Department of Anthropology
University of Florida
Gainesville Florida
32611-7305
moseley @ anthro.ufl.edu
Submitted August 10, 2004 for Perú y el Mar : 12000 Años del Historia del Pescaría.
Pedro Trillo, Editor. Sociedad Nacional de Pesquería. Lima, Peru, 2005
Reproduced with license by Michael Moseley
Caral Civilization Peru Weblog : The Origins of Civilization in Peru
ZONA ARQUEOLÓGICA CARAL UNIDAD EJECUTORA 003 MINISTERIO DE CULTURA
The “ Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization ” or MFAC guess proposed that thousands of years ago the rich Andean fishery sustained the growth of early littoral populations, the originate of big sedentary communities, and the formation of complex societies and the established the foundations of coastal civilization. The basic tenants of this scenario were initially formulated in the 1960 ’ second and early 70 ’ s by a small number of American, Andean and russian scholars working independently of one another.1 When I popularized the hypothesis in 1975 there was evidence that platform mounds or huacas had been built at some early on settlements on the coast of Peru. I drew heavily upon Aspero, a 15 hour angle colony with six mounds located on the north slope of the Supe Valley. however, there was little available testify of elites or an upper class at Aspero or elsewhere. therefore, MFAC proposed that early fish societies developed the organizational foundations for coastal civilization, but culture itself arise after 1800 BC with the insertion of pottery, the intensive cultivation of staples and the construction of large-scale irrigation systems.2 The suggestion that fishing societies could evolve to the identical threshold of culture was radical, unwelcome and critiqued as an economic impossibility .
I am pleased to report that new research demonstrates the original guess understated the evolutionary achievements of early Andean coastal societies. Following introductory observations about coastal fishing, evolutionary biases, and ancient diet, this essay first summarizes early littoral developments in Chile. It then turns to Peru and discusses the relationships of early fish and farming. next, investigations in the Supe Valley are discussed and the essay concludes with the revolutionary research by Dra. Ruth Shady who convincingly argues for the rise of civilization in preceramic times.3
During the 1990 ’ randomness net harvest of small schooling fish made Peru and Chile the populace ’ mho third base and forth leading fish nations. Anchoveta and humble fish were similarly the staples of preceramic littoral societies, although a wide range of other marine fauna were consumed. Whereas most all of the Andean near-shore waters can be fished, less than 10 % of the adjacent desert was traditionally farmed from short, exorbitant streams and rivers feeding water valleys .
Farming and fishing are by and large discriminate and distinct professions because higher returns can be secured by pursuing one or the other rather than both together. fishing is governed by lunar and tide cycles that are not congruous with farm work that is scheduled by solar and rain cycles. economic organization is besides different. due to irregular topography, long canal systems maintained by large corporate work forces farm the majority of reform nation. alternatively, small craft manned by small crews can efficiently net income harvest the stallion coastline throughout most of the year .
At the time of spanish conquest autochthonal fish and farm were besides discriminate professions along most of the coast. Self-segregated populations that lived apart pursued them. People married within their respective vocations and sometimes the professions spoke different dialects. Maritime specialists used shoreline gardens to cultivate tatora reeds for watercraft. however, they did not grow staples nor pay taxes or protection with agricultural produce as farmers did. however, there was an all-important symbiotic relationship between the two professions with barter facilitating the exchange of marine protein for cultivated carbohydrates. presumably, exchangeable relationships prevailed earlier in time. But, before the advent of agrarian, fish was the principal means to make a living along the arid seashore for many millenniums. People were extracting seafood at the southerly peruvian sites of Quebrada Jaguay and Quebrada Tacahuay some 12,000 years ago. 4 These ancient beginnings make fishing the oldest enduring occupation in Peru and a profession of continuing national importance .
When the spanish reached the Andes comfortable seaside communities were symbiotically aligned with agrarian populations. In other regions fishing thrived where agrarian was lacking. In North America European explorers encountered nautical mound-building societies along the Florida Gulf seashore and sophisticated littoral chiefdoms in the north Pacific. frankincense, there is long standing ethnohistorical documentation of high levels of development among autochthonal people who exploited fecund fisheries .
unfortunately, people who make a support from the ocean were viewed as boisterous, if not uncultured by the nineteenth century european Intelligentsia. priggish savants were particularly upset by reports portraying the seeming ease with which native people secured seafood. For exercise, written about 1573, an anonymous report of the bombastic Chincha maritime populace says :
… yttrium parecia la población de esta gente una hermosa y larga calle llena de hombres y mugeres, muchachos y niñas, todos contentos yttrium gozosos por que no entrando en la mar, todo su cuidado earned run average beber yttrium baylar, y lo demás .
( … and the settlement where these people lived seemed to consist of a across-the-board and beautiful street wax of men and women, boys and girls, who, when not going to the sea to fish, were all felicitous and pleased and whose only concerns were drinking and dancing and suchlike ) 5
Accounts of people making a reasonable surviving without great effort was an diss to the Protestant exercise ethic of the middle class. To subsist well and toil arduously in cultivate fields or in capitalistic factories was an anathema to the intellects that formulated the foundations of contemporary evolutionary hold forth .
To knock a limpet from the rocks does not require even cunning, that lowest baron of the mind
marked Charles Darwin of Tierra del Fieguo ’ s Yahgan fisherman folk.6 Equating seafood acquisition with mar mind exponent, and by inference-impaired potentials for cultural development-formed a stigmata that was then cemented into the foundations of social evolutionary hypothesis .
