units, labeled “Car 1” through “ Car 5,”
increasing in number from northernmost to southernmost. Units ranged between 1.12
and 1.2m wide in their north-south dimension, following the curve of the gallery, which is
wider at its east and west ends than in between. Units Car 1 through Car 4 were 1.18m
wide in the east-west dimension, and Car 5 was 1.23m. Deposits were dug in levels and
all individual artifacts were provenienced on three-dimensional grid system, anchored

against unit borders and an elevation datum situated in the gallery walls by a total
station theodolite.
Shortly after the excavation of the trumpets, the research team numbered each
instrument to simplify references to them. Numbers were assigned in ascending order
based first on the number of the unit in which a trumpet was found and second, on the
rough order in which the trumpets were removed from that unit’s deposit. The first
trumpet removed from unit Car 1 was thus “Strombus 1,” the first removed from unit Car
3 “Strombus 4,” and the last removed from unit Car 5 “Strombus 20.” Strombus
fragments, like all other artifacts found in the gallery, were given artifact numbers in the
field but were not labeled with “fragment numbers” (by which they are listed below) until
the present study was initiated. The fragments studied here were selected out of a
much larger set of Strombus fragments because they display discernable iconography
and/or craft features. Because the fragments were selected through a review of artifact
bags that proceeded in chronological order, the result is a generally positive correlation
between the original artifact numbers and the fragment numbers listed here. However,
there is otherwise no internal logic or conscious arrangement of to be found among the
fragment numbers.
Recording Methods and Analytical Techniques Used in the Investigation of the
Caracolas Strombus Trumpets and Associated Strombus Shell Fragments
Preliminary evaluation of the twenty Strombus trumpets investigated in this study
suggested that human modification of the shells could be organized into two categories
of information – iconographic elements and craft characteristics. The former are taken
here to be well-organized artistic modifications (here, engravings) in two dimensions;
the latter are taken to be other physical modifications of the shells that are consistently
visible across the sample: mouthpieces, handgrips, “hanging holes,” and “center lines” –
elements essential to the artistic appearance of the trumpets and perhaps functionally
important to their incorporation into ritual practice.
To prove that artistic modifications to the trumpets display diverse and distinctly
regional features, two types of analysis were employed: comparative artistic analysis of
both iconography and craft features and statistical analysis of the dimensions of craft
features. A short description of these methods is offered here and a discussion of their
limitations follows.
Categorizing the shells’ iconography entailed comparing engravings on each
trumpet and selected fragments with published images of Andean iconography that
span from the beginning of the Late Preceramic Period to the end of the Early Horizon
(3000 BCE - 200 CE). This window of time was chosen to incorporate both the
professional consensus that classical occupation of the monumental center of Chavín
begins after 1500 BCE and ends by 200 CE (Burger 1992, Kembel 2001, Lumbreras
1993) and the expectation that the trumpets were deposited in the Caracolas gallery
during classical Chavín times. By including iconography that dates to as early as 3000
BCE, the chosen window also allows us to consider that the trumpets, while eventually
transported to Chavín in the classical period, might have been crafted by people living
well before Chavín times, potentially as far back as the era when modified Strombus
first appears in the Ecuadorian record.

John Rick believes that the fragments of Strombus found in the Caracolas gallery
alongside the intact Strombus trumpets became fragmented through two processes –
random fragmentation from the gradual caving in of the gallery over the centuries, and
the activities of later prehistoric peoples who we believe found at least a portion of the
Caracolas deposit and co-opted the shells as raw material to fashion into their own
crafts (Rick 2001, pers. comm.). Here, only those fragments with visible iconographic
elements are analyzed. Worked fragments whose craft characteristics appear to be the
product of post-Chavín activity are not included.
A list of regional styles from the period was compiled, and sub lists of essential
artistic elements in each style were included alongside. Artwork from the trumpets was
described holistically, in the form of visual images, as well as reductively, as lists of the
smaller stylistic elements that make up each complete work (comparable to the stylistic
elements by which archaeologists typically classify iconography). Iconographic
information pertaining to the trumpets’ artwork was then compared to that pertaining to
the list of previously defined styles, and trumpet engravings were assigned to the most
specific categories possible. Various experts in the iconography of the Andean
formative period (Henning Bischof, Richard Burger, Alana Cordy-Collins, Luis
Lumbreras, Thomas Pozorski, Shelia Pozorski, John Rick and Michael Tellenbach)
were then consulted to evaluate the categorizations that were generated. Most gave
opinions about the styles to which I had assigned the artifacts and provided arguments
to support their opinions. Below, I balance my own ideas with those of the experts,
attempting to generate the most logical characterizations of iconographic elements.

Where many different categorizations were possible, all are listed explicitly in the
analysis section.
Biological dimensions of the shells – length, width, height, weight – were
recorded, but are not of specific relevance to the research questions addressed in this
study and are therefore not included herein. Craft characteristics were defined and then
measured. Hanging holes are perforations near the lower end of the shell, seen either in
pairs or alone and that we presume were used for running a thread through the shell for
hanging. Handgrip cuts are sets of incisions in the upper lip of the shell, which would
have removed the uppermost portions of the lip, perhaps allowing a player to better fit a
hand deeper into the bell of the trumpet while leaving the thumb outside. Centerlines
are engravings of some kind that mark off a division between the lower and upper faces
of the shell. (Their definition as a unique craft feature is discussed in greater detail in the
Results section, below.) The mouthpiece is a hole at the upper end of the shell body,
where the apex has been removed. Mouthpiece diameter, hanging hole diameter,
hanging hole position (the distance from the rear tip of the shell, measured in X and Y
coordinates, in a plane parallel to the flat base of the shell’s underside) and a variety of
dimensions pertaining to the handgrip feature (thickness of the shell at the grip cut, total
cut length, and the angles of the cuts to each other) were all measured.
These dimensions were entered into spreadsheets and cluster analysis was
performed in an attempt to group the trumpets according to them. Descriptive
information was factored into the categorization of the trumpets according to their craft
features when craft feature examples were consistently different from each other but
could not be distinguished through combinations of the trumpets measurements that
had been taken.
Charcoal samples that were found in association with the shells’ deposit, just
above the original floor of the Caracolas gallery, were inferred to be the most
appropriate materials with which to date the deposit. C-14 conventional dating of the
samples has yet to be carried out, but should become available by the end of 2003.
Discussion of Methods
Comparative artistic analysis raises a number of conceptual problems. For one,
the researcher must ask if the “styles” used as a basis for his/her comparisons are truly
geographically-specific and must develop a set of standards for assigning particular
examples to particular styles. Archaeologists working in the Andes have defined styles
based on such diverse criteria as small artistic motifs (such as the use of certain
symbols to represent certain ideas), colors, representational themes and techniques of
manufacture. What the field considers an adequate definition of a style depends on the
period to which the style is thought to pertain. For example, the inclusion of feline
imagery in two iconographic examples dating to the early Initial Period might constitute
a valid basis for including two pieces in the same style, since so few pieces in that era
include feline imagery. However, if the two representations differed significantly in other
artistic characteristics – the form of lines used to represent them, say, or the inclusion of
other thematic elements alongside the felines – the two examples might be assigned to
separate stylistic categories. Thus, at least in the Andes, the overall character of the
material record during an archaeological period affects how that period’s styles are
defined apart from each other. The field lacks an easily enumerated set of standards for
assigning pieces of art to stylistic groups, even within fixed periods of time and fixed
cultural boundaries. Moreover, even if Andeanists can agree that there are consistent
differences or consistent commonalities in the ways that artifacts are manufactured
and/or decorated at certain sites during certain periods, we struggle for a standardized
way to specify the degree of these stylistic similarities and differences.
The above problems become discrete in the context of Strombus trumpet
exchange in the Andes. The Chavín strombii represent over 80% of all Strombus
instruments found to Peruvian contexts that may date to the Early Horizon or earlier,
and with a sample size of only twenty, they are a limited collection themselves. Thus, in
addition to the problems generally associated with iconographic comparison in
archaeology (and in particular the problems of comparing early Andean styles to each
other) a small overall sample size of Strombus trumpets from the period and a small
within-study sample size complicate description of medium-specific craft features
among the Chavín strombii. The same scarcity also spells out a dearth of consistent
vocabulary that can be applied to the shells, their craft characteristics and their
iconography.
In an attempt to deal with the methodological problems of this study, I have
consulted experts about specific comparisons and assessments, trying to accommodate
the dynamic system of defining artistic styles in the Andes. A skeptical view has been
taken towards assigning certain stylistic labels to the artwork examined; multiple
similarities in style in content were required for an affiliation between one piece and
another to be strongly asserted. I have tried to situate the trumpets within the long
perspective of Andean prehistory, to have a larger sense of the bounds of variation
among iconography and Strombus-craft-specific features in that area of the world. I
have attempted to describe unnamed features of the shells and their modified
characteristics in consistent and neutral vocabulary, referencing images of the features
that I describe when I believe language cannot clearly specify what is being discussed.
It is my hope that such precautions, while hardly a solution to the problems at hand,
shall help to clarify the terms and boundaries of the current discussion.
IV. RESULTS
Excavation of the Caracolas Gallery, Summer 2001
Three levels of deposit proved continuous across the length of the gallery. The
third and deepest level consisted primarily of darker, looser dirt that rested above what
appears to have been the well-compacted gravelly-clay of the original gallery floor (Rick
2003). All intact trumpets were found laying directly on top of the original floor of the
gallery, and level three may be primarily a deposit of the original plaster of the gallery
walls, which was found to be preserved near the floor (Rick 2003). Strombii 1, 2 and 3
were found in unit Car 1, Strombus 4 in Car 3, strombii 5-11 in Car 4, and strombii 12-
20 in Car 5.
A large number of Strombus fragments were found in association with the
trumpet deposit. The number of Strombus fragments in each unit was found to be
roughly inversely proportional to the number of whole Strombus trumpets found therein,
such that the units on the northern end and in the middle of the gallery (units Car 1-3)
contained many more fragments than did units Car 4 and Car 5. The floor was also
more poorly defined in the northern units than in the southern units, suggesting mixing
of the original layer. The radically different appearance of the deposits in the northern
part of the gallery lends credence to the hypothesis that the many worked fragments
found there are the product of concerted harvest by people living after the time of the
original deposition of the trumpets.
Nine of the fragments exhumed are isolated lips (the thickest and heaviest
portion of the shell), and all include straight handgrip cuts with small circular engravings
at their far ends (a variety of cut labeled Type 1 below). Thus if we believe that these
fragments were originally parts of whole trumpets interred with the twenty that were
unearthed in 2001, we can presume that a minimum number of nine individual trumpets
are implied in the remaining fragments. The notion that nine of the original trumpets that
were laid in units Car 1, Car 2 and Car 3 were broken up by later peoples would help
account for the uneven, roughly reciprocal distribution of trumpets and fragments found
in the gallery (Rick 2001, pers. comm.). Given the large number of shell lips found in the
deposit and the fact that most of the crafted fragments found along with them are
rendered in thinner pieces of shell, we can also infer a certain lack of interest in, or use
for the lip portions among the people whose activity produced the shell fragments. One
particularly puzzling question remains: why would later peoples have stopped
harvesting the strombii before all of the deposit was exploited? The team has suggested
a number of solutions to this problem, but none as yet seems plausible.

