Cahuachi

The Cahuachi site is located near the south coast of Peru, and found in the Nazca Valley. Within the Nazca Valley is the Río Grande de Nazca drainage system and is where the Nasca culture developed. The area is ecologically classified as “pre-mountain desert formation.” There is a very important ecological transition going on within the Río Grande de Nazca drainage system, transitioning from pre-mountain desert zone of the coast, to chuapiyunga (meaning "between hot and cold") up towards the highlands, and east of the town Nasca begins the transition to true yunga. Yunga refers to the Quechua Yungas meaning "warm valley". The site itself can be found on the southern side of the Nazca River, one of ten major tributaries that form the Río Grande de Nazca drainage system. The Nazca Valley Grande drainage area is very dry in the summer and extremely hot. Precipitation varies between none and 125 mm. Temperature averages 21.3 °C.

To the north and south Cahuachi faces two pampas, or flat plain-like terrain: Pampa de San José and Pampa de Atarco, and on these plains is where the famous ground-drawings of the Nazca desert are found. The Río Grande region's soils are available for irrigation agriculture with limitations. Cahuachi is located off of the valley bottom of the treeless hills and terraces beneath Pampa de Atarco, and has been known to be subject to strong winds that are capable of becoming sandstorms. It is on these treeless hills that formed the core majority of artificial constructions at Cahuachi. There is, also present, sporadic rains and cyclical floods which result in water erosion of the terrain, which made some parts of the valley uninhabitable, which influenced the settlement pattern of Cahuachi.

Cahuachi lies over brown barren river terraces that are characterized by hills, above the bottom of the valley.[2] The hills are prominent to most of the artificial constructions at the site.[2] From various types of erosion, including wind, water, and sedimentary, the hills appear to be naturally pyramidal in form.

Dr. Frabee was the first to actually acknowledge and excavate the site of Cahuachi in the Nazca region in 1922. The following researchers have also studied and interpreted the site: Kroeber (1926), Tello (1927), Doering (1932), Strong (1952−1953), Robinson (1954−1955).

Among the most extensive research done at Cahuachi was the excavations conducted by archaeologist William Strong. Strong was one of the only archaeologists who took a broad approach to the site, contextualizing it within Nasca society and south coast prehistory. He set out to find stratigraphic evidence that would resolve the gap between Paracas and Nasca styles in the region. He also did settlement pattern studies in order to find out the kinds of activities that went on at Cahuachi. William Duncan Strong's excavations in the early Nasca site of Cahuachi between 1952 and 1953 found that the site was composed of temples, cemeteries, and house mounds.[4] Following his findings, other scholars within Peruvian archaeology interpreted the site to have been an urban settlement with residential structures.[4] However, more recent excavations and experiments suggests this to be unlikely.

In the early 1980s, archaeologist Helaine Silverman and Italian architect Giuseppe Orefici conducted intensive and extensive archaeological excavations in several areas of the site.[4] This new research was aimed towards finding and clarifying the real character of the site and of Nasca society.[4] Orefici's excavations in 1983 had revealed the evidence ceramic production in the form of an oven; however he has recovered various burial sites, ceremonial drums, and pottery which suggests that the site is indeed a ceremonial center.[2]

Cahuachi is where Helaine Silverman began her dissertation fieldwork on early Nasca society in 1983. She later concludes from her data and analysis how Cahuachi would have functioned as a ceremonial center and its role in state formation and urbanism, within a regional and pan-Andean scope. Silverman's data from the excavations and experiments in 1986, strongly support the claim that the site was indeed a ceremonial centre. Through her work and research, Silverman found no evidence of inhabitants or domestic and residential structures indicating it to be an urban settlement.[4] She suggested that the site was used as a ceremonial center where people periodically performed religious activities.[4] By examining the remains of pottery, Silverman also suggested that pottery was taken and was broken at the site as a part of the activities and rituals taking place at that time.[4] The vegetal and faunal remains also indicated that food was brought to the site and immediately consumed there.[4] Later research also indicated the consumption of hallucinogenic beverages at the site.

Excavations and surveys indicate that the site was not a permanent domestic habitat. The site contains around 40 archaeological mounds and progressive excavations of the area found that most of these mounds were not used for habitation, but that it was more likely a religious ceremonial setting.[5]

There is a major emphasis on Nasca style pottery at Cahuachi. Recognized as a discrete style first by Adolf Bastian, Nasca style is a polychrome pottery and is generally noted as having a “south coast” provenance and is named Nasca for its focal regional distribution in the Nasca valley. There are two principal modalities in the decorative style of Nasca pottery: “Monumental” and “Proliferous” (coined terms by Rowe).

