Pucarani
Proyecto Pucarani (2015), Director Elizabeth Arkush, Co-director Hugo Ikehara
Supported by a National Geographic CRE grant and Center for Latin American Studies grant (Pitt)
Ministerio de Cultura permit RDN 191-2015-DGPA-VMPCIC/MC
Pucarani is the largest known Late Intermediate Period site (ca. AD 1100 – 1450) in the Colla area of the northern Lake Titicaca basin of Peru. It is also one of the most impressive pre-Columbian hillforts in a region known for its hillforts. Prior to this project it had not been systematically studied and was barely mentioned in the published literature. In 2015 we intensively mapped, documented, and photographed the site to get the measure of the accomplishment of its builders and, at a more general level, inquire into the nature of leadership associated with its monumental defensive architecture.
Pucarani is located above the modern town of Nicasio on the Río Ramis.
The site is perched on a hill peak at 4300 meters above sea level (14,000 feet) - about an hour and a half of steady walking from the hill base. There are breathtaking views in every direction from this magnificent site.
The defensive walls surpass 5 m in height in several places. There are 2.5 km of defensive walls in total, and they remain in fairly good condition especially on the western side, with many small enclosed entrance-ways just large enough for single file, and other interesting features like lookout posts, access stairs to the top of the wall, and lateral rooms set into the entry passages on one or both sides. Large piles of small stones next to the walls would have served as slingstone stockpiles.
Our mapping and systematic surface collection revealed 30 hectares of ceramic scatter and architecture, meaning that the site was about twice as large as we had originally estimated.
While some of the domestic architecture has been destroyed by centuries of cultivation, we registered hundreds of circular house foundations, smaller storage platforms, and clusters of tombs on prominent rocky outcrops.
Results of the project are published in Ikehara and Arkush 2018 and Arkush and Ikehara 2019. Informe available upon request.
Agricultural terraces below the peak.
Last day of the project! (Humberto Tacca, Weiyu Ran, Gligor Dakovic, Hugo Ikehara, and Ryan Smith.)