Rick takes the predominance of what he has labeled later Chavín (Janabarriu)
pottery in levels above the trumpet deposits, across all units of the gallery, to mean that
the people who broke the Strombus into fragments may have lived in Janabarriu times
(Rick 2001, pers. comm.). These sherds, all highly polished and some decorated with
post-fire engravings or dotted with a bright red powder, were found in abundance
towards the southern end of the gallery – the end closer to the gallery entrance. They
were far more abundant in higher levels than lower levels, generally decreasing in
number with increasing depth (Rick 2003, pers. comm.). Yet the sherds are so far
undated, and their features may not be specific enough for them to be clearly labeled as
pertaining to the Janabarriu period.
The remains of other genera of mollusks were also found in the level three,
predominantly within unit Car 5. Rick has provisionally identified one of these shells as
pertaining to a tropical lowland species and another set of fragments as Mytilidae, a
marine family. A large number of thin, chalky fragments and nearly complete shells
seem to pertain to a land-based species or set of species, perhaps of local derivation.
Thus while Strombus galeatus clearly constitutes the dominant material found in the
lowest level of the Caracolas gallery, the presence of these other shells may represent
a ceremonial interest in mollusks, particularly gastropods, beyond Strombus.
Mammal bones, many of them burnt, appear in level three of unit Car 5. A
considerable amount of charcoal was found throughout the gallery but was most
abundant in the southernmost units, particularly level three of unit Car 5. The presence
of charcoal, burnt bone and the shells of small mollusks in the lowest levels of the
southernmost area of the gallery, just inside the original entrance, might represent a
ceremonial gallery closing, just after the trumpets were first deposited.
Statistical Analysis of Craft Features
No strong sub-grouping of the trumpets emerges from statistical analysis of the
diameters of the shells’ mouthpieces, the total lengths of the handgrip cuts on each of
them, or the diameters of their hanging holes, as seen below – meaning that we cannot
divide the shells into broad artistic or craft-related categories on the basis of correlations
between these three variables. The spinning plot below shows that principle
components analysis of total cut length, mouthpiece diameter and the diameter of the
left hanging hole (or the only hanging hole, in examples where only one was observed)
do not show significant clustering patterns.
[Spinning Plot]
Components: TOTAL CUT LENGTH, MOUTHPIECE DIAM, DIAML
Prin Comp 1, Prin Comp 2, Prin Comp 3

[Principal Components]
EigenValue Percent Cumulative Percent
1.3372 44.573 44.573
1.0090 33.634 78.207
.6538 21.793 100.000
[Eigenvectors]
Total Cut Length .47294 .73777 .48169
Mouthpiece Diam. .71175 .00235 -.70242
Diameter Left .51936 -.67505 .52400
Hole
Mouthpiece
Little variation is visible across the measured dimensions of the mouthpieces.
The mouthpieces of strombii 1 and 15 appear to be disproportionately large, while the
mouthpiece of Strombus 7 appears disproportionately small. However, for the most part,
the size of each individual mouthpiece is roughly predicted by the overall size of the
shell, shown below with Length used as a proxy for size. Note, however that
mouthpiece size is not predictable to a significant degree with this small sample size of
20.
[Bivariate Fit of MOUTHPIECE DIAM By LENGTH]
[Summary of Fit]
Rsquare 0.195272
RSquare Adj 0.150565
Root Mean Square Error 0.277445
Mean of Response 2.291
Observations (or Sum Wgts) 20
Analysis of Variance
Source DF Sum of Squares Mean F Ratio
Square
Model 1 0.3362152 0.336215 4.3678
Error 18 1.3855648 0.076976 Prob > F
C. Total 19 1.7217800 0.0511

Hanging Holes
In this sample of twenty shells, either one hole or two (or one and the signs of a
second) are visible in the lower portion of the shell face. Little variation is visible across
the sample in the diameters of the holes and their locations within the shells’ faces.
Such factors as shell weight, the basic presence or absence of iconography on the
trumpets and the specific type of iconography depicted do not seem to predict patterns
in the number of holes, either – as seen below (with Y = Two Holes and N= One Hole).
One Hole: 2, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 18, 20; Two Holes: 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19
One-way Analysis of WEIGHT By “TWO HOLES”

Y= Two Holes N=One Hole
[Summary of Fit]
Rsquare 0.06455
Adj Rsquare 0.012581
Root Mean Square Error 0.21055
Mean of Response 1.579675
Observations (or Sum 20
Wgts)
[t-Test]
Difference t-Test DF Prob > |t|
Estimate -0.10547 -1.114 18 0.2797
Std Error 0.09464
Lower 95% -0.30429
Upper 95% 0.09335

Qualitative Analysis of Craft Features
Polishing and Use-Wear
All of the trumpets, as well as those Strombus fragments that preserve some
portion of the original shell surface, show signs of intensive polishing. The outer surface
of an unpolished Strombus galeatus shell is covered in a brownish, flaky layer that has
to be scraped off with a hard implement to expose the white mass of the shell (See
Image F3). Bands of horizontal ridges ring the shell face. In all of the Chavín strombii,
we find the brown surface removed and the ridges almost, if not entirely polished down
into a flat surface. Signs of the ridges are preserved on the undersides of the shell bells,
on the far edges of most of their lips, near the hanging holes and in places where they
have been used (and often exaggerated) to form center lines. On Strombus 4 and
Strombus 10, even the lip has been polished down to removed its ridges. Signs of
polishing, in the form of thin scratches running up, down and across the shell faces are
visible on several of the trumpets without prominent iconography – strombii 1, 7, 9, 16
and 17. Where we find pieces of well-preserved engravings near the edges of the shell
face, or slight signs in the center – on Strombus 6, Strombus 8, Strombus 18, and
Strombus 19 – it is possible that the original iconography was intentionally polished
down to allow the shell to be re-used or re-worked.
Yet it is difficult to distinguish intentional polish from use-wear in such cases. In
addition to strombii 6, 8, 18 and 19, the faces of strombii 3, 5, 10, 12, 13, 14 and 15
have parts of their engraved lines considerably muted. Strombus 3 and Strombus 14
have exceptionally well-worn iconography, astonishingly thin faces and holes in their
surfaces that appear unintentional. Strombus 10 and Strombus 12 have significant
portions of their iconography rubbed into invisibility, and parts of the iconography of
Strombus 15 are a good deal shallower than others. The area around the handgrip of
Strombus 10 is rounded over and slick. The ambiguous iconography of Strombus 20 is
generally well worn over. Additional wear is visible around the rim of the mouthpieces,
particularly on the side of the rim opposite the protrusion of the lip – a pattern that
suggests that the bottom lip of the player was customarily rested on that portion of the
mouthpiece.
I am comfortable assigning primacy to use wear to explain the surface polish on
Strombus 3, because so much of the iconography still remains. I take, also, that the
thinness of Strombus 14 is most likely the result of use wear, because I trust that an
artisan would have generally avoided applying hard polish to a valuable artifact, to the
point that its integrity was in jeopardy. The surface polish on Strombus 5 is also limited
enough to the area around the handgrip that it may also have been produced by
extensive use of the artifact. In all of the other cases above where iconography has
been worn away, I can offer no strong suggestions about whether intentional polish or
use-wear is to blame.
It must also be noted where wear is not present on the trumpets. The edges of
some of the handgrips, in particular those of Strombus 11, 12, 13 and 16, are still rather
sharp. The inner edge of Type 1 and Type 3 cuts are much less worn than their outer
edges. On the whole, the extremities of the shells faces are generally less worn than the
centers. In addition, the engravings on Strombus 2 are also surprisingly unworn, given
that they appear no more deeply cut than the engravings preserved on well-worn
trumpets.
Handgrips
In unmodified S. galeatus shells, the upper portion of the shell lip curls up to
meet the apex near the shell’s underside (See Image F4). In each of the Chavín
trumpets, the upper lip has been removed through a series of incisions. As mentioned
above, these incisions were labeled “handgrips” or “handgrip cuts” in the field because
the team realized that the removal of the upper lip had made the task of fully inserting
one’s hand into the bell of the trumpet much easier, allowing space for the right thumb
to slide over around the bell of the shell. However, the style in which these incisions are
made varies widely across the shells. Examination shows that we may group these
handgrip styles into five types.
Type 2 and Type 5 are represented here by only one example each and
therefore might be more accurately thought of as singular examples left outside the
handgrip typology. Strombus 14 is fragmented in the area of its handgrip cut, but is
categorized here as Type 3, because it appears that the two remaining incisions of the
handgrip cut would have to have been bridged by a third incision, making the cut’s style
Type 3.
Type 1: A simple two-part cut, with the incisions arranged at (rough) right angles
to each other. Among the twenty trumpets, this type of cut always shows
evidence of a small circular cut (typically 4-5mm in diameter) at the junction of

the two main incisions (Images H1, H2, H3), as if the circular cut were made
before the incisions to help the artisan “aim” them. A number of examples that
bear iconography – strombii 4, 5, 6, 8, 18, and 20 – show definitive evidence that
their handgrips were incised after the iconography – in fact, cut directly into it.
Examples: Strombii 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 15, 18, 19, and 20; fragments 1 and 9;
nine unnumbered fragments from the Caracolas 2001 excavations. In addition,
three other fragments found in storage at Chavín de Huántar – one perhaps from
the Lumbreras Caracolas test pits dug in the late 1960’s; one reportedly from the
Kaufmann excavations in the 1980’s; one reportedly from the Aguirre
excavations in the Tello gallery, 1982.
Type 2: A two-part cut, with the two incisions arranged at an acute angle to each
other, without a circular cut at their junction. Strombus 2 is the only example
(Image H4). Here, the incisions appear as if they were sawed-in carefully from
the outside edge, with scratch marks extending from the lines of the incisions
beyond the point where they meet. The incisions are straight and polished. As
compared to Type 1, this cut would have removed a smaller area of the original
shell surface, and its composite incisions appear to have been made with more
care than those of Type 1 Handgrips. Elaborately engraved iconography
abounds around the area where the cut has been made and the incisions are
clearly laid over the engravings. Example: Strombus 2.

