Images and excavated remains: investigating Moche food and farming during c. 100–500 CE

Compare museum records and archaeological findings to investigate food production and consumption on Peru’s north coast. Decide what each source supports and where its dates or context limit your conclusions.

How to use this practice test

Read the four source notes before answering. Choose one answer per question. The practice target is 75%, or six of eight correct answers. All questions can be answered from the notes; the linked museum record also provides an image for optional inspection.

The content-map scope is The Americas → Classical. The investigation concerns c. 100–500 CE, not the entire duration of Moche history. Broader and later evidence is explicitly identified. A representation of a crop, a vessel’s possible use and excavated food remains answer different questions.

Source A: a crop represented in ceramic

The Metropolitan Museum of Art identifies its ceramic Corn Plant Bottle, object 67.167.19, as Moche, from Peru, and dates it to the 4th–7th century. Its record and photograph offer evidence of maize representation. That date range partly overlaps c. 100–500 CE but does not securely place the object within it. A crop depiction alone cannot establish quantities eaten or field yields. See the Corn Plant Bottle record and image.

Source B: interpreting a vessel through context

The Met dates its Moche Dipper, object 64.228.15, to the 3rd–5th century. Its discussion explains that vessels sometimes called cornpoppers rarely occur in domestic contexts; they served as funerary offerings and probably as ritual drinking vessels. Examples at Huancaco in the Virú valley were associated with large corn-beer jars. The museum’s interpretation shows why an object’s name alone cannot establish its use. See the Dipper collection record.

Source C: food plants and agricultural inheritance

El Brujo’s archaeological overview describes cultivated fruits, legumes, cereals and tubers consumed at Huaca Cao Viejo in the Chicama valley and Huaca de la Luna in the Moche valley. It identifies maize as both food and an ingredient in drinks such as chicha. It connects access to diverse plants with earlier generations’ domestication and preparation of cultivation areas. This is a broad Moche overview, not a dated inventory for every household during c. 100–500 CE. See El Brujo’s account of Moche food plants.

Source D: excavated food from a later comparison

Guy S. Duke reports a cooking vessel and meal remains from Wasi Huachuma on Peru’s north coast, a Late Moche site dated to 600–850 CE. The remains lay beneath a domestic floor, with a large stone marking the deposit. Duke interprets the assemblage as a dedicatory offering. This example illustrates how placement affects interpretation: food in a house need not be ordinary rubbish. It is later than this test’s target period and cannot establish what people ate during c. 100–500 CE. See the research abstract and publication details.

Continue the investigation

For related site reading, explore Moche household cooking pots. When comparing evidence, record the place, date range, material and find context before drawing conclusions about ordinary meals or farming.

Sources

Using Source A, which conclusion is best supported by the Corn Plant Bottle? Every Moche household ate the same quantity of maize.
Maize appeared in Moche ceramic representation.
The bottle records the yield of a particular field.
Source A dates the bottle to the 4th–7th century. How should it be used in an investigation of c. 100–500 CE? Treat it as securely dated to 100 CE.
Assume its entire date range falls before 500 CE.
Recognize that its date range overlaps the target period but also extends beyond it.
Why does Source B warn against treating the name 'cornpopper' as proof of an everyday cooking function? Find contexts and the museum’s interpretation point to funerary and probable ritual drinking uses.
Every ceramic vessel had exactly the same use.
A modern object name is stronger evidence than its archaeological context.
Which statement matches Source C’s account of maize? It was used only for animal feed.
It was consumed as food and used in drinks such as chicha.
It was depicted in art but never consumed.
According to Source C, what helped make diverse plant foods available to Moche communities? Earlier generations’ domestication of plants and preparation of cultivation areas.
The sudden invention of every crop during one ruler’s lifetime.
Identical farming conditions throughout the Americas.
Source D concerns Wasi Huachuma during 600–850 CE. What is its appropriate role here? Direct proof of a meal eaten in 200 CE.
Evidence that all earlier Moche households followed the same recipe.
A later comparison that illustrates archaeological reasoning, without establishing earlier practices.
Source D describes food remains beneath a domestic floor and interprets them as a dedicatory offering. What follows? Everything found in a house must be ordinary discarded rubbish.
A domestic setting can contain a special deposit, so placement matters when interpreting food remains.
The deposit measures the average daily diet of the whole population.
Which investigation would best strengthen a claim about everyday food during c. 100–500 CE? Compare identified food remains from multiple securely dated household contexts, recording how each deposit formed.
Use one crop-shaped vessel to calculate everyone’s daily intake.
Combine all Moche finds without checking their dates or locations.