Maritime Communities of the Ancient Andes examines how settlements along South America’s Pacific coastline played a role in the emergence, consolidation, and collapse of Andean civilizations from the Late Pleistocene era through Spanish colonization. Providing the first synthesis of data from Chile, Peru, and Ecuador, this wide-ranging volume evaluates and revises long-standing research on ancient maritime sites across the region.
These essays look beyond the subsistence strategies of maritime communities and their surroundings to discuss broader anthropological issues related to social adaptation, monumentality, urbanism, and political and religious change. Among many other topics, the evidence in this volume shows that the maritime industry enabled some urban communities to draw on marine resources in addition to agriculture, ensuring their success. During the Colonial period, many fishermen were exempt from paying tributes to the Spanish, and their specialization helped them survive as the Andean population dwindled. Contributors also consider the relationship between fishing and climate change—including weather patterns like El Niño.
The research in this volume demonstrates that communities situated close to the sea and its resources should be seen as critical components of broader social, economic, and ideological dynamics in the complex history of Andean cultures.
A volume in the series Society and Ecology in Island and Coastal Archaeology, edited by Victor D. Thompson
Content
List of Figures
List of Tables
Introduction
Chapter 1. A Historical Perspective on the Studies of Andean Maritime Communities
Gabriel Prieto and Daniel H. Sandweiss
Part I Early Maritime Adaptations (BP 13000 to 5500)
Chapter 2. Maritime Communities in the Atacama Desert. Masters of the Sub Tropical Pacific Coast of South America.
Calogero Santoro, Victoria Castro, Christopher Carter and Daniela Valenzuela
Chapter 3. Economic Organization and Social Dynamics of Middle-Holocene Hunter-Gatherer-Fisher Communities in the Coast of the Atacama Desert (Taltal, Northern Chile).
Diego Salazar, Carola Flores, Cesar Borie, Laura Olguin, Sandra Rebolledo, Manuel Escobar and Ariadna Cifuentes
Chapter 4. The Use and Construction History of Huaca Prieta, North Coast of Peru.
Tom D. Dillehay
Part II Maritime Communities Between 5,500 and 2,500 BP.
Chapter 5. Changing Complexity in the Norte Chico, 3000-1800 BCE.
Winifred Creamer and Jonathan Haas
Chapter 6. Maritime Communities and Coastal Andean Urbanization: Preliminary Insights from Early Horizon Samanco, Nepeña, North-Central Peru.
Matthew Helmer
Chapter 7. The Supply and Consumption of Marine Resources at the Inland Center of Caylan, Coastal Ancash.
David Chicoine, Carol Rojas, Victor Vasquez and Teresa Rosales
Chapter 8. The Fisherman’s Garden: Horticultural Practices in a Second Millennium Maritime Community of the North Coast of Peru.
Gabriel Prieto
Chapter 9. The Ethnogenesis of Pescador Identity: The Implications of Biodistance Analyses of Initial Period (1500 – 1200 BC) Human Remains from Gramalote Peru, for our Understanding of the Social and Economic Dyamics of Ancient Andean Maritime Communities.
Richard C. Sutter and Gabriel Prieto
Part III Maritime Communities Between 2,500 and 600 BP.
Chapter 10. Fisherman, Farmer, Rich Man, Poor Man, Weaver, Parcialidad Chief? Household Archaeology at Cerro la Virgen, a Chimu Town within the Hinterland of Chan Chan.
Brian R. Billman, Dana Bardolph, Jean Hudson and Jesús Briceño Rosario.
Chapter 11. Subsistence economies in margin areas with natural constraints: interactions between social dynamics, natural resource management and paleoenvironment in the Sechura Desert, Peru.
Nicolas Goepfert, Philippe Bearez, Aurelien Christol and Belkys Gutierrez
Chapter 12. Late Prehistoric Maritime Communities in Coastal Ecuador.
Karen E. Stothert, Maria Masucci and Benjamin Carter
Part 4. Maritime Communities between 600 and 300 BP.
Prieto and Sandweiss
Chapter 13. Maritime Adaptations at Cerro Azul, Peru: A Comparison of Late Intermediate and 20th Century Fishing.
Joyce Marcus, Kent V. Flannery, Jeffrey Sommer and Robert G. Reynolds
Chapter 14. El Contrato del Mar: Colonial Life and Maritime Subsistence at Carrizales, Zaña Valley, Peru.
Parker Vanvalkenburgh, Sarah Kennedy, Carol Rojas and Gabriel Hassler
Chapter 15. Fish[i]stories: Seafolk of the Northern Peruvian Coast.
Susan Ramirez
Notes
List of Contributors
Index
