Lauren Cadwallader

Coastal but not littoral: marine resources in Nasca diet

Abstract We examine the contribution of marine resources to the Nasca dietary economy (Early Intermediate Period, circa 100 B.C.–A.D. 600, Peruvian south coast) through ceramic iconography, settlement patterns, maritime subsistence technology, fish and shell remains, and stable isotope analysis. Each data set has limitations but, when combined, a consistent pattern emerges. Although the rich marine biomass of the Peru Current offers potential for huge food surpluses, we conclude that the Nasca use of the littoral zone was minor. This result contrasts with earlier and later subsistence patterns in the same area, and with contemporary dietary systems elsewhere along the Andean coast. This challenge to conventional wisdom on coastal economies highlights the need for new research to understand the full range of Andean adaptations, especially those which appear counterintuitive. This study also questions the notion that percentage frequencies of motifs in the iconography reflect daily realities.

Refining the Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization: How Plant Fiber Technology Drove Social Complexity During the Preceramic Period

Moseley’s (1975) Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization hypothesis challenges, in one of humanity’s few pristine hearths of civilization, the axiom that agriculture is necessary for the rise of complex societies. We revisit that hypothesis by setting new findings from La Yerba II (7571–6674 Cal bp) and III (6485–5893 Cal bp), Río Ica estuary, alongside the wider archaeological record for the end of the Middle Preceramic Period on the Peruvian coast. The La Yerba record evinces increasing population, sedentism, and “Broad Spectrum Revolution” features, including early horticulture of Phaseolus and Canavalia beans. Yet unlike further north, these changes failed to presage the florescence of monumental civilization during the subsequent Late Preceramic Period. Instead, the south coast saw a profound “archaeological silence.” These contrasting trajectories had little to do with any relative differences in marine resources, but rather to restrictions on the terrestrial resources that determined a society’s capacity to intensify exploitation of those marine resources. We explain this apparent miscarriage of the Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization (MFAC) hypothesis on the south coast of Peru by proposing more explicit links than hitherto, between the detailed technological aspects of marine exploitation using plant fibers to make fishing nets and the emergence of social complexity on the coast of Peru. Rather than because of any significant advantages in quality, it was the potential for increased quantities of production, inherent in the shift from gathered wild Asclepias bast fibers to cultivated cotton, that inadvertently precipitated revolutionary social change. Thereby refined, the MFAC hypothesis duly emerges more persuasive than ever.

Papers, policy documents and patterns of attention

This poster was presented at 3:AM The Altmetrics Conference. Conference information can be found here: http://altmetricsconference.com/.

Dating the Dead: New Radiocarbon Dates from the Lower Ica Valley, South Coast Peru

We thank the Ministerio de Cultural del Peru for granting permission for the fieldwork (No. 0028-2010-VMPCIC-MC) and analysis of samples for dating (No. 369-2011-VMPCIC-MC); Alberto Benavides Ganoza and the people of Samaca for facilitating fieldwork; the Arts and Humanities Research Council for LCs doctoral funding; the NERC Radiocarbon Facility for funding radiocarbon dating (grant number NF/2012/1/7 to TCO’C and LC); and Tom Higham, Diane Baker, Ingmar Unkel and Elmo Leon for their help and advice.

Doubts about how the Middle Horizon collapsed (ca. A.D. 1000) and other insights from the looted cemeteries of the Lower Ica Valley, South Coast of Peru

ABSTRACT This paper presents new information from funerary contexts in the lower Ica Valley, on the south coast of Peru, spanning two millennia from the end of the Early Horizon to the Late Intermediate Period. Although severely looted, these sites can still yield valuable information. We discuss their architecture and material culture in the context of radiocarbon dates. Among other findings, these cast new light on the poorly understood transition from the Middle Horizon to the Late Intermediate Period, for which a paucity of archaeological data from ca. a.d. 1000–1250 has long been taken as evidence of an environmentally- or socially-induced demographic collapse. Yet the data we present here suggest that the basins of the lower Ica Valley were likely occupied continuously over this period, and that the echoes of Wari influence here may have lasted longer than previously thought.

Could Open Research benefit Cambridge University researchers

This is a write-up of the discussions had during the “Improving the research process: discussing an ‘open research’ policy” event held by the Office of Scholarly Communication on the 8th of June 2016. A corrected version of this write-up was added to this record on the 3rd of August 2016. A correction has been made to Alasdair Russells affiliation.