Monumental refers to the types of Nasca pottery with so-called realistic designs, while Proliferous describes more “conventionalized motifs” with volutes, rays, and points. Gayton and Kroeber established three categorizable characteristics-shape, color, and design- and based on the relationships between these attributes came up with four chronological phases or “substyles” of Nasca pottery: A, the earliest; X, transitional; B, latest; and Y, miscellaneous or otherwise unable to be phased. Later, came the Dawson seriation which subdivided the Nasca style into nine phases. These are then associated into certain periods and epochs. Monumental includes Nasca 1−4 and Gayton and Kroeber's Nazca A, while Proliferous encompasses the innovation of Nasca 5 and Nasca 6 and 7 pottery and corresponds to Gayton and Kroeber's Nazca Y.

Because of the frequency of Nasca 3 pottery and its association with architecture at the site, the conclusion is that Cahuachi is Early Intermediate Period of the Ica (South Coast) ceramic periods. Nasca 1 and 2 are represented at a lesser degree, but are still significantly present as well. One of Strong's goals in his research at Cahuachi (Strong 1957) was "to resolve the temporal relationship between Paracas and Nasca" style pottery, which was still stratigraphically unproven. Stong's conclusions were that the ceremonial structures at Cahuachi date to the "Middle Nazca culture phase" (Nazca 3), and not Late Nazca. Instead, Late Nazca dates were only found to be associated with graves. According to Silverman (1993: 54), all later scholars are in basic agreement with Strong.

Cahuachi is considered a non-urban ceremonial center, meaning that it was never densely occupied and people did not actually live there long-term, this is evidenced by perishable and temporary “wattle and daub-like” structures (not unlike the ones made today) excavated on site (Silverman 1988: 413). It was more of a pilgrimage or religious destination. So, although for the extensive evidence of Nasca pottery that is used to date the site, and considering the massive specialized culture that goes with it, the evidence for craft specialization and intensive trade and agriculture is understandably limited than if the site were a permanent residence of a large population.

Cahuachi's architecture and its organization are characteristic of a ceremonial center, and is not urban (Silverman 1986: 186). At Cahuachi, there are mound and room constructions, a structure called the “Great Temple”, walls that form corridors and passageways, as well as major walls, circular depressions, cylindrical shafts on top of mounds, and kanchas. Kanchas are the bounded open spaces beneath and between mounds and can be defined as a walled field or patio area that does not necessarily insinuate any specific function. The following analyses are largely based on Strong's excavations and Silverman's survey and reanalysis of the site.

There are about 40 mounds at Cahuachi. Some mounds had rooms on top of them, others did not, some are considered to be “temples,” and still others were used for burials. But furthermore, the majority of the mounds at Cahuachi are overwhelmingly never actual “habitation mounds”. Strong originally classified these mounds as “habitation mounds” but Silverman argues that they are not domestic, which is in keeping with her assertion that Cahuachi was a non-urban ceremonial center. For some examples of the types of mounds at Cahuachi Silverman focuses on cuts and survey of Units 5, 6, and 7. The core of Unit 5 is a natural hill that was artificially raised through construction and fills. The fill contained bundles and intertwined vegetal fibers, earth, rock, and garbage (Silverman 1986: 187). The mound has a lot more fill than other mounds because it was artificially raised by placing alternating layers of these vegetal fills. Unit 5 also had several circular depressions, or “cache pits” according to Strong, and only a few contained small amounts of corn cobs and beans. The walls were made of adobe with a sand foundation, and is a construction technique interspersed throughout Cahuachi.

Then more fill was placed behind the wall and in front of the hill. This fill consisted of vegetal fiber, lumps of adobe, sand, a few sherds that prove that the construction of the mound cannot predate Nasca 3 dates. Another interesting addition to the fills contents were the presence of offerings like a cache of maize, a large plainware, oxidized olla. The fact that these offerings were made alludes to a ceremonial function of the unit. At Unit 6 Strong originally classified the construction as a Middle Nasca temple that was built over a Late Paracas domestic dwelling, but the association of the circular pits also dug there with Paracas 10-Nasca pottery and the dwellings should not necessarily be classified as Late Paracas. Here, also, there are adobe walls used to retain fill at this unit, just like at Unit 5. There was a wattle and daub wall found underneath, and is a previous occupation of the area that was of a domestic nature, but by Occupation 3 (after the wattle and daub occupation) the construction of the actual mound was for a non-habitation purpose, and this is evidenced by the lack of habitation structure refuse.

