Landscapes of death: GIS-based analyses of chullpas in the western Lake Titicaca basin

Feasting and the evolution of cooperative social organizations circa 2300 B.P. in Paracas culture, southern Peru

“…Like the court at Cerro del Gentil, the Pampa de los Gentiles collective tomb was designed to be revisited over many occasions, likely as a place for kin groups to congregate. The tomb type is common with hundreds of similar such constructions in the upper valley region ( 46 ). However, these tombs were architecturally simple and represented a labor input scale substantially smaller than the Cerro del Gentil court.…”

‘Landscapes of Life’ and ‘Landscapes of Death’: The Contribution of Funerary Evidence to the Understanding of the Perception and Organisation of Roman Rural Landscapes in Northern Italy

“…Studies which are concerned with the relationship between tombs and other anthropic elements in the landscape have often tended to infer, from a given spatial position or a specifi c organisation of mortuary evidence, funerary ideology and changes in mentality/social identity (Morris 1992;Parker Pearson 1993;Stone and Stirling 2007;Eckardt et al 2009;Déderix 2014). The topographical position of funerary monuments has been frequently deemed signifi cant in terms of communal choices and intentional decisions related to economic, social, and ritual needs (Blake 2001;Llobera 2001;Löwenborg 2009;Wheatley et al 2010;De Reu et al 2011;Bongers et al 2012). That social needs 'mould' the reaction of the living to the dead, and thus infl uence their relationships, has been posited previously by Lévi-Strauss (1961).…”

“…A more landscape-oriented approach to funerary areas, frequently involving spatial and statistical analyses and the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), has been recently employed primarily by prehistorians (Blake 2001;Llobera 2001;Löwenborg 2009;Wheatley et al 2010;De Reu et al 2011;Bongers et al 2012;Déderix 2014). The crucial contribution of such studies, besides evidencing the benefi ts of new methodologies and techniques, lies in their reinforcement of the importance of a broader perspective, which takes into account the dialectic relationship between the environment and various anthropic features.…”

Exploring imperial expansion using an isotopic analysis of paleodietary and paleomobility indicators in Chachapoyas, Peru

“…Across the Andes the collective chullpa were mortuary repositories argued to have contained the intentionally preserved bodies of generations of family members for ancestor veneration (Dillehay, 1995;Kassti & Parssinen, 2005). The placement of the ancestors was thought additionally to be part of a political strategy to mark the landscape and thus control specific territories (Bongers, Arkush, & Harrower, 2012;Mantha, 2009). The proximity and visually prominent locations of the tombs was based on the relative importance of those ancestors in religious practice (Buikstra, 1995;Hastorf, 2003b;Herrera, 2007;Mantha, 2009).…”