Type 3: A three-part cut, with circular incisions at the points where the second
incision meets the other two (Images H5, H7). It is possible that the cut results
from failures to execute the more standard – from faulty placement of the
circular cut within the shell lip before incision. Strombus 14 is included with this
group because it was judged that a third incision would be needed to link
together the two existing incisions (Image H6). Perhaps fragmentation even
occurred as one of the incisions was being made. Examples: Strombii 9, 14, and
17.
Type 4: A cut made with only one visible incision, which follows the line of the
lowest of the natural ridges that spiral out atop the shell from where its spiral
would once have been, before it was removed to form the mouthpiece. In
Strombus 3, the cut angles up away from the shell, giving the remaining lip the
appearance of fanning out (Image H10). In Strombus 10, the edge is heavily
worn and some of the uppermost portion of the original lip still clings to the bell of
the shell (Image H8). Strombus 12 displays an incision that is straight and
relatively unworn (Image H9). Each seems to have had the natural spiral of
ridges that emerges from the apex already polished down. Examples: Strombii 3,
10, and 12.
Type 5: A one-part cut made lower down on the lip than the horizontal cuts of
Type 1 and Type 2 Handgrips, ostensibly in concert with a second cut or series
of cuts, which were then artfully ground into invisibility (Image H11). There is a
circular incision at the junction of the handgrip incision and the bell of the shell.
Example: Strombus 16.
Handgrip Style and Handgrip Cuts Over Iconography
Handgrips are cut over and across the iconography of many of the trumpets.
Strombii 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 18 and 20 and Fragment 9 all show evidence of this practice.
Strombus 14 and Fragment 1 are also likely candidates. In each case, except from
Strombus 2, the style of handgrip that is cut over the iconography is Type 1.
Center Lines
At least sixteen of twenty of the strombii are crafted in a fashion that recognizes,
either through segmentation in their decoration or through a series of added engraved
lines, a division between the broad, flat lower portion of the shell’s front face and the
smaller upper portion of the same surface, which tapers up towards the shell’s apex. I
label the executed recognition of this division a “center line.” In a number of the
trumpets, the centerline is constructed by a series of engraved lines that follow, or often
simply exaggerate, the path of the natural grooves that would have run across the face
of the shells, before polishing. Of all of the characteristics of the Chavín trumpets that I
believe can be called craft features, the centerline is the most variable in its execution.
Strombus 15 and Strombus 17 each have only one centerline – a single groove
engraved into the shell face. Strombii 7, 9, and 19 have two engraved lines each, 16
signs of two and Fragment 15 at least that many. Strombii 2, 8, 11, 18 and 20 and
Fragment 9 all have three engraved lines each; Strombus 5 has four. Strombii 1, 13 and
14 display no centerlines. Strombii 3, 4, 6, 10 and 12 incorporate the center division into
their engraved artwork, using a variety of types of horizontal lines to create two separate
“panels” on the shell face. However, even among trumpets that use the same number of
engraved lines to recognize the center division, there is so little consistency in the way
that the center line is made that there appears to be no way to use this characteristic to
break up the sample into useful sub-groups.
In the unmodified S. galeatus shell, there is something of a natural division
between the upper and lower portions of the shell face. The shell bulges at the point
where the two parts meet each other, reaching a rounded crest that tapers off in relative
evenness to both sides. The division between the upper and lower shell faces, then, is
hardly a completely arbitrary one. Nevertheless, both among the Chavín strombii and
among other Formative period Strombus trumpets from the Andes (e.g., the Pickman
Strombus), we find examples in which no such division is formally recognized – an
absence that underscores centerlines as one of the unifying stylistic elements of the
Chavín trumpets.
Frames
A large number of the Chavín strombii that are embellished with iconography
have a border engraved between that artwork and the non-decorated portions of the
shell. I call these borders, which in most cases appear to wrap around and enclose the
whole of the iconography contained on the shell face, “Frames.” Strombii 2, 3, 4, 6, 8,
10, 12, 13, 14, and 18 all bear signs of Frames. This distribution represents ten of
twenty total trumpets and ten of fourteen trumpets that bear visible iconography. All
trumpets that bear, or show signs that they once bore particularly complex fields of
iconography – Strombii 2, 3, 4, 10, 12, 14, and 18 – have frames. Strombii 2 and 12
have single engraved lines that serve as frames. Strombii 6, 8, 10, 12, 13 and 18 have
sets of two parallel lines that serve the same function. Strombii 3 and 4 have complex,
variable frames incorporated into the edges of their artwork.
Artistic Comparisons of Iconography from Strombus Trumpets and Fragments
Iconography engraved into the twenty whole Strombii found in the Caracolas
gallery and the various shell fragments found in association with them is assessed
below. Trumpets and fragments with strongly visible iconography are listed by their
designation numbers, and the most probable affiliations of their iconography are
presented. Images of the trumpets and fragments are found in Appendix D (under
names that begin with “Str#-Art,” “Str#-Art-Detail” or “Frag#”). Images of typed
iconography from outside the trumpet sample are also included for the sake of clarifying
the postulated artistic relationships and are listed in Appendix F (under names with the
prefix “F”).
Strombus 2:
Features: The artwork of Strombus 2 (Image Str2-Art) contains several principle
figures with fanged mouths, curling hair kenned as snakes and eyes with upturned irises
(“pendant eyes”). Oval-shaped pendant eyes with wing-like attachments protruding from
the long ends of the ovals (the “bicorned” style), are both visible in isolation within the
design and as the eyes of the snakes that comprise the main figures’ hair. These
snakes also bear feather-like protrusions emanating from their own heads. The main
figures’ flowing hair is often pictured grouped in pairs of two – one thick field paralleled
by a thinner field. “Feather” forms (as nested trapezoids in similar artwork have been
labeled by Lathrap [1971] and others) are also common across this complex image.
Crosshatched line engravings, as well as simple fields of parallel-engraved lines are
used as background, apparently to make the central figures more visible. No other
iconographic styles are layered over the central engravings.
Affiliations: Classical Chavín, Cupisnique (Late Initial Period style of the Zaña,
Jequetepeque and Chicama valleys). The pendant eyes, fanged mouths and snake hair
of the two largest figures on the piece and the curly forms above two of the figures’
heads are equally iconic of the Chavín and Cupisnique styles, as is the use of cross-
hatching to create a background for the figures. The curled lips and fangs of the main
figures find particular affinity in the Lanzón monolith at Chavín de Huántar (Image F11),
and the feathered forms have been cited as being specific to Chavín iconography
(Lathrap 1971, etc.). Henning Bischof agrees that this piece is particularly well related to
Chavín and/or Cupisnique artwork, but uses the term Cupisnique in a broad sense, to
include art from the site of Kuntur Wasi, high in the Chicama drainage (Bischof 2003,
pers. comm.). Bischof also notes that winged (bicorned) eyes such as those visible in
the artwork of Strombus 2 are visible in a certain Chavín stone slab (Bischof 1994, fig
26b, from Kaufmann) and a petroglyph from the Jequetepeque valley, within reach of
Cupisnique influence.
Strombus 3:
Features: The most prominent features in the iconography of Strombus 3 (Image
Str3-Art) are a set of square faces with various rays emanating from them – rays that
might be construed as legs and arms. The faces have semicircular eyes, simple flat
mouths and circular indentations marking the corners of their engraved lines and at the
pupils of their eyes. The art is framed by lines of circular depressions scooped out of the
shell face that are segmented by engraved square divisions. A complex motif centered
around an eye-like form is visible above the upper left square face and appears
repeated (although worn and difficult to make out) above the other two upper faces.
Affiliations: The blocky faces engraved into the face of Strombus 3 are
reminiscent of early images on a famous set of pyroengraved gourds found in a burial at
Huaca Prieta, in the Chicama valley (Image F32) (Bird et al 1985: figures 42, 43). These
gourds were originally dated to the preceramic period, which ended some 1000 years
prior to Chavín times, and their style has been compared to images found on early
Valdivia pottery from Ecuador, also dating rather earlier than principal deposits at
Chavín de Huántar. However, recent work has suggested that the gourds may date to
the Late Initial period, closer to the time of Chavín de Huántar (Bischof 2000). Equally
viable are comparisons with small square faces engraved in stone, shell and ceramics
from Cerro Blanco (in the Cajamarca region of the northern highlands – the only “Cerro
Blanco” mentioned from this point on in the text) (Images F31, F33, and F34), though
the faces etched in stone and shell appear in detail that is considerably higher than that
of the faces on Strombus 3. A number of square faces from Jequetepeque valley

petroglyphs (Images F35, F36, and F37) that seem to be associated with Late Initial
period and Early Horizon iconography (Cupisnique-Chavinoid) (See image F36) also
provide suitable comparisons with the Strombus 3 faces.
Bischof considers this “square mask” form to be an unlocalized regional style
with strong Preceramic/Late Archaic traditions and a comfortable relationships with
Yurayako-type anthropomorphs (Bischof 1994: figs 18, 19; 2003, pers. comm.), named
after a location near Chavín de Huántar where a “Yurayako” style engraved figure was
found, and present at Formative period sites in the northern highlands and along the
northern coast, stretching from Chiclayo to Garagay. Moreover, the implicit difficulties of
typing such a basic and seemingly unconventionalized form to a specific iconographic
tradition should be apparent. Thus no terribly strong affiliation can be offered for
Strombus 3.
Strombus 4
Features: The iconography of Strombus 4 (Image Str4-Art) includes two rather
different types of engravings: deep and angular cuts (shown dark in the attached image
of the shell) that form abstract, arrow-like lines and human profiles that may represent
trophy heads, and light and disordered engravings, including representations of simple
“smiling serpent” faces (Image Str4-Art-Detail-2), jagged enclosures of connected
triangular forms and rectangular images not unlike the abstract feathers of classical
Chavín iconography. Deeply engraved circles surrounded by more shallowly engraved
circles are also visible.

Affiliations: The lighter engravings bear striking resemblance to forms from
Pacopampa artwork: the smiling head (Images F38 and F39), as well as jagged
triangular forms (Images F39 and F49). The deeper engravings seem to overlay, and at
least in one case to follow the lighter engravings (see Str4-Art-Detail-1, in which circular
scoops seem to be following the lines of a lighter engraving, as if captured in the act of
their being added). Thus the deeper engravings may represent a later adaptation of the
shell by a group of people or a person different from the original artist(s) of the lighter
engravings.
We find similar “smiling serpent” forms in a number of other contexts, including a
stone stele from Kuntur Wasi (Image F40; suggested by Bischof 2003, pers. comm.), a
stone lintel from La Pampa (Bischof 1994, fig. 23a; suggested by Bischof 2003, pers.
comm.), textiles from Paracas (Image F48), and elsewhere. However, I believe that the
similarities between the smiling faces on Strombus 4 and those on Pacopampa figures
(particularly F38), combined with the fact that both incorporate jagged triangular forms,
make a strong case that we should affiliate the light engravings most closely with the art
of Pacopampa.
The deeper engravings are too schematic to type to a specific cultural-artistic
tradition. John Rick has suggested that the arrow forms and trophy heads are
reminiscent of themes developing in and around Paracas at around the time when the
Chavín monuments were being erected (Rick 2001, pers. comm.). Nevertheless, it is
risky to assign cultural affiliation merely on the basis of shared thematic content. The
most certain thing we can say about the deeper set of engravings in the face of
Strombus 4 is that they are significantly different from, and not part of the same
composition as their lighter counterparts.
Strombus 5:
Features: The iconography of Strombus 5 (Image Str5-Art) includes a line of five
simple circular faces, with what appear to be closed eyes, ringing the upper portion of
the shell, below the mouthpiece. A line of engraved circles with small circular
impressions carved at their centers and a field of segmented squares formed by
horizontal and vertical lines create a centerline area that is wide and complex.
Affiliations: The round faces, particularly their “closed” eyes, resemble stone
engravings from the outer temple at Cerro Sechín (Images F42, F43) in the lower
Casma valley, a construction phase that dates to around 1500 BCE (Samaniego et al.,
1985 and Roe 1974, via Burger 1992: 79). However, the Sechín faces are more detailed
and less round than the Strombus 5 figures. Given the relatively casual execution of all
the engravings in the shell face (as compared to those of strombii 2, 3, 4 and 12, for
instance), it is possible that the faces are copied from the Sechín figures or similar
engravings not yet know to archaeologists. Yet they are basic enough that they could
have been independently conceived.
The circle-within-circle motif etched across the face of Strombus 5 is engraved in
artifacts found in Formative period deposits across the Andes. Archaeologists have
tended to describe such artifacts as displaying a discrete relationship with Janabarriu
period Chavín pottery forms (Image F14), roughly dated to 400BCE-200BCE (Burger
1992: 165). We find similar patterns, however, in a wide variety of earlier contexts,
including ceramics found in the Ofrendas gallery, which date closer to 800BCE (Kembel
2001) and Valdivia ceramics from coastal Ecuador, which date from 20000 to 1500BCE
(Burger 1992: 101). Therefore, it is unwise to claim that the appearance of the circle-
within-circle form on Strombus 5 is evidence of influence from (or manufacture at) any
particular site at any particular time.
Strombus 6
Features: The iconography of Strombus 6 (Image Str6-Art) consists of line of
circles-within-circles whose inner depressions are wider and deeper than the circles-
within-circles found on Strombus 5. The outer circles of each seem casually engraved –
variable and never approximating perfect circles. The bottom of each outer circle rests
just above the natural hump between the lower and upper faces of the shell. A thin
engraved line follows along their tops and also appears casually executed – winding
slightly between each circle, meeting its curves – and seems to have been engraved at
a later date than the line of circles. Interestingly, the two incisions of the handgrip cut
meet at the center of one of the inner circles, as if the circle were being used to aim the
incisions. The more horizontal of the two handgrip cuts also bisects another inner circle,
indicating almost without a doubt that the handgrip was added after the iconography.
Affiliations: Again, it is difficult to type such schematic artwork to a specific locale.
Convention dictates that we call this piece canonical Chavín (Bischof 2003, pers.
comm.), given the substantial nature of the inner circles and their supposed
resemblance to forms found on pottery from Chavín de Huántar (Image F14).