Unit 7 was also originally classified by Strong as a residential space, but Silverman points out that there is an extraordinary amount of decorated pottery and special artifacts, such as an obsidian knife, embroidered fringed borders, a comb of cactus spines and cane, and a fine engraved gourd, and at best was perhaps the living space for priests.

Cahuachi's layout largely depends on already existing topographical features, but it can also be said that it has a "mound-kancha" pattern, It is called this because there is a lot of open, or rather empty, space at Cahuachi. Instead of bunches of construction taking up a space, the mounds at Cahuachi would be better described as islands (SIlverman 1993:90). Because of the commitment to executing construction around and in convenience to the natural geography, it can be inferred that this may reflect social spatial organization for the site, which is interpretively unrestricted (Silverman 2002: 135). It is easily accessible from virtually any direction, with no walls, or moats, or anything blocking entrance into the site.

Terracing hills was also a common practice at Cahuachi because it was "energetically and materially cheap" and still produced the appearance of monumental architecture, like large ceremonial mounds or temples. One of the more well-known mounds at Cahuachi came to be called by Strong the "Great Temple." It is debatable whether or not that this construction is the one and only “Great Temple” at Cahuachi, but it truly did have a ceremonial purpose which is obvious by the large amounts of Nasca 3 pottery, panpipe fragments, llama remains, bird plumage, and other offertory materials recovered.

Rooms are not found on all mounds. For the rooms that do exist, the walls of are built out of adobe. There are a few different types of adobe clay present at the site, and are sometime mixed together in the construction of walls and rooms. The types of adobe include: beige, yellow, or grey. All of the rooms also had a final layer of mud. There are very few walls that had been painted. The walls were usually not very high (not exceeding one meter) and were very thick (Silverman 1986: 196). The use of huarango posts in the construction of rooms and walls is also common at Cahuachi.

The major walls at Cahuachi were very carefully constructed and well made. The layers of adobe used to build them are carefully regular, and had two final layers of mud plaster, as well as a white wash finish.

The Room of the Posts is said to have some sort of ancestor worship association because of the use of huarango posts. In this region, huarango is sometimes used to symbolize ancestry, sort of like the biblical tree of life. These “ancestor posts” are further supported by the structures apparent use as a burial place, and a special carved huarango post that depicts a human face and flute (Silverman 1993: 193). Another interesting aspect to consider and is supportive of an ancestral interpretation is that the radiocarbon dates on some of the posts are earlier than Strong's Nasca 5 dates of the area, which can be explained because perhaps they were not erected at the same time, but at important, symbolic life events, or that since they hold special significance that they were reused from an earlier structure (Silverman 1993:193). In one of the walls of the Room there is a niche and two small depressions within that, containing spondylus shell (Silverman 1993, 179).

In addition to the already above mentioned artifacts, there were many plainware and decorated vessels including vases, bowls, bottles with handles, caches, musical instruments, and baskets. Strong dated a lot of these items to Nasca 5 times. There was also found in the Room of the Posts "four bundles of tied canes conforming to back-strap looms." (Silverman 1993: 186) This versatility could perhaps be due to the fact that people carried all their belongings that they would need for their stay at Cahuachi. Fineware and plainware at Cahuachi was studied by Helaine Silverman where she studied types of vessel shape, painted design and color, and their relative dates and chronology (Silverman 1993: 227). There are twenty five shape classes described by Gayton and Kroeber. Common vessel shapes at Cahuachi were the "double-spout-and bridge- bottles". (Silverman 1993: 230) The Nasca phase of this class of pottery distributed at Cahuachi is largely phase 3 or undeterminable.