Anything less than grueling tug in till plots or industrial plants was an abhorrence to Lewis Henry Morgan ’ s 1877 theory of cultural exploitation espoused in Ancient Society. 7 Subtitled “ Researches in the Lines of Human Progress From Savagery Through Barbarism to Civilization, ” the treatise set forth the enduring maxim that department of agriculture was the remarkable evolutionary nerve pathway to cultural complexity and culture. notably, it besides characterized North Pacific littoral populations as the most primitive of all ethnographic societies surviving on earth. consequently, these complex seaside chiefdoms were ranked as archaic savages developmentally below the simple of migratory hunter-gatherer bands and only marginally above the fossil archpriest ancestors of humans. Morgan ’ s formulations influenced Engel ’ second socialistic evolutionary theory. consequently, people of different political persuasions came to believe that an uninformed dietary choice at the food market for social advancement condemned fishing societies to evolutionary dead ends ! unfortunately, this enduring theoretical myth is completely disassociate imprint the economic reality that fish can be a very comfortable profession .
civilization requires calories to support activities that are not directly related to food production. Ancient dietary remains in the shape of garbage and coprolites are broadly well preserved at coastal abandon sites. Determining what people ate requires very careful archaeological recovery with fine-mesh and microscopic analysis because many remains are bantam, including those of little fish and seeds. virtually all preceramic sites where detailed dietary studies have been conducted indicate that people obtained their protein from the ocean with anchoveta and sardena broadly being the nautical staple. Yet, people besides consumed plant foods. Seeds arsenic well as belittled fish can be wholly consumed. They can besides be dried, flat coat into meal and consumed as flour or meal. consequently, it can be unmanageable to discern if people of the coastal defect obtained the majority of their calories from marine or planetary resources .
The chemical and stable isotope composition of human bone is a critical bet on of the relative amounts of nautical and sublunar foods that ancient individuals consume over a life. analysis of strontium and stable isotope ratios in homo remains from the peruvian preceramic village of La Paloma document a identical senior high school consumption of nautical food indicating that most of their calories came from the sea.8 The locate dates between about 6000 and 4000 BC and abundant anchoveta and small pisces remains were the dominant allele intestinal remains recovered from 90 good preserved Paloma corpses. They were besides the dominant constituents of coprolites a well as food trash .
In northern Chile strontium analysis and stable isotope ratio determinations have been preformed on 62 preceramic Chinchorro adults, dated between 4000 and 2000 B.C. Analysis implicated an average consumption of 89 % marine foods, complimented by 6 % terrestrials plants, and 5 % domain animals. about identical dietary values are reported for an earlier cadaver dated to 7020 +/- 255 B.C.9 unfortunately, without extra isotopic analysis on other early coastal populations it can not be said, with confidence, that all preceramic littoral populations drew the majority of their calories from the sea. however, it can be said that most drew more than 90 % of their protein from the ocean .
MARITIME SOCIAL COMPLEXITY IN CHILE
A chilean version of the maritime hypothesis has long been championed by archeologist Agustín Llagostera. 10 here the earliest artificial mummification in the world was practiced by so called Chinchorro populations between about 5,000 and 2,000 BC. These fisher folk resided along the seashore from Antofagasta north through Arica and into the Ilo area of southern Peru. The huge majority of Chinchorro people were interred in a lifelike country without soundbox modification Although artificial dry gangrene was practiced for three millennium, it was identical rare. The know sample distribution of modified corpses numbers about 200 and all came from cemeteries with simple inhumations.11
artificial mummification procedures were highly variable. They ranged from pitchy encasement of fetuses through minimally incursive harmonium removal to complete cadaver dismantling. The latter included the undress and disposal of organs and muscle, the grinding of long bone articulation surfaces to facilitate re-joining, and the reassembly of the skeletal system with wooden shafts supporting the cranium, proboscis, arms and legs. Reeds replaced extremity muscles and supported the repositioned bronzed skin. The eyes, nose and mouth were sculpted on a clay facial overlays, the body surfaces were then painted and a cranial hood of human haircloth was added to the capitulum .
The end products were statue-like objects. In certain cases the mummies were keep accessible and ceremonially manipulated resulting in damage what was cautiously repaired. Mummies were buried in cemeteries with natural interments and in some cases conserved juveniles were jointly interred with an un-mummified adult, presumably a rear. however, joint interments of mummies, such as children and adults, besides occurred. One collection, obviously a family, was multigenerational with children, two adults of generative age, and a identical aged individual. 12
significantly, most mummify corpses are those of neonates and juveniles leaving adults in the minority. The preponderance of green individuals implies that entitlement to privileged mortuary treatment was social prerogative inherited at birth. It was surely not an honor that babies and children achieved by a life of adept works. inheritance of privilege is a authentication of nascent social complexity. It is an initial mistreat toward culture. however, flush after the late presentation of irrigation agriculture coastal societies of southerly most Peru and northern Chile did not erect platform mounds or big architectural monuments. In depart, this is because the valleys of the region are quite small and in comparison to those of central and northerly Peru that offer much greater agrarian potentials. Although southerly developments were bare they were hard rooted in early nautical adaptations. Chinchorro mummies testify to the inheritance of privileged condition and early social specialization. thus, andean fishermen can take pride in the fact that their profession lead the global in artificial dry gangrene long earlier ancient Egyptians began the drill .
