Transformation of maritime desert to an agricultural center: Holocene environmental change and landscape engineering in Chicama River valley, northern Peru coast

QUATERNARY SCIENCE REVIEWS

卷:227

Article

Goodbred, Steven L., Jr.¹  Dillehay, Tom D.^2,3  Galvez Mora, Cesar⁴  Sawakuchi, Andre O.⁵ 

[1] Vanderbilt Univ, Dept Earth & Environm Sci, Nashville, TN 37235 USA

[2] Vanderbilt Univ, Dept Anthropol, Nashville, TN 37235 USA

[3] Univ Austral Chile, Escuela Arqueol, Puerto Montt, Chile

[4] Acad Nacl Hist, Lima, Peru

[5] Univ Sao Paulo, Inst Geociencias, BR-05508080 Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil

关键词: Holocene;    Geoarchaeology;    South America;    Sedimentology;    Coupled human-natural systems;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.106046

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Some of the earliest Andean populations settled in the region's arid coastal river valleys, supported by abundant marine life despite having domesticated plant cultigens as early as similar to 10 ka. In the Chicama River valley, this maritime economy dominated at the Preceramic site, Huaca Prieta, until similar to 6 ka, after which agricultural production began to increase significantly. This agricultural expansion was motivated in part by the development of arable fine-grained soils along the coast as the result of slowing sea-level rise, enhanced river floods, and unique basin lithology. Local populations made use of the stabilized flood-plain and wetland settings to conduct raised-terrace farming. By similar to 3.5 ka, growth in agriculture and the new fine-grained sediment resources led to several major cultural developments, including the production of fired-ceramic pottery and adobe-brick monument construction associated with the Cupisnique culture. Populations thereafter expanded into the middle valley, where the Salinar and Gallinazo cultures used small water-control structures to farm local ravines. These cultural and technological developments all parallel natural environmental changes driven by increasing ENSO-related water and sediment discharge. By similar to 1.8 ka, though, further expansion of agriculture -and arable land- was driven primarily by direct human manipulation of the environment. The construction of an ever-expanding network of irrigation canals diverted increasing volumes of water and sediment to distal reaches of the Chicama valley, supporting the great Moche and Chimu civilizations, and persisting through the Inka and Colonial periods. This history of Chicama valley traces strongly coupled interactions between the human and natural environments, supporting significant socio-cultural, economic, demographic, and technological advances. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

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