Fortaleza de Quirihuac: A Chimú Fortification in the Middle Moche Valley of Perú (2012)

Undergraduates: Patrick Mullins, Evan Surridge

Faculty Advisor: Brian Billman
Department: Anthropology

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Fortaleza de Quirihuac is a Chimú fortified settlement built on a mountaintop some 400m above the floor of Peru’s Moche Valley. During the 2010 and 2011 field seasons, the author used funds from two separate grants to map the fortress and conduct surface collections in order to gain a greater understanding of site activities and chronology. A defensive role is strongly suggested by the presence of sling stone piles and the use of fortified and parapeted walls to protect all passable routes to the peak. These defensive walls are protecting non-agricultural terraces and compounds that possibly served as habitation for a garrison of soldiers or as temporary housing for refugees and elites from the valley floor. The author used the latest ArcGIS mapping software to digitize all maps in order to gain a greater understanding of the true extent of the fortifications at the site. Further supporting the map data, artifact evidence indicates an emphasis on the storage and serving of imported food; a trend suggestive of a garrison being consistently stationed at the site. The data collected at Fortaleza de Quirihuac along with the presence of similar Chimú fortresses at strategic mountaintop locations along the Moche Valley suggests that a defensive strategy was used to protect the Chimú Empire’s heartland up to its eventual conquest by the Inka.