PERUVIAN MARITIME ADAPTIONS
historically the anchoveta fishery has produced its highest yields in waters along central and northern Peru. It is not storm that this region witnessed precocious evolutionary developments between about 3000 and 1800 BC. Large architectural works were erected at a number of preceramic settlements. MFAC originally proposed that these works were products of hierarchical corporate organization with a minority of individuals directing activities of the majority. Ruth Shady ’ s 13 innovative investigations indicates that a class of leaders residing in elite architecture headed the chain of command in the Rio Supe area. here hierarchial organization was associated with the wax of cities and urbanism, with the integration of adjacent valleys and state of matter geological formation, equally well as with the crystallization of preceramic civilization. Transpiring about one millennium earlier than expected, these developments make the Supe region the oldest birthplace of culture in the Americas. This accomplishment had strange economic foundations involving both fish and grow .
Use of domesticate plants has hearty ancientness in South America and the maritime guess attempts to model the relationships of early fish and farming. Although the near-shore peruvian fishery could feed multitudes, making a live from the sea depended upon sublunar resources including clean water and rampantly vegetation that are not abundant. Plants supplied roughage for fishing channel and nets vitamin a well as for clothe. They besides provided floats for nets and material for watercraft, housing and fire fuel. exploitation of finite defect resources increased all over time as the size of maritime populations grew. To feed more people early on peruvian societies intensified the harvest of anchoveta and little schooling pisces. This command magnify production of line, net and watercraft that finally overrode the limited supplies of natural desert vegetation. To sustain seaside adaptations and population growth littoral people had to develop alternative resource supplies. The feasible alternate, plant cultivation, was well established in Ecuador and the tropics well before 4000 BC. here cultigens were agrarian staples used to feed people. significantly, when peruvian maritime populations began to engage in implant farming they emphasized cultigens, such as cotton and gourd, that sustained fish and focused secondarily upon crops that feed people. This is a singular situation in the annals of the world ’ s early civilization. Yet, it is intelligible if coastal farming was initiated by fishing people for the purpose of producing “ industrial cultigens ” yielding fiber, net floats, containers, and wood substantive to maritime adaptations .
Assemblages of botanical remains from coastal preceramic settlements by and large include large quantities of junco and tatora reeds needed for making mats, esteras, equally good as watercraft and it is probable that these un-domesticated plants were cultivated in brackish urine ponds and lagoons. After about 3,000 BC perennial cotton ( which has wild ancestors in northern Peru ) became one of the most omnipresent cultigen at defect sites. well preserve cotton fiber, seeds, bowl parts are typically very abundant. Tree fruit, such as of guayabana, guava, pacae, lucuma and avocado, is besides surprisingly common but they vary by type from site to site. The trees were no doubt very crucial sources of wood adenine well as fruit. Gourd is a coarse industrial cultigen that provided final floats and containers in pre-pottery times. Squash, respective types of beans, palillo and chili peppers are broadly show. They are generally less common than industrial cultigens and fruit, but more frequent than staples .
Staples are domesticated plants that yield abundant harvests, which can be stored and consumed until the following reap. likely preceramic staples include : achira, camote, jicama, maize, potatoes and yucca. Their presence is very erratic. Some sites have none, others may have three or four types, but each is by and large represented by only a few specimens. There is generally good preservation of plant remains at both coastal preceramic and early ceramic age sites. consequently if agricultural staples were of early dietary significance, then their remains should be merely deoxyadenosine monophosphate prevailing as those of a yucca, potatoes, gamboge and other food plants are at early ceramic agricultural sites. however, this is not the case .
Preceramic fields and agrarian works do not survive, but reeds were likely grown in lagoons and in brackish urine totoral pits excavated behind beaches such as those used by the fishermen of Chincha. Domesticated plants require odoriferous water that was frequently inconveniently located inland and away from the littoral focus of nautical action. Most agrarian staples require constant manage from dirt till and sowing through harvest and march. significantly, the most coarse and abundant cultigens stage at coastal preceramic sites are ones that did not require constant care. Fruit trees and cotton shrubs were perennials that grew for years. Annuals such as squash and beans were hearty and could be sown, left and late harvested. This allow fishermen to farm on an intermittent basis .
early cultivation presumably transpired in lands that were self-watering or easily watered. The deluge plains of coastal rivers are self-watered by spring “ avenida ” floods and simple canals could be used to irrigate river bottom areas. Terrain easily irrigated from springs and pukios besides occurred where there were high phreatic levels, such as near valley mouths. Yet, in the absence of big scale canal irrigations, terrain desirable for childlike gardening was limited .
andean coastal rivers have broadly down-cut their channels and lie within profoundly incised banks. consequently, easily watered down accounts for less than two percentage of the arable coastal terrain in production today .
manipulate of scarce commodities contributes to the evolution of hierarchial arrangement and refinement. Preceramic marine resources were not in short add nor was their explotitation readily regulated. alternatively, arable state was a barely commodity, and access to it could be controlled. As populations grew and seining of the sea intensified, rights to horticultural land presumably became always more crucial and settlements that controlled access to fields were advantaged over ones that did not .
