Andean Expressions: Art and Archaeology of the Recuay Culture

(at)font-face ( font-family: "Times"; )(at)font-face ( font-family: "Palatino"; )p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal ( margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; )div.Section1 ( page: Section1; ) Flourishing from A.D. 1 to 700, the Recuay inhabited lands in northern Peru just below the imposing glaciers of the highest mountain chain in the tropics. Thriving on an economy of high-altitude crops and camelid herding, they left behind finely made artworks and grand palatial buildings with an unprecedented aesthetic and a high degree of technical sophistication. In this first in-depth study of these peoples, George Lau situates the Recuay within the great diversification of cultural styles associated with the Early Intermediate Period, provides new and significant evidence to evaluate models of social complexity, and offers fresh theories about life, settlement, art, and cosmology in the high Andes.

George Lau is a university lecturer at the Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, School of World Art Studies and Museology, University of East Anglia. He has done fieldwork in highland Peru since 1995. Currently one of the editors of World Art, he is also the author of the forthcoming Ancient Community and Economy at Chinchawas (Ancash, Peru).