ARCH 1870 Environmental Archaeology, Fall 2015 Tuesday and Thursday 1:00-2:20 pm, Location: Rhode Island Hall 108 Instructor: Brett Kaufman

Transcription

1 ARCH 1870 Environmental Archaeology, Fall 2015 Tuesday and Thursday 1:00-2:20 pm, Location: Rhode Island Hall 108 Instructor: Brett Kaufman

2 ARCH 1870 Environmental Archaeology Brett Kaufman Office Hours: Tuesday, 2:30-4:30 pm Rhode Island Hall 007 This presentation and the images within are for educational purposes only, and are not to be distributed.

3 Final Paper and Presentation 1) Final paper 20% (Due December 3, a research paper on an ecological topic of your choosing based on theory, method, cultural case studies, politics, health, etc., 15 pages double spaced (including references, figures, tables), 12 point Times New Roman font, 1 inch margins). Please follow the guidelines handout from the first paper peer review session for style, writing tips, etc. I encourage you to come meet with me or contact me to discuss topics. No peer review, instead informal discussion about project with classmates. 2) Final project 20% (November 24-December 3, a brief PowerPoint presentation based on the final paper). 15 minute presentations, with 7 minutes of questions and discussion Presentations on November 24, December 1, December 3

4 Resource Extraction, Emergent Complexity, and Environmental Change in the Andes

5 Chronological and Cultural Background Paleoenvironmental Data and Review of Stanish 2003 Preceramic Coastal Populations and Review of Quilter and Stocker 1983 The First Andean State of Tiwanaku and Raised Field Agriculture Inca Rise and Fall

6 Chronological and Cultural Background

7 Andean chronology Late Archaic/Preceramic, ~ BC Early Formative, ~ BC Middle Formative, ~ BC Upper Formative, ~500 BC 400 AD Expansive Tiwanaku (Titicaca), ~ AD Altiplano, ~ AD Expansive Inca, ~ AD Spanish Colonial, ~ AD

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9 Types of habitation in Titicaca Basin over time (Stanish 2003)

10 Cultural chronology of the Andes in the Lake Titicaca Basin (Stanish 2003)

11 Paleoenvironmental Data and Review of Stanish 2003

12 Stanish points out that the ethnic or linguistic diversity of the Andes precludes a conceptualization of its cultural trajectory as monolithic. In other words, the Inca projected a sense of unity that assisted them in ruling vast territories and peoples, and the Spanish adopted this model as they found it useful as well. Stanish is interested in exploring the development of complex society from the archaic state of Tiwanaku, predecessors of the Inca, and therefore focuses on the Titicaca Basin.

13 The Titicaca Basin is an intertropical climatic zone, but with a combination of high altitude, low temperatures, and low humidity. The edges of Lake Titicaca itself are warmer. The region is divided into two zones, the lower suni that can support plant agriculture (potatos, olluca, oca, quinoa), and the higher puna that operated as a grazing zone for the domesticated camelid llama and alpaca herds (for wool, meat, labor). Baby llamas

14 In addition to classifications made by agronomists and geographers, indigenous Aymara farmers relate to the land in specific ways that assist archaeologists to conceive of local resource exploitation. Ethnographic work and a study of Aymara linguistics also shows a diversity of terms describing climate, soil, and land types. There are 209 names for potatoes.

15 The Andes are comprised of three distinct ecological zones that set the stage for cultural evolution in the region: 1) The Amazon jungle and the tropical eastern slopes of the Andes, providing manioc, peanuts, guava, coca, and lima beans.

16 2) The mountains, where wild ancestors of potato (planted by around 4000 BC) and quinoa (planted by around 5000 BC) grew, among other crops (Brush et al. 1995; Pearsall 1992; Jacobsen, Mujica, Jensen 2003). This area includes the Altiplano, a major center of emergent complex society in the Andes.

17 3) The coastal desert to the west of the Peruvian Andes, from which maritime resources were acquired and traded into the highlands.

18 By 5600 BC, people were cultivating lima beans in the Peruvian highlands. Squash was also introduced around this time. By BC, Amazonian manioc, peanuts, guava, and lima beans were being cultivated in the coastal desert further evidence for an increasing inter-regional trade (Flannery 1973). Manioc root

19 The climate of the Andes and Late Titicaca Basin has changed over millennia. One archaeological proxy for understanding this change is that maize agriculture was very common until the onset of the Little Ice Age when it was heavily curtailed, and the region is considered too cold today to grow maize.

