Review: Haagen D. Klaus & J. Marla Toyne (eds). Ritual violence in the Ancient Andes: reconstructing sacrifice on the north coast of Peru. xvi, 468 pp., maps, tables, figs, illus., bibliogrs. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 2016

Journal article : Review

Sacrifice and ritual violence often are assumed to be important facets of social life in the pre-Hispanic Americas; popularly seen as gruesome testament to the Otherness of Indigenous American societies. The archaeological literature on these practices, however, has remained remarkably thin until recently. Coastal north Peru is a new exception to this, and this book is a turning-point for our understanding of human sacrifice and its archaeologically revealed ritual practices. Aided by an expanding set of bioarchaeological tools, Haagen D. Klaus and J. Marla Toyne set out to diachronically and synchronically contextualize sacrificial practices on the north coast of Peru, as well as to interrogate some of the interpretative orthodoxy associated with them.

Authors: Geurds, A

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Reviewed (other)
• Publisher: Wiley
• Journal: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
• Volume: 24
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 403-404
• Publication date: 2018-05-01
• Acceptance date: 2017-08-23
• DOI: 10.1111/1467-9655.12835
• EISSN: 1467-9655
• ISSN: 1359-0987
• Language: English
• Subtype: Review