Farming was most well conjoined with fishing at the mouths of those valleys that offered broad river flood plains, easily accessible ground body of water or both. This was the location of Aspero and other large monuments known at the prison term MFAC was initially formulated. however, the importance of arable land was overlooked. For case, 2 kilometer in from the ocean, the Rio Chillon has an anomalously wide section of river flood obviously with some 130 hour angle of arable bottomland. This horticultural resource is now thought to account for the adjacent localization, if not size, of El Paraiso a huge masonry complex sprawl over some 58 ha.14 With identical late preceramic dates, this monumental complex is unusual because dwelling reject is scarce in and around the freemasonry ruins. substantial garbage and dunghill deposits are typically associated with sites of this size range. If the site at El Paraiso is not a product of aberrant conservation, then many of the people who helped built the complex did not reside there on a year-round footing. Being reasonably inland, it was not a peculiarly convent place for fishermen to live. Yet, they must have contributed to the construction and maintenance of this very large memorial. indeed, psychoanalysis of dietary remains indicates that most all protein came from the ocean. If people who resided elsewhere along the littoral provided labor and provisions for El Paraiso, then their compensate presumably entailed access either to the adjacent farm farming or to its products. It is not clear who did the farming at El Paraiso. Non-residents may well have contributed department of labor during times of inseminate and reap. Of course, there would have been greater commodity manipulate if the full time residents did all farming. These uncertainties aside, the ability to mobilize undertaking resources from unlike communities and focus them on centralized undertakings are trademarks of hierarchial administration and early culture .
EARLY CIVILIZATION IN THE RIO SUPE
The Rio Supe is a small drain but it has early on sites that have long attracted scientific attention. These settlements and monuments are products of precocious exploitation that has frequently exceeded theoretical expectations. For exemplar Max Uhle discovered coastal Aspero about a century ago. He described its 15 hour angle spread of carbon-rich drivel as resembling deposits from an “ old foundry. ” Yet, Uhle did not recognize that it was a large maritime community because he considered fishermen primitive and barbarian in accordance with evolutionary hypothesis of the time.15 The web site was investigated again in 1943, but there was however no reason that early fishermen could live in sedentary communities or build earthworks. consequently, it ’ mho dating remained unsealed and half a twelve platform mounds were dismissed as natural hills. The situation changed as archeologist began to identify and date preceramic sites elsewhere along the seashore. theoretical acceptance of maritime societies had improved when Aspero was again investigated in the early 1970 ’ s.16 Excavations exposed late phase acme buildings on the top of two platform mounds. One, Huaca de los Idolos, produced a 3055 BC radiocarbon assay, and the other, Huaca de los Sacrificios dated about two centuries earlier. 17
At this time of these explorations a contemporary building complex, Piedra Parada, was recognized on the south english of the valley. early forward pass photograph of the Supe drain revealed a numeral of large inland sites with architectural features, such as circular sink courts, that seemed to have considerable antiquity.18 In the 1980 ’ s some of the up-valley sites were plumber’s snake tested. Certain cores yielded diagnostic preceramic artifacts .19 so far, the results received little care because they did not conform to theoretical views of the time that big preceramic settlements were restricted to the coast .
louche and her team subsequently identified and mapped 15 inland preceramic complexes reaching 40 kilometer up the Supe drain. The ruins support her competition that America ’ s oldest american civilization arose in Supe. This proposition is based upon new data and well reported research.20 Although the concept of preceramic culture is revolutionary, it should come as no surprise. The early sites of Supe have a long history of exceeding evolutionary expectations .
It is significant that exchangeable early developments have not been detected in well-studied valleys to the north get down with the Rio Casma. Nor, are they discernible from the Rio Chancay south. frankincense, if all preceramic populations had equal developmental capabilities, then it must be fishy that the Rio Supe region offered strange natural resources for furthering early social evolutionary potentials. The intensity of mod fishing bodily process in the region indicates that it is well graced with nautical potentials. however, the Supe Valley is humble and out produced by larger adjacent valleys. however, shallow river flood plains and high phreatic conditions favorable to simple duct irrigation apparently confer economic an strange advantage for early on cultural development .
Situated more than 20 kilometer inland, Caral is the moment largest preceramic colonization in the valley, surpassed entirely by 79 hour angle sprawl of Era de Pando. If not a preceramic capitol, then Caral is surely a prehistoric city both in size and in differentiation of urban space. There are lower class barrios where people resided in humble house of cane. There are besides elect quarters of masonry and mortar construction with plaster and paint walls. similar structure besides characterized an craftsman workshop where jewelry and stone artifacts were produced. elect quarters are located around the civic congress of racial equality where some are immediately adjacent to particular mounds or physically annexed to them .
With a basal length of 153 megabyte, and a width of 109 m, the largest memorial, called the major pyramid, is fronted by a circular court and rises in terrace steps to a stature of 28 m. The summit is occupied by courts and rooms much ornamented with wall niches and geometric frieze. This big build overlooks a big orthogonal plaza that is framed by more than half a twelve other mounds and massive works. All of the pyramidal mounds were built in stages interspersed with epoch of use. Most rise in steps or terraces and some are associated with circular displace alters on their summits or at lower levels. Yet, the configuration of each knoll and its summit buildings is unique and design concepts seem much more variable than those of traditional Catholic churches .
fly-by-night proposes that pyramidal mounds were temples and that Caral was a sacred center. She cogently argues that religion was the principal informant of early social cohesion and the main means of managing the political economy. 21 Most scholars agree that government transpired in the name of the gods in preceramic and early ceramic times. If the multiple pyramidal mounds at Caral, Aspero and other large complexes were temples then different facilities presumably served different deities. Differences in knoll size suggest hierarchical differences in the preceramic pantheon. At Caral the major temple most probably served the major deity, while smaller mounds served subordinate divinities. It may be that subordinate synagogue divinities had to be placated before gaining access to higher graded gods. It can not be said that the major temple deity at Caral was the same god that the largest temples at other sites served. Nor, can it be said that different communities or cities had different patron gods without far exploration at early complexes. At sites such as Caral it is not open if a branch local anesthetic congregation sustained each offprint temple or if the integral community supported all facilities equally. therefore, there are many issues for far inquiry .
