Political, Spatial, and Corporeal Transformations Through Ritualized Violence Among the Ancient Moche (AD 200 – 800) of the North Coast of Peru

FAIN: FT-265066-19

Richard C. Sutter
Indiana University, Purdue University at Fort Wayne (Fort Wayne, IN 46805-1445)

A book manuscript looking at the concept of “sovereignty” in a pre-Columbian civilization in northern Peru as a comparative example for discussing non-state sovereignty today.

I seek funding to help complete a book manuscript that examines how the ancient Moche (AD 200 - 800) of northern Peru used the built environment for performative ritual feasts that involved spectacular violence and human sacrifice of captured, foreign elite combatants as a strategy to assert and extend their sovereignty by making political subjects of participant-witnesses of these public spectacles. I will use the stipend to spend time writing and and expanding on relevant social theory as it relates to recent archaeological survey and excavations as well as my own data on biological relatedness among ancient Moche skeletal populations from throughout the north coast region.