Strombus 8
Features: The iconography of Strombus 8 (Image Str8-Art) is comprised of a line
of circles-within-circles that are executed in much the same style of those engraved into
the face of Strombus 5. The inner circles are small carved indentations and the outer
circles are thin, casually carved circumscriptions of the inner points. The circles become
the central element of the centerline, flanked by three engraved lines that follow the
course of natural grooves in the shell face.
Affiliations: Given the small size of the interior circles in the line of circles-within-
circles, a definitive affiliation is difficult to establish, though we can take this piece as
additional evidence of the popularity of the simple circle-within-circle form in the artwork
of the Chavín strombii.
Strombus 10:
Features: Most prominently, the iconography of this rather muddled piece (Image
Str10-Art) contains a head-on image of a fanged mouth, with simple engraved crosses
at either edge, representing what is most likely a toothy grimace. Snake-like faces
attached to double lines are kenned as eyes for the figure. A set of parallel lines that
extends just above the central teeth of the feline mouth appears to be kenned as
nostrils. Elsewhere in the composition, we see a number of well-executed wavy lines
(Image Str10-Art-Detail 1), including a double-lined spiraled form engraved around what
appears to be a natural hole in the shell face (Image Str10-Art-Detail2). Other pairs of
single, opposed spirals are visible (Image Str10-Art-Detail3). Several small, crude
square faces with no particular stylistic consistency among them are partially visible
(Also Str10-Art-Detail3).
Affiliations: The use of kenning techniques and the presence of a fanged mouth
in the artwork on Strombus 10, both hallmark characteristics of Chavín art, suggest that
this piece belongs among the classical Chavín set. However, the organization of
engravings on the piece seem so haphazard that it is difficult to imagine that they could
have been the work of the same skilled craftspeople who are thought to have been
responsible for the elaborate stone artwork of Chavín’s monumental center. A number
of artistic affiliations may help to clarify the origins of the artwork on the piece.
The mouth of a figure on a stone stele from Pacopampa (Image F44) bears the
same simple crosses at its edges that are seen in the figure on Strombus 10. The four
streaming lines emitting from the mouth of the image on the stele might also be
compared to the four rounded teeth of the figure on Strombus 10. The spiral engraved
around what is apparently a natural hole in the upper right portion of the shell face, as
well as several other double-lined wave forms that are difficult to make out in the
drawing of the trumpet included here, bear resemblance to the well-organized flowing
lines found in much Cupisnique pottery design.
It is possible that the artwork of Strombus 10, like that of Strombus 4, was
engraved by several different groups of people. The piece bears stylistic information
shared in common with art from Pacopampa, Chavín and from the Cupisnique area and
may have been handled by people living among societies categorized under each of
these three stylistic groupings. The wavy double lines in the piece appear more carefully
executed than the lightly drawn central figure and do not link up with it visibly (though
intensive polish and use-wear obscure the picture). Perhaps the wavy lines are part of a
separate composition altogether, carried out by a different person or group of people
than the party responsible for casting the central figure.
As discussed above, to tease Formative period regional styles apart from each
other is a difficult task, because each style tends to share both thematic and stylistic
content with the others. Therefore, there appears to be no definitive regional label for
Strombus 10. Of note, however is the centrality of Pacompampan elements in the
figure, which suggest that the piece might be aligned most clearly with artwork from that
site. The lack of organization in the central figure suggests that it was engraved by a
non-specialized group of craftspeople who were familiar with the basic themes and
elements of Pacopampa, Chavín and Cupisnique iconography, if not actual physical
examples of it, and attempted to reproduce them in the artwork on Strombus 10.
Strombus 12:
Features: In the iconography of Strombus 12 (Image Str12-Art), a central figure
bears an ornate pendant eye and is flanked both below and to its right side by rows of
teeth punctuated with fangs, not unlike the mouth belonging to the principle figure on
Strombus 10. An isolated pendant eye with an attached spiral is linked to the figure by a
set of wavy parallel lines that protrude from the mouth on the right flank of the figure.
Two similar sets of lines protrude down out of the row of teeth below the figure and
curve away from each other. Additional sets of twisted parallel lines are visible on the
upper panel of the shell face. Fields of short parallel lines, bunched in groups of four or
more and aimed at slightly acute angles to each other, are used to create a background
for the image. No fields of crosshatched engraved lines are visible. The complex
organization of the piece and the consistency of its artwork suggest that the visible
iconography was wrought by knowledgeable craftspeople who conceived of a single
plan for the piece and then carried it out.
Affiliations: This iconography is definitively Cupisnique. The wavy lines, the basic
elements of the central figure (fangs that extend across the bottom lip, the nose curls),
the form of the isolated pendant eye are all present in much the same configuration that
they appear in a Cupisnique stirrup-spout bottle displayed here (Image F45). No
layering of other artwork is present.
Strombus 14:
Features: The confusing iconography of Strombus 14 (Image Str14-Art) is a
tangle of blocky forms and parallel flowing lines. A pendant eye, situated within a
flowing line form is flanked by fields of parallel lines and pointy protrusions (Str14-Art-
Detail-2) and attests that well-executed iconography was present on the shell face
before use-wear and post-depositional decomposition must have acted to remove it.
Some more deeply engrave and more casually organized rectangular forms are also
visible (Str14-Art-Detail-1)
Affiliations: The presence of well-organized artwork in this piece alongside
haphazard rectangular forms suggests multiple engraving episodes involving this shell.
While the rectangles are two basic to call to mind affiliations, the pendant eye and
parallel-lined background suggest a vague Cupisnique or Chavín association.
Strombus 15:
Features: The iconography of Strombus 15 (Image Str15-Art) is a set of three
large circles-within-circles, whose inner circles are particularly large and are not dug out
of the shell face but engraved in rough fashion like those that ring them. A large circular
hole whose edges are cleanly carved and whose size approximates that of the three
engraved circles-within-circles appears in line with the iconography.
Affiliations: The prominence and exceptional size of these circles-within-circles
offers no additional assistance in the task of typing that particular form as it appears in
this piece. Bischof speculates that these circles-within-circles are more roughly affiliated
with Ofrendas gallery pottery than with later forms, but he offers no qualifications of this
evaluation (2003, pers. comm.).
Strombus 18:
Features: Parallel line background shading (Images Str18-Art-Detail 1 and Str18-
Art-Detail 2), a small “ feather” form (Str18-Art-Detail-1) like those emanating from the
tops of the snake figures on Strombus 2, and a set of wavy parallel line forms (Str18-
Art-Detail-2) are the only visible remainders of iconography on the face of Strombus 18.
Affiliations: A default classification of the piece would be Cupisnique or Chavín,
due to flowing lines and parallel line background shading. The presence of the feather
form draws particular attention to a possible close affiliation between this piece and
Strombus 2.
Strombus 20:
Features: The iconography of Strombus 20 contains a figure that appears to
incorporate a pair of eyes (Image Str20-Art-Detail-2) and a number of confused lines
with no clear organization to them (Str20-Art-Detail-1).
Affiliations: There is insufficient information to offer any suggestions.
Fragment 1
Features: The iconography from both sides of Fragment 1 (Image Frag1 and
Image Frag2) is a tangle of double lines and nested three-sided boxes, which might be
interpreted as feather forms.
Affiliations: The lines engraved on Fragment 1 are executed in the somewhat
haphazard fashion of the artwork on Strombus 10. If the boxes indeed make reference
to tail feathers, they could connect this piece with classical Chavín iconography. The
pattern could also be inspired by the artwork on pottery from Cerro Blanco (Image F54)
or Kuntur Wasi (Image F53), which includes tangles of such parallel lines arranged at
right angles to each other. On the other hand, the piece may represent a plan for later,
more elaborate engraving (not unlike the light engravings seen on Strombus 4) or
“graffiti” (non-corporate artwork) added to the fragment by post-Chavín visitors to the

gallery. Perhaps, also, the presence of feather-like forms here attests to the emulation
of Chavín iconography by a group outside the monumental core that copied elements of
the center’s fine artwork in their design, without capturing it in its fullest. Unfortunately,
none of these evaluations seems strong enough to be definitive.
Fragment 3:
Features: A cross-hatching pattern, and a portion of a curly form (Image Frag3).
Affiliations: The combination of cross-hatching and a well-hewn curl strongly
suggests a Chavín or Cupisnique affiliation. Bischof believes there may be some
relationship between the piece and the iconography of the Pickman Strombus – a
designation that would type Fragment 3 to the Nepeña valley and to Cupisnique.
Fragments 6, 22:
Features: Fields of crudely drawn lines and boxes that suggest pendant eyes
(Image Frag6; Image Frag22).
Affiliations: These examples resemble simple pendant eyes seen in a number of
different regional styles, including friezes at Cerro Blanco. Overall, however, their style
is much too generic to pinpoint at any one prehistoric Peruvian center. The figures
engraved on Fragment 15 and Fragment 19 below contain pendant eyes that are hewn
in the same simple manner, and so the use of this style may be partially influenced by
the particular constraints of working in the shell medium. Yet we also find more complex
pendant eyes in the artwork of Strombus 2, Strombus 12, Fragment 4 and Fragment 13
– facts that suggest the eyes appearing on Fragments 15 and 19 could have been
crafted in that fashion entirely by choice.
Fragment 4:
Features: This fragment appears to be an ornament of some kind, created from a
piece of shell, and has an elaborate pendant eye and curly forms engraved in it (Image
Frag4). Three holes are drilled through the image and may have been added around the
same time that the fragment was carved out of a larger piece of shell, by people who
visited the gallery after the original deposit of Strombus was laid in.
Affiliation: The finely carved eye and associated curls could be Chavín,
Cupisnique, or Kuntur Wasi. The post-engraving modifications offer no hints of their
creator’s cultural affiliations.
Fragment 13:
Features: A pendant eye whose pupil is marked by crosshatched lines,
surrounded by concentric engravings (Image Frag13).
Affiliations: The fragment could be Chavín, Cupisnique or Kuntur Wasi, by virtue
of its cross-hatching and the pendant eye. However, the iconographic information on
this fragment is indeed scant, and some of the concentric lines may be latter additions
to the original piece.