Another notable vessel class is Nasca 1 Blackware bowls, early Nasca bowls, dishes, basket vessels, modeled vessels, neckless ollas, and necked ollas. According to Strong's conclusions, Cahuachi's main occupation was during Nasca 3. There was another major earlier Nasca occupation, corresponding to Early Nasca 1 and 2, but was not the main occupation of Cahuachi (SIlverman 1993: 257). Nasca Cult Society and Cahuachi

Although Cahuachi held a significant position in the communities of Nasca 3 times, it was specifically a ceremonial center and did not have a large residential population, and therefore did not necessarily have a hierarchy of power or leadership like one that would be found at a complex habitational site. The varying sizes of mounds at the site do, however, provide a basis for distinguishing the social groups that created them. Mounds all over the Nasca drainage system were created by the local social groups in the region, and, as one would assume, the larger groups were the ones who built and maintained the largest temple mounds, while the lesser mounds were built by much smaller groups (Silverman, 2002: 166).

The amount of monumental architecture at Cahuachi, however, cannot be explained except for Helaine Silverman's interpretation that Cahuachi held a sacred geography that made it the focus of the Nasca cult, which includes any political aspects that come along with this, such as monumental architecture being symbols of group unity and shared ancestry, while at the same time sending a widespread political message to allies or rivals (Silverman 2002: 166). Cahuachi, as a religious pilgrimage destination, also leads to the assumption of community-wide participation and cooperation. Furthermore, Cahuachi's obvious influence and importance in Nasca society and the fact that it was primarily a ceremonial center suggests that political power and social differences may not have been exclusively based on the economy. This is further evidenced by a lack of clear mortuary differentiation in early Nasca society and iconographic portrayals of elites, which lead researchers to believe that there could have been at least a group-oriented chiefdom where accumulation of personal wealth was forgone or otherwise unachievable (Silverman 2002: 166).

The main thing that connected the segments of peoples in the Rio Grande de Nazca drainage system were their Nasca cultural traditions and religious cult where Cahuachi was the center, but only as a temporary pilgrimage site, and otherwise they lived in their own smaller communities with their own separate local ceremonial and domestic foci, and was therefore not politically centralized. Nasca society in terms of its location in the Rio Grande de Nazca drainage system also played its part in their sociopolitics. By observing and even literally mapping out the filtration gallery system – which determined settlement patterns as well – provided exclusive knowledge to those that were discerning of it, able to manipulate that knowledge, and therefore allowing for significant positions of power or control. These individuals were most likely "priests" or "shamans" (Silverman 2002: 198).

Cahuachi's primary application as a ceremonial center actually still leaves a lot to be discovered about the specifics of its religion and ideology. Cahuachi itself has mainly temples of varying sizes as its main architecture, where various religious practices and rituals took place, and was also used as a place to bury the dead and is surrounded by cemeteries. Cahuachi was obviously geographically sacred to the Nasca 3 people, it is just that it is unknown exactly why that is. Some things can be inferred upon, however, as in the case of the Room of the Posts, one of the most well-known constructions at Cahuachi. The room is characterized by well-made adobe walls that even happened to be painted with images pertaining to ceremonial uses such as Nasca panpipes, and rayed faces (Silverman 1988: 417). The fact that the walls were painted at all is significant in itself because, except for the endless amount of painted pottery at the site, there is not much for examples of other mediums of painting there. The Room of the Posts contained niches and circular depressions filled with offertory goods like caches and pottery filled with corn, spondylus shells, or huarango pods, as well as such items as blue-painted ají peppers, gourd rattles, portable looms, and painted fineware.

Finally, inside the room there are huarango positioned upright all over the room. Some are aligned in certain directions, all of different heights, one group has three rows of three all standing together near the western wall, one is even carved into a face playing a flute. Besides the architectural features, there is not much to learn just from the presence of the posts, but the cultural features associated with the huarango plant in the Río Grande de Nazca region is significant. The huarango plant is native to and grown in this region and has symbolic ancestral meaning, associated with the tree of life and one's roots, still held to this day. By looking at cultural beliefs in this area today, some interpreters have inferred that the room had ancestral and genealogical significance. As far as altars go, in the center of the room is a very low, clay square platform, and in the middle of which is a round depression. Textile production was one of the few craft specializations that went on at Cahuachi on a regular basis. These fancy textile remains were most likely used as Nasca funerary shrouds or for presumably elite/priestly attire.

Highly stylized painted pottery was found throughout Cahuachi, and had the most religious significance when found in association with burials and offertory remains inside of them. Other remains that held religious purposes at Cahuachi were animal remains. Llama remains, bird plumage used as decoration for headdresses or the like, and guinea pig remains with broken necks and evidence of being sacrificed with their undersides slit open, were evidence of sacrificial rituals that are reminiscent of divination practices, still practiced by some today. Besides the altar in the Room of the Posts as described above, there were circular depressions and niches in the floors and walls of many of the other structures built. All of them contain or contained offertory items, mainly containers or caches of maize, spondylus shell, huarango pods, and blue-painted ají peppers. Other subsurface storage jars found without food in them can be used as evidence of communal feasting. There is little to no evidence of a prominent use of writing at Cahuachi.

