Introduction

The Peruvian Andes are well known for their ethnic and highly compressed ecological diversity (Sandweiss & Richardson, 2008). This diversity has shaped the degree and kind of human mobility and interactions that played a crucial role in social and political developments for millennia (Roosevelt, 1999). Ancient and modern Andean societies faced and continue to face various crises of climatic, social, political, or economic nature. Those crises forced the population to establish different types of inter-group relationships, identities, and forms of agency, and resulted in a broad range of competitive/cooperative behaviors across the varied social and physical landscapes, including warfare, trade, alliance-building, co-residence, and any combinations of these and other practices. That past Indigenous knowledge is manifested in the long-term adaptation to the natural environment, which can be traced by archaeological and ethnohistorical sources (Bethell, 1984a, 1984b; Salomon & Schwartz, 1999; among others).

Access to vital resources (like water, land, plants, marine resources, and wildlife) has always been a major concern, especially in the vast desert areas on the coast of today’s Peru, located between the Andean flanks and the Pacific Ocean. Since ancient times, the people who inhabited the coastal region of Peru had to undergo processes of adaptation to ensure optimal living conditions and thus be able to develop their societies. As is observed in our own times, Andean peoples had to face various natural crises, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, or El Niño phenomena (ENSO/El Niño Southern Oscillation) that influenced numerous changes in the settling of the coast, causing floods and intense rains that in turn strained human migration processes. Some researchers consider that the impact of various ecosystems, climate change, and the El Niño phenomenon in the pre-Hispanic communities of the Andes was a key factor in the sedentarization, the rise and fall of polities and cultural continuity in individual regions, particularly in the desert areas of the Pacific coast (Moseley, 1975; Moseley & Feldman, 1982; Nials et al., 1979; Sandweiss & Quilter, 2009; among others). The access to drinking water in sufficient quantity to supply the population with agricultural products was also important, especially in the desertic Pacific coast where water resources are diminishing significantly during the dry season, creating in this region one of the most unreliable water supplies in the world. However, as different studies show, in pre-Hispanic times the Indigenous peoples had various strategies and technologies to address all these difficulties and problems. This situation conditioned many changes, among them the general reorganization of the Andean social space. The population dispersion that characterized the ancient communities formed a system that helped to explore a maximum number of ecological niches to achieve a multi-production of diverse goods (Murra, 1972).

Indigenous knowledge accrued over centuries of developing experiences and practices in the use of land, water, and other natural resources for agricultural needs. Hence, paradoxically, modern scholars demonstrate the need to make use of ancient knowledge and modern science to help prevent natural and anthropogenic disasters on the Peruvian coast (Buytaert & De Bièvre, 2012; Buytaert et al., 2007, 2014; among others). It can be assumed that the profound understanding of fragile environment and skillful dealing with natural crises was grounded in the Andean oral tradition and religious beliefs. The Andean concept of pachacuti, deeply rooted in the Inka religion (and most probably pre-Inka religions as well), apprehends the relationship between order and chaos to explain how and why various forms of time, meaning, and power come to be upset and overturned. Whether past, present, or future, the pachacuti “moment” (a time of upheaval, end of the world) represents a new epoch and a change in social and political order, whether constructed as a positive or negative outcome (Flores Galindo, 2010, pp. 22–27).

In the coastal valleys, side ravines reinforced by defensive and anti-alluvium (huaycos) walls were used to support terraces for housing and other uses (camelid breeding, agriculture, and production areas, among others). Rapid communication between these scattered centers in different regions was made easier by the developed network of roads and trails, and the construction of a dense network of irrigation canals helped to enlarge the agricultural acreage. Astute use of diverse ecological and geographical features, such as riverbanks, side ravines, fossil terraces, and natural springs (puquios) was a strategy designed to prevent the recurrence of social crises caused by various natural catastrophes.

Researchers in cultural geography, archaeology, and history have long debated human–environment relationships in the central Andes, engaging a full range of methods and theoretical frameworks. Archaeology has taken an interest in humanly crafted environments almost since its origins. In Peruvian archaeology, natural processes, including long-term climatic shifts and abrupt events, such as the El Niño, prehistoric earthquakes, tsunamis, massive debris flows, and volcanic eruptions has been a focus of many influential publications (e.g., Kosok, 1965; Moseley, 1975; Murra, 1972). Taking into consideration both early advances in archaeology and a recent work that investigates themes of broad archaeological relevance, the central Andean environments have been variously conceived as structuring, modified, and sacred, thus examining both ecological (“environment”) and ideological (“landscape”) implications of archaeological landscapes (Contreras, 2010). Thus, landscape is understood as a “palimpsest,” a constantly overwritten manuscript, with overlapping traces of consecutive human activities (Bailey, 2007). In this sense the modern landscape, what we see today, stores information of interaction of past societies with their natural surroundings in the form of archaeological relics like settlements, public and defensive architecture, roads, or canals. Studying and documenting distribution and function of those relics helps to understand more fully human–environmental interplays throughout the millennia.