Fragment 14:
Features: A circular pendant eye, with bulge parallel to its upper edge and a
small wing emanating from its right side.
Affiliations: Unknown.
Fragments 5, 7, 12, 18:
Features: Simple circles-within-circles, with large inner circles (Images Frag5,
Frag7, Frag12, and Frag18).
Affiliations: Same as evaluation of Strombus 15 circles, discussed above. No
specific typing yet possible.
Fragment 9:
Features: Two lines of small, circular depressions, segmented by horizontal and
vertical engraved lines (Image Frag9). The horizontal lines are continuous, following
natural grooves in the shell surface, part of a centerline definition that was overlain by a
Type 1 Handgrip. The vertical lines are discontinuous and bisect the spaces between
the circular depressions with relative accuracy, seemingly added after the horizontal
lines and perhaps after the circular depressions, as well.
Affiliations: The design is simply too basic for us to assign it to any particular
artistic tradition. However, its composition bears strong resemblance to that of Strombus
5, save the round, “sleeping” faces found in the latter piece.

Fragment 15:
Features: (Image Frag15). A figure in the center of the fragment shows a
squared-off pendant eye, darkened by cross-hatching (like the eye found on Fragment
13), and a grimacing mouth that shows no teeth. A more rounded pendant eye in the
lower left of the fragment also bears a crosshatched pupil. The form of the first eye
would affiliate the piece with Fragments 6 and 22 above, the crosshatched pupils of
both eyes with Fragment 13. Other cross-hatching is visible, as is a distinctive band of
double lines alternating in a textile-like pattern. A double-lined curl is perched above the
top pendant eye and two short, bending parallel lines emerge from the mouth of the
central figure.
Affiliations: We meet the same confusion dealing with this piece that we do
dealing with the other fragments that bear Chavinoid characteristics. Affiliations with a
number of northern Formative sites are possible. However, in this circumstance I would
use the form of the grimacing mouth to suggest that affiliation is more likely with a
restricted set of sites: Chavín de Huántar, the Cupisnique area and Kuntur Wasi.
Fragment 16:
Features: (Image Frag16). At lower left is a snake-like figure with a poorly
defined mouth and an eye that consists of simple carved dot surrounded by an
engraved circle. Another such “eye” sits, unconnected above it, perhaps originally
attached to some other figure. A fanged mouth with overhanging canine dips into the
upper right edge.

Affiliations: The simple eye suggests and affiliation with Yurayako-type
anthropomorphs (mentioned above).
Fragment 17:
Features: (Image Frag17). Apparent tips of flowing lines, like those found on
Strombus 18. Parallel-line shading.
Affiliations: Roughly Cupisnique or Chavín, but with little verifiability.
Fragment 19:
Features: (Image Frag19). A grimacing face with down-turned mouth, no fangs, a
nose and a simple, square pendant eye.
Affiliations: This particular mouth is found at Formative period sites throughout
the northern Andes. It appears perhaps most prominently in the pottery of Pacopampa
(Image F46), although typically with canines extended across the upper lip. The form
also appears in ceramics at Cerro Blanco, in Jequetepeque valley Cupisnique pottery
(Alva 1986: fig. 91), Kuntur Wasi, and among Yurayako-type anthropomorphs (Bischof
1994: figs. 18, 19). Its form – a simple pendant eye and sharply angled grimace, most
resemble the pieces from Pacopampa, but its lack of canines begs comparison with
Yurayako faces, including figures on the engraved Strombus trumpet found at Kuntur
Wasi (Image F48).

Fragment 20
Features: (Image Frag20). An ordered group of lines, known provisionally as a
“Chavín Fish” (Bischof 2003, pers. comm.), etched onto a small piece of the upper part
of a Strombus shell. May be engravings made after the original manufacture of the
trumpet to which the fragment once belonged.
Affiliations: Chavín de Huántar.
Dating
Unfortunately, neither dating the strombii themselves nor dating the charcoal
deposits associated with their deposition has proved possible before the due date for
this project. With any luck, the charcoal should be dated by acceleration mass
spectrometry within a matter of months. Several shell fragments may also be dated
soon afterwards. Dating all of the pieces, including all twenty trumpets, is a task that will
have to wait considerably longer, if it is attempted at all.
I remain confident, however, that the charcoal will date between 800 and 500
BCE and many of the shells themselves earlier. The iconography on the shells appears
generally late Late Initial Period and early Early Horizon in cast. Furthermore, the age of
the Caracolas deposit can be estimated using the association of the gallery to the
platform around the site’s circular plaza. Dates obtained from above and below the
plaza pin the construction of the platform area between 800 and 500 BCE (Rick 2003,
pers. comm.).
V. DISCUSSION
In this chapter, I will pull together the information presented above to generate a
picture of how the Chavín strombii came to rest at Chavín de Huántar and understand
what they have to say about the social world of northern Peru during the late Late Initial
Period and early Early Horizon. I will first discuss use wear and stylistic layering in the
trumpets, move on to talk about their iconography, and then present an argument about
how they might have been held as they were played. I will build on conclusions reached
in each of these subsections to present an argument about how the patterns of
iconography, craft characteristics and use wear on the trumpets can enrich our
understanding of the social landscape of the Peruvian Andes during the late Late Initial
Period and early Early Horizon. I will end the section with a few suggestions for future
research with the trumpets.
The Chavín Strombus Trumpets, Time, and Cultural Layering
One of the more striking aspects of the Chavín strombii is the evidence that
many of them were used for many years, by multiple groups of people who modified
them in distinct ways. In this section, I will review the relevant evidence and suggest
that the trumpets were handled at a variety of locations distant from Chavín de Huántar
before they were deposited in the Caracolas gallery and that they were modified in a
consistent manner either at, or specifically for Chavín.
Well-preserved Strombus shell has been found in a variety of Formative Period
contexts in the Andes, including the Caracolas gallery. This attested durability makes
the evidence of considerable use-wear on the faces of trumpets 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13,
14, 18, 19, and 20 all the more striking. Of the fourteen trumpets with visible engraved
iconography only strombii 2, 4 and 15 do not show strong evidence of extensive use
wear. Thus while no one has conducted the archaeometrical analysis necessary to
estimate the use life of the instruments, we can use the prevalence of wear on most of
them to predict that the norm was a quite extended period of time, perhaps several
generations or more.
The engravings on strombii 4, 10, and 14 bear signs of multiple levels of
composition, produced by artists working in separate traditions – or at least with
radically different sets of skills and/or implements. On Strombus 4, deep engravings of
faces in profile, winding arrow forms and lines of circles-within-circles are contrasted
with slight, partially worn engravings of smiling serpents and jagged triangles that are
affiliated with the Pacopampa style. On Strombus 14, a well-carved pendant eye and a
series of evenly spaced parallel lines that were probably used as background contrast
markedly with a series of haphazard rectangles on the upper face. And while the
evidence on Strombus 10 for multiple layers of engraving is less strong, we still find a
fairly strong difference between the haphazard lines of the central figure and the curving
parallel forms near the top of the shell’s face. In each case, particularly the engravings
of Strombus 4, there is a possibility that separate levels of iconography were added to
the shells by people living in separate locales.
The incision of handgrips over the iconography of many of the shells lends
further credence to the idea that they were used by multiple groups and continually
adapted to the particular tastes of the groups that possessed them at a given time. As
noted above, strombii 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 18 and 20 and Fragment 9 have handgrip cuts
clearly incised across their iconographies, and both Strombus 14 and Fragment 1
potentially do as well. Among these pieces, there is no particular consistency in
iconographic style – a pattern that argues against the idea that all of their modification
was executed at the same site, the cut over the shell’s iconography constituting a
conventionalized modification carried out by the engravers. True, strombii 4, 5, 6 and 8
all contain lines of circles-within-circles, but this characteristic is too generic to type to
any particular site, and there is little consistency across the pieces in the styles of
circles used.
Except for the handgrip on Strombus 2, each of the handgrip cuts incised over
iconography is a Type 1 cut. The Type 2 Handgrip incised into Strombus 2 is, moreover,
quite similar to a Type 1 cut, comprising two incisions that meet close to the center line
of the shell. (The sharp edges of the Type 3 Handgrip and the circular cuts at the
junctions of its three main incisions also affiliate Type 3 rather strongly with the Type 1
tradition.) The Type 2 cut is indeed different than Type 1, in that it would have removed
a smaller piece of the shell surface and has incisions that do not meet at a circular cut. I
believe, however, that these differences are minimal enough that Type 2 may represent
an adaptation of the Type 1 Handgrip to preserve more of the finely engraved
iconographic array present on Strombus 2, while still allowing the handgrip convention
to be added. Thus all of the handgrips cut across shell iconography appear to have
been created in the same tradition.
Handgrip cuts are visible on all published examples of Strombus galeatus shell
trumpets found at Andean archaeological sites. Whether they were indeed an

omnipresent feature of the instruments because they made them that much easier to
hold, or whether they were preserved as vital stylistic elements of the trumpets, the
handgrips of the Chavín stash, the Pickman Strombus and the Kuntur Wasi trumpets
show a good deal of difference among them. This variation suggests that the style of
handgrip applied to these instruments may have been a factor on par with engraved
iconography in marking them as locally meaningful, valuable and/or powerful ritual
objects.
Bearing these factors in mind, I believe that the Type 1, Type 2 and Type 3
Handgrips are variations on a single stylistic convention that was added to the Chavín
trumpets by a single group of craftspeople, somewhere along the trumpets’ long journey
to deposition in the Caracolas gallery, and probably at Chavín de Huántar. While we
cannot be sure that handgrips of these varieties were the last modifications made to the
strombii before they were deposited in the gallery, we can, in most cases, tell that they
postdated polishing and engraving, and that the edges of the incisions are generally
sharp, particularly on their undersides. The Type 1 Handgrip of Strombus 14 (Image
H6), for instance, is surprisingly sharp-edged given its well-worn face. Together, Types
1, 2 and 3 account for sixteen of the handgrips of the twenty whole trumpets and nine of
nine handgrips on large lip fragments found in the gallery. Moreover, they are not visible
in any of the other Formative period strombii. One of the Kuntur Wasi trumpets is
marked with a two-incision, right angle handgrip (Image F19), but does not appear to be
Type 1, because it is made higher up on the shell and appears not to have a circular cut
at the junction of its two main incisions. The other two Kuntur Wasi trumpets (Images
F17, F18, F20) have varieties of handgrips that do not fit into the typology outlined
above, and the Pickman Strombus has a handgrip that appears to be Type 4 (Image
F56). Until other examples of trumpets with Type 1, 2 or 3 Handgrips can be found at
other Formative Period sites in the Andes, I am fairly confident labeling these types
“Chavín Handgrips,” unique to modification at or near the site of Chavín de Huántar.
Perhaps the Type 1, 2, and 3 styles were favored at Chavín because people
there believed that those cuts made the trumpets particularly easy or pleasing to hold.
Perhaps they were added as markers that the trumpets were Chavín’s, and Chavín’s
alone – or because, for one reason or another, that’s just how people living in or around
Chavín thought a pututu should look and/or feel. These cuts may also have been
favored over others because they would have allowed for the removal of a large piece
of Strombus material from the shell lip, enabling the production of smaller Strombus
artifacts in an area where abundant Strombus galeatus individuals could only be found
a rugged 600km away, at the nearest. The motivations of the handgrip artisans are
unclear, but the results point consistently to Chavín as the location where handgrips of
Type 1, 2 and 3 were executed.
Why, however, would Chavín not have also modified strombii 3, 10, 12 and 16 to
display one of the Chavín Handgrips? Perhaps because the handgrip cuts that were
already present on these trumpets constituted critical elements of their overall design
that could not be removed without seriously compromising the trumpets’ artistic
integrity. It seems as if the artist who added a handgrip to Strombus 2 took such factors
into consideration when s/he chose not to execute as large an incision into the
elaborately carved face of that shell. Why then should Chavín craftspeople not have
considered the integrity of these four trumpets, as well? Certainly, it is impossible to