The proposition that early department of state constitution transpired in the Rio Supe is based on calculations of the size and volume of platform mound and massive structure at the 17 preceramic complexes in the drainage.20 The labor movement requirements to produce the total volume of preceramic construction are inferred to have exceeded what residents of the small valley could have provided. consequently, parturiency if not other resources were presumably extracted shape adjacent valley to support the Supe complexes, particularly the larger ones .
country formation in the Supe region would have been a gradual but complex process. Integrating local populations of the valley should have preceded the extraction of resources from adjacent valleys. local consolidation must have required time. There are no grounds to believe that all 17 preceramic sites in the drain were founded at the same time. Radiocarbon assays of 3055 BC from the former phase acme architecture of Huaca de Los Idelos at Aspero is the oldest of all preceramic dates from the region. Because the Huaca was built in stages separated by epoch of temple use, the initial construction of the adeptness situated at much greater depths must have well greater antiquity .
If Aspero is the oldest of the Supe sites then it may be hypothesized that other complexes were founded consecutive later and increasingly farther inland as needs for cultivated land and its produce increased. The course of inland reclamation and settlement would not have been rigorously analogue because valley bed water and arable land are not homogeneously distributed in the valley. however, it is useful to model the summons of inside valley colonization as a prelude to state geological formation. Modeling begins with the presumption that folk-level initiation was based upon kinship and early descent systems may have been by and large alike to those of belated ayllu communities. If the populations of older settlements, such as Aspero, gave rise to younger daughter colonies that moved inland, settled and late produced own young satellites communities, then acknowledged coarse ancestry might assist political and religious integration.
Warfare is a perennial theme in many theories of state formation. One holds that arable abandon land was a circumscribe resource. rival for it grew as early populations grew in size. Upon reaching the limits of the resource the social order changed. aggression became park because land could only be secured by taking it from others. permeant hostility generated new forms of hierarchial leadership to deal with new problems. These included the resolution of home rivalries, the protection of local anesthetic resources and the capture of external assets. Conquest and incorporation of external lands then lead to state formation. 22 The central tenant of this scenario is attractive because arable nation was surely a circumscribe resource. Yet, the Supe sites are not fortified and there is short evidence of preceramic arm conflict. This want not be storm. If religion was the principal beginning of early cohesion and political consolidation, then the formation of a theocratic state may have relied more upon on evangelical conversion than upon physical compulsion .
ultimately, the hypothesis that Andean civilization had nautical foundations is easiest to confirm in Chile for three reasons. First, the earliest artificial mummies in the populace are chilean and include big numbers of children who inherited elite stand and privileged mortuary discussion that are indicative of early class formation. moment, there is little testify that these people engaged in farming. And, third gear chemical analysis of bone from numerous humans indicates that people obtained 89 % of their diet from the ocean .
Fishing contributed to identical complex development in Peru. Yet, it is not entirely clear how the nautical hypothesis articulates with these developments for two reasons. The foremost is that people were farming. And, the second is that there has been no dietary analysis of human bone chemistry for populations dating after 4000 BC. Lacking such analysis the proportional contributions of fish and of farming to cosmopolitan nutriment and to the caloric foundations of coastal culture are inquisitive .
Remains of seafood and cultivated food happen at most preceramic sites but relative analysis does not securely illuminate their relative dietary contributions. therefore, meditation about nutrition is influenced by locate localization. At coastal sites, such as Aspero, people are presumed to have relied chiefly upon fishing. At inland sites, such as Caral, farming is presumed to have fed people. Drawing upon the Caral inquiry, Haas and Creamer have asserted that ascend of early civilization in the Supe valley was based upon department of agriculture and consequently does not differ form the origins of early civilizations elsewhere in the worldly concern. 23 Domesticated staples and domesticated animals were critical to other civilizations. In coastal Peru the situation is importantly unlike because agrarian staples were uncommon and protein came from the sea .
The remainder is very apparent in the food remains reported from Caral. 24 Guayaba ( 3025 specimens ) is the dominant cultigen .
Cotton ( 2141 specimens ), pacae ( 1563 specimens ), zapallo ( 103 specimens ) and kidney bean ( 19 specimens ) are next in frequency. likely staples include two specimens of corn, one each of camote and achira. If this botanic gathering is representative of the relative abundance of the plants that were farmed, then it is unmanageable to understand how gardening alone could sustain a large population. Expectably seafood remains are well represented. Marine birds, including guanay and coromoran, were consumed. For the most the most common mollusks the minimum number of individuals were 1326 for choros and 879 for machas. For the most the most common the minimum number of individuals were 449 for anchoveta and 148 for pilchard .