There is some very specific iconography going on there, though, that portray masked ritual performers or priests, mythical beings, and ceremonial rites that honor agricultural fertility, as well as going so far as to confirm that farmers even participated in these celebrations as well. Finally, trophy head taking was an important aspect of the Nasca cult, which are displayed on early Nasca pottery where costumed figures hold decapitated human heads.

Pertaining to the elite and the “power” structure of Cahuachi, it was important because it was the main center for people all over the region to come together. Priests could definitely be considered elite because they more than likely got to spend the majority to spend most of their time there, and were therefore able to, as well as had special clothing that was probably manufactured and designed on site, as well as had privileged access to “temples” and rites in which they perform their sacred duties. Religion, as previously discussed, is unanimously a huge part of Nasca culture just from the very fact that Cahuachi exists, and the leaders of this place must have been influential in Cahuachi at the least. However, also previously discussed, the peoples of Nasca 3 times were spread out all over the Río Grande de Nazca drainage system region and were more or less separated into individual groups, where they lived in a most likely independent chiefdom governed areas.

Cahuachi is surrounded by cemeteries and burials. This is because it was a prominent ceremonial center, though, not because of any widespread violence or warfare. Many of the burials at Cahuachi have not been fully excavated yet, and the bodies that have been recovered have not been unwrapped and studied yet either. This means that there is not a lot of evidence for violence, not because it was absent, but because it just has not been discovered. So, it is not to say that the Nasca people did not experience violence whatsoever. As briefly discussed above, trophy heads found around the site of Cahuachi can be interpreted as evidence for warfare and violence. Iconography on late Paracas style pottery is also evidence of head hunting practices.

The context of the head taking, though, is still being widely worked out. There is some contention about whether the trophy heads were taken during territorial warfare, were taken in staged ritualistic battles. The biggest problem that occurs with the idea of territorial conquest and warfare, at least in an early Nasca state, is that there is little to no archaeological evidence of any kind to support it, and so was most likely not the context in which the actual early Nasca trophy heads were found. Archaeological evidence does, however, shows an interesting increase in head hunting, between early and late Nasca times, right around when Cahuachi was finally abandoned, and when a more militaristic lifestyle became prevalent in late Nasca art. This can be taken to mean that while early Nasca times revolved around a religious center, they were stable and able to create Cahuchi, and therefore there was less violent conquest and territorial warfare than at other times.

One aspect about the use or meaning of the trophy heads, is that all can agree that in whatever situation they were acquired in, it was religious/ritualistic in nature (Silverman 1993: 221). Whether it be the head of an enemy in battle or ritual battle, headtaking was done for reasons of acquiring power, status, or safety from the enemy's soul. There is also iconographic evidence that suggests that after the abandonment of Cahuachi, that as headhunting became more "secularized," the elite class shifted from being made up of priests and ceremonial figureheads, to being successful headhunters (Silverman 1993:223).

There is no archaeological evidence of writing at the site of Cahuachi. There is an abundance of Nasca style pottery at the site, however, and more specifically, a lot of decorated fineware. Some of the painting and decoration on the pottery is Nasca iconography. Nasca iconography can range in subject from trophy heads or warrior head takers, as previously mentioned, and mythical anthropomorphic figures (Silverman 1993: 244), to everyday subjects that can display a chief or priest, a coca chewer, farmer, fisherman, impersonator of gods/masked ritual performer, musician, llama tender (Silverman 202:149). These are roles are usually portrayed by men in Nasca pottery. Women are usually displayed carrying firewood, or seated in "voluptuous seated form", squatting in childbirth, and chewing coca as well (Silverman 2002: 149). These are general images shown in Nasca pottery throughout the Nasca culture, and are not all found specifically at Cahuachi. Nasca pottery did, however, reach "an aesthetic and technological peak in EIP 3, corresponding to the apogee of Cahuachi." (Silverman 2002: 154)

Being that Cahuachi has an abundance of regular pottery, most likely for food and feasting purposes, but also a mass of fine pottery that is mostly associated with burials and ceremonial purposes, and the fact that fine pottery in Nasca society expressed religious as well as world views, there is a lot of iconography to be collected at Cahuachi (Silverman 2002: 154). Other types of images, like those portrayed in monumental style decorated pottery, display more natural figures, mostly birds. Another interesting aspect of Nasca iconography is what is not portrayed. Children never appear in Nasca iconography. Also, there is no hierarchy of scale in Nasca iconography; there are no figures larger than any others, or surrounded by smaller and therefore inferior images, that would indicate a difference in status or class (Proulx 2007: 12−13).