know whether the handgrips of strombii 3, 10, 12, and 16 were indeed more integral to
the designs of those shells than were the handgrips replaced by types 1, 2 and 3. Yet it
is easy to see that the handgrip of Strombus 3 is a well-crafted part of an artistic plan for
the whole shell, one that also includes repeated borders and symmetrical designs. It is
also clear that the handgrip of Strombus 16 is finely crafted, gives the shell a look that
(from the front) rather resembles a Type 1 trumpet, and is large enough that there would
have been little way to add a Type 1 or Type 3 cut to it and still extract a significant
amount of shell from the face. The outlying styles of the handgrips on Strombus 10 and
Strombus 12, however, remain harder to explain, but we expect they were carved
outside of Chavín de Huántar.
The Iconography of the Chavín Trumpets and Strombus Movement in the Northern
Andes During the Late Initial Period and early Early Horizon
Given the high quality and the regularity of in situ stone artwork at the
monumental center of Chavín de Huántar, one might expect that artifacts held in
reverence at Chavín – and it is to be expected that the trumpets were such artifacts,
given the frequent representation of Strombus in fine Chavín stonework (Images F8, F9,
F10, F12) – would have been required to conform to a particular set of artistic standards
that are repeated in the themes of the monument’s most prominent public works. Much
like the diverse manufactures of pottery found in the Ofrendas gallery thirty years ago,
however, the modified aspects of the trumpets are hardly consistent, showing us that a
certain degree of stylistic diversity was tolerated, if not assigned enduring value at the
monumental center at the times when the Caracolas and Ofrendas materials were
placed in these galleries.
Above, it has been established through arguments about use-wear and the
layering of craftsmanship on the trumpets that many of the Chavín strombii were used
elsewhere before they arrived at Chavín de Huántar. The diverse iconographies of the
trumpets have been compared to other Formative Period styles. Simple iconographic
comparisons can never offer entirely definitive proof that an artifact was manufactured
or modified at a particular site, especially when the comparative material pertains to a
period and an area, such as the Formative of northern Peru, where (and when) there
are a good number of similarities in material culture across a region. Scholars have
struggled to define consistent differences between Cupisnique, Chavín and certain
periods of Kuntur Wasi and Pacopampa art (Bischof 1994; Tellenbach 1998; Mesia
2003). There appear to be no easy answers to their questions, and so it is tempting to
assign almost all of the iconography on the trumpets to a general “northern Peruvian
Formative” culture area.
Yet even amidst such confusion we can wager that several geographically
specific styles are represented in the iconography and craftsmanship of the Chavín
strombii. We find two pieces (Strombus 2 and Strombus 12) with engravings that have
strong ties to the Cupisnique tradition. Two pieces (Strombus 4 and Fragment 19) show
solid affiliations with iconography from Pacopampa. Hints of Cerro Blanco, Cupisnique,
Pacopampa, Kuntur Wasi, Cerro Sechín and Chavín characteristics are scattered
across the trumpets. Strombii 10 and 12 share not only iconographic commonalities that
link them to the north of Peru but also the same non-Chavín handgrip, indicating that
they might have been worked to a specific set of standards by the same group of
northern Peruvian people, or within a specific northern tradition of trumpet manufacture.
The Chavín trumpets seem to suggest that the circulation of Strombus galeatus
in Peru during the late Late Initial Period and the early Early Horizon was primarily
restricted to the North. Given that S. galeatus lives in waters that lie north of Chavín de
Huántar, it would seem to make sense that the artistic affiliations of the iconography of
the trumpets should group towards locations to the north of the monumental center.
Strombus carried south through Peru towards Chavín would have had a greater chance
of being handled by people living in northern Peru than people living in southern Peru.
However, the absence of certain styles on the trumpets, particularly iconographies from
coastal regions lying at roughly the same latitude as Chavín, is also intriguing. Scholars
have speculated that merchants operating out of coastal Ecuadorian settlements made
direct contact with people at various points along the Peruvian coast during pre-history
(West 1961; Zeidler 1991; Marcos 2002). However, they have offered the field few clues
about where exactly the merchants landed and with what frequency they did so.
Evidence from the Chavín trumpets and other examples from the Early Horizon seem to
suggest that Strombus was exchanged in small numbers during the period, entered the
Peruvian social network through the north, and was adapted by people living at
ceremonial centers in the northern Coastal valleys of Zaña, Jequetepeque and Chicama
(the Cupisnique area) and in the northern highlands, particularly around the Cajamarca
Region (Pacopampa, Cerro Blanco and Kuntur Wasi) before moving on to their final
resting place at Chavín. Strombus may have moved to Chavín from Ecuador along
highland routes, it may have traveled to the northern Peruvian coast in sea craft, or it
may have traveled by a combination of these forms of transport. The absence of central
coast iconography on the Chavín trumpets, on the Pickman Strombus and on the
Kuntur Wasi trumpets suggests, however, that the shells were not – at least not
extensively – traded directly to central Peruvian coastal peoples by Ecuadorian
merchants during the late Late Initial period and early Early Horizon.
Grouped with contemporary pututus, the Chavín trumpets also suggest that
nucleated ceremonial centers were the places with the most interest in, and/or access
to Strombus trumpets during the Peruvian Formative. The Chavín and Kuntur Wasi
strombii, the only provenienced Strombus trumpets dated to the Formative period, were
not only found at ceremonial centers themselves but are engraved with iconography
that pertains exclusively to such locations.7 In addition, it appears that many other
trumpets once found their way to Chavín de Huántar. Evidence from the Caracolas
gallery indicates that at least nine additional trumpets were originally interred with the
twenty unearthed in 2001. Substantial fragments representing nearly whole trumpets
were also found in the Caracolas gallery during the Lumbreras test excavations of 1971,
7
It could be argued that the only defined “styles” used for the purpose of typological
comparison in this paper – and indeed, the only styles generally available for such
comparison – pertain to ceremonial centers, whose visible architecture has long
encouraged archaeologists to excavate them before searching for more non-descript
sites to investigate. However, we must remember that iconography is, almost by
definition, the special product of ceremonial centers, where they are developed and
reproduced by specialists with the time and resources to devote to crafting them. Hence
the presence of any organized iconography on the shells might be taken as an
indication that they were handled by specialists at a nucleated settlement with some
ceremonial importance. Certainly, some of the artwork on the trumpets (visible, for
example, on strombii 4, 10, 20) appears to have been casually produced, at least in
comparison to the labor-intensive engravings of trumpets such as Strombii 2 and 12.
Nevertheless, the trumpets eventually found their way to a ceremonial site (Chavín de
Huántar) and were deposited in what appears to have been one of its principal ritual
areas – the same way that Strombus trumpets from Kuntur Wasi and Punkurí were
found.
but the details of these pieces have not been reported. I observed at least three more
Strombus lip fragments (most likely from outside the Caracolas gallery) in the
storerooms of the site (August 2002). Thus the archaeological distribution of Strombus
artifacts during the late Late Initial Period and early Early Horizon appears truly
anchored in select ceremonial locations, among which Chavín de Huántar rises above
the rest in the amount of Strombus it accessed. Other caches of pututus may be waiting
to be found in Formative period contexts, but Chavín de Huántar appears for now to
have been the main center of ritual Strombus use in Formative Peru.
In summary, the patterns of iconography engraved on the Chavín trumpets
suggest a network of exchange for the circulation of valuable and exotic goods that was
restricted to a few important centers in the region. Whether Strombus was extensively
handled by people who were unaffiliated with or uninterested in the nucleated
ceremonial centers of the northern Peruvian Andes, the shells seem to have been
modified and ritualized most extensively (and perhaps to have spent the bulk of their
use lives) at these sites. However, the presence of varied, non-Chavín iconography on
the strombii is proof that the shells were probably neither procured directly from their
home waters by people from Chavín nor quickly transported there once they had
entered the sphere of Chavín’s social-geographical knowledge. It appears that the
trumpets were used and circulated in northern Peruvian areas such as Cupisnique,
Pacopampa and Kuntur Wasi for many years before they found their way to Chavín.
Playing the Chavín Trumpets: Interregional Custom in the Early Andes
Early representations of figures playing shell trumpets feature the player holding
the trumpet with shell lip pointed directly up, often with the left hand cupped around the
lower portion of the shell face and the right hand wrapped around the body (or bell) of
the trumpet8. Such is the players’ representation in the engraved plaques of Chavín’s
circular plaza (Image F12) and on the cornice piece mentioned above (Image F13),
though in each case the figure holds the trumpet in one hand. The orientation appears
more clearly in the molded figure atop a gold “scoop,” said to have been found at
Chavín de Huántar (Images F25 and F26).
Patterns of use wear on the shell faces and mouthpieces of the Chavín trumpets
seem to corroborate the accuracy of these representations, suggesting that the Chavín
trumpets were habitually held in the pictured orientation during their use life. As noted
above, wear on the mouthpiece consistently appears heaviest on the edge directly
opposite the shell lip. Casual observation of pututu players (Image F27) and personal
testing of Strombus trumpets suggest that the player tends to rest his or her bottom lip
on some part of the mouthpiece edge while playing and that therefore, wear on a
particular edge of the mouthpiece is evidence that the player’s bottom lip was habitually
rested on that edge.
Moche9 artifacts from the Museo Arqueológico Rafael Larco Herrera in Lima
indicate that while the craftsmanship of Strombus trumpets in the Northern Andes
8
It should be noted that this orientation is not necessarily a mechanically “natural” way
to hold the shell. Modern pututeros often insert their hands into the bell of the shell,
orienting the lip horizontally or flat against their chests.
9
The Moche were a North Coast culture that prospered from around 0 BCE to CE 800.
They built some of the largest adobe monuments ever seen in the Western Hemisphere
changed over time, the tradition of playing the pututu with the shell lip pointed upwards
did not die out. An elaborate trumpet on display at a recent exhibit at the museum
features three hanging holes and a bronze mouthpiece cover (Image F30) – two novel
craft elements that are not observed in Initial Period or Early Horizon examples of
Strombus shell trumpets. Among the Moche pottery collection of the Larco museum,
however, we find two three-dimensional ceramic representations of Strombus trumpet
players (Images F28 and F29) holding the instrument in the same orientation, with
hands cupped along the bottom and shell lip pointed towards the sky10.
Thus, comparing the Chavín strombii to other trumpets found in contexts that
date to the Early Horizon and later periods in the prehistory of the northern Andes, we
get the sense that while certain aspects of the shells’ craft and artistic interpretation
were quite variable during the Early Horizon and Early Intermediate Period, at least one
method of holding the trumpets must have remained important during the same time
span. It is likely, furthermore, that the fashion in which the trumpets were held in public
was an important aspect of their ritual use, structured by strong social conventions. This
much should be clear, at least at Chavín de Huántar, from the fact that the Chavín
strombii show signs that they were consistently held in a particular fashion for many
years.
and lived in what appear to have been some of the New World’s first cities. Clearly
defined, widespread social inequality first appears in Peru under the Moche.
10
In the engravings on the face of another Strombus trumpet, held at the Museo
Nacional de Antropología, Arqueología e Historia del Peru, in Lima (Image F21) (Gorriti
Manchego 2002), we see an artistic representation of a left hand in the same position
that it would be placed, according to the aforementioned representations of Strombus
players from the Early Horizon. This particular piece is unprovenienced, however, and
so it is difficult to pinpoint the period to which it pertains – and to incorporate it into the
forthcoming analysis
The persistence of this specific custom of holding the trumpets by no means
indicates that a definite “ritual complex” was embedded in the objects as they crossed
the early Andean landscape. The diverse modifications of early Andean Strombus
trumpets seem to indicate that, if anything, such instruments were continually modified
where they were used to fit local preferences. However, we get the sense that Strombus
trumpets, as items that remained valuable in the Andes for a long period of time, were
more than just objects. They carried ritual protocol with them from Chavín times through
to the Early Intermediate Period and from highland Chavín to the coastal area occupied
by the Moche.
Towards a Regional Description of the late Late Initial Period and early Early Horizon
Given facts about how the Chavín strombii were used, moved and modified in the
northern Andes during the Formative period, what can we say about the social
landscape in which they were embedded and the place of Chavín de Huántar within that
world? Rick and Kembel describe the monumental centers of the northern Peruvian
Formative, of which Chavín de Huántar is one, as being highly “interactive” –
participating in “a developing tradition of architectural design and… messaging [i.e.,
iconography] on objects and buildings” (2003: 10). At the same time the centers
developed novel variations on shared themes in conscious efforts to distinguish
themselves from each other. Rick and Kembel use this pattern to describe the social
landscape of Chavín times as being comprised of “interaction spheres” centered on
various competing polities, which used novel variations on regionally important religious
traditions to expand their influence over not only local populations, but also people,
including elites, living at considerable distances. The authors treat the term “interaction
sphere” differently from scholars who coined it to describe the movement of materials
affiliated with the site of Hopewell, Ohio between societies with roughly equivalent levels
of social development, across the Eastern half of the United States (Caldwell 1964;
Streuver and Houart 1972). Rick and Kembel employ the concept to describe areas and
populations among which “cooperative inculcation of new concepts would create a
domesticated population of both leaders and followers,” thus embedding the question of
authority within the term – a character that is not explicit in early models of the Hopewell
Interaction Sphere (2003: 33). Rick has also suggested that a dominant aspect of the
late Late Initial Period and early Early Horizon interaction spheres of northern Peruvian
Andes were their dictation of specific terms through which authority could be
established in the region – a set of iconographic and architectural characteristics
outside of which authority would have been illegitimate (Rick 2003, pers. comm.).
While I tend to believe that there is not enough data to support Rick and
Kembel’s specification that Chavín itself maintained considerable influence among
populations living as far away as the Peruvian coast, I see much merit in their
explanation of the basic mechanisms through which Chavín manipulated its own
material culture to recruit prestige and influence in the Andes. The strombii are a
particularly good example of these mechanisms. They belong to a category of artifacts
that seem to have had widespread ritual importance in the Andes before they are found
at Chavín, they were used at a variety of sites throughout northern Peru before they
arrived at Chavín and, in most cases, they were given signatures specific to Chavín
before they were interned in the Caracolas gallery. Similar, yet consummately different
trumpets have been found at contemporary ceremonial centers, including Kuntur Wasi
and Punkurí.
The current tally of Strombus trumpets found at Formative period sites in the
Andes heavily favors Chavín de Huántar, making the center appear to have been
nothing less than the Strombus capital of Late Initial Period and Early Horizon Peru. Of
course, we can hardly expect the current record to tell the complete story of early
Andean Strombus use, but if the frequency of Strombus representation in iconography
is any hint, then we should be hard pressed to find a greater number of Strombus than
that already found at Chavín at any other Formative site, except perhaps one falling
within the Cupisnique area. Therefore, within the competitive social matrix of Late Initial
Period and Early Horizon Peru, the Chavín strombii may represent two things: 1) the
comparative success of Chavín in acquiring Strombus; and/or 2) the comparative
importance of Strombus within Chavín’s local religious variation on common Late Initial
and Early Horizon themes. We have few ways to tease these two influences apart from
each other, but we can wager that both must have been important. As we have noted,
Strombus is represented in Chavín iconography with much more frequency than in the
art of other monumental centers in operation at roughly the same time, such as Cerro
Blanco, Punkurí, Pacopampa, and Kuntur Wasi. Thus it must have been a
comparatively valuable material within Chavín’s religious assemblage. Yet given the fact
that the shell does appear to have been revered at many other locations in the
Formative Andes and the fact that it does not appear to have been superceded in
importance at these centers by any other exotic good, we can assume that Chavín
obtained a certain amount of its Strombus at the expense of others’ attaining it. Tested
along the particular avenue of Strombus access and exchange, and filtered through the
vagaries of the archaeological record and its processes, Chavín de Huántar then
appears to have been the most widely successful center of Formative Peru.
Prospects for Future Research
This study has attempted to present as comprehensive a review of the Chavín
strombii as possible. However, other studies of the trumpets must be conducted if we
are to extract from them all of the information that they have to give us. The
iconographic affiliations of the trumpets should be reviewed as new artifacts emerge
from archaeological sites in Peru and Ecuador. Soon, the Caracolas deposit will be
dated, and the results will hopefully confirm the provisional dates offered above, helping
us understand when the interregional movement of Strombus took on the character
attested in the Chavín strombii. Running accelerator mass spectrometry on small
samples extracted from the trumpets, we should be able to attain the relative age of
each of the shells and compare them to the dating of the Chavín deposit to understand
how long they were used before they were buried. Using stable isotope analysis and
geological studies of the shoreline where Strombus galeatus is found, we may also be
able to pinpoint the waters from which the animals were harvested and locate
archaeological sites where Strombus was processed. With the results of these various
analyses in hand, we will have a much better idea of how Strombus moved across the
northern Andes during the time of Chavín de Huántar and how it was used and
understood at the various sites that it reached.

