The goal of this thesis was to offer a functional database of stone sculptures, ceramics and textiles to scholars investigating Recuay iconography, through which human figures, their attributes, clothing styles, functions and possible status in society could be examined. A second objective was to enrich the general knowledge of Recuay society and the agencies acting in it. Based on this research, one main conclusion is that the Recuay culture was a stratified society in which warriorhood and ancestry played vital roles. Analyses of the monoliths reveal that only men were represented as petrified ancestors by the Recuay. The central position and larger size of men in the representations of ceremonies on the ceramics also imply the predominance of men in religious life. Among the Recuay men, however, hierarchical differences appear to have also existed. The different sizes and positions of male figures within scenes, and the variations of attributes and clothing styles among warriors and guardians all seem to refer to different social positions. The smaller sizes, less elaborately decorated clothes and often auxiliary positions of women in iconographical representations, on the other hand, seem to suggest that women held lower ceremonial statuses. Nevertheless, the presence of women – often associated with cups or shells, represented in copulation scenes or holding a child - seems to have been a crucial element of the ceremonies. In this dissertation, it is proposed that women’s procreative abilities made them vital aspects of religious life as they added significance to the rituals by their overt reference to fertility. By profiling themselves mainly as warriors or at the centre of libation scenes, men, on the other hand, could extract power from the rituals in which they were key players. Ceramics were therefore not only used within ancestry ceremonies in order to carry out libations, but they were probably also commissioned in order to enhance, the ceremonial status of certain men, and perhaps also to accentuate their political position in society. / Doctorat en Histoire, art et archéologie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Les rituels d’appel à la pluie, du nettoyage des canaux d’irrigation et du marquage du bétail sont analysés et reconstitués à l’aide d’un modèle qui utilise les sources ethnographiques, ethnohistoriques et archéologiques disponibles. Ce modèle permet une approche interdisciplinaire diachronique et dynamique des pratiques des populations actuelles et anciennes et des modes de pensée qui les sous-tendent. Les artéfacts découverts en fouilles sur le site de Huacosmarca sont confrontés aux chroniques et documents de l’époque coloniale et ceux-ci éclairent les données ethnographiques recueillies lors d’observations participantes des rituels actuels de la même zone géographique: le haut Chillón. Selon le rituel étudié, la porte d’entrée pour l’application du modèle peut varier mais l’analyse et la reconstruction s’effectuent toujours à travers les étapes bien identifiées du même processus. La démarche se veut résolument critique de la vision structuraliste et du postulat de la continuité des pratiques rituelles préhispaniques à travers les siècles. Elle est ancrée<p>dans la recherche et la mise en évidence des contingences historiques et géographiques locales, celles d'une zone des Andes Centrales.<p><p>The rituals related to the appeal for rain, to the cleaning of irrigation channels and to the cattle branding are analyzed and reconstituted with a pattern using the ethnographic, ethnohistorical and archaeological sources available. This pattern allows an interdisciplinary, diachronic and dynamic approach to the current and ancient population’s practices and to the patterns of thought that underlie them. The artefacts found in<p>excavations on the site of Huacosmarca are confronted with chronicles and documents of the colonial era and these throw light on ethnographic data collected from participant observation of those current rituals from the same geographic area: the high Chillon’s valley.<p>According to the ritual studied in this research, the gateway to the pattern’s application may vary but the analysis and reconstruction is always done through identified stages of<p>the same process. This approach criticizes the structuralist vision and the assumption of the continuity of prehispanic ritual practices through the centuries. It takes root in the research into the historical and geographical contingencies of the local area, those of the Central Andes. / Doctorat en Histoire, art et archéologie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished