Regional Defensive Strategies and Chronic Warfare in the Southern Nasca Region

Summary

Warfare was a prevalent phenomenon throughout the Andes during the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000–1450; henceforth LIP). A salient research topic within broader investigations of conflict is how populations cope with chronic warfare. This presentation utilizes geostatistical analyses of architectural and topographical features to reconstruct defensive coping mechanisms among LIP groups living in 12 fortified settlements in the southern Nasca highlands of Peru. Analytical results reveal a regional defensive pattern whereby the smallest most vulnerable groups invested the most in fortifications and occupied the least accessible hilltops. Variation in fortification investment within each site was driven by differences in the accessibility of approaches leading to a site’s residential sector. This research demonstrates that LIP populations made optimal trade-offs between competing defensive variables, revealing highly patterned regional defensive strategies that vary from defensive practices observed in other LIP regions. This variation is likely the result of groups implementing defensive strategies to cope with local patterns of warfare.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 19950