VI. CONCLUSIONS
The craftsmanship and iconography of twenty Strombus galeatus trumpets and
associated Strombus shell fragments found in the Caracolas gallery of Chavín de
Huántar outline a prehistoric northern Peruvian world that was becoming increasingly
more unified during the early part of the Early Horizon. The shells were handled by
diverse groups of people living in northern Peru but show strongest affiliations with art
from the sites of Kuntur Wasi and Pacopampa, as well as from the Cupisnique culture
area. They were amassed in unprecedented numbers at Chavín de Huántar, and many
were modified with Type 1, 2 or 3 Handgrip cuts at Chavín itself. Yet the trumpets also
retained much of their stylistic individuality even as they were used at Chavín. They
speak of classic Chavín as a regionally important ceremonial society that was,
nevertheless, not so monolithic in its stylistic preferences as to force every item it
revered to conform to its strict set of iconographic standards. Set in interregional
context, the trumpets tell us that the northern Peruvian Andes of the late Late Initial
Period and early Early Horizon were not dominated by a cult focused on Chavín de
Huántar, but were instead a good bit more decentralized – a social landscape in which
various centers used a common set of exotic materials and religious themes to appeal
to their devotees, while at the same time emphasizing their individuality to maintain local
influence in an increasingly competitive regional environment. Nevertheless, Chavín
appears singular among these centers in its access to Strombus – a characteristic that
solidifies its position as one of the most successful and influential political and religious
entities of its time.

*** PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITHOUT PERMISSION OF AUTHOR***
*** NO CITAR SIN PERMISO DEL AUTOR ***
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IMAGES – CREDITS AND SELECTIVE KEY
APPENDIX A - MAPS
After Burger 1992: figs. 4, 38, 191.
APPENDIX C - STROMBUS PROFILES

Photographs taken by Jason Selznick and Kim Master, 2001.
 John Rick, 2001.
Listed by Strombus number – Str1 = Strombus 1, etc.
APPENDIX D - ICONOGRAPHY
Full sketches,  Helène Bernier, 2001.
Partial sketches  Parker VanValkenburgh, 2002.
Listed by Strombus number.
APPENDIX E - HANDGRIPS
Photographs taken by Jason Selznick and Kim Master, 2001.
© John Rick, 2001.
H1 – Strombus 4
H2 – Strombus 4 Corner of handgrip
H3 – Strombus 13 Corner of handgrip
H4 – Strombus 2 Handgrip detail
H5 – Strombus 9
H6 – Strombus 14
H7 – Strombus 17 Handgrip detail
H8 – Strombus 10
H9 – Strombus 12
H10 – Strombus 3
H11 – Strombus 16
APPENDIX F - ASSORTED IMAGES