20 Maize became a major crop in the Andes following its introduction from Mesoamerica. By around BC it was being planted in the highlands and then spread to the desert coast. By 500 AD, it was a staple crop in the Andes, but over the following thousand years was gradually consumed more intensely in the form of the alcoholic maize beer chicha, which eventually would be exploited by the Inca to facilitate social interactions (Hastorf and Johannessen 1993). Chicha use in ritual and planting from Guaman Poma de Ayala 1615

21 Lake Titicaca itself served as a conduit for the movement of goods and people, as well as hosting islands with good growing conditions due to the warmer lacustrine environment. Fish were perhaps the major product of the lake, as today there is an annual harvest of 8000 metric tons of fish carried out at the community or household level (non-corporate). Reed beds growing in the swampy land near the lake also provided what is today a major industry for house roofing, wall construction, matting, and boat building, their roots being edible.

22 In the 20 th century alone, the lake level has fluctuated by more than six meters. The drainage that feeds the lake is almost 50,000 square kms, meaning slight changes in rainfall can substantially alter the lake level. Lake levels (from Little Lake Huiñamarca) have changed even more dramatically for the duration of the Holocene. From BC, the lake level was lowered to around what it is today. From BC, the lake dropped down to 50 meters lower than today, evidence for severe drought. From BC, the lake level gradually rose up to ten meters below today s level but, and persisted from 2000 BC to 1 AD. The lake level reached modern levels between 1 AD and 1000 AD. Lake Titicaca water levels between (Erickson 1999)

23 Data from the Quelccaya glacier between Cuzco (Inca capital) and the northern end of Lake Titicaca recorded precipitation patterns that may correspond to shifts in complexity. Although there are some periods of disagreement among paleoecologists (as we witnessed in Mesopotamia and the Levant as well), there are a few accepted paradigms in ancient environmental change which are as follows:

24 From BC, the most arid conditions persisted, and in 2000 BC the area around the Basin became wetter. A major drought was detected around 1100 AD, which has been identified by many scholars as the cause for the collapse of Tiwanaku and its agricultural regime. Snow accumulation and lake level proxies (Binford et al. 1997)

25 Preceramic Coastal Populations and Review of Quilter and Stocker 1983

26 Quilter and Stocker challenge the assumption that complex society developed due mostly to the exploitation of terrestrial resources, rather than both terrestrial and maritime resources. The authors propose to revisit the maritime hypothesis of early political economy and use archaeology and ethnography to reappraise the emergence of complexity. The period of time covered in their paper is the Late Archaic period, which immediately precedes the rise of hierarchy and complex society throughout the Andes (Early Formative beginning ~2000 BC) this is why the question of subsistence and control of food resources is studied.

27 Starting in 6000 BC, populations on Peru s central coast were exploiting three major resource zones: river valleys, the Pacific Ocean, and the lomas or fog oases. People moved around seasonally, but eventually began to settle down in camps in the lomas zones. By around 3000 BC, these were abandoned and coastal settlement along the Pacific ocean and in the river valleys became more common. By around BC, hallmarks of complex society emerge such as large architectural features, but without pottery.

28 Changes in sea level may have obscured the earliest settlement patterns along coastal Peru, Ecuador, and Chile, with a handful of sites dating around 9000 BC. To research the importance of coastal resources on the development of complexity, the authors relay work done at the site of Paloma which is characterized by dense mussel shell middens, occupied around BC. Shell midden (California)

29 Bioarchaeological evidence has shown intensive harvesting of marine resources. Male skeletons had auditory osteomas, or bone growths in the inner ear, which would have resulted from diving in cold water. At another coastal site, femoral nocks were likely caused by swimming. Molluscs, fish, and sea mammal remains were also reported to have been found in coprolites associated with human skeletons. Fishhooks, nets, weights, and floats, along with whale vertebrae used for house constructions provide further clear evidence for intensive marine exploitation.

30 Ethnographic evidence relayed that around four times a year, anchovies would jump onto the beach. These were collected but also used to bait bigger fish in pursuit of the anchovies. Coarse estimates of carrying capacity as derived through archaeological evidence therefore can have significant error when these types of activities are not considered. Ch22AQIF#imgrc=mrDgAkoVIMYRYM%3A

31 Food insecurity amongst Andean populations is discussed from the perspective of El Niño environmental events. Catastrophic rainfall can cause flooding and intrusive warm tropical water kills ocean wildlife or forces it to migrate. For such events, irrigation agriculture may not be an effective buffer against acute environmental events such as this.