Research on such pre-Hispanic human–environment interactions in the ancient central Andes was mainly based on archaeological field prospection. The character of Andean environments has also influenced the development of specific research methods, including an innovative archaeological field prospection workflow (Willey, 1953), where archaeological relicts were located through aerial photographs, verified in the field and described by their function and chronology. In the past decade, development of digital archaeology, access to remote sensing and non-invasive methods, and increasing use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), have transformed field prospection methodologies. Identification of archaeological sites through archival photos to prepare archaeologists for fieldwork in advance started to be supported by other data, like satellite images and their analysis with the use of multispectral indexes, Digital Elevation Models (DEM) which represent modern landscapes. The visibility analysis, created on the base of DEMs, helps in understanding how past societies perceived their surroundings and what elements of the environment were important for them to be more exposed or hidden in the landscape (Gillings, 2015, 2017). Parallel to this process, researchers started to pay attention not only to developing a better understanding of the archaeological landscape, but also to document and counteract the destructive processes, e.g. looting, urbanization, and agricultural development (see Brodie & Renfrew, 2005; Casana, 2015; Chyla, 2017; Contreras, 2010; Lauricella et al., 2017; Tapete et al., 2016).

In this chapter, using above-mentioned spatial, diachronic, and multidisciplinary approaches, and employing fieldwork data from documentation of the archaeological relicts located within modern landscapes of the Culebras Valley, we try to understand more clearly the nature and outcomes of distinct group interactions across the varied social and physical landscapes of the desert coast and highlands. Through the spatial–temporal distribution of different types of archeological sites presented below, we examine the different entanglements that shaped the geo-political landscape of this area throughout the pre-Hispanic and early Hispanic periods, from the beginning of the first millennium AD until the arrival of the Spaniards. In terms of functional, political, and economic perspectives, our research sheds new light on the role of environmental resource management for the emergence and maintenance of different pre-Hispanic complex societies, exploring these topics tackled from both economic and symbolic perspectives.

The Culebras Valley and Its Environmental Setting, Past, and Present

The province of Huarmey is located in the extreme southern part of the north coast of Peru, about 300 km from its capital, Lima. This province reports diversified life zones, which are distributed in two natural regions of the Andes: the Chala and the Yunga Marítima (Pulgar Vidal, 1996). This part of the coast is characterized by the presence of areas of deep ravines, rocky and sandy deserts, and finally narrow coastal valleys—being the valleys of the Culebras River and the Huarmey River, the two most fertile in the area. The predominant coastal desert landscape of the Huarmey Province is due to the influence of two factors: the Humboldt current of cold waters that prevents the rains and the barrier of the Andes mountain range that prevents the passage of the rains from the eastern slopes of the Cordillera Negra.

The Culebras Valley is one of the smallest on the Peruvian coast, as it barely exceeds 40 kilometers in length. The valley rises near the town of Quián, at the junction of two major ravines, Huanchay and Cotapuquio (Prządka & Giersz, 2003, pp. 15–16). The Culebras basin has a much larger area, covering some 671 km2 and reaching a height of 4483 meters above sea level at its headwaters in the Saccho lagoon (National Institute of Natural Resources, 2007, p. 127). The valley is narrow, with steep and unstable slopes. Only in some sections it widens, making agriculture possible on the riverside lands and on the terraces of the slopes. The most open part and the largest cultivable area is its delta, enclosed by discontinuous hills, pampas, and wind erosion surfaces. The hills and mountains generally correspond to the final western foothills of the Cordillera Negra, and together with the plains, make up the great morphological physiographic ensembles of the coast. In the strip immediately to the coastline, dunes resulting from wind processes that carry materials from the beaches and bays accumulate.

The Culebras River has a markedly irregular stream flow, depending on the rains in the mountains or the events related to the appearance of the El Niño phenomenon. Like other rivers on the north coast of Peru, the Culebras has water only for five or six months of the year (November–April). When it comes to the hydrographic characteristics of the coastal valleys of the province of Huarmey, it should be noted that the current agricultural industry had a significant impact on the natural ecosystem (reed beds, carob trees), requiring a sufficient layer of vegetation to store water. The swamps and lagoons that formerly existed in the lower part of the valley helped to store water, but unfortunately today these places continue to disappear because they have been burned, dried, and converted into crop fields.

The environment is characterized by an extremely arid and semi-warm climate, with an average annual air temperature of 18–19 °C on the coastal coastline, down to levels below 3 °C in the high Andean areas of the Pariacllanque (Alto Culebras). Precipitation on the coast does not exceed 30 mm/m2, except in the highest part of the basin, where annual precipitation can reach levels greater than 500 mm/m2 (National Institute of Natural Resources, 2007, pp. 31–36). Most of the land suitable for cultivation is irrigated with water from the subsoil and from natural springs (puquios).