F1 – Strombus galeatus underwater. Costa Rica.
After Arroyo-Mora, http://www.cimar.ucr.ac.cr/~strombus
F2 – After Guaman Poma de Ayala 1980 [1614]. Pp. 352.
http://www.kb.dk/elib/mss/poma/
F3 – S. galeatus in profile. Photo © Guido T. Poppe.
http://www.gastropods.com/g/Shell_Strombus_galeatus.html
F4 – Apex of S. galeatus, showing upper lip. Photo P. VanValkenburgh.
F5 – Juvinile S. galeatus animal. Costa Rica.
After Arroyo-Mora, http://www.cimar.ucr.ac.cr/~strombus
F6 – The Pickman Strombus. Side view. After http://isis.csuhayward.edu/
dbsw/anthropology/miller/3250/04Chavín/aChavín4.html
F7 – Rollout of the Iconography of the Pickman Strombus.
After Bischof 1994: fig 18c.
F8 – Monkey figure with Strombus. Stone. Chavín de Huántar (CdH).
After Burger 1992: fig. 180.
F9 – Principal Deity hoding Strombus and Spondylus. Stone. CdH.
After Burger 1992: frontispiece, fig 175. [Rowe 1967]
F10 – Detail from Tello Obelisk, CdH.
After Burger 1992: fig 141.
F11 – The Lanzón Monolith. Stone. CdH.
F12 – Figure holding Strombus. Stone. CdH, Circular Plaza.
After Cordy-Collins 1983: fig. 10.
F13 – Procession, with Spondylus and Strombus. Stone cornice. CdH.
Photo and digital reassembly, ©John Rick.
F14 – “Chavín Horizon“ pottery, from A) Pacopampa; B) CdH; C) Ancón;
D) Atalla. After Burger 1992: fig 231.
F15 – Strombus trumpet, from middle Nepeña valley.
After Gambini 1984: pg. 84.
F16 – Three Strombus trumpets. Kuntur Wasi, Tomb 1.
Photo ©D. Contreras, 2002.
F17 – Detail of engraved Strombus trumpet. Kuntur Wasi.
F18 – Detail of engraved Strombus trumpet. Kuntur Wasi. Angle 2.
F19 – Detail of Strombus trumpet. Kuntur Wasi.
After Onuki 1995: plate 11, fig. 1.
F20 – Detail of Strombus trumpet. Kuntur Wasi.
After Onuki 1995: plate 11, fig. 2
F21 – Strombus trumpet, MNAAHP. After Gorriti Manchego and Falcón Huayta:
Fig. 5a. http://manandmollusc.net/Peru_spanish.html
F22 – Ceramic vase, Strombus trumpet form, Jequetepeque Valley.
Cupisnique Culture. After Alva 1986: fig 107.
F23 – Ceramic vases, Strombus and Spondylus. Jequetepeque. Cupisnique.
After Alva 1986: figs. 215a, 216a.
F24 – Ceramic figure holding Strombus. Jequetepeque. Cupisnique.
After Alva 1986: fig 111.
F25 – Gold spoon with Strombus-playing individual. Reported CdH.
After Burger 1996: Burger 1996: plate 3
F26 – Gold spoon with Strombus-playing individual. Reported CdH. After Burger
1992: fig 219.
F27 – Modern pututero (shell trumpet-player). © Vicente Goyzueta
http://www.inkaways.com/images/pututo.jpg
F28 – Ceramic, with figure playing shell Trumpet. Moche.
Archive of Museo Rafael Larco Herrera. Lima, Peru. Número Ingreso :
3126. Código Catalogación ML003126. Código MARLH: 074-005-010
F29 – Ceramic, with figure playing shell Trumpet. Moche.
2231. Código Catalogación : ML002231. Código MARLH: 063-005-011
F30 – Strombus trumpet. Metal (reported gold/copper) mouthpiece. Moche.
9415. Código Catalogación: ML200001
F31 – Stone engraving of face. Cerro Blanco. After Onuki 1995: plate 14, fig. M.
F32 – Pyroengraved gourds. Rollout and photograph. Huaca Prieta. After Burger
1992: fig. 19, 20.
F33 – Spondylus engraved face. Tomb 1, Cerro Blanco. After Onuki 1995:
opening pages.
F34 – Ceramic bowl. Cerro Blanco. After Onuki 1995: fig. 23, no. 7.
F35 – Petroglyph. Jequetepeque Valley. Cerro San Simón. After Pimentel 1986:
fig. 35.
F36 – Petroglyph. Jequetepeque Valley. Chungal. After Pimentel 1986: fig. 54.
F37 – Petroglyph. Jequetepeque Valley. Cerro San Simón. After Pimentel 1986:
fig. 23.
F38 – Stone snuff spoon. Pacopampa. After Burger 1992: fig. 96.
F39 – Pottery detail. Pacopampa. After Burger 1992: fig. 94.
F40 – Stone stela. Near Kuntur Wasi. Photo © Henning Bischof, 2003.
F41 – Paracas Textile. Note small faces.
F42 – Stone frieze. Cerro Sechín, lower terrace. After Burger 1992: plate III.
F43 – Stone frieze. Cerro Sechín, lower terrace. After Burger 1992: plate II.
F44 – Detail from stone sculpture. Pacopampa. After Burger 1992: 212.
F45 – Stirrup-spouted ceramic vessel. Cupisnique. Fowler Museum of Cultural
History, UCLA. http://www.culturalexpeditions.com/cupisnique.html
F46 – Pottery Detail. Pacopampa. After Morales 1980: Plate 59, fig. D11.
F47 – Ceramic bowl. CdH, Ofrendas gallery. After Lumbreras 1993: fig 662.
F48 – Design Detail. Strombus. Tomb 1, Kuntur Wasi. After Onuki.
F49 – Pottery detail. Pacopampa. After Morales 1980: Plate 2.
F50 – Stirrup-spouted ceramic vessel. Wrinkleface emerges from Strombus.
Moche. Archives of Mueseo Rafael Larco Herrera, Lima, Peru. Número
Ingreso : 3209. Código Catalogación : ML003209. Código MARLH: 075-
005-004
F51 – Stirrup-spouted ceramic vessel. Strombus shape. Moche.
Archives of Mueseo Rafael Larco Herrera, Lima, Peru. Número Ingreso:
10438. Código Catalogación: ML009570. Código MARLH: 106-005-003.
F52 – Stirrup-spouted ceramic vessel. Line paintings of Strombus. Moche.
Archives of Mueseo Rafael Larco Herrera, Lima, Peru. Número Ingreso:
10448. Código Catalogación: ML009580. Código MARLH: 106-006-
004
F53 – Ceramic drinking Vessel. Kuntur Wasi. After Onuki 1995: opening pages.
F54 – Pottery Detail. Cerro Blanco. After Onuki 1995: fig. 29, no.4.
F55 – Stone engraving of Strombus, New Temple, CdH. After Tello 1960: p. 302.
F56 – Pickman Strombus, showing handgrip. After Tello 1937: p. 6.
APPENDIX A – MAPS
MAP 1 – PERUVIAN RIVER VALLEYS

MAP 2 – INITIAL PERIOD ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES IN PERU AND ECUADOR
MAP 3 – EARLY HORIZON SITES IN PERU AND ECUADOR
APPENDIX B - CHRONOLOGY
Two sets of chronological labels are used in this paper. Periods mentioned in the text are in
bold.
The first chronology listed here is a regionally arbitrary system formulated by John Rowe in the
1950’s based on ceramic sequences in the Ica valley, along Peru’s Southern coast. Though
criticized for its inapplicability across the whole of the Central Andes, it remains popular with
North American archaeologists working in Peru as a way to divide up Peruvian prehistory into
manageable, if somewhat unfounded parts. I use the unconventional terms “late Late Initial
Period” and “early Early Horizon” to refer to, respectively, Initial Period dates falling after 1200
BCE and Early Horizon dates falling before 500 BCE.
Preceramic Period 12000 BCE - 1800 BCE

Initial Period 1800 BCE - 900 BCE
Early Horizon 900 BCE - 200 BCE
Early Intermediate Period 200 BCE - CE 600
Middle Horizon CE 600 - CE1000
Late Intermediate Period CE 1000 - CE 1438
Late Horizon CE1438 - CE 1532
The second system, designed by Peruvian archaeologist Luis Lubreras, is based more on the
author’s perspective of changes in the general social configuration of the region. It is used in
this paper primarily in references to the Formative Period, which better that Rowe’s Early
Horizon, encompasses the broad swath of years during which non-egalitarian social formations
appear in the Peruvian record for the first time.
Lithic Period 15000 BCE - 3000 BCE

Archaic Period 4000 BCE - 1200 BCE
Formative Period 1200 BCE - CE 100
Regional Cultures Period CE 100 - CE 800
Wari Empire CE 800 - CE 1200
Regional States Period CE 1200 - CE 1470
Inka Empire CE 1430 - CE 1532.
APPENDIX C – TRUMPET PROFILES
Str1. Str2.
Str3. Str4.
Str5. Str6.
Str7. Str8.
Str9. Str10.
Str11. Str12.
Str13. Str14.
Str15. Str16.
Str17. Str18.
Str19. Str20.
APPENDIX D – TRUMPET ART/ICONOGRAPHY
Str2-Art.
Str3-Art.
Str4-Art.
Str4-Art-Detail-1. Str4-Art-Detail-2.
Str5-Art.
Str6-Art.
Str8-Art.
Str10-Art.
Str10-Art-Detail1. Str10-Art-Detail2. Str10-Art-Detail3.

Str12-Art.
Str14-Art.
Str15-Art.
Frag1. Frag1 (Back).
Frag3. Frag6. Frag22.
Frag4. Frag13. Frag14.
Frag5. Frag7. Frag18. Frag12.
Frag15. Frag16.
Frag9. Frag19.
Frag17. Frag20.
APPENDIX E – DETAILS OF TRUMPET HANDGRIPS
H1. H2.
H3. H4.
H5. H6.
H7. H8.
H9. H10.
H11.
APPENDIX F – ASSORTED IMAGES
F1. F2.
F3. F4.
F5. F6.
F7. F8.
F9. F10.
F11. F12.
F13. F14.
F15. F16.
F17. F18.
F19. F20.
F21. F22.
F23. F24.
F25. F26. F27.
F28. F29.
F30. F31.
F32. F33.
F34. F35.
F36. F37.
F38. F39.
F40. F41.
F42. F43.
F44. F45.
F46. F47.
F48. F49.
F50. F51.
F52. F53.
F54. F55.
F56.

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***PLEASE DO NOT CITE WITHOUT PERMISSION OF AUTHOR***

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carefully crafted passageways whose purpose remains mysterious.

monumentality, its importance to local peoples (Vázquez de Espinosa 1969 [1630]).

considered contemporary with Chavín1 actually predated constructions at the

artwork became widespread (Kembel 2001; Burger 1988).

In this now orthodox model, the “Chavín Horizon” (the archaeologically-visible

fundamentally religious phenomenon – the expansion of a cult system whose center of

Recently, excavations by John Rick and an influential dissertation by Silvia

suggests a lack of temporal contiguity between the construction of the Chavín

Kembel’s findings compel archaeologists to re-examine the relationship between the

elsewhere in the northern highlands – all appear in deposits at Chavín.

In the summer of 2001, John Rick’s excavations in the Caracolas gallery at

Chavín de Huántar’s monumental center uncovered a cache of twenty Strombus

wide variety of regional styles of iconography and Strombus craftsmanship appear in

related to each other.

regionalized conventions and by local idiosyncrasies. By looking at the Chavín trumpets

time emphasizing their individuality to maintain local influence in an increasingly

competitive regional environment.

different parts of the world.

beyond a simple description of the twenty specific artifacts discussed here, it is an

Strombus trumpets, we should be careful not to assume that a partial account of

presenting as much primary information about them as possible. It presents a

presented below. None of these sections should be taken as comprehensive,

understand the trumpets in historical context.

A Biological Introduction to Strombus Galeatus

El Pututu: Strombus Becomes “The Voice of God”

rounded into a mouthpiece.

the archaeological record of the prehispanic Andes. As described in Spanish chronicles,

Archaeologists working in Peru and Ecuador have long recognized the

importance of Strombus to Andean peoples, from very early in the archaeological

interest in the shells themselves. Frequently in the archaeological literature, Strombus

any professional attempts to verify this assessment.

have written extensively on the role of Ecuadorian merchants in harvesting Spondylus,

manufacturing Spondylus artifacts and ferrying their wares by boat between

Mesoamerica and Peru. No researcher has dealt with Strombus in so detailed a

in a variety of contexts throughout the Andes and Mesoamerica. To explain this

appear ready-made for producing brilliant and attractive beads.

history, paying particular attention to the movement of materials between distinct

regions of the Andes.

Shell fragments in coastal Ecuadorian sites attest to human harvesting of

discussed in more detail below.

Early transport and exchange of Strombus may also be attested in the

southern Peruvian highland cave of Telarmachay, reported to be Strombus, was

Long-distance exchange becomes generally more visible in the Peruvian

Yet no strong correlations in architectural and/or iconographic styles exist between

geographically distinct events – a variety of exchange that archaeologist Colin Renfrew

has called “down the line trade” 6(Renfrew 1975).

Archaeologists believe that societies centered around such sites as Ancon, El

exploratory activity – including, perhaps, travel and regularized intercultural exchange,

attested by the presence of the above-mentioned exotic artifacts. Many archaeologists,

products in efforts to legitimize their material superiority over local populations.

However, the general archaeological consensus regards the monumental architecture

domestic architecture and domestic refuse remain relatively undifferentiated across

fully explain the initial increase in exotic materials in Preceramic sites.

examples of Strombus in the Peruvian archaeological record. Agriculture begins to

Wayra-hirca style appears well-developed and influenced by earlier Amazonian

well as between Ecuador and the northern highlands.

Indeed, Spondylus shell remains figure prominently among the artifacts in

Spondylus in some of these deposits.

Strombus, an elaborately engraved trumpet found in a drainage ditch in the

corresponds to wide acceptance of certain practices surrounding these artifacts, a

portable “ceremonial complex,” is to ignore the diversity of religious architecture and

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