Yale Anthropology is proud to announce that Ph.D. candidate Gabriel Prieto has been awarded a National Geographic grant to continue research on his dissertation research project Pampas Gramalote: Social Dynamism and Interaction of an Early Fishing Village, North Coast of Peru.  The abstract is below.  Prieto’s advisor is Professor Richard Burger.  Congratulations!

The proposed work will consist of remote sensing (GPR) and excavations at Pampas Gramalote, an early Initial Period (B.C. 2500-1200) fishing village in the lower Moche Valley, close to the modern fishing village and beach resort of Huanchaco. This will be the first work ever conducted on an early fishing village beyond subsistence patterns and ceramic sequences.

Work at Pampas Gramalote will help clarify the nature of a small scale settlement during early periods in the Andean region. Also, it will elucidate the transition between non-ceramic and ceramic users on the Peruvian North Coast. I will examine similarities and differences in architectural forms (size, orientation, distribution), the changing site arrangements within different phases in Pampas Gramalote and between this and other contemporary sites. The material culture, especially fishing gear, ceramics, textiles and lithic tools will be studied in their domestic and non-domestic contexts.

Furthermore, studying funerary contexts at Pampas Gramalote will help clarify patterns and changes during these earlier periods and as a way to explore early ancestral rituals. A strong emphasis will be on the relation of the site to its immediate natural environment (fog vegetation, dry forest, marshy areas) and to regional cultural geography (large sites, hinterland sites, rivers, other valleys, other coastal sites, etc.) in order to understand the internal dynamics of the site and how it functions in the larger social and economic system.  These studies will shed light on a missing part, the small community settlements, of the earliest complex societies in Ancient Peru.