From the economic point of view, the studied region shows evidence of important non-renewable natural resources, both metallic (silver, lead, zinc, copper, antimony, iron, and tungsten) and non-metallic (limestone, pegmatites with quartz, salt deposits). However, the weight of local economic production, both in pre-Hispanic times and today, falls on agriculture and fishing. The dominant edaphic landscape in the Culebras and Huarmey valleys is closely related to the physiographic characteristics. In general terms, the land suitable for permanent cultivation in the Culebras Valley covers an area of ​​4000 hectares, distributed mostly in the lower part of the basin (National Institute of Natural Resources, 2007, p. 42). The climate of the Culebras Valley also allows acclimatization and production of most of the vegetables that grow in other climates on earth. Currently, the traditional staple crops, in particular corn (Zea mays), manioc (Manihot esculenta), sweet potato (Ipomea batatas), or gourd (Cucurbita sp.) are replaced by asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) and by fruit trees for wider regional and international commercial profit (Szpak et al., 2013). As the old inhabitants of the valley affirm, in the times of full prosperity of the old haciendas in the area, the grape vine was also cultivated with the purpose of producing wines and pisco. In pre-Hispanic times, such a warm climate was generally considered favorable for coca cultivation on the coast (Rostworowski, 1989).

The interval coastal sectors, located between the valleys of Culebras and Huarmey, as well as in the southern and northern limits of the Province of Huarmey, between approximately 300 and 700 meters above sea level, remain seasonally covered by clouds forming the lomas vegetation in the coastal hills (Ferreyra Huerta, 1953; Oka & Ogawa, 1984; Pulgar Vidal, 1996; Weberbauer, 1945; among others), seasonally concentrating plant and animal communities (tillandsias, mosses and lichens; reptiles, mollusks, arthropods, crustaceans, and myriapods). In ancient times, the lomas hills—which can expand during El Niño events (Wells & Noller, 1999)—once offered refuge to herds of guanacos (Lama guanicoe) and white-tailed deers (Odocoileus virginianus), as well as their predators, such as mountain lion (Puma concolor). The hills could have had a primordial importance for pre-Hispanic peoples because it was the only local ecosystem that did not require irrigation to develop agriculture and camelid grazing (Dufour et al., 2014; Thornton et al., 2011).

Territorial Dynamics in a Local Context: The Case of the Culebras Valley

The province of Huarmey was relatively little studied through archaeological methods, especially regarding its pre-Hispanic past. Although the first data on its antiquities come from the time of contact with the Europeans (Cieza de León, 2005 [1553]; Pizarro, 2013 [1571]; Mogrovejo, 2006 [1593–1605]; Calancha, 1976–1981 [1638]), who describe some aspects of the life and customs of the Native people the first information about the archaeological sites in this area was mentioned by buccaneers and adventurers of the seventeenth century, such as Joris van Spilbergen (2014 [1619]) or Lionel Wafer (2004 [1903]), and the seminal archaeological investigations were carried out by Julio C. Tello (1919) who visited the Province of Huarmey during his first expedition to the Huaylas region in 1919. Later, archaeological surveys undertaken by Donald Thompson (1962, 1966), Hans Horkheimer (1965) and Heinrich Ubbelohde-Doering (Prümers, 1990), Duccio Bonavia (1982), and Heiko Prümers (1990) focused on the Huarmey Valley; however, little research has been done since then in the adjoining Culebras Valley. Nevertheless, it is necessary to emphasize that although the part located on the ecological and cultural border between the central and north coast of Peru did not receive much attention from archaeologists—at least compared to other coastal valleys—it was a focus of interest of treasure seekers and tomb raiders. Locally known as huaqueros, they affected a large part of the important archaeological sites. Since 2002, Polish and Peruvian archaeologists led by the authors of this chapter, have been conducting a series of investigations in the Huarmey Province. The first stage of this interdisciplinary research program focused on archaeological surveys and excavations in the Culebras Valley. The Culebras Valley Archaeological Research Project (CVARP) consisted of a detailed survey, as well as archaeological excavations of key sites in the area. Thanks to these surveys, 109 archaeological sites have been identified in the lower valley and 43 in the upper Culebras basin, of which 140 were previously unregistered. Those archaeological findings provide new insights into occupational and territorial dynamics, as well as natural resource management strategies over many periods of pre-Columbian chronology. In this text, however, we will focus on the last millennium and a half of Indigenous cultural development before contact with Europeans (100–1532 AD), when the north coast of Peru witnessed the rise and fall of many pre-Columbian complex societies. With the help of digital archaeology we hope to bring more details on human–environmental interactions within the landscape and how past societies saw, understood, and functioned within their surroundings and how it changed with time. Research on the Culebras Valley, presented in this chapter, shows that through such analysis of the distribution of archaeological sites, we can try to interpret changes of pre-Hispanic environment and how past societies interacted with it.

