NASCA Gravelots in the Uhle Collection from the Ica Valley, Peru

Abstract

This monograph is an outgrowth of research begun in 1962 when I was a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley. At that time I began an analysis of the Nasca grave lots in the Uhle Collection under the able supervision of Dr. John H. Rowe. He and Mr. Lawrence E. Dawson of the Lowie Museum of Anthropology introduced me to seriational techniques and ceramic analysis and taught me much about the Nasca style. Dr. Dorothy Menzel also gave freely of her time. I am very grateful to all three of these individuals for the training and insight with which they provided me. My research at Berkeley centered around a seriation of the Nasca gravelots which eventually allowed me to subdivide Phase 3 of the style and provide time dimension to Phase 4. This has been published (Proulx, 1968) along with an analysis of the local differences in the style between the Ica and Nasca Valleys. As a by-product of this work, I accumulated a great amount of detailed information on the individual vessels in the gravelots which may be of value to scholars working with similar collections. I also felt it unfortunate that the gravelots had never been published and illustrated in their entirety. I had taken color slides of all of the vessels while I was in Berkeley, and the plates accompanying this study are derived from these. The introductory chapter on Uhle's work in the valley and the discovery of the style was researched and written sporadically between the years 1966 and 1970. Although John H. Rowe has provided an excellent summary of Uhle's fieldwork (Rowe, 1954), he did not give a detailed account of Uhle's work in each valley or site that he excavated. I had been exposed to Uhle's facinating letters and field notes while at Berkeley, and I had copies made of them before I left. It was mainly from these sources that I was able to piece together Uhle's day by day activities.

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