Canda under feet: the Chimú and Chimú-Inca occupation in the monumental area of Trujillo

Abstract

This article is part of the Archaeological Materials Collections Research Project (PICMA), which focuses on the analysis of material culture recovered in the Monumental Zone of the city of Trujillo. This article examines the technological, morphological, and decorative characteristics of pottery attributable to the precolonial period, specifically to the Chimú, Chimú-Inca, and Inca periods. The materials analyzed come from various archaeological explorations carried out in buildings in the historic center and are complemented by documentary sources that demonstrate the existence of pre-Hispanic structures in the area where the city was founded. Based on this correlation, we hypothesize that this urban sector would have housed precolonial buildings, possibly associated with a settlement identified in historical sources as Canda. The Spanish occupation of ancient Inca settlements in the Chimo valley was apparently part of a strategy of territorial domination based on symbolic superposition, a practice inherited from the Reconquista, which in the American context involved the destruction and replacement of indigenous political and religious structures with Hispanic buildings, as part of an urbanization process aimed at cultural imposition.