Cerro de Oro and the Year A.D. 600: Changing Settlement Patterns in the Lower Cañete Valley

Author(s): Francesca Fernandini

Year: 2017

Summary

The year AD. 600 seems to be an important turning point in the settlement pattern of the lower Cañete valley. While settlements prior to this date tend to be small sized and located close to the river margin, the period after AD 600 shows settlements tend to be placed a few kilometers away from the river margin. The largest of these is Cerro de Oro, a 150ha densely populated settlement located on top of a mound, 13km away from the river margin. The construction and use of Cerro de Oro seems to coincide with the creation of an extensive irrigation system as well as a well-managed exploitation of agricultural products at the site. This study will attempt to establish an association between the unprecedented nucleation of people on top of the Cerro de Oro mound, the increase of the agricultural frontier through the installation of a new irrigation system in the lower Cañete valley and the well-documented climatic oscillations that characterized the years circa AD 600.

Cite this Record

Cerro de Oro and the Year A.D. 600: Changing Settlement Patterns in the Lower Cañete Valley. Francesca Fernandini. Presented at The 81st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Vancouver, British Columbia. 2017 ( tDAR id: 431822)

Keywords

General
AD 600 Cañete Urban

Geographic Keywords
South America

Spatial Coverage

min long: -93.691; min lat: -56.945 ; max long: -31.113; max lat: 18.48 ;

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15886