To assess food requirements it is useful to divide the residents of Caral into three possible groups with varying subsistence needs. One would be transients, such as religious pilgrims or department of state workers mobilized from early areas. Another group of inhabitants could be people who lived at Caral regularly each year but only seasonally. The third and most authoritative group would be permanent, year-round residents including priests, functionaries, elites and full-time farmers. This segment of the population would place the greatest demands upon the local subsistence economy. unfortunately, transeunt, seasonal worker, and permanent residency are extremely difficult conditions to distinguish archaeologically at any locate. however, they are features of submit level organization that require good, albeit doubtful, circumstance in preceramic context .
external provisions, particularly seafood, may have been supplied to Caral by three potential means that were not mutually exclusive. The first base would be protection brought in by transients. The second would be half-time annual residents who brought in their own provisions if not besides protection. In theory, these would be working class people who maintained a permanent urban family. They lived at Caral during the agricultural season or when religious occasions required, but then dispersed to the coast to reside where they could fish. The barely remains of staples raise the good hypothesis that not everyone at Caral could live there class around. Staple domesticates are significant because they can be harvested in abundance and then stored to feed people until the following harvest. This is not potential with guayaba, pacae, zapallo, and kidney bean. Fishing tackle has not been found at Caral. Yet, if people maintained coastal ampere well as interior households then hauling nets and gear 20 kilometers inland would not be hardheaded .
finally, seafood was most surely obtained by means of exchanging cotton and cultivated produce for marine products as Shady emphasizes.13 If preceramic fishing and farm were divide full-time professions then they must have been symbiotically linked through economic exchange as in belated times. Yet, I would speculate that farming which emphasized industrial cultigens quite than staples was highly dependent upon nautical adaptations and that fishermen basically fed coastal farmers. This can be framed as a hypothesis : the residents of Caral obtained more than 50 % of their nutrition from the sea. The proposition is promptly testable by dietary analysis of human bone chemistry .
In overview, human exploitation of the ocean was afoot 12,000 years ago in Peru and fishing is the oldest ongoing occupation pursued by andean people. The profession is exceptionally generative because the near-shore waters are unusually rich. The bounty of the sea sustained precocious cultural developments. About 7000 BC Chilean fishing societies began artificially mummifying significant people and their children. Predating Egypt by millennium these are the oldest mummies in the populace .
By 5,000 years ago sedentary maritime communities were building synagogue mounds in Peru. Within one millennium civilization had crystallized in Rio Supe region, as revealed by new research. Although people besides farmed, the focus was upon industrial cultigens that could support fishing, such as cotton for nets and gourds for floats. If chemical analysis of human bone demonstrates that people received most of their calories form the ocean, as is expected, then peruvian fishermen can be credited for creating the earliest civilization in the Americas. This is a rightfully unique accomplishment in the annals of human evolution !
Notes
1 The origins and development of the nautical hypothesis are summarized in : Moseley, Michael E. Maritime Foundations and Multilinear Evolution : retrospect and Prospect. Andean Past # 3. Ithaca, New York. 1992, pp. 8-11.
Examples of early contributions include :
Engel, Frederic. A Preceramic settlement on the Central Coast of Peru : Asia, Unit I. Transactions of the american Philosophical Society 51 ( 3 ), Philadelphia, 1963 .
Fung P. Rosa. El Temprano Surgimiento en el Perú de los Sistemas Socio-Políticos Complejos : Planteamiento de una Hipótesis de Desarrollo Original. Apuntes Arqueológicos 2. Lima, 1972, pp. 10-32 .
2 Moseley, Michael E. The Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization. Cummings Publishing Company. Menlo Park, California, 1975 .
3 Shady, Ruth. La ciudad sagrada de Caral – Supe en los albores de la civilización en el Perú. UNMSM, Lima, 1997 .
4 Sandweiss. Daniel H., McInnin, Heather, Burger, Richard L., Cano, Asuncion, Ojeda, Bernardino, Paredes, Rolando, Sandweiss, María del Carmen, yttrium Glascock, Michael D. Quebrada Jaguay : early south american Maritime Adaptations. Science 281. Washington D.C., 1998, pp. 1830-1832 .
Susan D. deFrance, David K. Keefer, James B. Richardson, Adán Umire Alvarez. late paleo-american coastal Foragers : Specialized Extractive Behavior at Quebrada Tacahuay, Peru. latin american Antiquity, Washington D.C. book 12, Issue 4 December 2001, pp. 413-426 12 .
5 Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, Maria. Mercaderes del valle de Chincha en la época prehispánica : united nations documento y unos comentarios. Revista Española de Antropología Americana 5. 1970, pp. 170-171 .
6 Darwin, Charles. Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited during the Voyage of HMS Beagle round the World. J.M. Dent, London. E. P. Dutton. 1906 [ 1845 ], p. 206 .
7 Morgan, Lewis Henry. Ancient Society, or Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization. Henry Holt. New York, 1877 .
8 Benfer, Robert A. The Preceramic Period Site of La Paloma, Peru : Bioindications of Improving Adaptation to Sedentism. latin american english Antiquity 1. Washington D.C., 1990, pp.284-318 .
9 Arriaza, Bernardo. Beyond Death : the Chinchorro mummies of ancient Chile. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D. C., 1995 .
10 Llagostera, Agustin. Tres dimensiones en la conquista prehistórica del blemish. Un aporte para elevated railway estudio de las formaciones pescadores de la rib sur andina. In, Actas del VIII Congreso de Arqueología Chilena : ( Valdivia, 10 alabama 13 de octubre de 1979 ) / Sociedad Chilena de Arqueología, Universidad Austral de Chile. Ediciones Kultrún, Santiago, 1979, pp. 217-245 .
Llagostera, Agustin. early Occupations and the Emergence of Fishermen on the Pacific Coast of South America. Andean Past # 3. Ithaca, New York. 1992, pp. 87-109 .
11 Allison, Marvin J., Focacci, Guillermo, Arriaza, Bernardo, Standen, Vivian, Rivera, Mario y Lowenstein, Jerold. Chinchorro, momias de preparación complicada : Métodos de momificación. Chungara : Revista de Antropología Chilena No. 13 ( Noviembre 1984 ), pp. 155-173 .
Arriaza, Bernardo. Beyond Death : the Chinchorro mummies of ancient Chile. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D. C., 1995 .
Rivera, Mario A. The Preceramic Chinchorro Mummy Complex of Northern Chile : context, Style, and Purpose. In Tombs for the be : andean Mortuary Practices, Tom D. Dillehay editor. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D. C.,1995, pp. 43-78 .
12 Standen, Vivien G. Temprana Complejidad Funeraria de la Cultura Chinchorro ( Norte de Chile ). latin american Antiquity 8 ( 2 ). Washington D.C., 1997, pp. 134-156 .
13 Shady, Ruth. Caral Supe : la civilización mas antigua de América. Proyecto Especial Zona Arqueológica Caral – Supe/INC. Lima, 2003 .
14 Quilter, Jeffrey. architecture and Chronology at El Paraíso, Peru. Journal of Field Archaeology 12. Boston, 1985, pp.279-297 .
Quilter, Jeffrey, Bernardino Ojeda E., Deborah M. Pearsall, Daniel H. Sandweiss, John G. Jones, and Elizabeth S. Wing. Subsistence Economy of El Paraíso, an early peruvian Site in Peru. science 251. Washington D.C., 1991, pp. 277-283 .
15 Rowe, John. Max Uhle, 1856-1944. A Memoir of the Father of peruvian Archaeology. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 46 ( 1 ). Berkeley, 1954 .
16 Moseley, Michael E. y Willey, Gordon R. Aspero, Peru : a redirect examination of the Site and its Implications. american Antiquity 38. Washington D.C., pp. 452-468 .
17 Feldman, Robert. Aspero, Peru : architecture, Subsistence Economy and other Artifacts of a Preceramic Maritime Chiefdom. Tesis Doctorado. Harvard University, Cambridge, 1980 .
18 Kosok, Paul. Life, Land and Water in Ancient Peru. Long Island University Press, Long Island, 1965 .
19 Zechenter, Elzbieta. subsistence strategies in the Supe Valley of the peruvian Central Coast during the Complex Preceramic and Initial Periods. Tesis Doctorado. University of California, Los Angeles, 1988 .
20 Shady, Ruth ; Leyva, Carlos ; eds. La ciudad sagrada de Caral-Supe. Los orígenes de la civilización andina y la formación del Estado prístino en el antiguo Perú. Proyecto Especial Arqueológico Caral-Supe, Lima, 342 pp. Lima, 2003 .
21 Shady, Ruth. La Religión como una forma de Cohesión Social y Manejo Político en los Albores de la Civilización en elevation Perú. Boletin del Museo de Arqueologia y Antropologia, UNMSM, año 2, ( 9 ), Lima, 1999, pp. 13-15 .
22 Carnerio, Robert L. A Theory of the Origin of the State. skill 169. Washington D.C. 1970, pp. 733-738.
| References
Allison, Marvin J., Focacci, Guillermo, Arriaza, Bernardo, Standen, Vivian, Rivera, Mario y Lowenstein, Jerold. Chinchorro, momias de preparación complicada: Métodos de momificación. Chungara: Revista de Antropología Chilena No. 13 (Noviembre 1984), pp. 155-173. Arica, 1984, 155-173. Alva, Walter. Las Salinas de Chao: Un Asentamiento Temprano, Observaciones y Problemática. Yunga 1 (1) Trujillo, 1987, pp. 33-70. Arriaza, Bernardo. Beyond Death: the Chinchorro mummies of ancient Chile. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D. C., 1995. Benfer, Robert A. The Preceramic Period Site of La Paloma, Peru: Bioindications of Improving Adaptation to Sedentism. Latin American Antiquity 1. Washington D.C., 1990, pp.284-318. Bonavia, Duccio. Los Gavilanes. Mar, desierto y oasis en la historia del hombre. COFIDE-IAA. Lima, 1982. Carnerio, Robert L. A Theory of the Origin of the State. Science 169. Washington D.C. 1970, pp. 733-738. Darwin, Charles. Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited during the Voyage of HMS ‘Beagle’ round the World. J.M. Dent, London. E. P. Dutton. 1906 [1845]. deFrance, Susan D., Keefer, David K., Richardson, James B. y Umire Alvarez, Adan. Late Paleo-Indian Coastal Foragers: Specialized Extractive Behavior at Quebrada Tacahuay, Peru. Latin American Antiquity 12 (4). Washington D.C., 2001, pp. 413-426. Engel, Frederic. A Preceramic Settlement on the Central Coast of Peru: Asia, Unit I. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 51 (3), Philadelphia, 1963. Feldman, Robert. Aspero, Peru: Architecture, Subsistence Economy and other Artifacts of a Preceramic Maritime Chiefdom. Tesis Doctorada. Harvard University, Cambridge, 1980. Fung P. Rosa. El Temprano Surgimiento en el Perú de los Sistemas Socio-Políticos Complejos: Planteamiento de una Hipótesis de Desarrollo Original. Apuntes Arqueológicos 2. Lima, 1972, pp. 10-32. Haas, Jonathan y Creamer, Winifred. Response [to Amplifying Importance of New Research in Peru] Science 294 (5547). Washington D.C., 2001, pp. 1652-1653. Kosok, Paul. Life, Land and Water in Ancient Peru. Long Island University Press, Long Island, 1965. Llagostera, Agustin. Tres dimensiones en la conquista prehistórica del mar. Un aporte para el estudio de las formaciones pescadores de la costa sur andina. In, Actas del VIII Congreso de Arqueología Chilena: (Valdivia, 10 al 13 de octubre de 1979) / Sociedad Chilena de Arqueología, Universidad Austral de Chile. Ediciones Kultrún, Santiago, 1979, pp. 217-245. Llagostera, Agustin. Early Occupations and the Emergence of Fishermen on the Pacific Coast of South America. Andean Past #3. Ithaca, New York. 1992, pp. 87-109. Morgan, Lewis Henry. Ancient Society, or Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization. Henry Holt. New York, 1877. Moseley, Michael E. The Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization. Cummings Publishing Company. Menlo Park, California, 1975. Moseley, Michael E. Maritime Foundations and Multilinear Evolution: Retrospect and Prospect. Andean Past #3. Ithaca, New York. 1992, pp. 5-42. Moseley, Michael E. y Willey, Gordon R. Aspero, Peru: a Reexamination of the Site and its Implications. American Antiquity 38. Washington D.C., pp. 452-468. Quilter, Jeffrey. Architecture and Chronology at El Paraíso, Peru. Journal of Field Archaeology 12. Boston, 1985, pp.279-297. . Quilter, Jeffrey, Ojeda E., Bernardion, Pearsall, Deborah, Sandweiss, Daniel H., Jones, John G. y Wing, Elizabeth S. Subsistence Economy of El Paraiso, an Archaic Site in Peru. Science 251. Washington D.C., 1991, pp. 277-283. Rivera, Mario A. The Preceramic Chinchorro Mummy Complex of Northern Chile: Context, Style, and Purpose. In Tombs for the Living: Andean Mortuary Practices, Tom D. Dillehay editor. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D. C.,1995, pp. 43-78. Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, Maria. Mercaderes del valle de Chincha en la época prehispánica: un documento y unos comentarios. Revista Española de Antropología Americana 5. 1970, pp. 170-171. Rowe, John. Max Uhle, 1856-1944 A Memoir of the Father of Peruvian Archaeology. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 46 (1). Berkeley, 1954. Sandweiss. Daniel H., McInnin, Heather, Burger, Richard L., Cano, Asuncion, Ojeda, Bernardino, Paredes, Rolando, Sandweiss, María del Carmen, y Glascock, Michael D. Quebrada Jaguay: Early South American Maritime Adaptations. Science 281. Washington D.C., 1998, pp. 1830-1832. Shady, Ruth. La ciudad sagrada de Caral – Supe en los albores de la civilización en el Perú. UNMSM, Lima, 1997. Shady, Ruth. La Religión como una forma de Cohesión Social y Manejo Político en los Albores de la Civilización en el Perú. Boletin del Museo de Arqueologia y Antropologia, UNMSM, año 2, (9), Lima, 1999, pp. 13-15. SHADY, Ruth 2000c Sustento socioeconómico del Estado prístino de Supe-Perú: Las evidencias de Caral-Supe. In Arqueología y Sociedad Nº 13: 49-66, MAA, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima. ISSN 0254-8062 Shady, Ruth. Caral-Supe, La Civilización más Antigua de América. Proyecto Especial Arqueológico Caral-Supe /INC. Lima, 2003. Shady, Ruth, C. Dolorier, F. Montesinos and L. Casas, 2000, Los orígenes de la civilización en el Perú: el area norcentral y el valle de Supe durante el arcaico tardío. Arqueología y Sociedad 13: 13–48. Museo de Arqueología y Antropología, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima. Shady, Ruth; Leyva, Carlos; eds. La ciudad sagrada de Caral-Supe. Los orígenes de la civilización andina y la formación del Estado prístino en el antiguo Perú. Proyecto Especial Arqueológico Caral-Supe, Lima, 342 pp. Lima, 2003. Standen, Vivien G. Temprana Complejidad Funeraria de la Cultural Chinchorro (Norte de Chile). Latin American Antiquity 8(2). Washington D.C., 1997, pp. 134-156 Zechenter, Elzbieta. Subsistence strategies in the Supe Valley of the Peruvian Central Coast during the Complex Preceramic and Initial Periods. Tesis Doctorado. University of California, Los Angeles, 1988. Dr Moseley’s “Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization” (MFAC) has been one of the most influential hypotheses explaining the rise of Andean civilization. For the past ten years Dr. Ruth Shady has been researching Caral, which has highlighted a need to expand the MFAC to amplify the role that industrial agriculture played in the development of Andean civilization |
Michael Moseley
Distinguished Professor, University of Florida. generator of The Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization and Peru Before the Incas .
See writer ‘s posts