FEASTING WITH THE MOCHE LORDS? TOWARDS A REVALUATION OF FEASTS AND PRE-HISPANIC RITUAL MEALS IN THE CENTRAL ANDES

The feast was a common and recurring practice in the Central Andes during Prehispanic times. Nevertheless, there is no consensus on the criteria used in the archaeological characterization of these events. In this paper, we reassess the evidence of Sipan's Offering, a Mochica site (third-fourth centuries AD) in the Lambayeque valley, testing a quantitative variable called the "available meat weight". Associated with the tomb of the Lord of Sipan, the deposit contains hundreds of prestige offerings and thousands of faunal remains. Analysis of the latter could help us assess the magnitude of the funeral meal by calculating the "available meat weight". This provides new perspectives on the funeral meal given to honor this particular high dignitary after his burial. Considering that feasts constitute one of the foundations of social and political relations in Prehispanic Andean societies, we make a case for defining reliable methodological criteria in future scholarly work on Andean feasts.