Thinking about Ecotopes: Two Thousand Years of Landscape’s Continuities and Discontinuities in the North Coast of the Central Andes

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This work seeks to analyze the continuities and discontinuities on the landscapes occupied by ancient Moche (an archaeological culture which flourished on the north coast of the central Andes between the first and eighth centuries) and contemporary populations. We intend to refine the discussion about the effectiveness and limitations of the ecotopes concept – considered by Ethnoecology as "minimum landscape unit" or "type of place". About 230 Moche fine-line ceramic vases – selected from the collections held by the Larco Herrera Museum (Peru) and the Ethnological Museum of Berlin (Germany) – were analyzed. In addition, we carried out ethnographic research among the living populations in the district of Mórrope (Lambayeque). This included interviews, ecological participative mapping and guided tours. Our results point to four main types of landscapes in ceramic iconography: green hills, dry forests, deserts, and flooded zones. The use of plants as ecological markers proved to be very efficient, especially for the green hills portrayed in the vessels. The most important ecotopes are still identified by the local population and, in some cases, with high degree of details and confidence. However, all the ancient rite practices portrayed on the vases have disappeared.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25049