The Early Intermediate Period (100–700 AD)

During the Early Intermediate Period (100–700 AD), throughout the northern Peruvian coast, from the Piura Valley to the Huarmey Valley, regional artistic styles were consolidated, and the first powerful regional state called Moche dominated the region. Moche civilization flourished between approximately AD 100 and 800. The Moche left a vivid artistic record and developed sophisticated ceramics, metallurgy, and weaving. They inhabited a series of valleys surrounded by an arid coastal plain. Despite some uncertainty about the Moche presence south of the Nepeña Valley and its monumental center of Pañamarca, in the Culebras Valley the archaeological evidence corresponding to the Moche presence is very well marked. Thanks to the surveys and excavations carried out by the CVARP, it was possible to register many archaeological remains and excavate key sites, as well as review private collections (Giersz, 2007; Giersz & Prządka-Giersz, 2008; Prządka & Giersz, 2003; Prządka-Giersz, 2009; among others). In the Culebras Valley, during the first part of the Early Intermediate Period (the local Mango Phase [100–400 AD]; Giersz & Prządka-Giersz, 2008), as in other parts of the north coast, along with undecorated utilitarian pottery stylistically related to the examples attributed in other valleys to the Virú-Gallinazo style, the classic vestiges of the Early Moche style appear. In the second part of the Early Intermediate Period (the local Quillapampa Phase [400–700 AD]; Giersz & Prządka-Giersz, 2008), when the Moche elites of the Chicama and Moche Valleys organized themselves to form the first state (Bawden, 1994; Shimada, 1994) and the primary centers, such as the Huacas del Sol y la Luna and Huaca Cao Viejo in the El Brujo complex, acquired their urban and monumental characteristics, Moche III and Moche IV ceramics appear in the Culebras Valley, in the funerary contexts registered in association with elite architecture. In primary centers of the Early Intermediate Period in the lower Culebras Valley, in both the Mango and Quillapampa sites (Fig. 2.1), the first construction phase corresponds to the provisional campsite with enclosures made with quincha cane walls. During the second phase it was replaced by monumental stone and adobe bricks architecture. The total number of the Early Intermediate Period archaeological sites in the Culebras Valley reaches 33. Among the sites, it is possible to distinguish 2 primary centers with public architecture, 2 secondary centers, 14 village settlements of less than one hectare of surface, 7 cemeteries, 2 hilltop defensive settlements, and 6 watch points (Fig. 2.1). There are no fortifications, except for two hilltop settlements located in the lower part of the valley, which could fulfill the double function of settlements and fortresses. A peculiar, direct visual surveillance system, for military and movement monitoring, was made up of six watch points that guard the accesses to the main nucleus of Moche public centers in the lower-middle valley from the mountains and to the main north–south road that crosses the side ravines. Neither the village settlements nor the hypothetical elite residences have defensive characteristics, they are all located near the valley floor, in open and non-defensible areas. The primary Moche center in the valley was the Quillapampa (Fig. 2.4a), located on the main north–south inter-valley coastal pre-Hispanic road. Our archaeological excavations at Quillapampa I have revealed the presence of Moche palatial building of the so-called audiencia type, with stone retaining walls, access ramps, and peculiar roof decoration made with ceramic maces. A Moche burial chamber was hidden beneath the solid clay floor. The palatial residence visually dominates the upper-middle part of the valley where most Moche archaeological sites of different characteristics and functions are located, including rural settlements, pottery workshops, cemeteries, and adobe enclosures (Giersz, 2007, pp. 198–217). In the upper part of the Culebras basin, by way of contrast, no archaeological sites related to the Moche tradition were recorded. Furthermore, the settlement pattern reveals that this part, being a buffer zone between the coast and the highland, has very little human occupation. Only two Early Intermediate Period archaeological sites were recorded in that part of the region.

Fig. 2.1
A satellite map of Culebras Valley marks Mango 1 and Quallapampa 1. The legend at the bottom is titled early intermediate period. It includes sparse and dense settlements, visibility areas, springs, and Cerro Lliplli Mines.

Settlement pattern and visualscape map of the Early Intermediate Period in Culebras Valley. © Julia Chyla

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The settlement pattern from the Early Intermediate Period in the Culebras Valley clearly indicates that human occupation was centered in the lower part of the Culebras basin and is related to the strong Moche presence in the coast. The sites have no defensive features and are generally located near the valley floor, in open, non-defensible areas. The only defensive sites are the hilltop settlements and lookout posts, spread out in very strategic locations. In fact, they dominate the entire valley floor. The GIS analysis of visualscape suggests a direct relationship between the archaeological sites and the control of intra and inter-valley communication routes (Giersz, 2012). There was no clear integration between the coast and the highlands. The Indigenous people settled in the Culebras Valley during the Early Intermediate Period had a strong agricultural vocation and they occupied the small villages centered around the best farmland and provided with the most abundant water natural springs (puquios). Local access to convenient clay outcrops used to produce ceramics and adobe mud bricks, as well as important mineral deposits (copper, gold, and silver mines) were also of great importance.

The Middle Horizon (700–1050 AD)

Between the eighth and ninth centuries AD the north coast of Peru saw the decline and final collapse of Moche culture. It did not happen suddenly, nor was it the same throughout the land the Moche occupied. There are different proposals in the scientific literature regarding this issue. One of them considers that the Wari cultural phenomenon was the major dynamic element in the process of reorganization that took place inside the Late Moche groups. The proponents of this interpretation support this proposal with the arrival of highland and Central Coast stylistic elements to the North Coast (Donnan, 1973; Menzel, 1964) as well as the apparent introduction of architectural models supposedly of highland origin (Schaedel, 1951). The second proposal instead views the process of social and political reorganization that the North Coast experienced in the Middle Horizon as a result of the restructuration of the late Moche polities under foreign influences (Bawden, 1994, 1996; Castillo Butters, 2001; Shimada, 1994; among others). Other scholars have attributed the decline of Moche culture to changes in the climate brought about by a paleo-ENSO (Shimada, 1994).

