Exploring the social landscape of Cerro León: an Early Intermediate period site on the north coast of Peru

Between approximately AD 1-200, just prior to the formation of the Southern Moche state, immigrants from the Andean highlands established large fortified settlements in many of the northern coastal valleys of what is modern day Peru. This thesis is concerned with the spatial organization of a specific highland occupation in a geographically strategic location of the Moche Valley. Moche Valley site number 225 (MV225) is a massive site built on the steep slopes of Cerro León. It was the principal settlement of an intrusive highland influenced polity controlling access to a highly prized coca growing zone in the middle Moche Valley. The spatial organizational principles that governed settlement of Cerro León are cased here in a synthetic framework that blends both functionalist and structuralist views of domestic architecture. This investigation further reinforces that sociopolitical evolution on the north coast was influenced in part by a highland coastal interaction during the Early Intermediate period