Speaker: Kira Lavine

Camelid Coprolites: Reconstructing Virú Pastoralism through Phytolith Analyses of Chicama Valley Archaeobotanical Taxa Originating from the Viru Valley of northern Peru, Virú state (ca. 200 B.C.E. - 700 C.E.) was the earliest state to expand and establish colonies in the Moche and Chicama Valleys (Millaire et al. 2016). Iconic to Andean cultures, camelids such as llamas feature prominently in archaeological faunal assemblages across the region (Szpak et al 2020, 2014; Hultquist et al 2024). In 2023, Proyecto de Investigación Arqueológica de Puerto Malabrigo (PIAPM) excavated household structures at the Virú colony in Puerto Malabrigo, Chicama. As a coastal settlement, the colony had access to various local resources; floodplain crops (e.g., Capsicum sp., Zea mays, Phaseolus sp.), wild desert-dune taxa (e.g., Solanaceae, Prosopis spp.), and wetland plants (e.g., Cyperaceae, Poaceae). Opaline microfossils of plant cells, phytoliths, are proxies for diet through microbotanical analysis of camelid coprolites (Piperno, 2006). Analysis of these coprolites offer insight into Virú agriculture and husbandry practices (Shahack-Gross 2010; Billman 2021). Additionally, phytolith reference collections for Andean taxa are improved through extraction and documentation of phytoliths from macrobotanical samples excavated by PIAPM. In this paper, we consider how phytolith insights from camelid coprolites can reveal foddering practices at Virú-Malabrigo (ca. 50 B.C.E. to 223 C.E.) and consider Virú-herder influence on coastal camelid diets. This project aims to reconstruct Virú camelid pastoralism through phytolith analysis, exploring the dynamic human-animal relationship with resource exploitation while contributing to a reconstruction of the paleoenvironment in the archaeological record.