Agricultural Life and Socioeconomic Dependencies in the Western Andes of Southern Peru during the Second Half of the First Millennium BCE

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Beyond Borders at the End of a Millennium: Life in the Western Andes circa 500–50 BCE" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Formative Paracas archaeological culture has long been considered a coastal phenomenon in the southern Peruvian Andes. In this paper, we change this perspective and examine two Late Paracas and Initial Nasca (370 BCE–CE 90) highland settlements: Collanco (1,630 m asl) and Cutamalla (3,300 m asl) in the province of Lucanas, Ayacucho. Drawing on recent archaeological and geoscientific investigations—including large-scale excavations, archaeological and geomorphological surveys, photogrammetric documentation, soil testing, phytolith analysis, radiocarbon dating, and community-based research—we not only study these settlements in terms of their chronology, layout, and use, but also pay special attention to their adjacent extensive agricultural terraces. We argue that such terrace-settlement systems must be understood as a single analytical unit in order to fully understand the organization, socioeconomic dependencies, and supraregional significance of these complexes. Collanco and Cutamalla formed part of a dense and continuous Paracas settlement pattern from the Pacific coast to the highland puna and were integrated into interregional exchange networks. Furthermore, our results reveal intensive and diverse agricultural strategies, complex dependencies both among people and on resources from multiple ecological zones, and changing climatic conditions that affected terrace cultivation, land use, and settlement on the western flank of the Andes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Beyond Borders at the End of a Millennium: Life in the Western Andes circa 500–50 BCE   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38168.0