Our recent research at Culebras and Huarmey Valleys, especially those at Castillo de Huarmey archaeological site, clearly showed that this north coast border area had a major role in the attempt to incorporate this region into the Wari Empire. Castillo de Huarmey is the first excavated example of a large Wari mausoleum and site of ancestor worship on the Peruvian North Coast, an area that lies on the borders of the world controlled by the first Andean empire. The burial chamber contained fifty-eight funerary bundles of noble women and over one thousand three hundred exceptionally rich objects that formed the ceremonial offerings and grave goods (Giersz & Pardo, 2014). This discovery provides important data regarding the identity of high-status women and the political structure of the Wari Empire, especially in this part of the coast (Giersz, 2017; Przadka-Giersz, 2019). Evidence of the observed change in the funerary pattern, and the appearance of monumental funerary architecture visible and accessible from the surface, called chullpa, is one of the hallmarks of this strong sociopolitical change (Giersz, 2017). Questioning of the preceding religious and funerary practices is also interpreted as somehow related to the change of paleoclimatic regimes on a large scale (Lau, 2016).

In the Culebras Valley, the Wari episode was marked by a sharp increase in cultural activity and population as compared to the previous periods. Moche elite residences are abandoned or turned into cemeteries. There is a notable change in the location of settlements. The densely populated area moves to the lower valley and its center is located near the modern town of Molino, where the new north–south inter-valley road was designated. The new road axis ensures communication with the main Wari provincial center of Castillo de Huarmey, located in the neighboring Huarmey Valley to the south. We found a total of 54 discrete sites belonging to this period (Fig. 2.2). These sites were distributed widely across the valley in both branches of the Culebras River. In the lower Culebras Valley, the sustained growth of the number of registered sites begins: the total number of sites reaches 44, of which we can differentiate 1 primary center, 3 secondary centers (among them, 2 hilltop sites), 16 settlements, 21 cemeteries, 1 defensive hilltop, and 2 watch points. In the upper valley, on the other hand, a sudden change in occupational dynamics is noted compared to the previous period. The settlement pattern is made up of 1 primary center, 1 secondary center, 5 settlements, including one hilltop site with defensive characteristics, in addition to 3 watch points, strategically located on the tops of the highest mountains that visually dominate the entire network of settlements and roads.

Fig. 2.2
A satellite map of Culebras Valley marks Cerro Leon 1 and Anil Punta. The legend at the bottom is titled middle horizon. It highlights sparse and dense settlements, visibility areas, springs, and Cerro Lliplli Mines.

Settlement pattern and visualscape map of the Middle Horizon Period in Culebras Valley. © Julia Chyla

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Evidence from the Culebras Valley suggests that the Middle Horizon is a period of population and economic growth. The increase in the number of settlements and their location at the bottom of the valley, and in places that are difficult to defend, indicate in turn that this was a time of strong political integration on a macro-regional scale. The change in the settlement pattern and the appearance of exotic Wari goods at the new administrative centers, with orthogonal architecture, such as Cerro León I in the lower valley and Añil Punta in the upper valley, seems to imply that a new authority of foreign origin has managed to impose itself and exercise power directly. Changes in funerary patterns point in this same direction. Construction of new type of necropolis with chullpas funerary towers facilitated the celebration of a new cult of the dead and legitimized the authority of mummified ancestors (most probably of foreign origin) in a symbolically shaped landscape.

However, the construction of fortified sites suggests the existence of possible conflicts with political entities located north of Culebras. The location of the sites at the bottom of the valley and in places that are not very defensible indicate that the defense system based on visual control of the occupied territory was effective. Compared to the Moche domain, the Wari occupation imposed a very different mark on the cultural landscape of the Huarmey and Culebras valleys, which necessarily implies differences in the strategy of power. Our recent findings in Castillo de Huarmey (Giersz, 2017, Prządka-Giersz, 2019; among others) provide arguments in favor of a successful conquest of this territory by the warriors from the south. As a hypothesis, the evidence from Culebras also suggests that the Wari administration converted this valley into a fortified frontier, during an episode of preparation for the conquest of other northern valleys.

The Late Pre-Hispanic Periods (1050–1532 AD)

