The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas Volume I, II, and III

476 Izumi Shimada
Mustering these lines of evidence and using analogies with the famed
oracle center of Pacha Kamaq near the city of Lima as well as modern
sites of pilgrimage (e.g., the Shrine of the Virgin of Yauca in the lea
drainage), Silverman argues that Cahuachi was the principal Nasca ceremonial
center and a pilgrimage shrine involving short-term, transient
(perhaps calendrically sequential) gatherings of the regional population.
In her conception, various social groups (analogous to Andean ayllus) of
the region constructed and maintained their own mounds at Cahuachi,
and periodic participation in rituals there affirmed and strengthened the
Nasca corporate identity as well as their own roles and status. Silverman
sees the inferred periodic gatherings as having had a function akin to the
aforementioned vision of Mochica ritual battles and their role in contesting
and reworking the existing social order.
Having vacillated between the competing views of the Nasca (in
Phases 2-3) as a state and as a confederation of chiefdom, Silverman now
sees Nasca as a fluid confederacy of independent chiefdoms. Her current
position is based on the evidence summarized earlier and newly acquired
settlement-pattern data. In line with Shimada's general conception of
Central Andean ceremonial centers, she sees Cahuachi as the Nasca
capital not in terms of population density or size but rather in centrality
of interaction. In addition, most sites found in settlement surveys were
small (less than 4 hectares), undifferentiated habitational sites near agricultural
land with no evidence of intra- or intersite stratification. Once
again, comments made earlier in regard to the level of sociopolitical
integration achieved by the Mochica should be kept in mind.
Coastal Ecuador
Lastly, we consider the situation in coastal Ecuador. Here understanding
of organizational achievements has greatly expanded in recent decades.
We are now beginning to gain some idea of the Jama-Coaque settlement
distribution, differentiation, and hierarchy. Recent surveys of the Jama
Valley drainage basin have documented 150 sites of varied size, location,
and inferred function (including the dwelling or ceremonial mounds
called tolas) spanning the entire occupational sequence from the Early
Formative Period (c. 1700-1650 B.C.E.) to the time of the Spanish conquest.
Of particular importance are dense habitations (density of 6.7 sites
per km 2 ) in and around the relatively flat alluvial bottomland in the midvalley
around San Isidro. Groups of sites, each with a wide range of
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