32 Using ethnographic observations to document that modern inhabitants are sensitive to climatic changes that might precede an El Niño event, as well as archaeological evidence, Preceramic populations developed multiple strategies to cope with such events. These include storage of surplus, transmission of information about famine foods, diversification of subsistence activities (hunting, fishing, cultivating), contact with people in other regions including the highlands upon which to rely during difficult times (with whom they would trade shellfish in other times, receiving potatoes and other highland foods). Drying fish, making it into paste, or extracting preservative oils were other ways to store surplus foodstuffs.

33 As regional trade increased, and geographically separated populations depended on each other to provide a diversity of foodstuffs, a shared social and ideological milieu represented through religious figurines and prestige items was developed from the coast to the highlands. By the first millennium AD, coastal inhabitants constructed large canals and irrigation systems drawing river water descending from the Andes, creating an agroindustrial complex (Nordt et al. 2004). Cross section elevation of Andes showing vegetation zones and elevations (Earle 1997)

34 The First Andean State of Tiwanaku and Raised Field Agriculture

35 The evolution of hierarchical societies in the Andes began in the Early Formative period, when people began to settle permanently in villages around 2000 BC. Experimentation with multiple ecological zones was characteristic of the period, along with agriculture, horticulture, and camelid domestication. This set the stage for the Middle Formative, from around BC, as elites began to organize labor projects that included land use strategies such as terraced agriculture and raised field agriculture, or mounds of earth manually raised above water level in swampy land. Lake Titicaca Basin with major areas of raised fields in blue (Bandy 2005)

36 The earliest occupation of what would become the first Andean state at the site of Tiwanaku in the Lake Titicaca Basin began ~800 BC. The urban center developed around 300 BC, and vied with several other polities in the region to expand their control. In the beginning of the 1 st millennium AD, the other major power was that of Pucara. Other groups such as the Moche and Wari cultures also developed elsewhere in the Andes around this time, but by 400 AD, Tiwanaku had consolidated power and by 650 AD it had become the capital city of the first Andean state. Territory of Tiwanaku at its height, AD (Stanish 2003)

37 The state of Tiwanaku sustained itself on a water-intensive agricultural regime of raised fields, which people began to construct after 600 AD. Broadly, a moist period beginning around 1500 BC and ending 1100 AD brackets this period and allowed for this type of agriculture. Raised fields were typically 3 to 10 meters wide and up to 200 meters long, cut by seasonally flooded canals. The benefits of raised field agriculture are contentious, with some scholars arguing that they provide a number of advantages: raising root zone above watersaturated soils, conservation of heat (frost resistant), retain dissolved and particulate nutrients, enhance nitrogen fixation, and may also decrease soil salinity. Precolumbian canals and raised fields (Erickson 1999)

38 The Tiwanaku core area has around 190 km 2 of abandoned raised fields, that at its height has been hypothesized to support at least 365,000 people. Today, the area is inhabited by around 40,000 people, who practice dry farming on the hillsides. From AD, the state of Tiwanaku was at its peak, established colonies, and expanded the raised field agriculture operations to a regional scale (Binford et al. 1997). Water-filled canals in white, and darker areas are the raised fields, including the center darkest areas of modern reconstruction of the fields (Erickson 1988)

39 In an attempt to synchronize the rise and fall of Tiwanaku with environmental determinants, six sediment cores were taken to measure lake level and soil type. This methodology was appropriate because lake level needed to be a certain height to support raised field agriculture. Excavations were also conducted at four raised fields to assign geological and archaeological strata and synthesize them through radiocarbon with the lake cores. Fossil and rehabilitated raised fields (Janusek and Kolata 2004)

40 The fields were abandoned around the time of Tiwanaku collapse - the hiatus zones below in two places were previously submerged sediments that were exposed, dried out, and oxidized around 1100 AD, showing drought. They are above the organic-rich laminated sediments that are characteristic of a wetter period with higher lake levels. The lowest levels are a grey clay that preceded 1500 BC and are the terminal levels of the mid-holocene dry period of the Andes. Binford et al. 1997