At the dawn of the eleventh century AD, diverse cultural processes and sociopolitical transformations occurred in the Central Andes. Their consequences lasted until the conquest by the Incas and in some cases, even until the first contact with Europeans in the sixteenth century. This period appears to mark the rise of independent chiefdoms on an unprecedented scale, characterized as much by their artistic richness, funerary customs, and settlement patterns, as by their ability to mobilize and coordinate a large workforce. The cultural transformations were accompanied by the growth of the diversity of specializations and production techniques. Those social and political reconfigurations were largely due to climatic and environmental changes on the coast that occurred around the tenth–eleventh centuries AD, as a consequence of arduous events related to the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Experts agree that every pre-Hispanic Andean environmental crisis (Moseley & Feldman, 1982) was followed by political and ideological changes and transformations. It’s not surprising that after aforementioned climatic events, characterized among others by higher temperatures and rise in groundwater levels, favorable conditions were created for agricultural expansion and population growth, which is reflected in the size of settlements and in the construction of administrative centers of particular importance, such as Pacatnamú, Chan Chan, or Túcume in the north coast of Peru. According to archaeological evidence, population growth was generally conditioned by the expansion of agricultural fields and by some technological advances, such as the introduction of arsenical bronze as a raw material for making agricultural tools (Hocquenghem & Vetter, 2005). For the first time in Andean prehistory, high-level irrigation systems were developed, such as La Leche-Zaña-Lambayeque, connecting three river basins on the Peruvian north coast. It is very remarkable that these canals are sometimes still in use, and some of them, such as the Taimi or the Reque, can be mistaken for rivers due to their huge dimensions (Kosok, 1965; Kus, 1972).

Our archaeological work in the Culebras Valley revealed that after the collapse of the Wari empire, the coastal area between the Chao and Huarmey valleys also witnessed great sociocultural transformations related to the emergence of a new cultural entity commonly known as the Casma culture. As in the entire north coast, the Culebras Valley experienced population growth that was greater than in any other periods in the prehistory of the region, which is reflected in number, size, and function of human settlements, as well as the growth of agricultural potential (for this period, a minimum of 31 plant species were identified, 17 of which were regularly cultivated and consumed; Prządka-Giersz, 2009). Also, several features of the settlement pattern suggest that the valley reached its maximum sociopolitical complexity during that time (Fig. 2.3).

Fig. 2.3
A satellite map of Culebras Valley labels Ten Ten 1 and Chacuas Jirca. The legend at the bottom is titled the late pre-Hispanic Periods. It highlights the sparse and dense settlements, visibility areas, springs, and Cerro Lliplli Mines.

Settlement pattern and visualscape map of the Late Pre-Hispanic Periods in Culebras Valley. © Julia Chyla

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Fig. 2.4
4 photographs. Photos a to c, display landscapes between mountain ranges. The aerial photo, d, displays a desert region with a small town having rows of buildings in a grid pattern. A mountain is in the background.

a Quillapampa archaeological site within the Culebras Valley landscape. b Ten Ten archaeological site within the Culebras Valley landscape. c Chacuas Jirca archaeological site within the Culebras Valley landscape. d a newly constructed neighborhood in the center of a dry riverbed at the outskirts of the Huarmey city; © Miłosz Giersz

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We found far more sites dated to the local Ten Ten Phase (1000–1450 AD) than to any other time in the entire sequence—with a total of 58 occupations (including 2 primary centers, 25 settlements, 14 cemeteries, 10 hilltop settlements, and 7 hilltop watch points) distributed throughout both branches of the Culebras River. Most of them are in strategic locations: in entrances to dry side ravines intentionally protected against land/mud slides by stone walls, on hill slopes, and on natural flattened heights with a commanding view of the valley. An increased density of settlements is also related to the road network created during this period. The nearly continuous distribution of sites appears to support an argument for valley-wide sociopolitical integration. There appears to be a distinct hierarchy of site size and function during the Late Pre-Hispanic Periods—with Ten Ten being the primary site throughout all local chronological phases of the epoch. This center is situated on the northern border of the valley, at the entrance to a small adjacent side ravine, some 16 km directly east of the Pacific Ocean, in the Yunga Marítima natural habitat, a short distance from an important puquio, a water source active throughout the year, which during ancient times ensured the constant supply of water resources throughout the year. The site extends over 100 hectares (Fig. 2.4b). Architectural compounds at Ten Ten are clearly multifunctional, incorporating space for administrative complexes, temples, fortifications, and residential settlements, as well as public warehouses to accumulate and distribute food, as well as other necessary products. Minor hilltop sites surround the main center. The results of GIS analysis of visualscape suggest that all the fortified sites must have served as sentry points for the main north–south coastal route that ran directly through the center of the site, suggesting that Ten Ten could be an important spot on a larger, regional road network, which controlled transports of goods from north to south.

During the Inca influence in the Culebras Valley the Casma culture sites were adapted and transformed. New sites arose mainly in the upper part of the valley, particularly around local copper and silver deposits in the vicinity of Cerro Lliplli. These were mainly administrative centers, with workshops and imposing warehouses built according to new architectural canons typical of Inca constructions. During this last episode before the Spanish Conquest (the local Chacuas Jirca Phase (1450–1532 AD) the Chacuas Jirca center, located in the upper-middle part of the basin, at the foot of Cerro Perolito, takes on importance. The settlement is made up of four sectors of terraced structures with administrative, residential, productive and possibly ceremonial functions that extend over 27 hectares (Fig. 2.4c). As in the case of the center of Ten Ten, Chacuas Jirca is located in a strategic point from which the basin of the Culebras River and the natural path to the highlands were controlled. The adjacent watch points on the high tops of the hills offer generous visual control of the side ravine that leads to the local quartz, gold, and copper mines located in the Cerro Lliplli area. Additionally, near the center of Chacuas Jirca there was a very large lagoon, which still preserves a water source covered by a dense reed bed.

