Avaliação: El manejo del agua en los Andes : pasado, presente y futuro – Ritual Architecture, Water and Agricultural Rebirth in the Cosma Basin, Ancash, Peru

This paper will discuss how water was incorporated into ritual elements at the Cosma Complex, specifically as to how these rites relate to agriculture and fertility in the prehistoric past. The Cosma Complex is a multi-component site, including two large huacas (known locally as Kareycoto and Acshipucoto respectively), a number of different tombs and prehistoric terraces which litter the basin and ridges. The earliest evidence for water rites dates to 2900 BCE, when Kotosh-Mito structures were first constructed within the basin. Following this, Formative (900-200 BCE) burial practices may link rites of renewal to the agricultural fields. Finally, I will discuss the carved boulders at Caja Rumi for the purpose of water rites during the Inca-Colonial Period.

Water was integral to everyday life in the Andes, and much work has been placed on the importance of water control as a source of political or labor organization. This paper however covers the significance of water as a religious resource as evidenced through millenia of ritual praxis at the Cosma Complex. This paper focuses mostly on how water was merged into the ceremonial elements at the Cosma Complex, specifically the two large mounds, known locally as Kareycoto and Acshipucoto. I argue that water was an imperative element to the construction of the mounds, and their links to fertility, renewal, and ties to the agricultural cycle, or rainy season. Cosma functioned as a regional pilgrimage site for the prehistoric peoples of the upper valley, due to its location at the headwaters of the river, its local topography (a flat and fertile pampa), and early establishment as a Mito-Kotosh ceremonial complex. The site’s early ceremonial significance was due in part by its ability to manage the ceremonial control of the local water cycle for the region.

• Late Preceramic
• Late Archaic
• Formative
• Mito
• Kotosh