The change in use of the site, Cahuachi, from a prominent non-urban ceremonial center and pilgrimage destination during its apogee in Nasca 3 times to it only being largely used for burials, marks the decline of Cahuachi. This change in function occurred during Nasca 4 times, or Early Intermediate Period epoch 4. The architecture at the site during this time was mostly abandoned, but did have "postapogee" offerings, like the trophy heads. As time went on from this point, Cahuachi was used less and less for ceremonial services, production, and ritual, and became exclusively a place to bury the dead. The evidence for the decline of Cahuachi comes from the archaeological record of Nasca pottery present, or absent, from the site as well as the abundance of burials and cemeteries surrounding Cahuachi that are dated by their association with late Nasca pottery. Presence of Nasca 4 sherds in some of the fill of the Room of the Posts proves that there was still Nasca people present at the site and that there was some continued ceremonial use, albeit not as much as during its apogee (Silverman 1993: 318).

Pottery that dates to Nasca 6 and 7 times found in many of the burials at Cahuachi are also evidence of Cahuachi's use during this time as mainly a burial site. The absence of abundant pottery use and any other evidence of ritual use or otherwise within and around the actual architecture of the site suggest that these constructions were abandoned after Nasca 5 times. The reason for the decline of Cahuachi is as yet, unknown, but the fall of their largest central ceremonial center and heart of the Nasca cult signifies the decline of the entire Nasca culture throughout the region. However, archaeological findings of Orefici suggest that Cahuachi was abandoned around 450 and 500 A.D. due to a severe drought and after severe mudslides and earthquakes.[6]

• Bacha, Aïcha Bachir, Llanos Jacinto, and Óscar Daniel. 2006 El Gran Templo del centro ceremonial de Cahuachi (Nazca, Perú). Dimensión antropológica 38:49−86.
• Orefici, Giuseppe. Nasca: Hipótesis y Evidencias de su Desarrollo Cultural. Lima: Centro Italiano Studi e Ricerche Archelologiche Precolombiane. 2003.
• Proulx, Donald A. 2007 Nasca Ceramic Iconography: An Overview. University of Massachusetts.
• Silverman, Helaine. 2002 Ancient Nasca settlement and society. Iowa City Univ. of Iowa Press.
• Silverman, Helaine (1994). "The Archaeological Identification of an Ancient Peruvian Pilgrimage Center". World Archaeology. 26 (1): 1–18. doi:10.1080/00438243.1994.9980257.
• Silverman, Helaine. 1986 Cahuachi : an Andean ceremonial center. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, Austin.
• Silverman, Helaine. 1993 Cahuachi in the ancient Nasca world. Iowa City : University of Iowa Press.
• Silverman, Helaine (1988). "Cahuachi: non-urban cultural complexity on the south coast of Peru". Journal of Field Archaeology. 15 (4): 403–430. doi:10.2307/530044. JSTOR 530044.
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• Rowe, John H. 1960 Nuevos datos relativos a la cronología del estilo Nasca. Antiguo Perú: espacio y tiempo pp. 29−45.
• Silverman, Helaine, Cahuachi in the Ancient Nasca World, University of Iowa Press, 1993.
• Silverman, Helaine (1994). "The Archaeological Identification of an Ancient Peruvian Pilgrimage Center". World Archaeology. 26 (1): 1–18. doi:10.1080/00438243.1994.9980257. JSTOR 124860.
• Orefici, Giuseppe Cahuachi. Capital Teocratica Nasca. Lima: Universidad de San Martin de Porres, 2012.

• Lasaponara, Rosa; Masini, Nicola; Rizzo, Enzo; Orefici, Giuseppe (2011). "– New discoveries in the Piramide Naranja in Cahuachi (Peru) using satellite, Ground Probing Radar and magnetic investigations". Journal of Archaeological Science. 38 (9): 2031–2039. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2010.12.010.