It is evident that during the Late Pre-Hispanic Periods the environment was very important in both cultural and symbolic dimensions. The studies revealed that the main centers had a close relationship with the natural environment, especially with the surrounding highland landscape of the upper valley, being located at the foot of the rocky mountains that are distinguished in the morphology of the valley or stand out for their shape and size. In the local legends and myths, these mountains represent divinities, ancestors, heroes, and heroines. There is archaeological evidence that Indigenous people worshiped them and made offerings of food, vessels, Spondylus shells, anthropomorphic (male and female) clay figurines, and beads of semi-precious stones. Furthermore, those sites were connected by alternative routes that passed through the slopes of the hills and were employed at times when the water level in the river was significantly high. What is interesting, some of these roads and paths in the highlands are still used by rural communities.

Conquest and Aftermath

The spatial reorganization of the Native population carried out a couple of decades after the Spanish conquest on the north coast led to the creation of new settlements or nucleated Indigenous towns built in the European style. This contributed to the transformation of the old settlement patterns and the ways of conceiving the occupation of the territory, as well as the use of natural resources. Very often, as a result of colonial policy, people were moved to different places and ecosystems (generally from the highland area to the desert coast), sometimes at distances of a hundred kilometers, losing ties to their community, beliefs, cultural identity, and traditional habitat. These changes were aggravated by intense demographic transformations related to abandonment of dispersed settlement landscapes in spatial planning, especially on the coast in the vicinity of Spanish towns. The old system that contained and prevented natural disasters was no longer maintained in the new economic policy of the colonial era. Likewise, the quollqas public warehouses that served in cases of emergency were no longer maintained, nor were the pre-Hispanic public centers located along the main roads, called tambos, that apart from serving as rest points, had guaranteed rapid change of llamas, the pre-Hispanic beasts of burden.

According to archaeological evidence from the Culebras Valley, the most important pre-Hispanic centers such as Ten Ten and Chacuas Jirca were abandoned shortly after the conquest. It seems that the central area of Ten Ten was depopulated in the first place. No remains of the European presence were registered in the archaeological material. The different situation took place at the site of Chacuas Jirca where numerous beads made of Venetian glass (including the Nueva Cádiz type) which were popular in the first phase of contact with Europeans, in the sixteenth century, serving as gifts of luxury for the natives were found during the survey (Feinzig, 2017; Menaker, 2016; Rice, 2013). In addition, small fragments of glazed pottery corresponding to the early colonial period were found. It is interesting to note that according to the material that remained on the surface, it is very likely that the site was suddenly and forcibly abandoned by its inhabitants. This coincides with Viceroy Francisco Toledo's ordinances of 1570, according to which the population to be relocated generally had only ten days to leave their homes and begin moving to a new place. In addition, according to this order, the displaced community had to “demolish and destroy the old houses they once had, but without burning firewood that could be used to build new buildings” (“demoler y destruir las casas viejas que alguna vez tuvieron, pero sin quemar leña que pudiera servirles para construir nuevos edificios”; Toledo 1986 [1569–1574], p. 35; English translation by the authors). In this context, it is very likely that the damage to the main domestic structures of Chacuas Jirca was also the result of these abandonment practices, in compliance with the royal order. During the early colonial period, no traces of colonial settlement were recorded within the Huarmey and Culebras valleys.

Several factors explain this situation, especially the tendency to locate houses, estancias, or farms in the lower parts of valleys, in the vicinity of agricultural areas, which were more vulnerable to damage caused by floods, huaicos (land/mudslides), earthquakes, or other types of natural disasters. In addition, the lack of early colonial architectural remains could be directly related to their remodeling by modern human settlements, as is currently observed in this part of the coast. This last factor was generally caused by changes in riverbeds as a result of landslides or floods. Although we do not have the very early historical sources for the studied region, in a document dated to 1713 we find information about a great landslide in the Huarmey Valley that destroyed most of the lands of the hacienda Congon. Its owner, Doña Domissilia Farias, testified that she lost her hacienda and therefore had not visited it for three years “because the river had washed it away and there was hardly any land left on which to plant” (“por haversela llebado el rio y no aver dejado casi tierras en que poder sembrar”; “Titulos de propiedad,” AGN, Lima, Leg. 44, Cuad. 770, 1713; English translation by the authors). This kind of dynamic relocation of haciendas or ranches in this part of the coast was repeated cyclically in historical times as shown by later documents. There is no or little correspondence between the names of the haciendas that functioned in the eighteenth century and those that prospered in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries” (Tello, 1919), Libreta de campo 1, Caj.1, fol. 1–28). Returning to the early documents, ethnohistorical sources also reveal that, in the case of the Culebras and Huarmey valleys, the population numbers drastically reduced shortly after the conquest due to the radical environmental changes and introduction of European pathogens. According to the chronicler Pedro Cieza de León (2005 [1553]), p.193), the coastal part of the Huarmey Valley (Guarmey) was formerly heavily populated by Indigenous people, which changed after the arrival of the Spanish settlers.

