Unfinished monumental projects and institutional crisis in the early pre-Columbian Andes

•This study considers crisis as catalysts of social change.•A series of unfinished ceremonial centers have been identified in coastal Peru.•These ceremonial centers were built as a response to a collapsing Cupisnique-Chavín ideology.•In this case, monuments' goals contradict the perceived (defensive) needs of communities.•Projects were abandoned because institutions and organizations faced legitimation crisis. The focus of this article centers on monumental ceremonial buildings that were planned but either left partially constructed or were completed in a fashion that differed from their original design. Instead of using these buildings to study the formation of collectivities and the consolidation of authority, I rely on their unfinished or altered character to study the crisis of institutions and organizations. This article uses the case of the middle Nepeña Valley (Peru) during the first millennium BCE to illustrate the wealth of information that can be obtained from this kind of archaeological remains if archaeologists are able to put them in historical context. Moreover, the studied case, from the transition between the demise of the Cupisnique/Chavín religious complex and the warlike Salinar era, suggests the existence of a legitimation crisis derived from the contradiction between traditional forms of social integration and new priorities emerging within a climate of violence and conflict. Resumen: Este artículo se centra en edificios ceremoniales monumentales que fueron planeados, comenzados a ser construidos, pero que nunca fueron terminados, o al menos no como fueron originalmente planeados. En lugar de utilizar estos edificios para estudiar la formación de colectividades o la consolidación de autoridad, me baso en su carácter incompleto para estudiar la crisis de instituciones y organizaciones. Este artículo utilizar el caso del valle medio de Nepeña (Perú) durante el primer milenio a.C. para ilustrar la riqueza de información que se puede obtener de esta clase de resto arqueológico si los arqueólogos somos capaces de ubicarlos en su contexto histórico. Más aún, el caso estudiado, que trata de la transición entre la caída del complejo religioso Cupisnique/Chavín y la era violenta de Salinar, sugiere la existencia de una crisis de legitimidad derivado de la contradicción entre formas tradicionales de integración social y las nuevas prioridades emergiendo de un clima de violencia y conflicto.