Conch Calls into the Anthropocene: <i>Pututus</i> as Instruments of Human-Environmental Relations at Monumental Chavín

Abstract

Pututus, conch shell musical horns, are known in the Andes as annunciatory devices enabling their players to call across long distances. Beyond their iconic call, the sonic and gestural versatility possible in pututu performance constitutes dynamical evidence for prehistorical uses and site-specific cultural valuations of these multifaceted ritual instruments. Pututus appear in drawings created during the Spanish conquest and colonization of the Andes, and intact shell horns have been excavated from monumental architecture in Perú preceding the Inca by more than two millennia. At the late Andean Formative center at Chavín de Huántar, Perú, a well-preserved ceremonial complex active during the first millennium BCE, pututus were depicted in stone and on decorated ceramics, and twenty-one intact shell horns have been excavated. The use-worn, identity-projecting, and symbolically notched Chavín pututus provide physical and acoustical evidence for instruments prominently depicted in site graphics. Here, I take a cross-disciplinary approach to examine the Chavín pututus with respect to site archaeology and its particular Andean highland setting, especially considering their dynamical potential.