According to the historical sources, Huarmey Province was appropriate for the agriculture of fruits and vegetables and was also abundant in trees, especially carob trees, which served both for coal and as a raw material sent by ships to the City of the Kings (Lima), the capital of the Viceroyalty (Cieza de León, 2005 [1553], p. 193; Lizarraga, 1987 [1605], p. 85; Stiglich, 1918, p. 220). It is interesting that the majority of the local population was Spanish speaking at that time (so-called ladinos), that emphasizes the sway and control that Europeans had over this region. It is also worth mentioning that the province of Huarmey borders the highland province of Huaylas, which in the early phase of contact with Europeans in the sixteenth century was considered one of the most attractive provinces due to its richness in both natural (mineral deposits, water abundance, fertile lands) and human resources. It was in this region that one of the first grants of specified number of Indigenous people from a precise community, including their agricultural land and herds of livestock, to European conquistadors was made within the encomienda system (Huaylas and Recuay). The Indigenous people were also subject to the labor system, being assigned to work for the benefit of the Spanish settlers. Francisco Pizarro himself came into possession of one of the most important encomiendas in Huaylas, distributing the neighboring areas among his most devoted comrades. According to the historical documents, the Huarmey repartimiento was delivered in 1542 to Don Martin Lengua, one of the most faithful interpreters of Francisco Pizarro during the conquest and the civil wars (Calvete de Estrella, 1964–1965 [1565–1567], p. 389).

As a consequence of the sociopolitical transformations brought about by the Toledo reforms (1569–1581), the dispersed population of this region was reduced to the new Spanish towns, contributing eventually to a strong decrease in the population (Mogrovejo, 2006 [1593–1605]). The pastoral visits made in 1593 by Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo to that part of the coast of present-day Peru, identified the towns founded by representatives of religious orders, such as Huarmey and Santiago de Guamba, both located in the Huarmey Valley, and Santo Domingo de Xanca, located in the Culebras Valley (Mogrovejo 2006 [1593–1605]). Regarding the upper parts of the two valleys, there are also some references to two new important settlements, founded by Spaniards probably at the same time as the previous ones: Huanchay and Pampas, which were key centers for this region, and where numerous visits related to idolatry processes were made at the beginning of the seventeenth century—(visits of idolatry; Arana Bustamante, 2010, pp. 107–111). It is striking that most of the new settlements and towns founded in early colonial times have remained basically unchanged until the present day, as is the case of Huarmey, the capital of the province of the same name.

Conclusions

The present research has shown that our understanding of the pre-Hispanic past of the Huarmey Province, until now considered a marginal zone and of little archaeological interest, is of crucial importance to fully understand the processes that occurred in pre-Hispanic Peru. Huarmey and Culebras Valleys constituted a political and cultural border, a crossroad between great ancient poles of development. The archaeological evidence recorded in the Culebras Valley demonstrates the sociocultural and environmental transformations of pre-Hispanic times, providing interesting data on the character of human adaptation to the extreme climatic conditions of the coastal desert. In our opinion, the prestige and status of the elites were generally based on the degree of ability to manage the flow of goods and natural resources, at a macro-regional and local scale through the control of networks of reciprocity and exchange. In addition, it seems that in the case of the Andes, the cultural borders did not have the character of fortified limes, but rather of a border or buffer zone, with flexible borders and after all permeable territories. An intriguing question remains: why was the Culebras Valley favored by the pre-Hispanic inhabitants as the place selected for establishing a large regional center? We believe that this is due to the advantages offered by the valley’s geomorphology. Unlike the neighboring Huarmey valley, in the Culebras Valley settled terraces are located right next to the cultivated fields and natural springs (puquios). The valley itself narrows in several sections creating a kind of natural stronghold with easy-to-control access. The extensive fields of the Huarmey Valley delta are nearby, a few hours’ walk away.

This knowledge, sensitivity, and respect for nature were mostly lost after the Spanish conquest and the forced reductions of Indigenous inhabitants and their home places. Paradoxically, the specific conditions of the natural environment have not changed much. The colonial, republican, and modern populations living in these areas were and are still exposed to the same random catastrophic events. During the early colonial period different natural phenomena took place, such as torrential rains, droughts, and earthquakes that resulted in population displacements in different regions of the Andes. For example, in 1578, as reported in historical sources, this part of the coast was affected by great floods and torrential rains caused by the ENSO phenomenon that destroyed many towns, fields, and irrigation canals leading to a starvation and housing crisis (Gridilla, 1936). In our own time, new districts have emerged in the Huarmey Province with the tendency of people to migrate from the countryside to the cities. Never inhabited places become new homelands for many desperate people looking for better life prospects. Just a few years after the catastrophic floods associated with recent 2017 ENSO event, which left homeless thousands of families in Huarmey, a new neighborhood in the precise center of a dry riverbed was founded. Soon, with another inevitable ENSO event this area will surely flow into the ocean (Fig. 2.4d). Let us end, then, with a somewhat sad observation. From our contemporary perspective, the pre-Hispanic management of human–environment relations seem to fit into the classical definition of knowledge as the ability to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, and to overcome obstacles by taking thought (Neisser et al., 1996). Something that we have lost in the unbreakable race for a better tomorrow.