41 By 1100 AD, the population had grown to such an extent that a decrease in precipitation was enough to reduce the amount of arable land which led to food shortages. The accompanying drought dried up much of the canals, and crop failure became widespread. People stopped cultivating them, and also abandoned Tiwanaku urban centers. Monumental construction and other indices of urban life ceased in the region for 300 years. The state of Tiwanaku collapsed. Sunken court at Tiwanaku

42 By around 1450 AD, raised field agriculture was completely abandoned to the extent that Spanish chroniclers in the 16 th century AD did not even count it as a strategy for resource exploitation. Binford et al. 1997

43 However, raised field agriculture was recently met with renewed interest from a humanitarian perspective. It was thought that reintroducing raised field agriculture to impoverished Andean farmers may increase their food yield. This project has largely failed, likely due to the fact that raised field agriculture is not per se the most efficient type of agriculture. More likely, argue some, it is an efficient type of agriculture mostly in terms of labor scheduling. Elites would be met with great discontent if they forced subjects to abandon their own dryland agriculture to work in the state-run fields during peak harvest times. In this scenario, raised field agriculture is the most efficient type of agriculture for off-season harvesting. second season or staggered production cycle, showing climatic, agricultural, and labor inputs for peak harvest in the Titicaca Basin (Bandy 2005)

44 From around AD, referred to as the Altiplano period or Late Intermediate, the drought conditions and a dispersal of centralized authority led to a pastoral economy comprised of autonomous polities. This was the relatively fragmented political economy from which the Inca state rose to power.

45 Inca Rise and Fall

46 Tiwanaku had created a template for mass mobilization of labor, extensive state controlled agriculture, and colonial expansion, and the Inca transformed this template into a truly imperial one. Quechua speakers, they used various strategies to expand and consolidate power. For expansion, the chief strategy was military conquest. For consolidation of power, various mechanisms of resource redistribution were used to propagate Inca ideology. Quinoa growing on altiplano

47 Inca imperial ideology defined economic relationships between various noble ranks and commoners from the diverse ethnic groups that comprised the empire, grafting traditional Andean relationships onto the new system. Chiefs were expected to sponsor feasts to distribute commodities to their dependents (tribute-payers), often in the form of chicha (maize beer) and textiles. The Inca employed extractive imperial political economy through clearly defined power differentials and origin myths that legitimated their power (Stanish 2003). Maize as part of diet in Pre-Inca (WII) and Inca (WIII) periods showing increased consumption of luxury chicha and/or maize products (Costin 2015)

48 The Inca took full control of the Titicaca Basin between AD, and the empire expanded rapidly until the arrival of the Spanish under Pizarro in the 1530s. This acute event sparked human devastation on a widespread scale. Disease killed some 80% of the population (Baied and Wheeler 1993), and sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs introduced from Europe helped decimate most of the llama and alpaca herds. Inca Empire (Costin 2015)

49 In summary, extensive human manipulation of the various Andean environmental zones was necessary to support population growth and state/imperial expansion since the Early Formative (2000 BC). Ecological zones each one alone allowing relatively limited productivity were enhanced through massive agricultural engineering projects and trade, facilitating a diverse set of commodities, culture, and people to flow between neighboring zones.

50 Discussion Questions Camila 1. Earlier in the semester, we discussed Carneiro's environmental circumscription theory and the notion that specific geographical features (circumscribed agricultural land) supported the rise of different civilizations through warfare and evolution of the state. One of the main critiques to his work was that he did not consider coastal civilizations in his analysis. Quilter and Stocker write about how maritime resources laid down the foundations of Peruvian civilization. What do you think about this? 2. Stanish talks about how Europeans adopted a Cuzco-centric view that resulted in the crystallization of the "Andean cultural area" in the western mind. Can you think of any other examples of a similar phenomenon happening in other parts of the world?

51 Discussion Questions Chris 1) Stanish talks about the stereotype of Titicaca basin by Europeans, as late as 1959, as "a bleak, frigid land...it seemingly was the last place from which one might expect a culture to develop. To what extent is the legacy of early environmental determinism still evident in today's attitudes, scholarship, and socioeconomics? 2) Quilter and Stocker state: "While specific preparation times and techniques for surviving an El Nino cannot presently be established...it seems certain that ancient fishermen could have been forewarned and forearmed for the upcoming event." How and when is it appropriate as an environmental archeologist to convert a conjecture to an assumption?